Bad Girls (22 page)

‘I’m really tired,’ she muttered.

He nodded sympathetically.

‘Maybe we scheduled this talk a little early,’ he said. ‘Here’s a suggestion: why don’t you go back to your room and catch up on some sleep? Not too much, because we want to get you onto LA time. But you could have a nap, maybe shower and freshen up, and then I could see you back here in a couple of hours? How does that sound?’

His voice was a light tenor: cappuccino, rather than dark black coffee. It was soft and soothing and so easy to listen to that the effect was almost hypnotic, like sliding into a warm bath. Petal met his brown eyes again, and what she saw in them was an empathetic concern for her wellbeing. He was frowning slightly as he attempted to work out what would be best for her.

And that was all it took. She hadn’t realized how alone she was feeling till right at that moment, cut off from everyone she cared about. Tas, JC, Dan were all left behind in London; they’d waved goodbye to her at the departure gates, and then they’d all got to go back together, while Petal had had to set off on her own. She lived in a bubble of activity, a posse always around her, and since she’d got together with Dan, they’d been pretty much attached at the hip. This was the first time she’d been without her boyfriend or her entourage, and she absolutely hated it.

Suddenly, it all came pouring out. Dr Raf, without taking his eyes off Petal, reached for a box of tissues on his desk and slid it over so it was right next to her, and Petal grabbed a whole wodge with one hand as the words and the tears streamed out of her.

The frustration of growing up with a father who was world-famous even before you were born; people’s ridiculous expectations for you, how you could never achieve them, so it felt stupid even to try. Her mum, Linda, pretty much just dumping her on Gold and fucking off to the States to try to become an actress, which was totally doomed, because her mum wasn’t remotely talented at anything but taking most of her clothes off and smiling brightly. Her mum going on at her – whenever she bothered to get in touch, which was practically never – because Gold wasn’t doing enough to help Linda get cast in things.

How she’d grown up, bounced from one nanny to another, practically never seeing her dad. Being taught to call him Gold, not Daddy, practically from the beginning. The parties and bad behaviour and revolving door of models and starlets she’d seen at Gold’s mansion, because honestly, all of the nannies had a huge crush on Gold and though they were told to keep Petal away, they mostly didn’t, because they had fantasies that Gold would see what a fantastic mother they were being to his little girl and fall madly in love with them, so instead of keeping Petal away from the action, they’d let her run straight into it so they could hang out too. They’d always got the sack, but in the process Petal had seen way more than a kid her age should have done.

‘Which makes it so bloody
unfair
,’ she sobbed, knuckling her eyes, which were red and sore by now. ‘He’s such a fucking
hypocrite
! I mean, all I did was a bit of charlie! Gold’s done
everything
! It’s a miracle he’s still alive! It’s all very well to clean up when you’ve had your fun and got all your bad behaviour out of the way, yeah, but I’m, like, just
twenty
! I’m
supposed
to be going to parties and getting a bit pissed and acting like an idiot. It’s what people my age do!’

She ran out of breath, blowing her nose and staring at Dr Raf defiantly, daring him to disagree with a word she’d said.

‘Is it?’ Dr Raf asked mildly.

‘You what?’ Petal said, confused.

‘
Is
it what people of your age do, generally?’ he clarified, his gaze just as friendly and open as ever.

‘Well, yeah!’ Petal said defensively. ‘I mean, all my mates – we’re always going out on the lash! And it’s not like we’re the only ones.’

‘This is probably going to make me sound like I’m a hundred years old,’ Dr Raf said, with such a sweet, open, self-deprecating smile that Petal found herself smiling back at him, ‘but with all the partying you’re describing, isn’t it very hard to get up in the morning and go to work? Or get any studying done?’

Petal flinched. He’d managed to find her weakest spot.

‘We’re more alternative than that,’ she said. ‘I mean, we don’t have the kind of nine-to-five jobs that mean you have to get up at the crack of dawn.’

‘Lucky you!’

‘Well, yeah, obviously. I mean, Tas is a stylist, so she
does
work really hard, it’s just freelance, and JC – my hairdresser – he’s freelance too, but he’s getting booked a lot for shoots and stuff because all the photos of me in the papers are really good publicity for him . . .’ Petal fingered her lemon-coloured bob.‘And Dan, that’s my boyfriend –’ Tears welled up again, and she grabbed for more tissues – ‘his band’s really taking off now, so he’s doing tons of press and they’re booking a tour of the States, they’re supporting the Arctic Monkeys, so that’s, like,
huge
. . .’

