Love, Lipstick and Lies (21 page)

Leo didn’t seem to have any such doubts, though. He took me to Prague for Valentine’s weekend in 2012. I knew a proposal was on the cards as by now he had had the replacement ring made for me: the pink heart that I’d wanted, surrounded by diamonds. When we were at the airport, Bill’s wife turned up to give it to him, as Bill had only just finished making it. It all felt very rushed, and of course now there was no element of surprise.

Leo proposed to me over dinner at a restaurant. I knew he was going to do it, and thought, This is so cheesy. There was no going down on one knee or anything, he just got the ring out of his pocket. To be honest, he didn’t even get the words out properly, but said something like, ‘Will you marryiout me?’

I said yes, but I didn’t feel passionately in love with him. I didn’t gaze into his dark brown eyes. Looking back, I think I agreed because I wanted security. I thought: Leo’s gorgeous, he will get a job, he will learn to speak English. Everyone likes him … so commit to him. But it didn’t feel romantic or special. I was only doing it because I thought I should, and put it this way – I wasn’t excitedly planning my wedding with him. I had
learned my lesson about rushing into marriage from the mistake I’d made with Alex. Getting engaged was one thing, but it would take a hell of a lot to get me down the aisle and saying those vows again, because the next time I did I wanted them to be for ever. I loved the idea of a big old fairy-tale wedding, but it would have to be for the right reasons. In fact, I never had any intention of marrying Leo.

I was busy filming the second series of my reality show
Katie
for Sky and again Leo ended up being in it, which I had mixed feelings about. But we did some great things together, and with my family and friends. We did all kinds of country pursuits, like clay pigeon shooting, we went riding and took part in a ten-kilometre extreme run. Leo was great at getting involved in those kinds of things.

In May we went off to South Africa on safari. The reality show made it look very romantic, and there were times when it really was. But we also argued a lot. Leo could be very arrogant and stubborn; he never thought he was in the wrong, and if you said no to him he would get the hump. It was his way or no way, and because we are both strong-willed and have strong personalities we clashed a lot. On our second day at the hotel, which was in an amazing national park, we both got very drunk … so drunk that we had to be escorted back to our lodge in the grounds. We had a massive row because Leo wanted to have sex and I didn’t. I think I shouted that I didn’t even want to be with him any more … then I pulled off
my ring and threw it into the surrounding bush and ran out of the lodge. The rest is a blur. The following morning I woke up feeling horrendously hungover. The bed was covered in twigs and I wasn’t wearing my ring. ‘What the fuck happened?’ I groaned to Leo, who was lying next to me.

Apparently I had run away from him and hidden underneath our lodge. Leo hadn’t been able to find me and had had to call the manager. He turned up with some of his workers, carrying torches, desperate to find me quickly because we were surrounded by wild animals, including hyenas on the prowl which would gladly have eaten me. I know I say never underestimate the Pricey, but I think in that situation it would have been game over … Eventually they tracked me down underneath the lodge, stark naked and fast asleep with my head on a pillow. I didn’t wake up and they had to drag me out and put me to bed.

Take the shame! Leo told me that the hotel manager was furious and said I could have been killed if they hadn’t found me when they did. There was no sign of my ring. The film crew then arrived – we’d had two days on our own – expecting to get on with the filming.

‘It’s really not a good day to film,’ I told Ben, the director. I explained about the massive row and about losing my ring and said that I would have to fly to the nearby town and find a metal detector so I could try and find my ring again. It sounded like the script to
Hangover 4
… Fortunately it turned out that the manager had a
metal detector, which he used for checking his staff hadn’t stolen anything when they clocked off work. Off he went, zapping away with the device where I thought I’d thrown the ring, and sure enough he found it. We never would have found it without the detector. Despite that rocky start, the rest of the trip was brilliant. We went on several amazing safaris, seeing all the animals close up: giraffes, elephants, hippos. I quite fancied adding a zebra to my collection of animals back home.

