Bad Girls (32 page)

A video that Petal, back in her room, was staring at in total disbelief. The tiny phone camera had been further inside the room than she was; its images, even without a flash, were shockingly clear.

I can’t believe this, Petal thought, amazed. She hadn’t expected anything like this – who would?
I mean, in broad daylight, in a storage cupboard without a door that locks from the inside
. . . She’d assumed Joe and Skye would be fooling around, and that if she took a couple of pictures of them at it, she’d have evened the balance, somehow, between her and Skye. Skye might trip around the place, blonde ponytail bouncing, flirting madly, drawing all eyes to her, but Petal, secretly, would be in possession of a piece of evidence that could get Skye kicked out any time Petal chose. Unlikely as she was to go that far, it was a little bit of power that Petal had anticipated having with great relish.

But this was way more than she’d expected. In broad daylight – Joe Jeffreys and Skye, not only having full-on sex, but in the weirdest position she’d ever seen in her life. This was dynamite. Petal felt a bit dirty looking at the video too much, so she clicked off, put the phone on her chest and lay back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, debating with herself what to do next.

Because this secret was just too good not to share with someone.

‘
H
ey.’

Joe loomed up in front of Amber, who started in surprise; she’d been so absorbed in her thoughts that it was as if she’d wrapped a duvet round her. She was curled up on one of the wooden armchairs on the patio, drinking water, smoking, and staring ahead of her at the fountain. It was well into the evening, and she could barely see the play of water; but she could hear its slow, gentle trickle down the bamboo posts to the granite below, and the sound was very calming.

‘You look exhausted,’ Joe said gently.

He propped himself on the edge of the table, close enough so that they could talk easily, but not so near that he might be crowding her.

‘Tell me if I’m bugging you,’ he continued, ‘but you look really out of it. You wanna talk to someone or should I just leave you alone?’ He grinned. ‘Don’t be polite. Tell me if you want me to buzz off.’

Amber looked up at Joe; the patio lights cast shadows over his face, dimming the bright gold of his hair, throwing his strong masculine bone structure into relief. He might have been a sculpture of a Greek god. And the fact that he was so handsome, so famous, made her strangely relaxed with him. It was like talking to a god come down to earth, not a real living, breathing human.

‘I’m so confused,’ she said simply. ‘I don’t know what to think about anything.’

Joe nodded. ‘I can see that.’

‘I don’t even know what to think about myself,’ Amber said, pulling up her legs and hugging them. She rested her chin on her knees, her hair spilling around her. ‘I’m confused about
everything.
I don’t know what I want from one minute to the next.’

Apart from Dr Raf, she thought. I know I want Dr Raf.

‘That’s no bad thing,’ Joe commented.

‘Really?’ Amber’s eyes widened.

‘You gotta start from scratch some time,’ Joe said. ‘You were saying in group today that you never figured out who you are, right? What you like, what you want, what you don’t want?’

It sounded awful, put like that. What kind of person didn’t even know what they didn’t want?

But he’s right, she reflected. There’s no point pretending. I do have to start from scratch.

‘And that’s bound to be freaky,’ he continued. ‘I mean, you’re a grown woman, you’ve travelled all over the world, you’ve been on the cover of magazines, and right now it feels like you don’t know the first thing about yourself.’

Amber nodded, her green eyes fixed on his face.

‘I mean –’ Joe smiled ruefully – ‘look at me. I may not be the best example out there of how to run your life, OK? I’ve always put my career first. This whole engagement thing –’ he pulled a face – ‘it’s all for the publicity. Jennifer needed to get married – to a guy – and my people were saying I needed to settle down. For my image.’ He sighed, stretching his arms above his head. ‘So I’m going along with it. I got no problem with that, it’s how Hollywood works.’ He looked seriously at Amber. ‘You see what I’m saying? It’s not pretty, but hey, it’s my choice. I know who I am.’

‘And I don’t know who I am,’ Amber said.

‘Not right now.’ He smiled at her. ‘But I think that when you connect with who you are, you’re going to find out that you like that person a hell of a lot.’

And then, a few seconds later, as he registered what an impact that statement had had upon Amber:‘Oh,
shit
.’ He frantically rummaged in his jeans pockets. ‘Hell, honey, I didn’t mean to make you cry!’