‘And you?’ Dr Raf’s expression was as friendly and interested as ever. ‘Are you as busy as all of them?’

‘I’ve got a column,’ Petal said defiantly, though a voice in her head was saying loudly:
You don’t actually
write
that, though. They just ring you up once a week and ask what you think about other celebs, or bubble skirts, or what’s on the TV, and then they edit it all together and put it in the magazine.

There was a long pause. Petal was scrabbling for something else, anything, that she could come up with as an achievement, or source of income. She found herself desperately needing Dr Raf to think well of her, not just dismiss her as a spoiled rich kid. There was something about him, something so understanding and non-judgemental, that made her want to put her best foot forward with him, hear his soft voice approving of the way she was living her life. Dr Raf sat back, crossing one black-trousered leg over the other, looking as if he was happy for Petal to take all the time she needed.

The tap on the door, followed almost immediately by the turn of the handle as it was opened, took them both by surprise.

‘Lucy!’ Dr Raf turned to face the intruder. ‘I’m in session.’

‘Oh!’

Petal, swivelling too, saw a very slender woman in a white knee-length lab coat, hanging open at the front, which pronounced her a doctor as clearly as if she had a stethoscope around her neck. Her hair was dark and pulled back into a sleek chignon, and her white shirt and slim dark trousers were so well fitted they were clearly very expensive. A tall, striking figure, she was still standing in the open doorway, which seemed a bit odd to Petal; shouldn’t she have excused herself as soon as she saw Dr Raf had a patient?

‘It’s just,’ the Lucy woman said, ‘I thought we had a meeting now – it’s in my BlackBerry.’

Dr Raf, grimacing, raised his shoulders and let them fall again.

‘Can you check that with Daniyel?’ he said, his voice tight, as if he were trying not to show irritation.

‘Um, sure! Sorry!’

The woman called Lucy hadn’t even looked at Petal during this interchange; Petal was bristling with annoyance.

It’s bloody rude just to barge in and not say sorry to me! she thought furiously. I mean, it’s
my
session – my dad’s
paying
for this.

‘I’m dying for a fag, anyway,’ she said loudly, standing up to make the point to this rude Lucy that she existed. ‘I’ll let you two have your meeting.’

‘Petal, please feel free to stay,’ Dr Raf said quickly. ‘I’m so sorry about this. Lucy can come back later – this is Dr Lucy Tennant, she’s part of our consulting team.’

‘No, it’s ruined now.’ Petal knew she was sounding spoiled, but she didn’t care.‘And you should say sorry to
me
, not
him
,’ she added to the Lucy woman, tossing her head. ‘It was you who interrupted when I was talking about really personal stuff. If you’re a doctor, you should totally know better than that.’

Lucy’s jaw dropped, Petal was pleased to see.

And she’s actually not that good-looking, Petal thought, getting a closer look at her. Her eyes are too close together, and her lips are really thin.

‘You can smoke in the garden, Petal,’ Dr Raf said, smiling apologetically at her. ‘I’m sorry our session was interrupted, but you did some very good work. I look forward to seeing you in group tomorrow morning.’

It was stupid, but Petal was ridiculously boosted by Dr Raf’s words of approval. Not to mention having put that Lucy bitch in her place. But the high lasted only until, snatching the Balenciaga bag with her fags and lighter from her room, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and blanched. All her mascara was long gone, sobbed away on her pillowcases. Her eyes were red and swollen and her skin was blotchy. The lemon-yellow hair colour only worked when she had makeup on; without it, she looked as drained as if DynoRod had just done a job on her.

For a moment Petal considered trying to patch up the damage, and then shrugged miserably; what was the point? She didn’t give a shit about anyone here. She just had to keep her head down, make sure she didn’t get kicked out, and serve her month’s sentence. By that time Dan would be out of the recording studio. Maybe he could fly out here for a holiday. And in the meantime, who gave a fuck if a bunch of junkies thought she looked like death warmed up?

