Paradise (4 page)

Gemma, of course, was more cool and restrained, but even she looked excited when she thought she spotted Zac Efron. ‘He’s so cute!’ she enthused. ‘Do you think it would count as being unfaithful if I offered him a no-strings-attached shag?’ she said cheekily. ‘Tony wouldn’t mind, would he?’

‘Well, there’s just the small matter of his girlfriend,’ Angel replied dryly, not even sure if the young good-looking guy was Zac.

‘But maybe Zac would like the chance to go out with an older woman,’ Gemma insisted. ‘I could be the sexy Cougar. I reckon I could show him a few moves.’

‘Gemma, I never saw you as a star fucker,’ Angel told her.

‘You’re right,’ Gemma conceded. ‘Anyway I could never starve myself to be a size zero. Never mind that Kate Moss bollocks mantra “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”, shall we have pudding? I fancy the Key Lime Pie. I can always hit your in-house gym this afternoon before we go out clubbing.’

Pleasantly full from lunch and slightly tipsy from champagne, the three friends linked arms and headed out of the restaurant towards their ride – they planned to go on to the Beverly Centre, an upmarket mall packed with high-end designer boutiques, for yet more retail.

Suddenly a young woman with glossy blonde hair tied back in a pony tail, wearing a smart navy suit and clutching a microphone, stepped out in front of the trio,
forcing them to stop. She thrust the microphone out. Just behind her a camera was being pointed directly at Angel. ‘Miss Summer, do you have any comment to make about the claim of Ella Richards that Ethan Turner is the father of her little girl?’

Angel stared blankly at the journalist; she had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

‘Did you know about Ethan Turner’s relationship with Ella Richards?’ the journalist persisted, a fake smile on her blandly pretty face.

‘No comment.’ Jez took over, marching Angel away from the journalist and into the car as quickly as he could. ‘Can you take us straight home?’ he asked Raul, the chauffeur. No one felt in the mood for shopping now.

‘What the hell do you think she was on about?’ Gemma asked, looking at her friend with concern as the car pulled quickly away, denying the journalist any further shots.

Angel shook her head and said despairingly, ‘I’ve no idea. Oh my God! D’you think he’s been cheating on me?’ She was gripped with a sickening and all-too-familiar feeling of insecurity and doubt. Cal had cheated on her . . . maybe Ethan had as well. She had never believed in a million years that Cal would cheat on her, but he had. It wasn’t such a big leap to imagine that Ethan had done the same. Maybe that’s why he had gone to all the trouble over their anniversary, the presents and the plane tickets; it was an attempt to butter her up before the truth about his affair came out. She suddenly had a pounding headache and was trembling.

‘Don’t jump to conclusions,’ Jez said wisely, putting his arm round her. ‘You know what the press are like, babe.’

Angel knew only too well. Her success as a glamour
model, combined with her great beauty and the fact that she had had relationships first with a boy-band singer and then with a footballer, meant that the tabloids had always been obsessed with her. This had reached fever pitch with the revelation that Cal had been unfaithful during their marriage. He’d had a three-month affair with a beautiful Italian woman who was married to a player for AC Milan during his time playing for the club over a year ago. Back then he and Angel hadn’t been getting on – she was crippled by post-natal depression but hadn’t revealed that to Cal, who’d had no idea why his wife was being so cold towards him. As soon as news of his affair broke, the press camped outside their house all day and all night and pursued the couple everywhere. The constant intrusion, combined with her pain over the affair, had been unbearable. Angel knew she couldn’t go through it again with Ethan. She reached for her phone, then changed her mind. After all, what would she say?

She ran straight into the house and found Ethan in the living room, deep in conversation with Benny. The two men looked serious. Was that a flash of guilt in Ethan’s eyes? Before she had a chance to say anything, Benny got in first. ‘Angel, could your friends amuse themselves for a while? We need to talk.’

She hated Benny issuing orders like that, but nonetheless turned to her friends. ‘D’you want to grab a drink and I’ll see you in a bit?’

‘Will you be okay?’ Gemma asked anxiously.

