All That Glitters (30 page)

Johnny laughed and loosened his tie, and Stacey stared at him. Okay, so he was good looking and she supposed he could be charming, but she still couldn’t work out what Ella had seen in him. There was something so . . . seedy about him. Thank God he’d dumped her, she thought. If Ella and Johnny had ended up together, who knew what would have happened.

‘So, you’re interested in making a bit of money, are you?’ Johnny said, as he swiftly moved the conversation onto business. It seemed as if the thought of Stacey trying to seduce him made him nervous. ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place.’

Stacey nodded. ‘But I still don’t understand what sort of work you’re talking about. You’ll have to excuse me for being dim – it happens sometimes.’

Johnny raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m sure you’re much smarter than you look. Now, what I’m talking about involves the utmost discretion, but if you think you can handle it there’s a lot of fun to be had, and
loads
of cash.’

Stacey wanted to ask if whatever Johnny was talking about was legal, but she thought better of it.

‘I’m perfectly discreet,’ she eventually said, in a breathy voice. ‘Many of my married male friends would say so, anyway.’

‘Good, good, that’s what I like to hear. So, you have affairs?’ Johnny asked directly, and Stacey worked hard to hold his gaze. Lying didn’t come naturally to her at the best of times.

‘I wouldn’t say they’re affairs,’ she remarked after a pause. ‘I’d say they’re friendships that mean I don’t have to get a job.’

Johnny nodded, and he eyed Stacey up carefully. She’d borrowed another one of the dresses Chastity used to wear in her former life as a WAG, and she supposed that the very short, tight, low-cut Lanvin dress suited her ‘ultimate party girl’ character perfectly. Her make-up was heavy but immaculate, and Chastity had made sure Stacey’s auburn hair was glossy and neat. If Stacey was to pull this off, she had to get her character down as faultlessly as possible, and that meant looking like she really was one of those girls who hung out on the international party scene.

‘What would you say if I told you this job is quite similar to what you do now for fun . . . but just a little more high profile?’

A slow smile spread across Stacey’s face, only this time it was real. He believed her! ‘I’d say that sounds incredibly interesting,’ she said. ‘And I’d love to know more.’

Johnny stared at Stacey for what felt like for ever, and when he didn’t say anything she began to feel nervous. Had she said something wrong? Or acted in a way that meant he didn’t trust her? But eventually he nodded and stood up.

‘Then we need to get going. My business partner is only in the office for an hour or so tonight, and we’re going to have to hurry.’

As the taxi drove through bits of London Stacey had never seen before, she began to feel slightly nervous. Meeting in a hotel room – where Ella and Chastity knew she was – was one thing, but getting in a car with Johnny Cooper and driving through the city to an unknown destination was another. She slipped her hand in the Fendi handbag Chastity had lent her, and wondered if she should press record on the MP3 recorder she’d bought specifically for tonight.

‘I don’t think I recognise where we are,’ Stacey said lightly as she hit the record button on the tiny machine in her bag. It had so much memory that it would record for hours. ‘Are we still in north London?’

Johnny shook his head distractedly as he fiddled with his phone. He’d been sending text messages ever since they’d got in the car, and she supposed he was telling his business partner they were on their way.

‘We’re heading west,’ he mumbled. ‘The office is near Alperton.’

‘Is that in London?’ Stacey asked, and Johnny paused and looked up at her.

‘It is, but I’m guessing it’s a part you’ve never been to before.’

‘Most of my friends live in Mayfair and Chelsea,’ Stacey said smoothly, as the taxi moved slowly in the late evening traffic. ‘I don’t know west London that well.’

‘Well, now’s your chance to find out a bit more,’ Johnny replied, and he went back to his phone, concentrating on the messages he was sending and receiving .

By the time the car pulled up outside a deserted industrial estate, Stacey had begun to feel a bit sick. She knew that Ella had said she could trust Johnny not to hurt her or do anything stupid, but she’d also thought Johnny was the love of her life and look how that turned out. As she got out of the car and stared up at the offices, she instantly felt full of regret. If something happened to her neither Ella nor Chastity would know where she was. Come to think of it, even she wasn’t sure of where she was herself. ‘Near Alperton’ was pretty fucking vague.

Johnny put her hand on the small of Stacey’s back, and began to lead her through the industrial estate, which was lit only by sparse orange lights.