The garden was stunning. Her bedroom might look like something from a Howard Johnson motel, but the garden was top-notch serious designer stuff. Petal had grown up with the best, and she recognized it immediately. The sound of running water greeted her as soon as she stepped out of the air-conditioned hallway into the soft, slightly moist, California spring air. Tall palms shaded a patio eating area equipped with a long pine-and-steel table, surrounded by a set of matching chairs. Beyond was a fountain, water streaming gently from a series of high bamboo poles into a wide shallow pool in which water lilies floated. The enclosing walls were rich with bougainvillaea, and to the left, loungers were dotted on a lawn whose grass was clustered with tiny white daisies.

Sunshine flooded onto Petal as she grabbed an ashtray from the table and walked onto the lawn, intending to collapse on a lounger and have a couple of cigarettes back to back to compensate her for everything she’d been through that day. But as she crossed the grass, she heard a high, flirty laugh, saw the sun catching and glinting on a flash of blonde hair; a second later, she realized that she had walked in on a very cosy twosome.

Lying on the grass, arms spread out in the sunshine, was the blonde who Petal had seen exiting Dr Raf’s office. One leg was bent, her bare sole on the grass; it was a sexy, camera-ready pose the girl would never have affected without an audience.

There was only one spectator, stretched on a lounger, eyeing the girl on the grass with blatant appreciation, but he was famous enough to be worth a whole theatreful of nonentities. Most people would have done a double-take at realizing they were in the presence of Joe Jeffreys, voted
People
’s Sexiest Man Alive this year, earner of $25 million a picture, action star supreme. But Petal wasn’t most people. She’d grown up in Gold’s house, seeing Jude Law flirt with her nannies.

She had to admit, though, that Joe Jeffreys was pretty fucking amazing in the flesh. Jude Law was a bit of a potato-head in real life. But Joe Jeffreys – well, apart from being hot in that beefy American way, he had that whole charisma thing going on.

Still, Petal wasn’t going to let Joe Jeffreys and some bleach-blonde wannabe deter her from lying out in the sunshine. Marching up to the lounger she’d picked out, she dropped onto it, throwing out: ‘Hi, I’m Petal,’ curtly as she did so.

‘Hey, I’m Skye,’ said the girl on the grass.

She had nerve, Petal had to admit; she hadn’t been the slightest bit taken aback at the sudden intrusion of a stranger into her cosy little setup. Most girls would have jumped or something, Petal thought, lighting up a Silk Cut. This one hasn’t moved an inch. She’s tough.

Joe Jeffreys grinned at Petal. ‘And I’m Joe,’ he drawled.

‘Yeah, I know,’ she said, barely favouring him with a glance.

As she’d known it would from her long experience, this piqued his interest.

‘I know you from somewhere?’ he asked.

‘My dad’s Gold,’ she said bluntly. Always better to get it out of the way first, she’d found.

‘Cool,’ said the blonde girl, Skye. ‘I love his music.’

‘I met him at a fundraiser for Darfur last year,’ Joe Jeffreys said. ‘Nice guy.’

‘You must be thinking of someone else,’ Petal said coldly.

There was a pause, and then Skye giggled; Joe Jeffreys let out a burst of laughter. ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘I’m so glad I don’t have kids.’

‘But you’re
engaged
,’ said Skye, rolling over onto her flat stomach so her pert bottom poked up in the air, picking a piece of grass and running it slowly over her full pink mouth so Joe Jeffreys’ attention was completely riveted on her again. ‘You’re going to get married to America’s sweetheart and have lots of beautiful blond, blue-eyed rugrats just like the nation wants, right?’

‘Whatever you say, darlin’,’ Joe drawled, his eyes nailed to Skye’s parted lips, her white teeth biting down on the blade of grass.

‘What are you guys here for?’ Petal asked.

There was another pause. Then Skye said lightly: ‘I’m a sex addict. Just can’t live without it.’

‘Me too,’ Joe Jeffreys said in a heartfelt tone. ‘Me too, babe.’

‘What about you, Petal?’ Skye looked over at the other girl, seeing her properly for the first time. ‘What are you here for? Oh my God, you’re like, a baby! Don’t tell me
you’re
a sex addict!’

‘I’m twenty,’ Petal blurted out crossly, wishing she’d done her makeup after all. ‘And no, I’m not a sex addict, OK? Gold dumped me in here ’cause I got in the British papers doing a bit of coke.
Total
fucking overreaction.’

Joe Jeffreys stretched his big, muscled arms over his head; the wood of the lounger creaked as he moved, and neither girl could help her eyes being drawn to him. He was like a big golden lion, basking in the sun.