‘No, it’s OK,’ Amber managed through her tears. She fished in the pocket of her loose silk cardigan and brought out a crumpled tissue, waving it at him. ‘It’s a good sign. That’s what Dr Raf says. I’m getting in touch with my real feelings.’ She dabbed at her tears, which were catching entrancingly in her long lashes.

‘Here,’ Joe said, leaning forward and taking the tissue from her, drying her eyes expertly. ‘You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve played this scene. I’ve dried more girls’ eyes than you’ve been on magazine covers.’

Amber’s laugh was watery, but genuine.

‘Course,’ he added jokingly, ‘I usually kiss ’em afterwards.’

‘Joe . . . I—’ she stuttered.

‘No, no, don’t worry. It’d be like hitting on a twelve-year-old, the state you’re in now.’ He handed her the tissue. ‘Now blow.’

Dutifully, Amber blew her nose.

‘I gotta say, though,’ Joe added, ‘you look better with a noseful of snot than most actresses I know do with a faceful of makeup. You ever thought about acting? The camera must love the hell out of you.’

She shook her head.

‘Well, who knows? When you get your shit together, the world’ll be your oyster,’ he said.

‘I don’t think I could pretend to be someone else till I know who I am,’ Amber said doubtfully.

‘Oh, honey!’ Joe burst out laughing. ‘If that were really the way it worked, there’d be a
lot
fewer actresses out there, believe me!’

‘You two look really cosy,’ Skye said coldly, coming out onto the patio. ‘I hate to break this up, but it’s curfew. They sent me to tell you guys.’

‘Hey, babe,’ Joe said easily, swinging round to greet her, not a whit perturbed by his proximity to Amber.

Amber, however, was much more embarrassed. The ice in Skye’s voice was unmistakable. And Skye was standing in the middle of the patio, arms folded just below her breasts; normally she’d have come over and sat down with them, pulling up a chair or curling up on the arm of Amber’s.

Jumping up, grabbing her water, Amber practically darted past Joe to Skye’s side.

‘Ah,’ Joe sighed, swivelling to look at the two girls. ‘If I didn’t know already I was a sex addict, just looking at the two of you heading off to bed together would tell me in a heartbeat. See you in my dreams tonight, ladies.’

‘You’re full of shit,’ Skye snapped, and whirled on her heel, stomping back inside with Amber on her heels.

‘I don’t want you to think—’ Amber said breathlessly, as Skye marched back to their room.

‘Think what?’ Skye said angrily. ‘You
said
you wouldn’t flirt with Joe! We had a deal! I only had to look at how you two were sitting to see what was going on!’

‘I really wasn’t!’ Amber insisted. ‘Honestly, Skye, I
promise
. I wouldn’t do that. I don’t even know how to flirt!’

Skye swung round and fixed Amber with a cold stare. ‘Joe knows enough for both of you,’ she said.

Reflecting on Skye’s words for a moment, Amber had to admit that there was some truth in them. Joe might not have been flirting, strictly; but he’d talked about kissing, he’d paid her compliments.

‘OK,’ she admitted. ‘He was, a little . . .’

They’d reached their bedroom. Skye stomped in and threw herself on her bed, staring up at the ceiling.

‘But it was more like he was trying to take care of me,’ Amber said. ‘Make me feel better.’

Skye swung round, facing Amber now. ‘That’s exactly what makes me nervous!’ she said. ‘He sees you as this wounded angel. He wants to take care of you – mend your broken wings.’ She waved her hands around furiously. ‘He doesn’t want to take care of me! He just wants to have a good time with me!
You
, he wants to pick up off the ground and nurse back to health!’

‘You make me sound like a puppy with a broken leg,’ Amber said with a sort of bitter humour, sitting down on her bed, pulling her cardigan tightly around her.

‘You
are
kind of like a puppy with a broken leg,’ Skye said, sitting up to face Amber. ‘Sorry.’ She grimaced. ‘That’s harsh.’

Amber twisted her hands in her lap. ‘You don’t need to worry about me with Joe,’ she said quietly. ‘He’s so nice, and I really like him. But –’ she hesitated, trying to collect her thoughts together into a neat sentence – ‘he’s too like the other men I’ve known. Paying me compliments. Talking about how I look. I don’t think I want that any more.’

Skye’s pretty eyebrows shot up. ‘That’s going to make it really hard for you to date,’ she commented drily.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Amber said simply. ‘I’ve never been on a real date in my life.’

