Sapphire (7 page)

Cal sighed and pushed his plate away, even though he had barely touched the risotto. ‘I should have realised something was wrong with her, but I was so self-obsessed, worrying about my football career, putting that above everything else. I didn’t see it and even when she tried to tell me how she was feeling, I pushed her away, I didn’t listen. No wonder she left me.’

It was so painful listening to Cal torturing himself like this. She very much doubted that Alfie had given her a second’s thought after they broke up, whatever he claimed. But then Cal always had been a bit of a one-off. Just a little too perfect for her to fancy . . .

‘So, have you got any new pictures of Honey?’ She was desperate to stop Cal beating himself up.

Cal immediately brightened, ‘Are you sure you want to see them?’

‘I’d love to,’ Sapphire insisted, though she wasn’t particularly interested in children.

He got out his phone and selected images from the menu. Sapphire clicked through the series of adorable pictures of the two-and-a-half-year-old. Honey had Cal’s
dark colouring, black curls and olive skin and Angel’s stunning green eyes.

‘She’s beautiful, Cal,’ Sapphire told him, handing back the phone.

‘She is, isn’t she?’ Another sigh. ‘I just hate to think that she might end up calling that man Daddy.’

Sapphire regretted asking him to show her the pictures as Cal went on another downward spiral about missing his daughter. Sapphire suddenly felt grateful for one thing – at least she hadn’t had children with Alfie. It would have opened up a whole new dimension of pain. She ordered them both a brandy – neither of them wanted a dessert, even though Cal looked like he needed one.

‘I’m sorry, Sapphire, I’ve been terrible company haven’t I?’ Cal said swirling the amber liquid round in the glass.

‘Not at all, Cal – it’s always good to see you and you know you can always talk to me.’

Cal smiled. ‘Thanks, Sapphire, you’re a true friend. So what have you got coming up?’

Sapphire grimaced, ‘Georgia Cox’s hen weekend. Though after seeing what she was like at the school reunion I’m seriously worried about it.’

‘She certainly looked like a force to be reckoned with,’ Cal sympathised, ‘I still can’t believe that she asked me to her wedding. I didn’t really know her from school.’

Sapphire gave a mirthless laugh, ‘She’s just thinking about the magazine deal and how good it will look to have you in the pictures.’

‘Well, she can dream on.’ Cal replied. ‘No way would I turn up to her tacky wedding. Besides I’ve no intention of running into Simone.’

‘Oh my God! I’d almost forgotten about her. She turned out to be a right nutter didn’t she?’ Simone Fraser was a former soap actress and ex-WAG who Cal had gone
out with before Angel. Simone had been devastated when Cal left her for Angel. Sapphire remembered Cal describing how she had stalked him, damaged his car and bombarded him with text messages until Cal threatened to go the police.

‘Thank you for reminding me,’ Cal said drily.

‘I bet she’ll be coming to the hen weekend.’ Sapphire now had even more reason to dread the event.

‘Just don’t rub her up the wrong way,’ Cal said. Then noticing the anxiety in Sapphire’s eyes added, ‘It’ll be fine – she was only ever a bunny boiler where I was concerned. To everyone else she’s lovely. She’s far too worried about what people think of her.’

She could only hope that Cal was right. Simone Fraser was not the sort of woman she wanted to make an enemy of. She suddenly felt tired out and longed to be in bed with Jay. Much as she loved them, the hen weekends did take it out of her – constantly being on hand to keep everyone happy, always on call to sort out any problems, putting on a smiling face at all times. Then, unexpectedly, this dinner with Cal had been quite emotionally draining.

‘Hey are you okay?’ Cal asked, putting his arm round her as they left the restaurant. Sapphire was about to reply when a photographer stepped in front of them, thrust his camera in their face and took a picture.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ Cal said with feeling. ‘Don’t you people ever let up?’

He marched angrily past the photographer and opened the taxi door for Sapphire. The photographer continued snapping away at them. Sapphire resisted the temptation to give him the finger, knowing that would be the picture they’d use and it wouldn’t do her business any good.

‘What a wanker!’ Sapphire exclaimed as taxi pulled away.

‘Yeah, but now that wanker is going to make it look as if there is something going on between us. Jesus Christ!’ Cal put his head in his hands. ‘The last thing I need is for Angel to see the pictures and jump to the wrong conclusion.’

