Crystal (24 page)

‘I expect he’s just finishing off the edit – sometimes when he gets really busy he switches his phone off. Don’t worry, Crystal,’ he added sleepily, ‘I’m sure he’ll call you later.’

Crystal didn’t feel reassured. She logged on to her laptop and checked out a couple of tabloid websites. There was just a brief mention in one of Max having been rushed to hospital after being beaten up. Crystal’s name wasn’t mentioned but she didn’t think it would stay that way for long. The journalist called again, leaving another message. Crystal felt sick; the press obviously thought they were on to something. Would Belle have said something to them already? Would Max? She felt horribly alone. She thought of phoning her brother, but didn’t want to worry him. She was going to have to face this on her own.

‘What I want to know is what the fuck did you think was going to happen?’ Dallas was shouting now, leaning over Crystal where she was cowering into the sofa, after she’d told him everything. ‘How could you screw your friend’s boyfriend? What was going on inside that head of yours?’

‘I don’t know,’ was all she could think of to say.

‘You don’t know!’ Dallas was even more enraged, ‘Well, shall I tell you what you’ve done, princess? You’ve wrecked your friend’s relationship and you’ve destroyed the group and possibly your own singing career. I hope that all those secret fucks were worth that.’ He walked away from her, shaking his head in disbelief.

‘Should I go to the police? Tell them about what Max did to me?’ Crystal asked, hardly able to take in what Dallas was saying.

Dallas sighed, and this time his voice wasn’t so hostile, ‘Crystal you should have gone to the police straight after it happened. It’s too late now. What he did to you was appalling and I’m really sorry but do you seriously think a jury would believe that he raped you? You were having an affair with him. It just doesn’t look good.’ He paused, then said, ‘I really thought you had something, Crystal. Belle and
Tahlia are good but you were special. However, I just don’t know if the group can recover from this.’

‘But we’ve still got the other singles to release, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make them do well,’ Crystal pleaded. She’d had no idea that Dallas thought so highly of her. ‘And there’s the second album; Tahlia and me have written some great material.’

‘You don’t get it, do you? I’ve been in this business a long time and I know the public; they don’t like women who have affairs with their friends’ fiancés.’

‘But no one needs to find out, do they?’

‘I’m afraid Max, the charming little shit, has sold a story. He was on the phone to a paper, minutes after Belle finished with him.’

‘There must be something I can do?’ Crystal said, feeling distraught.
This surely couldn’t be the end of her singing career
.

‘The only thing I can think of is that you have to apologise for what you did. You’ll be interviewed by the press tomorrow. That way we might be able to salvage the last singles.’

Crystal was about to say that there was no way she could do that when Dallas said bluntly, ‘I understand that you don’t want to do it, but you have to – think of Tahlia, think of Belle. Anyway, you look exhausted, go home, chill out, switch off your phone for now. Jenny will call you later to let you know your appointments.’

Feeling totally shell-shocked, Crystal got up and walked out of his office, trying to blink back the tears.

Outside it was raining hard and Crystal had to wait twenty minutes before she was able to get a taxi. By the time she managed to hail one she was drenched. In her anxiety about seeing Dallas she’d forgotten to bring a coat or an umbrella.

‘Aren’t you that girl from Lost Angels?’ the taxi driver asked her, as she got in, soaked through and shivering.

‘No, I get that all the time, but I’m not her,’ Crystal answered, thinking,
Wouldn’t it be good not to be her now?

When the taxi pulled up outside her flat the press were
already camped out in force. Just as Crystal was telling the driver to drive straight on to north London, a journalist caught sight of her and suddenly the cab was surrounded by photographers shouting her name and trying to get a picture of her through the window.

‘Bloody hell,’ the cabbie said. ‘I thought you said you weren’t that girl!’

‘Please, just drive,’ Crystal begged him. ‘I’ll give you a hundred if you can get me there without anyone following us.’

The cabbie fortunately didn’t talk to her because he was busy concentrating on taking the most indirect route to north London to shake off the paps. Crystal phoned Tahlia to warn her she was on her way. Jake still hadn’t called and she was desperate to call him, but she didn’t want the driver overhearing her conversation.

At least one thing seemed to be going her way. The driver got her to Tahlia’s without any of the press following her.

‘You’re freezing, Crystal,’ Tahlia said, giving her shivering friend a hug. ‘Go and have a hot shower and I’ll get some dry clothes out for you.’

Crystal tried to protest that she needed to speak to Jake first but Tahlia hustled her into the bathroom.