Angel nodded and sat down on one of the sofas, as far away as possible from Benny. Even at that distance he made her feel uncomfortable. She was aware of his eyes raking over her body, vile man that he was. She folded her arms as if to shield herself from his leer. Benny was sitting on the opposite sofa, next to Ethan.
Talk about Beauty and the Beast. Benny was easily as tall as Ethan but that’s where the similarities ended because Benny was definitely not one of the beautiful people. He had blonde, highlighted hair and a permatan that veered between orange and deep chestnut brown. He was obsessed with looking young and had regular Botox along with the odd nip and tuck, Angel was convinced. He was always blinged up to the max, too, but in spite of all the working out he did, his face was still pudgy, and he had small cold grey eyes and rather fleshy lips.

She shook back her hair and tilted her chin, making herself appear far stronger than she felt inside. She had been here before and survived, she would survive this too.

‘So what do you want to talk to me about? Ella Richards claiming Ethan’s the father of her child?’

That took the wind out of their sails. Ethan was the first to speak. ‘Angel, I swear I’ve not been unfaithful to you.’

‘And of course you’d tell me if you had.’ She couldn’t stop herself sounding sarcastic. ‘Men are always honest, aren’t they?’

‘Ethan would never lie to you,’ Benny put in. ‘He loves you Angel, you know that. The guy wants to marry you, for Chrissake. How’s that for commitment?’

Ethan was not doing himself any favours in Angel’s eyes by having Benny do the talking. A fact which seemed to register with him as he got up and came and sat next to her.

‘I did have a one night stand with Ella Richards, but it was way before I met you. I’m not proud of my past, but it is what it is.’ His blue eyes looked pleadingly at her.

‘Yeah, right. Where have I heard that one before?’

‘Ella Richards is just a whore looking for an easy
buck,’ Benny piped up again. ‘She told Ethan she was on the Pill . . . bitch got pregnant deliberately. But we’re not going to pay up. No fucking way! She can dream on.’

Angel bristled on hearing Benny’s foul-mouthed description of Ella. She could now add ‘sexist’ to ‘vile’. She ignored him and turned to Ethan. ‘If she’s your child then you do have some responsibility to her.’

Ethan sighed and run a hand over his short dark-blond hair. ‘Actually she
is
my child, we’ve done the DNA test.’

Angel was stunned by this admission. And he hadn’t thought to tell her before? This was a big deal, how could he not see that she would want to know about it? Angel started to wonder if there were other secrets he had been keeping from her. ‘So how old is your daughter?’ she managed to ask. ‘And does she have a name?’

‘She’s called Megan and she’s one,’ Ethan said quietly.

Angel sat there feeling numb with shock for a few seconds before asking, ‘So why has Ella waited until now to go public?’

Ethan looked over to Benny as if getting his approval to carry on. ‘Benny was trying to see if we could come to an arrangement over money. Ella has just decided that the offer wasn’t big enough and has gone public.’

‘Bitch wants ten million dollars,’ Benny said. ‘We really want to avoid a court case. The adverse publicity could affect Ethan’s sponsorship deals.’

Of course, that’s why Benny was so wound up! It was all about the money.

Ethan looked intently at Angel. ‘Babe, please don’t judge me harshly. I’m not proud of this and I wanted you kept out of it . . . I know you’ve been through hell with the press and I wanted to protect you. That’s why
I haven’t told you before. It has nothing to do with our relationship.’

‘Ethan has only ever been thinking of you, Angel.’ Benny again. ‘He’s been ripped apart with guilt and worry, don’t be hard on him.’

Angel
really
wished he’d piss off now. Just then Ethan’s phone rang. He looked at the number and groaned.

‘It’s my coach; he must have seen the story on the news. I’d better take this.’ He stood up and stepped through the open French windows and on to the decking beyond. Angel had no desire to stay in the same room as Benny and was all set to join her friends.

But Benny had other ideas. ‘I’m sure we can fix this, Angel. It will blow over soon – these things always do.’ His description of Ethan’s daughter as one of ‘these things’ only made Angel loathe him even more.

She didn’t say anything. Benny carried on, ‘So, are you still being managed by Carrie Rose?’

Angel nodded, not wanting to engage with him further. She was still reeling from Ethan’s news and didn’t want to talk about business, but that was Benny all over, the world’s most insensitive man.

‘You know, you could really do with an agent out here to raise your Stateside profile. Carrie can’t do that in London. I could take you on. I know all the people you should know. It would be good for you and Ethan. I was speaking to Larry the other night and mentioned you. I reckon I could get you a centrefold spread.’

