Chapter Forty-Three
Aurora
I stare at my phone as a message from Ollie lands.
What does any of that mean? I’m at the hotel bar and Sam has ordered us two more glasses of champagne.
The bar is elegant, refined, the deep-green velvet bar stools are comfy and encompassing, candles flicker in gold tea-light holders and oversized pillar candles make the wood-and-velvet space feel warm, inviting.
I feel warm and invited. A TV star is buying me drinks and I’m ignoring him and staring at a message from Ollie.
‘Is that Liv again?’ Sam asks with a grin. ‘What shall we tell her now? Shall we say I’ve just invited you up to my room?’
I lift my gaze and stare at him. ‘You’re cruel. That lie will kill her.’
Liv wouldn’t stop messaging all through the first hour of drinks, and Sam suggested we start drip-feeding her false info to see how far we could get her reactions to go. The bedroom story might be a tad too far, though.
‘It doesn’t have to be a lie,’ he says and that suggestion does something to me it shouldn’t.
‘What?’
‘Think about it for a bit. Not right now. Actually, you know what? I’m retracting the invite. It was too soon.’
‘Yes, it was,’ I say. But also quite hot.
‘I might ask you at the end of the date if you want to come up to my room.’
‘You might?’ I question.
‘But I might not.’
‘You’ve already asked,’ I point out.
‘Then I retracted it. Now you’ll have to wait and see.’
‘Do you know … you flip between total arrogance and total vulnerability,’ I tell him, brushing his bedroom invite aside.
Sam laughs. ‘I know. Sorry.’
‘You don’t have to apologise,’ I say.
‘So,’ he shifts in his seat. ‘Let’s pretend the last few minutes of conversation where I looked like a dirty old man didn’t happen, and let’s think about what we can tell Liv.’
‘It’s not Liv this time,’ I say, turning my phone face-down. ‘It’s … someone else.’
‘Someone else? Vague,’ Sam says.
‘Purposefully vague,’ I reply.
‘Why purposefully vague?’ Sam asks. ‘A guy?’
‘It’s a friend.’
‘A guy friend?’
‘A guy friend,’ I confirm. ‘But an old friend who I haven’t seen in a while, so it’s not important right now. He can keep.’
‘I should hope so. I’d be worried if he became your top priority while you’re drinking champagne with me.’
I think about that for a moment and it makes my heart hurt, but I can’t work out why. ‘You’d be worried?’ I ask.
‘No man wants attention diverted from him because of another man.’
‘I suppose not, no,’ I concur.
‘Who is he? Who are your good friends? Tell me everything about you.’
My eyes dart back to my phone briefly. ‘Well, there’s Ollie,’ I start.
‘The guy?’ Sam’s eyes dart to my phone too and then back to me.
I nod. ‘Just a friend. But I haven’t spoken to him for a while and he’s finally messaged me.’ I’m keen to move on quickly, so I do. ‘Then there’s Liv, who is his ex and—’
‘Whoa … Liv is Ollie’s ex? And Ollie is messaging you? Is this about to get juicy? Or awkward?’
‘Now is a good time to remind you that not everything is like reality TV,’ I point out.
‘Fair enough.’
‘No. It’s nothing like that,’ I protest. ‘Ollie and I get on. Liv and I get on, and I think Liv and Ollie are in a good space too. Then there’s our friend Ben, who is my ex.’
Sam’s eyes widen. ‘Messy,’ he drawls.
‘A bit, maybe. Or, rather, it was. But it’s fine now. This was years ago, so we’ve all moved on. What about you? Messy skeletons in cupboards?’
‘A couple of exes, but it’s all out in the public domain, so no surprises really. The usual break-ups, make-ups, break-ups again. Everything documented online for the entire world to see.’
‘God, what’s that like? That constant invasion of privacy?’
‘There is no privacy. That’s what that’s like.’
‘Sounds awful,’ I shudder.
‘You learn to live with it,’ Sam insists sadly.
‘It’s part of the job. It comes with the big pay-cheques, now I’ve moved out here and have started presenting and doing a little acting.
Although it’s a bit easier out here. I’m not recognisable enough to worry.
Yet. But in the UK? Not being able to get on a bus, a train – I’m forced to travel first-class everywhere, or else I’ll spend an entire flight ducking and diving from two hundred people trying to take my picture. ’
My eyes narrow at this. ‘Not everyone in economy class is disrespectful,’ I reply, slightly insulted. Until very recently I was an economy-class kind of person. Or, rather, I would have been if we’d ever had any money to go on overseas holidays.
Sam nods, missing the point. ‘Maybe not. But it’s happened enough times for me to be very choosy about where I go, who I spend time with. Trust doesn’t come easily. From who to talk to, to who to get close to. It hurts when you tell a girl you love her and then she tells the media the next day.’
‘Has that happened?’ I ask.
He takes a deep breath, lets it out in one long sigh. ‘Yeah. Once. But once is too many times.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I tell him. ‘You make being a celebrity sound awful.’
‘It can be. I’m used to it. It has its ups and downs.’
I give him a sympathetic smile and Sam gives me a charming one in return.
If he asks me back to his room, I doubt very much I’m going to turn him down.
Yes, he’s a bit up himself, but he’s also kind of cute with it.
Sam Charlton is not a long-term prospect.
And I doubt he sees me as one, either. He’s a one-night thing.
This is only for tonight. And … it’s been so long since I’ve slept with anyone, I might just go for it. Because, why not?