Authors: Charlotte Phillips
It hurt. Hurt deep down in her gut. And the rejection really wasn’t the worst part of it. It was the stupidity. Her own stupid pride, letting herself believe that he was interested in her on some level beyond his usual take-it-or-leave-it. What shred of evidence did she have that she was appealing enough to change him? For Pete’s sake he’d been with women a hundred times more attractive than she was. She’d seen it over and over in the papers. Models, starlets. If he hadn’t changed his attitude for any of them he wasn’t about to break stereotype for dull as dishwater Layla Jones, who hadn’t even been lovable enough to keep her own mother ditching her in favour of some pipe dream. What hope could she possibly have had with someone like Matt if she couldn’t even hold the interest of a blood relative?
Sleep had given way to a more pressing need to give herself the talking-to of her life. And with limbs aching and eyes scratchy from tiredness, she turned up for her shift the following morning. Back to daytime hours now. No need to be here afternoon and evening to provide entertainment anymore. The thought made her catch her breath and she swallowed hard, concentrating on staying focused.
Fortunately she had the prospect of a new job to latch onto.
The manager gestured to her practically the moment she walked into the lobby. Obviously wanting to discuss the new post, he’d virtually said it was as good as hers the previous day. She followed him into his office, trying to muster some positivity when all she wanted to do was hide back in her studio flat and sleep the pain and humiliation away.
OK so she’d made a total fool of herself over Matt Stanton but it wasn’t as if her life was over. In the process she had actually kept him happy for the week, and OK it might feel cheap but he’d given the management a glowing report. She might not have bagged the rich tennis player, but let’s face facts, that was never really on the cards anyway, and at least she’d bagged the promotion. She could look forward instead of back, perhaps start cautiously looking for a new flat, somewhere of her own where she could finally put down roots.
Maybe, if she tried hard enough, that thought might actually start to make her feel better sometime soon. This decade would be good.
She waited, modest smile on her face, almost hearing the congratulatory words before he spoke them, ready to accept her consolation prize.
He gestured at the seat opposite his desk.
‘Sit down.’
He didn’t look particularly congratulatory. Then again he’d always been a bit dour. Decades of working in the hospitality industry could do that to a person, she could easily believe it. Still, she liked to think that when she gave the employees on her team good news, which she would soon be in a position to do with her new title of Guest Services Manager, she’d give it to them with a bit more of a happy attitude than this.
He clasped his hands together in front of him on the desk.
‘It’s come to my attention that you’ve been acting outside your remit this past week,’ he said.
The words were so unexpected that she gaped at him.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Your actions with a certain high-profile guest may have been a bit less than professional. And anyone who works here, particularly in Guest Services, where you’re required to work closely with guests, must be absolutely beyond reproach.’
He pressed his lips together and looked at her with an expectant don’t-make-me-spell-it-out look on his face.
She made him spell it out.
‘In what way? I’ve done everything I was asked to do. You told me yourself the guest was perfectly happy when he checked out.’ She couldn’t bring herself to say his name in case her hideous disappointment took over and buried her.
He leaned forward awkwardly, his own face reddening now.
‘You were
seen
,’ he said. ‘In some kind of clinch in a public park. The most high-profile guest we’ve had in months and you were draped over him on a park bench. Have you any idea how this makes the hotel look?’’
‘You’re wrong,’ she said, stabbing an obstinate finger at him. Denial. That was her only chance. What proof could he possibly have?
‘There’s a mobile phone picture of you with him in this morning’s paper,’ he said, grabbing a copy of one of the red-tops from the side of his desk and thrusting it at her. ‘One of the Reception staff just gave it to me.’
On the front page was a grainy, but perfectly clear to anyone who knew her, photo. Herself on Matt’s lap in the park, when he’d kissed her until she thought she might dissolve into a puddle. Faint gratitude surfaced amid the shock that they hadn’t actually gone any further than kissing, though they’d certainly been on the brink of it. His words fell on her like stones.
‘The gossip among the staff is at fever pitch. Are you really going to tell me nothing went on between you?’ he snapped. ‘Clearly you’re having some kind of relationship with him.’
She knew when she was bang to rights.
‘I’m not going to tell you nothing went on,’ she said. ‘I’m just saying it couldn’t have been less like a relationship. And you definitely should be using
past
tense
when you talk about it.’
****
For Matt walking away had seemed the smart move and it hadn’t even been that hard. He was so used to moving on that initially it had been nothing short of automatic.
Then reality had kicked in and with it a sense of loss that made his stomach churn and his mind and body ache.
Even then he’d thought this dwelling on her would be short-lived. But now it had been nearly a month and she was still invading his every waking moment with her sweet smile and her funny, sparky attitude.
His tennis was at its best. The Davis Cup was coming up soon and he’d thrown all his energies into preparing for it, believing that was all he needed to move on. A distraction. Especially needed now because distractions of the other kind seemed to have quit working for him. Oh he’d been out a couple of times when he got back to the States, believing he could slip effortlessly into his old exciting lifestyle. His week with Layla Jones would be quickly forgotten.
Instead the opposite seemed to be happening. Partying held no appeal. Girls threw themselves at him the same way they always had but now his mind seemed to constantly compare them to Layla, and the constant adulation and fawning made him impatient and irritable. His interest in getting laid had dwindled to nothing. At this rate he’d have to start living in a cave, emerging only for matches.