‘This is an interesting place to have an office,’ she said lightly, as she concentrated hard on walking in her Miu Miu heels so she wouldn’t have to think about what might happen next.

‘It’s not my first choice of location, but it’s out of the way and discreet,’ Johnny said in a neutral voice. ‘It’s perfect for remaining private.’

‘Private?’ Stacey asked nervously, but it was as if Johnny couldn’t hear her. Or he was pretending not to, anyway.

‘Not long now,’ he finally said, and he gestured up to the only office that still had lights on. ‘It’s just up here.’

Johnny pulled open a heavy iron door, and as they began to walk up the concrete steps Stacey felt her legs wobble. She loved Ella a hell of a lot, but what had she been thinking when she agreed to this? She was pregnant, for fuck’s sake. If anything happened to her or the baby Jay would be beside himself.

But it was too late now. There was no way out.

‘Here we are,’ Johnny said, as they reached a wooden office door, and as he pulled it open Stacey was astonished to see five or six twenty-something kids practically plugged into computers. They were all typing furiously, and they barely noticed her or Johnny walk in.

‘What is this place?’ Stacey asked. ‘And why are the staff here so late?’

‘I own a website,’ Johnny said simply, and as he guided Stacey across the cheap blue carpet of the open-plan room, she strained to see what the boys were typing on their screen . . . but she couldn’t quite work out what they were doing, or what they were writing.

‘Well, when I say I own it, that’s not strictly true. I’m more like an investor. Anyway, I’d like you to meet my business partner, who’s the real star of the show.’

Johnny stopped outside an office, pushed at a door with a flourish, and there, sitting behind a desk, was the person Stacey had come to meet.

Her mouth dropped open.

It was Sancho Tabora.

Chapter Twenty

‘So this is the girl,’ Sancho drawled as he looked up from the notes on his stainless steel desk and stared at Stacey’s perfect, gym-honed body and flaming red hair. ‘Bit short, isn’t she?’ he commented to Johnny, as if Stacey wasn’t in the room.

‘She’s not
that
short,’ Johnny said defensively, before surreptitiously checking out Stacey’s heels. Her Miu Miu shoe-boots added at least four inches to her height, but he wasn’t going to let that put Sancho off. ‘Not if she wears skyscrapers, anyway.’

Sancho continued to eyeball Stacey until she began to feel deeply uncomfortable. Thank God she’d pressed record on the MP3 player in the cab. She didn’t want to forget a single word that was said in this room. That’s if she managed to get out of it.

‘I’m Stacey,’ she said, after mustering up all the courage she could. She could hear her voice wobble, and she told herself to sort it out. This was her one chance to help Ella find out why Johnny had dumped her, and she couldn’t afford to mess it up. ‘It’s really great to meet you – I’m a big fan of your site.’

‘Oh, so you recognise me, do you?’ Sancho barked with a short little laugh, and Stacey wasn’t sure what to say. How could she not? His purple hair was inimitable, and even though he wasn’t in one of the crazy silver suits that he normally wore to high-profile events, there was no mistaking him.

‘Well, yes. I love celebrity gossip, and I always check out
SanchosWorld.com
.’ She shifted nervously from one foot to the other before remembering she was meant to be acting confident. It was harder than she thought it would be.

‘The boys outside will be pleased to hear it,’ Sancho said sarcastically as Johnny gestured that Stacey should take a seat. ‘They like nothing better than to hear that people like their work . . . especially since they’re always moaning that they don’t get a byline.’

‘So the team out there write your site for you?’ Stacey asked in surprise, and as Sancho laughed again she flinched. She’d always assumed
SanchosWorld.com
was a one-man band, rather than a proper operation with an editorial team behind it.

‘She’s quick, isn’t she Johnny?’

‘We’re not thinking about employing her to be clever,’ Johnny said wearily, and he leant back in his chair.

There was silence.

‘If you don’t mind me asking, why
am
I here?’ Stacey asked. ‘Johnny said that there was an opportunity for me, and I’d love to be involved in anything you do.’

Stacey knew she sounded like she was at a job interview, but she was still genuinely stunned to be sitting in an office shared by Johnny Cooper and Sancho Tabora, and she couldn’t quite pull off the casual party-girl routine.

‘So you’d like to be involved, would you?’ Sancho said thoughtfully. ‘I suppose you could fit the bill, but we’d want to know how far you’d go to make money.’

