Strangers (4 page)

“You complete bastard,” Lucy gasped.

“I thought he loved her.
I would have said something sooner, but I really thought he loved her.” Fax couldn’t even convince himself.

He sat in Lucy’s place, fidgeting on the edge of the couch.
He’d longed to be sitting on the bloody thing, only with Lucy in his arms, and instead she glared at him as if he’d sprouted horns and grown a forked tail.
Fax lifted his hand and smoothed down his spiky hair, checking for emerging lumps.
Even furious she was lovely.

“I need to speak to her,” Lucy said, but stayed where she was.

“I could come, if you think it might help.”

Another death ray shot in his direction.

“I’ll do anything.” Fax tried not to look at her chest.

Lucy sighed.
“Rachel and Dan are out.
I suppose you’re better than nothing.”

Fax was pathetically grateful even for that.

Kate lay in her wedding dress, curled up on the floor inside her apartment, barely able to breathe.
She’d risked expanding her world for Richard and now had no safe place left.
Her heart had been shredded, minced and liquidized because she’d allowed herself to believe he loved her.
And all Kate could think was that it served her right.

She flinched as Lucy banged on the door.

“Kate, are you there?”

Kate reran the last few weeks, searching for what she’d missed.

“Kate!
I know what happened.
Fax told me.
I can’t believe Richard would do that.
Please open the door.”

Denied the chance to pretend it had never happened, Kate’s heart faltered.

“Kate, please.”

How stupid to think anything had changed, when
she
hadn’t changed.
Had Richard uncovered something so bad he no longer wanted to marry her?
Her breath jammed in her throat, stopped it up.
Maybe that was it.
No one ever would want her.
Kate wished she were dead, wished her heart would stop pumping blood.

“Kate, open this door right now,” Lucy said.

Kate’s heart twisted as if Richard squeezed it with his hands.
She willed her veins to shrink, arteries to clog, brain to freeze.

“Kate, let’s open a bottle and talk about what a shit he is,” Fax called.

“He’s a fucking monster.
I’d have fallen for it, too,” Lucy said.

And for a moment, Kate’s blood
did
falter.
Fallen for what?

“Fax never thought Richard would go through with it, otherwise he’d have told you at the beginning.
Kate, Richard’s planned this since ‘The Wedding Party’.”

Kate trembled.
So Richard hadn’t changed his mind, had an attack of nerves or discovered her secret.
He’d deliberately seduced and then dumped her.

“He shouldn’t get away with playing with people like this,” Lucy said.

A game?
No, a bet.
Richard liked to gamble.
Horses, dogs, cards.
One of the few things about him that made Kate uncomfortable.

“I don’t think she’s there,” Fax said.
“Maybe she’s gone away.”

“Her car’s outside.”

“She might want to be on her own.”

Please.

She listened to the retreating footsteps and curled up tighter.
Overwhelmed by a wave of deep inadequacy, Kate found it easy to believe it was her fault Richard had done this.
She wasn’t good enough, pretty enough or clever enough to see through him.
Her failure, not his.

At the end of a sleepless night, Kate realized there was nothing she could do to make things right and only one way to make it all go away.

Chapter Three

Charlie’s Story

“I think you’re loads better than Robbie Williams,” the girl whispered in Charlie’s ear.

He gritted his teeth.
He was a lot fucking better than Robbie Williams.

“Do you?” Charlie stared at her.
God, he couldn’t remember her name.
“Have you fucked Robbie, then?”

She giggled.
“No, I meant at singing.”

Charlie threw off the sheet and stood up, stark naked.
“I don’t sing anymore.”

He looked for his boxers.

“You could sing for me.
Come back to bed.”

He glanced at her.
Why did he always think he’d meet a different sort of woman, when he kept going to the same sort of places?
She’d thrown herself at him and he’d said yes.
He was obliged to be charming and sexy, the guy every woman wanted in her bed and a lot of men, too.
But Charlie was tired of waking up and wondering who lay next to him.

This one was like all the others.
Hot body, single brain cell.
Charlie hadn’t even been to sleep and he still couldn’t remember her name.
He focused on her chest as she ran her hands around her perfectly round breasts, pointing little brown nipples in his direction, her weapons of destruction.
His cock twitched and he licked his lips.

