Sapphire (12 page)

Sapphire looked at Jay and suffered another pang of guilt about Ryan. It must not happen again. She might not believe in relationships but one thing she did believe in was staying faithful to the person she was with at the time.

At the end of the meal she offered to clear up with Jay.

‘I bet you two just want to cop off together,’ Marissa said cheekily.

‘If you want to do the washing up,’ Jay replied, ‘be my guest.’

Marissa made a hasty exit upstairs to the living room.

‘So,’ he said, putting his arms round Sapphire once they were alone in the kitchen, ‘it wasn’t so bad meeting my family was it?’

She stood up on tiptoes and lightly kissed him. ‘Not bad at all,’ she replied, then kissed him again, this time deeper.

If she could just take Jay back home with her and make love she’d be able to erase all memories of sexy Ryan. She wrapped her arms round him tightly, ‘You know I love being with you, Jay.’ She pressed her body into his and
closed her eyes. Lovely Jay with his lovely body, more than a match for Ryan any day. ‘Come back to mine, I still haven’t had my extra birthday present, babe.’

She was so used to Jay doing exactly what she asked that it was a shock when he shook his head and said, ‘No, I need some headspace after last night.’

‘But I thought we were back to the way we were?’ Sapphire said petulantly.

‘We are, I just need some time.’

Sapphire felt irrationally angry. ‘Okay, I’ll call a taxi now then, and you can get your fucking headspace.’

‘I’ll call the cab, we can share it.’

They did the washing up in silence. Sapphire snapped out of her bad mood to say goodbye to Jay’s family. She really had liked them. But she returned to giving Jay the silent treatment in the taxi, not even sitting close to him. She was furious that he wasn’t coming back with her. When the taxi pulled up outside her apartment she was all set to get out with a curt goodbye, but Jay took her arm.

‘Babe,’ he whispered, and for a second Sapphire thought he might have changed his mind, ‘it does you good to not always get your own way.’

Bastard! Sapphire muttered ‘Bye’ and got out of the taxi, slamming the door behind her. She stomped into the lobby and jabbed the button for the lift. She momentarily cheered up when she discovered she had a text from Ryan, ‘Still thinking of you Sapphire, Rx
.
’ She spent the next ten minutes wondering what to text back. She didn’t want to seem too flirtatious in her reply, but neither was she able to simply ignore the message. In the end she went for ‘Thanks for a lovely lunch, my treat next time, Sx’. She ignored the voice in her head which told her she was playing with fire. And she couldn’t help thinking that Ryan would have jumped at the chance to come back with her . . .

SAPPHIRE TOOK HER
time saying sorry to Sam for the row. It was three days before she finally picked up the phone. Sam seemed fine about it, but Sapphire could tell that she had upset her.

‘Look, I’m sorry Sam; I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that, I was out of order. It’s just that you know what I feel about marriage.’

‘I don’t want you to be blind to what you’ve got. Jay is a really special guy.’

There Sam went again, telling Sapphire what to think, it was infuriating. And Sam never usually had such strong opinions about things. Sapphire would have liked to tell her to back off but didn’t want another argument so she sighed and said, ‘I know he is and I will make it up to him.’ She paused, ‘I just don’t want to marry him. Anyway I’ve got to go, Georgia’s hen party’s tomorrow; I’m up to my eyes in it.’

Sam wished her luck as they said goodbye, but there was still a coolness between the two friends. Sapphire didn’t have time to worry about it right now. She hadn’t been lying to Sam – she was desperate to make sure that everything went smoothly for Georgia’s big weekend.

The eight hens arrived at the boutique at two the next day for their beauty treatments. It was an invasion of soap
stars and C-list celebs. The beauty salon was quite spacious but the hens packed it out with their massive designer bags and the air was sickly sweet with eight different designer perfumes competing with each other. Clearly more was more where these hens were concerned. And God they were noisy – if they weren’t screeching at each other and cackling, they were screaming down their mobiles. Sapphire didn’t think she had ever seen so many fake boobs and hair extensions in one room at the same time. And she nearly got the giggles when one of the hens – a glamour model called Erin, who was beyond orange – wanted a spray tan. Sapphire couldn’t imagine what colour she was aiming to be, certainly no colour seen on a human before.