Several years ago Angel had appeared in
LA
Dreams
, owned by the legendary magazine magnate and multi-millionaire Larry T. Chance, but since then she’d had Honey and had vowed not to pose topless any more, which ruled out
LA
Dreams
.

‘I’m perfectly happy with Carrie, thanks, Benny,’ Angel said, more calmly than she felt.

‘Don’t be too hasty, Angel. I definitely think it’s something you should consider – not just for your sake but for Ethan’s. Two are always better than one, don’t you think? And you two make a very attractive package to advertisers and sponsors.’ He licked his lips as if relishing the prospect of all that extra money.

Angel looked at him scornfully. He was the last person she would want managing her. The conversation was over. She got up and was about to leave the room to find her friends when Benny called after her, ‘And maybe while you’re thinking about what we’ve talked about, you should let me give you the number of a surgeon – those tits of yours could probably do with an upgrade sometime soon, couldn’t they?’

The man was fucking outrageous! She wanted to tell him as much and where he could go. Instead she said coldly, ‘I’m sure Ethan wouldn’t appreciate you speaking to me like this, so shall we just forget your last comment?’

Benny shrugged. ‘Whatever. But I’m right, Angel.’

Thankfully Ethan returned at that moment and Benny was prevented from making any further obnoxious comments. Ethan looked completely shattered. ‘Benny, I need to speak to Angel now.’

Benny remained sitting.

‘On her own.’

Benny did not like being asked to leave, but eventually he stood up. He had reached the door when he stopped and said, ‘Oh, and by the way, we need to set up an interview and shoot with
OK
for you guys to put on a united front, so Angel can say how much in love she is with you, and how the fact that you have a child with another woman doesn’t change anything . . . blah blah blah. You know the kind of thing.’ He raised his arm in farewell and left.

Ethan came and sat next to Angel. He tentatively
reached for her hand which she was reluctant to give him. ‘I’m so sorry, Angel, I never wanted you to get caught up in all of this.’ He certainly seemed sorry, just as Cal had done when news of his affair had broken.

Angel could sense that Ethan wanted her to say that she still loved him, that she believed him, but something stopped her. She’d become much harder since the end of her marriage. ‘I’m sure you are sorry, it’s not great for your profile, is it? No wonder Benny wants us to do that interview.’ She knew she sounded cold.

‘You don’t have to do the interview if you don’t want to. This isn’t about us . . . it’s about me.’

Angel sighed, ‘And if I don’t do it, it will just add fuel to the press stories that we’re not getting on, and they’ll keep on at us.’

‘I’m not putting pressure on you to do anything,’ Ethan repeated, ‘I just want you to know that I love you.’

But Angel couldn’t say it back. She had hoped that her new relationship would be a fresh start for her, but only six months in it was already getting tarnished.

Ethan’s bombshell news wrecked the rest of her friends’ visit. Whenever Angel tried to go out with Jez and Gemma, they were aggressively pursued by paps who had taken to camping outside the house. In the end they gave up trying to go out and spent the time chilling by the pool, which both Jez and Gemma claimed not to mind about but Angel did. She wanted to show her friends a good time. Ethan was either training or tied up in meetings with Benny and his lawyers, and when he was around he was preoccupied and distant. Every time Angel brought up the subject of his daughter, he said he didn’t want to talk about it, which made her feel even more shut out.

He gave her frustratingly few details about what had
happened with Ella Richards. Just repeated it had been a one night stand and he had thought no more about it until he got a call from Ella, informing him that she was six months pregnant and the baby was his. Ethan had refused to believe her until the baby was born and DNA tests were carried out.

‘But how do you feel about being a father?’ Angel asked him, not able to understand how detached he was from his daughter’s life.

‘It doesn’t feel as if she is my daughter,’ was his answer. Ethan, usually so laid-back and open about his emotions, was showing a different side and Angel wasn’t sure she liked it. And however hard she pushed him, he wouldn’t give her any more than that.

On Jez and Gemma’s penultimate day Angel was really hoping to take them to Santa Monica Pier for a fun day out, but Benny insisted she do the shoot with Ethan, telling her, ‘You’ve got to pull out all the stops here, Angel. I want everyone to be looking at you, so all thoughts of Ella Richards go out of their tiny brains. We’ll start with you in evening dress and go on to the bikini shots.’ His cold grey eyes lingered on her as he added, ‘Make sure you flash some of that gorgeous flesh.’