Skye sank down to her own bed, never taking her eyes off Amber, kicking off her flip-flops and wrapping her arms around her legs. ‘This,’ she said frankly, ‘I
have
to hear.’

‘
Matka
– my mother – was very protective of me when I started modelling,’ Amber began.

As always when Amber talked openly about her life, it was almost like an out-of-body experience. Before, it had been completely taboo. So now the freedom and release were extraordinary. She felt as if she were floating.

‘She didn’t want me going out with men, and honestly, I didn’t want to either,’ she went on. ‘I was only fourteen. But that ended up meaning that I didn’t know what I was doing. I was sort of a babe-in-the-woods. And eventually, photographers or clients would ask me to do things. Or have meetings with them after the shoot.
Matka
couldn’t always be there. And I thought it was what all the girls were doing. What you had to do to be a model.’

‘It probably is,’ Skye said sympathetically.

‘I wish I knew,’ Amber said sadly. ‘I didn’t have anyone to talk to. Lots of the other girls were staying in model flats – you know, rented by their agencies – so they all made friends. But I was always—’

‘With your mom,’ Skye completed.

‘She just wanted to take care of me,’ Amber insisted, wrapping her cardigan tighter around herself. ‘She wanted the best for us both. She just . . .’ it was the first time she’d said this, and the relief was like a physical rush, ‘. . . she just lost her way. She didn’t mean us both to get addicted to pills.’

In one smooth movement, Skye uncurled her legs, stood up and shifted over from her bed to Amber’s, sitting down next to her roommate and wrapping her arm around Amber’s shoulders.

‘Honey, of course she didn’t,’ she said, hugging Amber. ‘I mean, what mom would? I’m sure she thought she was helping you.’

‘The pills
did
help,’ Amber said wistfully, reaching up to hold Skye’s hand. ‘In the beginning, anyway. I had this one shoot for
Glamour
when I started out – I was so scared my teeth were chattering. I couldn’t even smile.
Matka
gave me a Valium, and after that I was OK.’

‘People wouldn’t get hooked if they didn’t work,’ Skye pointed out with a smile in her voice, her arm warm round Amber. ‘Don’t beat yourself up, OK? You’re here now, and like Dr Raf says, you’re doing the work. You’ll get through this just fine.’

Amber squeezed Skye’s hand wordlessly in gratitude.

‘I’ve done really dumb stuff on coke,’ Skye confessed. ‘I haven’t said this in group, but the night before I came in, me and my roommate, we ordered in some coke ’cause we’d run out, and our dealer sent this hot boy round – you know, in New York you can just ring up and you get a bike messenger over with whatever you want? Anyway, I ended up partying with the damn bike boy while my roommate screwed the bouncer from the club we work at, which she’d totally
sworn
to herself she was never going to do again. But that’s coke for you, right? You end up doing all kinds of stupid shit. I tell you, I’m totally swearing off it from now on.’

‘I didn’t just . . . do things with people on shoots, to get jobs,’ Amber said in such a small voice Skye had to lean in even closer to hear her. ‘The work started drying up. I’m a bit old to model now.’

Skye snorted sympathetically. ‘Tell me about it,’ she said wryly. ‘Dancers don’t exactly have a long shelf life either. And I’m not even that much of a dancer.’

Amber managed a faint smile.

‘But my agent said he could get me jobs still,’ she continued. ‘Which paid a lot. Only—’

‘I’m way ahead of you, honey,’ Skye said.

‘It wasn’t bad at all,’ Amber said, turning to look directly at Skye, wanting her to believe it. ‘They took me to five-star hotels, gave me presents – it was like they were pretending I was their girlfriend. They’d seen me on the covers of magazines, so I had a really high value for them.’ She managed a smile. ‘I’ve got nothing to complain about, really. If you’re going to have sex with men for money, you couldn’t be treated better than I was. They never made me do anything I didn’t want to do. One of them’s even paying for my treatment here. He flew us over, put
Matka
up in a house his company owns in LA, took care of everything. God knows what’ll happen when I get out.’

‘Worry about that later,’ Skye said. ‘One thing at a time.’

‘That’s what I’ve been telling myself,’ Amber agreed.

‘Look,’ Skye said gently, ‘we’ve all done stuff we’re not proud of. Don’t beat yourself up for what you did in the past, OK? I could tell you stories that’d curl your hair. And the place I worked was a fricking convent compared with some. I’ve heard of strip clubs that make you blow the manager just to get a job. So cut yourself some slack.’