Twenty minutes later Crystal was sitting on the sofa, clasping the hot chocolate Tahlia had made for her; she’d laced it with brandy to calm Crystal. Tahlia had lent her jeans and a jumper so she was warmer now, but still felt wobbly and weak.

‘What am I going to do, Tahlia?’ she asked, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. ‘I really don’t want to talk to the press about what happened. What’s Jake going to think of me, and why hasn’t he called me back?’ As soon as she’d got out of the shower she’d tried to call him but he was still on voice mail.

‘I’m sure he’ll understand,’ Tahlia said soothingly. ‘It happened way before you met him; it’s got nothing to do with your relationship.’

Crystal wasn’t at all sure that Jake would see it that way. She could only hope that she got to speak to him before a journalist did.

A couple of hours later, the press pack had tracked her down to Tahlia’s flat and Jenny called her to let her know that she should check into the Dorchester that night – her interviews with the press were going to be starting there at nine the following morning. The police also wanted to speak to her; they wanted a statement about what had happened at the club.

‘Don’t go there until tomorrow,’ Tahlia said, seeing how overwrought Crystal looked.

‘No, I must, it’s not fair on you and your family having the press here. It’s my problem and I’ve got to sort it out.’

They were brave words, but Crystal didn’t feel brave; she felt as if her world was falling apart around her. She knew that she had to do as Dallas said; she couldn’t see beyond that. She ached with longing for Jake, just to hear his voice, for him to tell her that none of this mattered, that he was there for her. Tahlia might try and persuade her otherwise, but she thought his silence spoke volumes.

She hugged Tahlia and prepared to face the press, putting on her sunglasses and pulling the hood of Tahlia’s white parka down over her face. At least Dallas had sent a car for her. As soon as she opened the front door the journalists started shouting, ‘Crystal, tell us about you and Max’, ‘Where’s Jake? Come on, Crystal, talk to us.’ She put her head down and pushed her way through the wall of people, with cameras flashing wildly around her.

‘So, Crystal, tell me about your affair with Max. Did you really think he was going to leave Belle for you?’

Crystal looked at the female journalist sitting opposite her, leaning forward as if she couldn’t bear to miss a single word, an eager gleam in her eye. She was obviously loving getting all the gossip. More than anything Crystal wanted to tell her to fuck off. It was her fifth interview of the day and she was
finding the whole thing excruciating – it was like being on a conveyor belt of misery. Dallas had insisted on sitting in on all the interviews, no doubt to make sure Crystal behaved herself.

Crystal sighed, took a deep breath and said mechanically, ‘I thought I was in love with him. It was a moment of madness, which I regret.’

Of course that wasn’t enough to satisfy the journalist and Crystal had to go through the whole story again – when she first met him, what it was like when they first had sex, how she felt about deceiving Belle. She didn’t mention the rape or the blackmail, knowing that no one would believe her, that they’d think she was just trying to get revenge on Max.

Half an hour later the woman had got what she wanted and left. Crystal lit another cigarette and her gaze fell once more on the tabloid lying on the coffee table in front of her which had run Max’s story. Crystal couldn’t believe how far he had twisted the facts of their ill-fated fling – laying the blame squarely at Crystal’s door. According to him Crystal had relentlessly pursued him, done all she could to poison his relationship with Belle and finally, when Max was feeling depressed about the end of his racing career, he had relented and they’d become lovers.

He’d spared no one’s blushes in the juicy, salacious descriptions of their lovemaking. Crystal was depicted as an insatiable, demanding lover, who liked dominating and being dominated. To add authenticity he’d given the papers her text messages and they’d also printed the photograph of her lying naked on his bed. It was a complete character assassination. If Crystal had been reading about someone else who had behaved like this she would have hated them too.

‘Can’t I sue?’ Crystal had asked Dallas in despair. ‘Most of it isn’t even true.’

‘But some of it is, isn’t it?’ Dallas replied.

Next the two police officers, a female DC and a uniformed male PC, turned up to interview Crystal. She was tempted to
tell them the truth about Max, but she realised that if she did, the whole business would drag on even longer and occupy even more space in the tabloids. Crystal just wanted to be shot of it. She could tell that they weren’t convinced by her story – she told them she’d been in the area and decided to drop in on Max and that she had absolutely no idea why the men had attacked him. Even though they pressed her on the details, Crystal stuck to her story and they left, telling her she might have to identify the two men or be called as a witness in court. Crystal was certain the case would never get that far – Max was bound to keep his mouth shut about it.