At first everything seemed to be going smoothly, apart from Danielle, a singer who had had one hit record after coming second on a reality show, getting the hump when she was told she couldn’t smoke in the salon. Georgia adored the house and was full of compliments. But within half an hour Simone Fraser came and found Sapphire in the boutique to complain that the hot water in her hotel bathroom was not hot enough.

‘Well did you take it up with them?’ Sapphire asked ‘There’s nothing I can do.’ What was she, a freaking plumber?

‘You could at least give them a ring, isn’t that all part of the service?’ Simone replied.

God, she was high maintenance! Sapphire just didn’t get how Cal could ever have gone out with her, but maybe he just made a massive error of judgement, though in fairness Simone was undeniably pretty. She had long glossy brunette hair, a heart-shaped face, large brown eyes, and a slender figure. But she ruined her looks by having a permanent sulky expression on her face. And she’d had something done to her lips, which protruded weirdly – it was not quite a trout pout but it
was close. Lady, Sapphire wanted to say, you need to step away from the Botox/collagen/Restylane whatever else you’ve had pumped into you. And being so slim was definitely more ageing. She was only thirty but looked much older.

‘Okay, okay, I’ll phone them,’ Sapphire promised, anything to get the woman off her back. ‘Is there anything else?’

Simone looked at her intently. ‘Are you seeing Cal Bailey?’

Sapphire had been expecting another whinge so the question caught her off guard. ‘What do you mean, seeing? He’s one of my oldest friends.’

‘I saw the pictures of the two of you together last month. It all seemed very cosy. But I thought you should know that Cal’s a real player.’ She was now looking absolute daggers.

Sapphire decided to play it cool. Simone was a client; it simply wouldn’t do to tell her to fuck off, which is what she itched to do. She smiled. ‘Like I said, we’re just friends.’

Simone looked sceptical. ‘You can tell me the truth, I won’t tell anyone. And I could give you some good advice on how to handle Cal.’

Yeah! Like your relationship with Cal worked out so well! Sapphire thought. She wouldn’t confide in Simone if she was the last person on this earth.

‘Really, we’re just friends,’ Sapphire said calmly.

Simone gave a false little laugh, ‘You know that’s exactly what Angel told me about her relationship with Cal. And look at what happened to them.’

Sapphire was about to reply when there was an ear-piercing shriek from the beauty salon upstairs, followed by, ‘How dare you say that! Of course I haven’t got a fucking verruca!’

Shit! It sounded like all hell was breaking loose up
there. Sapphire quickly raced upstairs. There she was confronted with the sight of Kiki holding her face and shouting, ‘You can’t bloody hit me you old cow!’ as Georgia stood over her, barefoot and furious. She had a white face mask on which was cracking as her features contorted in rage. ‘Well don’t fucking say I’ve got a verruca then!’

‘Actually, you haven’t just got one! I saw at least three,’ Kiki shouted back.

Georgia lurched forward. Sapphire quickly stepped in front of her to stop another assault. ‘Now, why don’t we all calm down. Kiki, can you go downstairs and work in the boutique for me, and I’ll finish off Georgia’s pedicure? I’m sure it’s all been a misunderstanding. In the meantime, who wants another glass of champagne?’

All the hens shouted back ‘yes!’ There were already four empty bottles. Jesus, these women could put it away. She managed to get Georgia to sit down and steered Kiki out of the room.

‘I could do her for assault you know,’ Kiki told Sapphire when they were safely downstairs. ‘Look.’ She moved her hand to show off an angry red mark on her face.

That was not the kind of publicity Sapphire wanted! ‘Please don’t, Kiki! I’m begging you. I know she was bang out of order, but I’ll make it up to you, I swear.’

‘You’d better,’ Kiki muttered then added, ‘By the way she does have verrucas – watch out for her right foot,’ as Sapphire turned to go back upstairs. ‘Just don’t touch any part of your body with your hands and wash them straight after and you should be okay.’

Great! She was going to end up covered with verrucas, just how much better could the day get? She had finally managed to calm Georgia down, with more champagne and finish painting her nails a hot pink (and yes, she did have several verrucas, yuk) when Owen, the
photographer from the celeb magazine, a tall intense-looking thirty-something man with steel-rimmed glasses, arrived.

‘My brief is to be a fly on the wall and capture the day,’ he told Georgia and was all set to start taking pictures of her straight away, face mask and all.