‘I’d do anything,’ Stacey began, but Sancho shook his head.

‘If you say it you’ve really got to
mean
it.’

‘She means it,’ Johnny interrupted. ‘We’ve been through this already. She’s practically doing it already.’

Stacey looked from Johnny and then to Sancho, and wondered what she’d got into. Were they pimps? Ella had joked that Nash had jumped to the conclusion that Johnny wanted her for prostitution, but Ella had been adamant that it wouldn’t be the case. Had her step-sister got it badly wrong? She’d never forgive herself if she had.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Sancho said slowly, as if he were reading Stacey’s mind. ‘And I’m not in the market of hiring out girls for sex. What we do is a bit more sophisticated than that.’

Stacey tried not to let out a huge sigh of relief.

‘But before we tell you what we do, we have to be confident that we can trust you. We’re both high profile, and we wouldn’t want to risk our careers because of you.’

‘You can trust me,’ Stacey said, her voice the clearest it had been since she’d walked into Sancho’s office.

‘We’d need proof,’ Sancho mused. ‘How could we work out if she’s trustworthy, Johnny boy?’

Johnny rolled his eyes, and something told Stacey they’d been through this routine many times before.

‘She’s not a cop,’ Johnny said. ‘And I’m pretty sure we can trust her.’

Sancho shrugged. ‘She needs to prove it.’ He turned back to Stacey. ‘What are you willing to do to prove that you’re not going to screw us over?’

‘I’d do anything,’ Stacey said. Her mouth had suddenly turned dry, and she wasn’t sure she liked where the conversation was going.

‘Like I said, I’m not into using girls as prostitutes, but there’s definitely an element of that to what we do. Would you be willing to have sex with Johnny boy here on camera?’

Stacey blanched. If she said no she’d be sent packing, but if she said yes . . .

‘There’s no need for that,’ Johnny remarked casually, breaking into the tense silence. ‘She’s fucked me already. She’s good.’

It took all of Stacey’s willpower not to look surprised. Why was Johnny covering for her?

‘Is this true?’ Sancho snapped, and Stacey nodded.

‘We did it in the hotel room before we came here,’ she whispered, and Sancho sighed.

‘Was she good?’

Johnny nodded. ‘Perfect.’

‘She passes the test then,’ he said, and he spun on his chair so he could tap a few words into his keyboard. ‘Our business is using girls like you to create sensational stories. If you get my gist.’

Stacey sat very still. ‘I’m not sure I do,’ she admitted, and Sancho sighed again. He looked annoyed.

‘What Sancho means is that we keep our ears to the ground, and if we think someone will take the bait, we expose them.’

Stacey stared at Johnny. She was still none the wiser.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Sancho muttered, and he turned his computer screen towards Stacey. ‘See this story here?’ he said, as he gestured at the
Sun
website. He’d pulled up an article about how a famous actor had been caught cheating on his wife with a buxom blonde. ‘We created it.’ He tapped at his keyboard again, and then another website appeared. ‘And this one here, on the
Daily World
, we created that one too. Everyone thought Richard Hepburn was faithful to his wife of a million years, but we knew differently. All we had to do was put a pretty girl in front of him and he was ours for the taking.’

‘You honeytrap famous people?’ Stacey asked, and Johnny nodded.

‘We’ve been doing it for years. Sancho hears about celebrities who can’t keep their dicks in their pants, and then we send along a girl to get photographed with them. We then sell the photos to the newspapers and make a packet. It’s big business, obviously.’

Stacey wasn’t aware that she’d been holding her breath until she let it out. ‘So that’s how
SanchosWorld.com
gets all the exclusives,’ she said eventually. ‘That’s how you manage to beat the papers to the biggest stories.’

‘You’re not as stupid as I thought you were,’ Sancho mused. ‘So what do you say? Fancy being part of it? We know of a particular actor who likes the red-head look you’ve got going on, and we reckon he’ll fall for your ample charms without much effort.’

‘Would I need to sleep with him?’ Stacey asked.

‘Would that be a problem?’

‘No . . . I was just wondering exactly what the job description was.’ Stacey was trying desperately hard to keep her cool, but her mind was whirring.

‘Here’s the deal. You hook him, you show him a good time in front of our secret photographers, and then you do whatever the hell you want with him in private. We’ll pay you ten thousand pounds for your time. It’s a one-off gig, because once your photo’s been in the papers we can’t use you again.’