After that she had three more interviews with various celeb magazines, all wanting the juicy details and when they were over she was finally free.

‘Okay Crystal, I’m sorry you had to go through that, I wish there could have been something else we could have done but I don’t think there was. You better go home now. I suggest you keep a low profile for the next couple of weeks, maybe get Jake to take you away somewhere. Jenny will let you know where we’re filming the video for the final single.’ And with that Dallas headed for the door.

‘Dallas,’ Crystal called out. He turned round. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Yeah,’ he replied wearily. ‘So am I.’

Dallas had made her switch off her mobile during the interviews and the first thing she did when he left was to switch it back on. But to her bitter disappointment there was still no word from Jake. He was due back that night. She took a taxi home. The last thing she wanted was to be alone. She hoped that he might come and see her. There were still a couple of photographers staking out her flat, but with Crystal doing all the interviews today some of the heat had gone out of the story. She got out of the taxi and raced into her flat, not wanting them to get her picture. The lights were on inside. ‘Hello?’ she called out tentatively, convinced that she hadn’t left them on.

‘In here,’ Jake called out from the living room.

Thank God
, Crystal thought, running into the room. Jake
was sitting on the sofa, and she was about to run over and throw her arms around him but something in his eyes stopped her. He gave no sign that he was pleased to see her. Her heart sank.

She sat down next to him. ‘Didn’t you get any of my messages? I’ve been calling and calling you.’

He shrugged and avoided looking at her. He looked exhausted; he had dark shadows under his eyes and hadn’t shaved for days.

‘I’ve been thinking about what to say, I suppose.’ Jake said, staring straight ahead. ‘Was it good, then, your affair? Must have been for you to have risked so much. What was I, then, your rebound fuck or your cover so you could carry on seeing him?’

‘No!’ Crystal exclaimed, ‘I had a two-week fling with Max last year, that’s all. It was way before I met you. I would never be unfaithful to you.’

‘Oh? You just sleep with your friend’s boyfriend. That’s some moral code you’ve got, Crystal,’ Jake said icily.

‘I know it looks bad, but it was a mistake and I really regret it. He told me he was going to leave her, and I thought I was in love with him, but he was lying to me and I wasn’t really in love with him.’ Crystal was gabbling now, frantic to make Jake believe her. ‘It has nothing to do with our relationship.’

‘Our relationship?’ Jake said, getting more heated. ‘You call
this
a relationship when you hadn’t even told me about your affair! How many other things have you kept secret?’

‘Nothing,’ Crystal pleaded with him, ‘I swear.’

Jake got up from the sofa and walked to the other side of the room, where he leaned against the wall and finally looked at her.

‘I just don’t trust you any more, Crystal, and I can’t be with someone I don’t trust. I told you that right from the start.’

‘
Please
, Jake, let me explain, there’s so much you don’t know,’ Crystal pleaded. But she had lost him; she knew it in her heart.

‘I don’t want to know, Crystal. It’s bad enough that it
happened. You’re not the person I thought you were.’ He paused to take something out of his pocket and put it on the mantelpiece. Crystal knew it was the key to her flat.

‘Please don’t go, Jake, please don’t leave me,’ she cried out in anguish, unable to stop the tears. She covered her face with her hands, not wanting to watch him go. He paused in the doorway.

‘Goodbye, Crystal.’

It sounded so final.

THE NEXT WEEK
passed in a blur of misery. The press attention didn’t let up. Crystal was portrayed as a sex-mad, maneater, an unfeeling bitch who cared nothing about betraying her friend. Dallas’s insistence that Crystal tell her story only added fuel to the fire. Max responded with even more salacious details of their affair, most of it made up, but Crystal knew that everyone would believe what they read. She’d taken coke with him once and that was turned into their ‘crazy drug-fuelled sex’; he claimed that she was insatiable and made him have sex with her up to five times a night (in his dreams, she thought) and how she gave him the best oral sex of his life (well, maybe that much was true). Everyone wanted to stick the knife in – people she’d barely known from school claimed she’d been a bitch back then; even her father who she hadn’t seen or spoken to for twelve years, sold a story saying that he was ashamed of her. At least her mum didn’t talk to the press, but she didn’t give Crystal any support either, telling her that she’d been a fool to get involved with someone else’s boyfriend. Meanwhile, Max’s other women crawled out of the woodwork and sold their stories. It seemed Crystal hadn’t been the only woman he’d betrayed Belle for – there was a waitress from his London club, a glamour model and a lap dancer in Ibiza.