“Don’t you want me, Charlie?”

Yes and no.
He looked under the bed.
No underwear but plenty of empty condom wrappers.
He grimaced.
Charlie gave up, grabbed his jeans and went commando, zipping himself up carefully.
The bitch had probably hidden his boxers so she could sell them on eBay.
It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Charlie?”

“Sorry, I’ve got a job first thing tomorrow,” he lied.

“Got any coke, then?” She lay back, tweaking her diamond-hard nipples with fidgeting fingers.

He’d wondered if her tits were fake because they were so perfect.
He hadn’t seen a scar, though he’d heard surgeons could go in under your armpit.
Charlie had a vague interest in checking, but didn’t want her to get the wrong idea, plus she looked too young to have had that sort of surgery.
She looked very young.
Shit.

“How old are you again?”

“Sixteen.
Do you think I’m big enough?” She squeezed her breasts.

“Yeah, you’re great,” Charlie said.
Jesus, sixteen!

He slipped on his shirt and pulled a foil wrap from his pocket.
He tossed it onto her flat stomach, looked for his shoes, and remembered he’d left them downstairs.

“Great fuck, thanks a lot,” he said and left without a backward glance.

Downstairs the party was still in full swing, swing being the operative word by the look of the two half-naked men and one naked woman entwined on the couch, but he’d had enough.
Charlie located his shoes and left.

It wasn’t until the next day, when Charlie heard a TV newsreader say it, that he remembered her name.
India Westerby.
Age sixteen.
In a coma after a party at the home of Justin Denton, lead singer of “Blast”.
Charlie’s first thought was, thank God she really was sixteen, then, thank God it happened after he left, and then, fucking hell, had he done that?
He looked at the wrap of coke in his fingers, thought about using it and tossed it in the toilet.
The poor kid, he thought and threw up.

Justin didn’t answer his calls until late afternoon.

“What happened last night?” Charlie’s heart hammered so hard and fast, he imagined it was the start of a heart attack.
It would serve him right.

“Christ, it’s been a fucking nightmare.
I went upstairs about three this morning and found her on the bed, coke and blood all over her face.
Brian Jackson was in the corner, gibbering like a baby.
I had to call the police.
Brian admitted he’d given her coke and they arrested him.
God, I am so fucked over this.
My house,” Justin wailed.

Charlie tried to swallow the lump in his throat and failed.
“Did the police want to know who was there?”

The pause said everything.

“I had to, mate.
Everyone saw you.
You were with her for a while.”

“Umm.”

“Don’t get in a twist about it.
She was down here dancing topless after you left, dipping her tits in Grand Marnier and letting everyone have a suck.
The stupid bitch.
My manager’s back again.
I got to go.”

Charlie’s hands shook as he put down the phone.
Brian Jackson, drummer of “The Flakes” might have given India coke, but so had he.
The packet had his prints on it.
His fucking boxers were still in the room.
Probably.
Had he flushed the condom?
Charlie couldn’t remember.
He retched.
He was pathetic.
He could have killed her and all he could think about was saving his own ass.
The contents of his stomach rose into his mouth yet again and he rushed to the bathroom.

When he looked in the mirror, Charlie didn’t recognize the person staring back.
Everyone kept on about his fabulous face, but he looked like shit.
Dark circles rimmed his bloodshot eyes and his skin was sallow, despite weeks spent filming in the Arizona desert.
He needed a shave.
His breath would have made a flower wilt.
Jesus Christ, sixteen years old?
He was a walking fucking disaster.
How many more lives was he going to destroy?

Charlie attempted to smile at his agent’s secretary, but when Alicia wouldn’t look at him, he knew he was in trouble.
She’d called to tell him Ethan wanted to see him—now—and Charlie wondered how he’d found out he was at the party.
But then Ethan was God.
He knew everything.
He’d been his agent since the outset and the closest thing to a friend Charlie had.

“Go straight in,” Alicia said.

Ethan Silver stood staring out of the window when Charlie pushed open the door.
His agent was in his forties, taller than him, with short gray hair beginning to recede.

“Sorry,” Charlie said, the best way to open any conversation he had with anyone.

