CHAPTER SIX
SIX
Let me wine you, dine you, align you to the very best of me, the worst of who I could have been but I chose to be here for you …
– from ‘The Worst Best First Date’, by These Exiles
WELL. THIS WASN’T THE best start.
Look, I’d never been someone to forbid someone else from being on their phone all the time. I’d had enough dressing-downs from Karun to know that my phone was rarely out of my hand.
But this? This was just plain rude.
I slowly turned my fork around and around in my fingertips as I stared at the man sitting opposite me, his eyes flickering as he scrolled on his phone.
Patrick Tetlow.
They say you should never meet your heroes, and now I knew why.
It was unfair how hot he was. All chiselled jawbone and effortlessly cool hair. That smile he gave on socials – it always looked so cheeky, so unbelievably easy.
But I was quickly finding that it was all a facade.
This Patrick, the real Patrick, was aloof. Cold. And, currently, ignoring me.
Maybe it was because the restaurant was busy, and I’d already noticed people at other tables taking what they clearly thought were secret photos. My chest burned at the way they looked at me. Appraisingly.
What is she doing with him?
I looked back at the man in question. I’d hardly known what to expect from our first ‘date’, but it wasn’t this.
Patrick Tetlow. Party-crashing, hotel-smashing, model-pulling, assistant-hassling Patrick Tetlow. If this evening had been full of manic energy and ended in a visit from the police, then, yeah, I would have believed it.
Instead, we were forty minutes into a meal that felt like it would last forever, and we’d exchanged, what, no more than a dozen words?
‘What are you doing?’
I almost dropped the fork. Patrick was glaring at me from the other side of the expensive table in a restaurant that was so exclusive you couldn’t find it online. ‘What?’
‘You’re counting on your fingers.’
So? ‘Just counting.’
Patrick’s glower could stop traffic. ‘Counting what?’
Counting down the minutes until this is over. Was this the type of scintillating conversation I had to look forward to over the next five weeks? I’d had better chats with Cathy.
Instead of answering, I simply shrugged and placed my fork on my almost empty plate. Patrick had clearly lost interest, or perhaps he’d never had any.
I tried not to think about how self-conscious I felt in this dress I’d borrowed from Anna.
It was sexier than anything I owned or was comfortable in, but she’d insisted I wear it.
The thought of having another picture of me in just my regular clothes plastered everywhere had been enough to have me say yes.
I shuffled in my seat.
‘Was your food good?’ I winced at my pathetic attempt to get something from him. It had been so long since I’d had to pretend to be interested in what a man said, and it wasn’t any easier now.
Dating wasn’t something I had planned on, and after Ross – I shook my head, trying to physically dislodge any thoughts of my ex. This date was going terribly enough without taking a trip down that memory lane.
Patrick sighed, and I looked up, only to see him swipe something on his phone, snort and keep scrolling.
A prickle of annoyance flashed through me as I glanced about the place again. It was nice – like, really nice. Not showy nice, but genuinely ‘we’ve thought about the decor, the menu changes every week’ nice. A place a guy would bring a woman he really liked.
Shame my date was contractually obligated to be here.
‘Have you seen the stuff online?’ Patrick’s voice was like liquid lava pouring through me.
I held in a shiver, determined not to let him affect me. ‘He speaks!’
‘What?’ Patrick blinked, looking at me like I was nonsensical.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said awkwardly, shifting in my seat and trying to pull Anna’s dress down my thighs a few inches. Seriously, does the girl date pussy-out? ‘Have I seen what stuff online?’
Patrick – you know, the world-famous celebrity whose lyrics were so eloquent and refined – looked utterly bewildered. ‘You seriously haven’t searched your own name?’ He gestured with his phone.
I probably shouldn’t have done it. But who could honestly stop themselves? Even as Patrick said in a rush, ‘No, don’t – once you look, you can’t –’
It was too late. I’d already grabbed his phone. He’d searched my name – why couldn’t I look?
The thumbnail was bad enough, but I full-body winced when the guy started talking, the captions quickly reminding me why even looking at social media was a bad idea.
‘– does she think she is, dating Patrick Tetlow? She’s clearly not in his league; her dress sense is –’
I was suddenly grateful for Anna and her ridiculously sexy dress. There had been enough paps outside the restaurant when we’d arrived – surely by the time we left my sartorial rating would have gone up.
Message from Cassie Fletcher
Cassie, huh? I flicked the notification away, trying not to care that he was messaging another woman. None of this was real, after all.
Not that the world knew that.
‘Seriously,’ muttered Patrick, his face looking almost apologetic as I glanced up. ‘It’s better to ignore it.’