‘Hold your fucking horses, mate!’ Georgia exclaimed. ‘I’m not going to be photographed looking like a minger! I want full make-up and my hair done.’

‘But that wasn’t what I was asked to do: the magazine specifically said fly on the wall,’ Owen protested, but really it was futile. Having necked practically a bottle of champagne, Georgia was a force to be reckoned with. ‘You can snap away all you like once I’ve been made up – until then keep that lens right away from me.’

Owen looked thoroughly fed up. Sapphire took him to one side, ‘Look, why don’t you grab a coffee downstairs. You’ll get better pictures if she’s happy. We won’t be long, I promise.’

Famous last words. It took another hour and a half and all Jazz’s skill and patience to get Georgia ready. She hated the first make-up Jazz applied, saying it was too natural-looking. ‘But you’re supposed to be relaxing, do you really want the full works?’ Jazz asked.

‘Of course I want the full fucking works and then I’m going to be fucking air brushed!’ Georgia held up her empty champagne glass, ‘Sapphire, be a darling and fill me up. Tyler won’t let me drink any more, this is my last fling then I’m on the wagon.’

Sapphire took the glass. It was only four in the afternoon. Georgia was going to be completely hammered by tonight. It did not bode well. She gave Georgia a refill – like she needed it – and went back downstairs to the boutique. In her office she checked her messages and groaned. Andy, the stripogram she had booked to surprise Georgia, had flu and there was no way he could
come out. She phoned him straight away and begged him to do the booking, but he refused. He’d catch his death and was sweating like a pig and had a temperature of over a hundred.

Fuck! What was she going to do? She tried all her other contacts but they were booked solid. ‘Darling,’ one of them told her in a voice heavy with sarcasm, when she pleaded with him to help her out, ‘if I could clone myself I would, but I can’t be in two places at once and the first booking has to take priority.’

It was on the tip of Sapphire’s tongue to tell him to get a penis enlargement while he was at it, as from what she could recall he didn’t have that much to flaunt, but there was no point. One day she might need his sharp tongue and tiny dick. She put her head in her hands. God, how she wanted this weekend to be over. Just then there was a knock at the door and Simone sauntered in.

‘I just wondered what time you’ve booked the stripper for tonight.’ She held up her hands and looked at her immaculate French manicure.

‘Bad news I’m afraid, the guy I normally use has just cancelled, he’s got flu.’

‘It’s probably only man flu, surely he’ll still do it.’

‘No, it’s flu. He wouldn’t let me down unless he absolutely had to.’

‘But Georgia is expecting a stripper,’ Simone exclaimed, looking sternly at Sapphire and folding her arms across her chest like she meant business. ‘What are you going to do about it? She’ll be really pissed off if there isn’t one. And I mean
really
pissed off. You saw what she was like about the verruca slur.’

‘Okay, okay I’m taking care of it.’

Simone arched one of her perfectly shaped eyebrows. ‘I advise you to do just that. You want her to talk up your business don’t you?’

Fuck! What was Sapphire going to do? Go out and pick
up some fit lad off the street and ask him to do it? She’d get arrested for sexual harassment! She paced round the office, willing inspiration to come, and suddenly she realised she had a fit lad of her very own: Jay. He would be absolutely perfect.

‘No way, Sapphire! You can’t ask him,’ was Jazz’s predictable reaction.

‘I can’t risk pissing Georgia off again. You saw what she’s like, the woman’s a fucking Rottweiler!’

‘Think about it the other way round – how would you feel if Jay asked you to strip for a stag night?’

Sapphire shrugged, ‘It’s not the same thing at all and anyway, this is about business. My business.’

Jazz sighed. ‘I just hope you know what you’re doing.’

Sapphire picked up her phone, trying to push the doubts out of her mind. ‘It’s got to be done.’

However, it was no easy task persuading Jay. At first he refused point blank. Sapphire begged some more, saying that the success of the hen weekend depended on him doing this one little thing for her and didn’t he want her to do well? She laid it on thick. Without Jay, the weekend would be ruined; Sapphire’s reputation would be in tatters. It was appalling emotional blackmail but she was desperate. Finally Jay threw her a lifeline, ‘I’m not taking everything off. I’ll strip to my boxers and that’s it.’

Thank God, Jay was giving in. ‘Babe, I will so make this up to you, I swear.’

‘You
so
will,’ Jay replied grimly. ‘And I don’t want any of the women touching me.’