‘Oh Cal! I’m sorry, I didn’t think of it like that,’ Sapphire replied.

‘And it’s not just Angel, what about Jay? He’ll probably be wound up by the pictures.’

‘Jay’ll be cool,’ Sapphire replied. ‘He knows he can trust me.’

‘Well, if you need me to call him now and explain what happened, I will. I don’t want to cause any trouble for you, Sapphire.’

‘Thanks Cal, but it’ll be all right.’

To Sapphire’s relief Jay was already at the flat. She walked straight into his arms and stayed there without saying anything while Jay stroked her hair. ‘Long day?’ he finally murmured. ‘How about I run you a bath?’

She nodded gratefully. Jay was so sweet. She’d never gone out with a man who looked after her like he did. For the hundredth time she compared him to Alfie. Even on those occasions when she’d been ill with flu or whatever, Alfie hadn’t gone out of his way to look after her. Instead he had been more concerned that he would get ill. What had she ever seen in him?

While she had her bath, Jay sat on the floor and chatted to her. She told him all about her evening with Cal and about the photographer. ‘So if you see pictures that make out there is something between us, I swear there’s not. I wonder if I should get a message to Angel? Jazz knows her best friend.’

‘You could but maybe that looks as if you’ve got something to feel guilty about. Best to ignore it, babe.’

‘How did you get to be so wise for such a young boy?’
she demanded, leaning over the edge of the bath and kissing him.

‘Maybe I’ve learnt from all the older women I’ve been out with,’ Jay replied, kissing her back.

‘Cheeky bastard!’ Sapphire exclaimed and reaching in the bath water for a sponge threw it at Jay, soaking his T-shirt.

He stood up. ‘Seeing as how you got me all wet, I’m going to join you in the bath, Miss Jones.’

And to Sapphire’s delight he peeled off his wet T-shirt and shucked off his jeans and boxers and got in the bath with her. And at the sight of his gorgeously toned body she no longer felt tired . . .

That night in bed Jay held her closer than ever. She felt completely blissed out and happier than she had been for a very long time, until Jay whispered ‘Love you, Sapphire,’ so quietly that she thought she must have imagined it. She immediately tensed, the blissed out feeling vanished. The L-word complicated everything, it was just not somewhere she wanted to go with Jay; she wanted things to stay exactly the way they were . . .

IN THE DAYS
that followed, Sapphire was so busy planning for Georgia’s hen weekend that she barely had time to think about anything else. Jay’s
love
you
hung in her head somewhere like an unanswered question but she tried not to think about it. And ever since her father’s death Sapphire was very skilled at burying things she didn’t want to deal with. Right now it was her business she needed to focus on one hundred per cent.

Although Georgia had said that she was going to leave all the arrangements to Sapphire, she then changed her mind and asked Simone Fraser to oversee the weekend. Bad news. Simone Fraser couldn’t miss an opportunity to stick her nose in and make diva-like demands. She wanted to know what was to happen practically minute by minute. Sapphire had visions of herself running around on the day with a headset and clipboard timing every event and taking her orders from Simone.

Simone wasn’t particularly friendly to Sapphire and Sapphire thought she knew why. The photographs of her and Cal did indeed make it into the tabloids and celeb mags. It was no great surprise, Cal was still such a star. For a week or so Sapphire was besieged by press outside her business and apartment building; they also bombarded her with phone calls. ‘No there’s nothing going on between us, we’re just friends,’ Sapphire exclaimed.

Even Jay found himself stopped by the press wanting to know what he thought about his girlfriend cheating on him with Cal Bailey. Sapphire was pretty pissed off by the whole thing – she’d been reluctant to refer to Jay as her boyfriend and now it was plastered all over the papers. Jay was chilled about the press intrusion and laughed it off and Sapphire tried to do the same. It was Cal she felt sorry for, knowing that he would be torturing himself with worrying if Angel believed the rumours. All in all it was a completely mad time and Sapphire was so up against it she almost forgot about her upcoming birthday. But Jazz hadn’t and was on her case.

‘Just let us know what you want and we’ll plan it for you,’ Jazz said to her, reapplying her lipgloss as Sapphire locked up for the day.

‘Can’t we just go out for dinner? I’m really not bothered.’