Ethan turned and Charlie swallowed hard.
Ethan’s jaw was tense, his narrowed eyes black with fury.

“I want to kill you, you stupid fucking wanker.” Ethan’s voice started soft but by the end of the sentence he was yelling.

He strode across the room with his tie askew, his face flushed.
He stopped in front of Charlie and Charlie cringed.

“What the fuck’s the matter with you?
Do you have a brain?
Don’t answer that.
Did you know you lose brain cells every time you fuck?
You are literally fucking your life away,” Ethan shouted.

“Count to ten slowly.
I find it helps,” Charlie said.

Ethan gave a snort of disgust and returned to his desk to slump on his chair.
He pointed to the low black leather seat opposite.
Charlie sat.

“Right—eight, nine, ten.
You are still a stupid fucking wanker.
As if my job isn’t stressful enough without dealing with morons.”

Ethan snapped his pencil in half and Charlie pressed himself back in the chair.
He knew Ethan had chosen it so he towered over anyone who sat there.
As if the guy wasn’t intimidating enough.
Ethan picked up another pencil and snapped that one too.

“Do you know why I’m breaking my pencils, Charlie?”

Charlie shook his head.

“Because although snapping your neck would give me a greater sense of satisfaction, I’d get sent to prison for that.”

Charlie stayed quiet.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you.
That was your fucking part.”

The fog cleared in an instant and Charlie perked up.
Ethan didn’t know about him and India.
“I didn’t get it?”

“Of course you fucking didn’t get it,” Ethan yelled.

“Okay.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“You were a shoo-in, Charlie.
All you had to do was fucking walk into the room and turn on your smile.
How difficult could that be?”

Charlie opened his mouth and closed it again.

“Apparently you were drunk, stoned and rude.
Did I miss anything?” Ethan rose from his chair and paced again.

Charlie felt like a mouse being played with by a cat.
Any moment Ethan would crunch and swallow him.
Charlie’s memory of the audition was a bit hazy.
Drunk, stoned and rude about covered it.
“No,” he said.
“You didn’t miss anything.”

Ethan ground his teeth.

“You’re going to wreck your dental work.”

“You’re lucky I’m not wrecking yours.” Ethan kicked his waste paper basket straight at the door.

Charlie jumped at the noise and his headache flared up again.

Alicia rushed in.
“Are you all right, Mr.
Silver?”

“You’re fired,” Ethan said.

Her chin wobbled, she dissolved into tears and fled.

“What was that for?” Charlie asked.

“The woman’s useless.
I’ve had enough of useless people.
I need a different job.
A complete change of career.
Instead of trying to find work for wankers like you, maybe I should take up something less stressful, like working as Naomi Campbell’s personal assistant.”

Charlie didn’t dare laugh.
“Sorry,” he muttered.

“Get yourself straight, Charlie, or you’re out.
I don’t represent losers.”

“I’m not a loser.” He figured this wasn’t the time to tell Ethan about India.

Ethan sat down again, moderating his voice.
“Look, Charlie.
I don’t want to lose you as a client.
I knew you were a gold mine the first time I met you, but the gold is sinking deeper and deeper and pretty soon it’s going to be inaccessible.”

Charlie nodded, trying to look contrite.

“I want you back on the right track, Charlie.
And if I can’t do it with the promise of the role of a lifetime, how the fuck can I do it?”

Charlie drove away in a temper.
Ethan was furious with him and Charlie was furious with himself.
It wasn’t as if he wanted to wreck his life.
After giving up a very successful career as a singer/songwriter, Charlie had landed several bit parts in films that barely made it to general release, until he got his break.
He’d just completed his first major role in a Steven Spielberg production and he’d been good.
Steven had said so.
The film was due out in a few months, but word was already circulating that it could win Oscars.
Probably not for Charlie, but association with an award-winning film would boost his career.

On the back of Charlie’s work for Spielberg, Ethan arranged an audition for a film where he’d be the lead.
It was a project of one of the big American studios and Charlie hadn’t quite been able to believe it.
Provisionally entitled
The Green
, it was about a guy whose wife had been whisked off into a parallel world.
Once Charlie read the script he’d wanted it, thought it was his and he’d fucked it up.
No surprise there.