‘It’s me they’re talking about,’ I said, almost accusingly. ‘Why can’t I –’
‘Once you see that shit, you can never unsee,’ he said darkly, picking up a fork and jabbing it at the mashed potato he’d left on his plate. ‘Just give me back my phone.’
But I couldn’t. It was all too easy to keep scrolling.
‘We’ve seen the gorgeous women he’s dated in the past, and this Jessica is no Celine –’
Celine. Patrick’s most recent ex.
I purposely hadn’t searched her online, but I didn’t need to. I could still picture her, all waif-like model beauty and large eyes.
‘That is my phone, Jessy.’
I ignored him. Scroll.
‘Now I’m not one to tear a girl down, but I think we can all agree this is not the sort of woman any of us expected Patrick Tetlow to be dating. She’s not even a D-list celebrity. Does anyone know where she came from?’
The video was interrupted.
Message from Cassie Fletcher
I was torn between continuing my doomscrolling and finding out who Cassie was.
And what she wanted from Patrick so badly.
‘The last time I searched my own name, I couldn’t write lyrics for a week.’ Patrick’s voice came from a long way away. ‘It’s like people don’t even realize we’re human.’
This was why Anna and Laura had told me not to search my own name. Hell, it had only been five days – how could half the world have formed an opinion about me in less than a week?
‘Can I have my phone back now?’
Oh. Right. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered, handing it over.
He smiled. It was brief, gone like the Tube you’d almost definitely been going to catch. ‘It’s fine, I get it. Sorry you saw that.’
Ping. Now it was my phone that was blowing up with messages.
At least I had the good manners to look at them under the table.
Laura
How’s it going?!??!?!
Too much punctuation. She’d gone back to her vape again, I knew it.
Jessy
Fine
Laura
Use protection!!
Jessy
Fuck off
Laura
You’re welcome – 70K extra downloads of Butterflies in the last 24 hours!
I blinked. My sister had promised that it would do wonders for her app … but I hadn’t thought it would be that quick.
There was another message, too.
Anna
Please tell me the dress works
I grinned.
Jessy
I’ve never felt more naked
It didn’t take long for her to reply.
Anna
Good
My snort of laughter went utterly ignored.
Patrick was too busy muttering under his breath. ‘I can’t believe it’s gone viral this quickly.’
I tried to focus as a waiter stepped silently to our table and started removing what was left of my main – something in French that I could never hope to pronounce but had wolfed down.
‘You can’t believe it? Thanks.’ I smiled at the waiter before turning back to my … date, I guess? ‘But you’ve gone viral loads of times.’
There was – was that a flush across Patrick’s cheeks?
Surely not.
‘Not like this,’ he mumbled, gaze still fixed on his phone. ‘Not for anything … personal.’
Just a moment of sympathy, that was all I allowed him. Shit, I wouldn’t want my private life splashed all over the internet, a Wikipedia page telling the world what school I went to and who I’d dated.
The sympathy departed quickly.
‘So,’ Patrick said bracingly. ‘Are you enjoying it?’
My jaw dropped. ‘You think I like this – that this is fun for me? I’m being hounded!’
Patrick blinked, confusion sweeping across his face. ‘Hounded?’
‘Yeah, there are journalists and paps and weirdos literally camping outside my house,’ I said quietly, remembering with an uncomfortable twist in my chest just how difficult it had been to get out of there this morning. ‘My housemates aren’t happy, I can’t go to work –’
‘I meant the food.’ Patrick pointed awkwardly at the table between us. ‘Are you enjoying it? The food?’
Oh. Right. Embarrassment flooded through me. ‘Yeah, the food was amazing.’
The company less so.
Not that I should care. This whole thing was only for Laura’s sake – something I had reminded her of sternly this morning. There was nothing in the contract that said we had to have a good time, even if I’d had dreams about riding this man until dawn.
But that was just the hormones talking. A nice, perfectly normal stranger was what I needed to scratch that particular itch.
But I wouldn’t be doing anything like that for the next five weeks. Thanks to Section 18.
Section 18: Other connections
Patrick Tetlow and Jessica Donovan, subsequently known as the co-signed, will agree to pause and not return to any other romantic or sexual relationships for the duration of the strategy.
My gaze roamed over the man sitting before me.
Other romantic or sexual relationships. Not something I had to worry about: Ross had done a brilliant job of making sure of that. But had Patrick been forced to shut down a relationship just to make this work?
Was that who this Cassie Fletcher was? A woman he’d been seeing until I’d come along and ruined it all?