Jazz looked shocked, she absolutely loved her own birthdays and spent weeks planning them. Sapphire used to love them herself; her dad had always made such a big deal, arranging fantastic parties for her and all her friends, buying her wonderful presents. After he died she had never felt the same way about them.

And in any case Sapphire had other things on her mind. She was stressing because there was one part of Georgia’s hen weekend that she hadn’t sewn up – the trip to the male strip club – which meant she would have to see Alfie. It was something she had kept putting off, but she had finally made the appointment to see him. His club had been closed for a complete refit and the truth was Sapphire had missed it as a venue. It was the best club in Brighton for her hen parties and the only club to offer a private cabaret room where they could hold a male strip show. She had to face facts: she was going to have to see Alfie pretty much on a weekly basis.

‘Anyway, you look hot to trot – are you meeting Jay?’ Jazz asked as the two girls strolled through the Lanes.

‘Nope, I’m meeting Alfie. This is my kick-ass, I don’t give a shit what you think of me outfit.’

Jazz whistled, ‘It’s well sexy. You look fierce. Are you sure you’re not going to send out the signal that you’re still interested?’

Sapphire paused and considered herself in one of the shop windows. She was wearing a tight black pencil skirt, black leather biker jacket, and her treasured black Louboutin pumps with the wickedly high heel. She’d gone for smoky eyes, with black eyeliner and tons of mascara, a dash of lipgloss, and she’d tied her long hair back into a slick ponytail.

Sapphire shook her head, ‘No way would he ever get that idea again. We are O.V.E.R. big time. This is just business.’

‘Okay, scary lady, do you want me to come with you?’

‘Thanks Jazz, but I’ll be fine.’

‘Well, Sam and I are going to be meeting in the Star Bar if you would like to join us later. She wants to talk to me about her latest diet.’

‘Sure, I’ll probably need a drink after seeing that skanky bastard.’ She waved goodbye to Jazz and continued on to the seafront, where Alfie’s club occupied a prime position under one of the arches of the promenade. She was just about to ring the buzzer when her phone beeped with a text message. It was from her mum, saying that she needed to speak to her urgently. Sapphire sighed in exasperation, no doubt something had stopped working in the house, the computer had gone offline again or the washing machine had gone on the blink. And it would be up to Sapphire to fix it. The joys of being an only child. She’d phone her mum later; right now she had to concentrate on her meeting with Alfie.

In spite of her best efforts to be kick-ass, Sapphire still felt nervous as she rang the buzzer and Alfie let her in. She wondered if he had been watching her on the CCTV screens in his office. It would be just like him, getting a little power kick out of it. She made her way through the club, where a team of cleaners were hard at work, clearing up after the night before. The dance floor dominated the club, surrounded by three bars and then there were a number of rooms that led off from the main area. The last time Sapphire had been in PURE it was mainly decorated in tired and trashy purple, and looked frankly in need of a restyle; Alfie had gone for stylish black and white. It looked good, not that she was in any rush to admit it to him.

She went up the flight of stairs behind one of the bars. Alfie was sitting in his office, which he had also refurbished, behind a mahogany desk, with his feet propped up on it, while he sprawled back in his chair and chatted on the phone. His whole attitude said ‘Look at me! I’m the boss.’

Sapphire looked round the room. There was a large black leather sofa – no doubt for all those times when Brooke was at home and he couldn’t take his latest conquest back; Sapphire was convinced that Alfie would still be up to his old tricks. He gestured for Sapphire to sit down. She made sure she chose the leopard-print armchair rather than the sofa – she didn’t like to imagine what Alfie got up to on it. He seemed in no hurry to finish his call. Typical, trying to assert his authority in some macho, game-playing way. He laughed and joked away while his gaze lingered on Sapphire. But she had no intention of sitting there hanging on his every word. Looking sublimely indifferent to Alfie she pulled her iPhone out of her bag and began texting Sam. That seemed to work and he quickly wound up his call.

‘Sapphire, thanks for coming in. D’you fancy a drink?’

‘A vodka and tonic would be good.’ Sapphire carried on writing her text and only when she’d pressed send did she look over at him. Two could play power games.

Alfie rang down to the bar and ordered the drinks. ‘Ryan said he’d be here in a minute. So did you get back okay after the reunion?’

‘Did you?’ she countered.

He smiled. ‘You mean did I shag Georgia? As a rule I like my women to be conscious.’