* * *

So there were good times … but there were starting to be too many bad ones. Leo had returned from Argentina and showered me with presents, but it quickly became clear that this had been the grand gesture meant to win me back when in fact he still had no money and, of course, no job. When we went to Prague in February, as we walked round the city, going in and out of the designer boutiques, I thought, I’m the Richard Gere character out of
Pretty Woman
in this relationship. It would be so nice if the roles could be reversed and Leo was the one whisking me into the stores and buying me things.

Another time we were lying in bed together and he told me about a plot of land he was planning to buy in Argentina. He meant to build on it as his big money-making scheme.

‘Why don’t you come in on it with me?’ he suggested. ‘If you give me fifty grand, I promise you will make a lot of money.’

Instantly my heart sank. It definitely wasn’t something I wanted to get involved in.

‘No,’ I told him, ‘I won’t be allowed to give you any of my money.’ My brother oversees all my finances and would never agree to me investing in such an uncertain project. ‘And anyway, I like to keep my money in this country, so I know where it is.’

Straight away Leo got the hump with me and sulked. And I wondered: Has this all been about my money?

Then he would look at expensive cars to lease, like BMWs and Bentleys, and I would think, There’s no way you can afford them! He rarely bought anything when he was living with me. I would still be the one paying for the petrol he needed for trips to the gym while he drove my car. I think at heart Leo was a bit of a fantasist, a dreamer.

In the weeks leading up to my thirty-fourth birthday in 2012 he said that he was going to buy me a Hublot watch. That is a really expensive brand that I’ve always loved. He involved all my friends, showing them various watches, asking them which one they thought I would like. He was talking about spending thirty grand. Then he showed various watches to me and asked me which one I wanted, so I picked one out, thinking, That is one hell of an expensive watch; I can’t imagine where he thinks he’s going to get the money from to buy that. But I just went along with it. And in the end he didn’t buy me a watch. In fact, he didn’t even get me a birthday present. All these things started tallying up in my
head and I decided he was turning into a professional bullshitter.

On top of that he was once again showing signs of the jealous streak that I had seen in him before. In May, just before my birthday, I was planning to go to Vegas with the girls. It was supposed to be my friend Danielle Lloyd’s hen weekend but she’d had to cancel. As I’d already booked the flights and hotel, I thought I would go anyway with a group of friends. I paid for Leo to fly first-class BA, along with my friend Derek. Once we were out there, I paid for everything. One night we went out to a club and I bumped into a guy I know called Bert, who invited us all to join his table. Obviously if someone does that I’m going to be polite and talk to them! But I could tell that Leo was getting jealous. When it was time to say goodbye, I kissed Bert on the cheek, a peck, nothing more. In front of everyone, Leo grabbed my neck and slapped me. I was stunned by his aggression, as were all my friends, who told him he shouldn’t have done that.

Ironically there had been lots of speculation in the press that Leo and I had come to Vegas to get married, just as I had with Alex. Nothing could have been further from my mind. I was starting to hate Leo. You must be wondering why I didn’t dump him after he behaved so badly. I think it’s because I don’t like being the one doing the dumping. I don’t like hurting people, even when it’s hurting me to be with them.

All too quickly Leo seemed to revert back to how he
had been when we’d split. He went to Brighton to look at language schools, but for some reason never signed up at one. (Even though his English had improved, he still had a very long way to go.) He got rid of the hire car and was back to driving my pink Beetle. I had lent him my white Range Rover one time when his sister and her husband and some friends were over, and he had taken them all out in London. He was twice caught speeding and didn’t tell me. Because my house was still being done up and I wasn’t living there I didn’t receive the penalty notices, so couldn’t inform them that I wasn’t driving at the time the tickets were issued. I was taken to court over it and actually disqualified from driving for a year. It was a really stressful time. Fortunately I appealed against the decision and won.

Leo would go to the gym in the morning and then just hang around the house. Before I knew it we were back in the same rut as before. However, he had signed up with a modelling agency, which I’d helped him to do, so I hoped he would get a job. I was convinced that if he did our relationship would be much better. We would be more like equals, rather than me feeling that I was constantly subsidising him. But the agency began complaining to my manager that Leo failed to reply to their emails and never turned up for meetings when he was expected. When I asked him about it, he replied, ‘No, me no email.’ See what I mean about him needing English lessons …

After this happened a few times the agency didn’t want to know any more and they dropped him.

‘I have jobs abroad,’ Leo told me.

‘Okay, you can go and do those jobs, but let me get one thing straight,’ I told him. ‘If you want to work abroad, go off and do it but we won’t be together. After-wards, if you come back, we can see if we still have a relationship.’ Really it was my way of saying, Go on then, fuck off. Because I knew I didn’t want a long-distance relationship with anyone, it just wouldn’t work out for me. I want that family unit.

He did take part in Argentina’s version of
Strictly Come Dancing
in June, but didn’t last long. He actually had the cheek to blame me for it! And told me that the reason he left was to come back to me, when in reality he had been voted off for being a terrible dancer. Then he claimed he wasn’t paid all the money he was owed from the show and that they were only going to pay him half. He also made out he had businesses in Argentina, but if he did, then I never saw any of the proceeds. I really didn’t believe anything he said.

Then Bill, the jeweller who had made my pink heart-shaped ring, got in touch with my manager to say that Leo hadn’t paid him for it and the money had been owing for over six months. I couldn’t even wear the ring because it was too big, and when I found out that Leo hadn’t paid for it, I certainly didn’t want to wear it. When we confronted Leo about this he got all defensive,
saying that he wouldn’t pay for it until Bill had altered it to fit me.

‘Bill’s not going to do that until you pay for the job first,’ I told him, really annoyed by his attitude.

‘Not my problem,’ Leo insisted. ‘Not paying.’

I should have told him to go then because that said it all really.

* * *

Everyone who knows me, knows that I longed to have another baby. I say ‘a’ baby, but actually two or three would be perfect. And I know that Leo would have liked nothing more than to marry me and get me pregnant. But I never fell pregnant with him, even though we weren’t always careful. At one stage, when things were okay between us, I started a course of IVF, but stopped it after a week when I realised that I didn’t want a baby with him. I wanted another baby, but it had to be with the right man. Looking back, the fact I didn’t fall pregnant was like fate telling me this wasn’t going to work out and that things would only fall into place with the right man. Leo was not that man. I wasn’t planning a wedding even though I was with him, on and off, for two years. Yet I met Alex and married him after seven months, and Kieran I married within three because it felt right.

I had started to question Leo’s motives for being back with me. Did he really love me, as he claimed to, or did he just see me as his passport to fame? Increasingly I
thought it was the latter and that he had come back over to the UK with the sole purpose of using me to make himself famous.

When he was at home with me he seemed so miserable. If we had friends over he’d go into a different room and play about on his computer. He wouldn’t even say hello to people when they came to the house. He was quite boring really. If I wanted to go out with my friends, I knew he would be at home on his own so I would feel guilty and have to ask him. But all our nights out together ended up in rows between us, and my friends Jane and Derek would have to calm Leo down. I hated the situation, and I hated being a burden to my friends.

And Leo’s jealousy was something else I couldn’t bear. One night we were out at a club in London. He thought I was not paying him any attention, and he was right because I just wanted to be with my friends. In a jealous rage he grabbed my neck, the way he had in Vegas. It was shocking that he thought he could behave like that.

By now I didn’t want to do anything with him because I didn’t find him interesting and would still be the one having to pay for our entertainment. I thought, Why should I always have to pay? I’d started really resenting him for that and went off sex with him big time. I felt angry and pissed off with him, so of course I didn’t want to have sex! If a man interests me, and we have a laugh together, then I’ll want sex. As soon as a relationship gets miserable, I don’t want to, I shut down. Any woman would feel the same. I thought, Why would I want to
have sex with you when you make me so unhappy? I knew I couldn’t go on like this …

* * *

I had to go back on anti-depressants in September; I felt under so much pressure from my failing relationship with Leo, I could feel myself sinking as I had when I suffered from post-natal depression. I had actually come off the medication when I split up with Pete, but right now I felt I needed something to help me. And there was also the ongoing court case. It was all very stressful.