He’d thought all he’d need to do was give it time and everything would be back to normal.
Just how much bloody time was it going to take?
****
‘Just to say I got your message about the job and the change of address. And you needn’t worry about me, darling.’
‘I wasn’t.’
Layla put the phone down briefly on the sticky carpet while she sellotaped shut the last box.
No boyfriend. No mother. No job.
And now nowhere to live. Without regular income and no savings to fall back on, there was no way she could keep up with the rent on her studio, however grotty it might be. The only thing left to do was pack. When she picked the phone back up her mother was still talking.
‘…going to be staying on in the States for now. The band have added a few extra dates to the end of the tour and I’m sharing a truck with one of the roadies.’
Layla’s stomach gave a churn at the thought. So the celebrity rock and roll dream was still alive and well for her mother then. Still, one faint glimmer of positivity in the gloom – by the time her mother resurfaced Matt Stanton would be a distant memory and she’d never need to know about her daughter’s disastrous fling with fame.
‘Great,’ she said.
‘Well you could sound a bit more enthusiastic,’ her mother said. ‘I don’t know why you’re so depressed over this job. No social life, awful pay. You shouldn’t be seeing this as a knockback, you should be seeing this as an
opportunity.’
Layla failed to stop a cynical laugh.
‘If you hadn’t disappeared with my savings I wouldn’t be needing an
opportunity
. I’d have enough money to tide me over.’
Her mother made a dismissive chuffing sound because of course, she was never wrong.
‘You’d be back in the mind-numbing workplace before you knew it. Trust me, Layla, this could be a good thing. It forces you to step outside the box for once. You’ve got no ties, you’re free to go your own way. Why not wing it for a while and see where life takes you?’
For some reason the thought didn’t fill her with horror anymore in the way it always had. Focused on making her own security in life, saving up for her own place, she’d kept her eye on the prize so closely that she hadn’t noticed the journey to get there was anything but fun. The hotel job had been hard graft, hideous hours for little thanks and low pay.
Her mother clearly took her silence as encouragement and swept on.
‘Sometimes the best things in life are things you do on impulse. If you question the hell out of every decision you make, it stands to reason that you’ll talk yourself out of trying new things.’
A long held dream slipped unexpectedly into Layla’s mind, forged during a school trip to France what felt like a lifetime ago. She’d loved it, had told herself she’d come back one day when she was older, maybe take in some more of Europe along the way. A dream that had been lost in the ensuing years when her life had become more and more unstable and she’d directed everything she had at steadying it. There’d been no place in her mad quest for stability for things like travel or adventure. Maybe, though it stuck in her craw to say it, her mother might actually have a point for once.
‘You could fly out and join me. Check out the band. What do you think?’
Maybe not
that
kind of adventure.
****
Lucy had offered her a sofa until she got back on her feet but the way things looked that wasn’t likely to be anytime soon. From management material to sofa surfer all because of one crazy week. That was what you got from being seduced by a celebrity, and she only had herself to blame because of all people, she should have known better.
There’d been a hideous few days after she’d got the sack where paparazzi had hovered around the front door hoping for a picture or a quote for them to spin out yet another story about Matt Stanton. She’d had handwritten notes from journalists shoved under the door offering to let her tell her side of the story. She’d kept expecting her mother to turn up at any moment, rucksack in hand, ready to take control and bask in the attention. That she hadn’t was the one aspect of the whole sorry mess that had gone Layla’s way. And in time, without a new angle, the journalists had given up and left her alone. On to the next disposable story.
Her phone rang as she stacked her stuff in the corner of Lucy’s sitting room. Six boxes and a couple of bin liners, that was what her life amounted to. She checked the screen.
‘Lucy,’ she said, picking up. Obviously checking she was settling in.
‘Where are you? At the flat? Turn on the TV. News Channel.’
The television was only feet away from her new home. She sat on Lucy’s sofa and flicked it on.
‘Why?’
Speech trailed away. She saw why. And a new lurch of despair churned its way into her stomach, just when she thought she got it under some kind of control.
‘Oh cheers for this,’ she snapped, finding her voice. ‘The guy has single handedly cost me my job and my home. Why the hell would I want to watch him earn millions on the sodding tennis court?’
His face filled the screen and the broken remains of her heart apparently still had a bit of flip left in them. He looked as gorgeous as ever, hair tousled and damp with sweat from whatever match he’d clearly just won, judging by the euphoric squeals of the crowd behind him. So he’d got his form back then. Well lucky, lucky him. Her life was in tatters and his was right back on track.
A microphone was thrust at his face, the TV interviewer fawning her congratulations over him. He only looked at her. There was none of the usual playing to the cameras. She’d seen him interviewed countless times in her former life as mere tennis fan and he wasn’t above kissing interviewers on the cheek or climbing over crowds to the player’s box to celebrate a win with his team. Lobbing shirts into the crowd was par for the course. But this time there was no cheeky smile on his face, and no flirt in the brown eyes.
He thanked people for their support in the deep American drawl that she constantly tried to block from her mind. Now he was graciously praising his opponent. And then his face blurred and she blinked furiously and reached for the off button.
Thanks, Lucy. Trying to expunge him from my mind and you present me with that.
‘And I’d like to dedicate this win to someone very special to me…’
His face disappeared into blackness as she failed to stop her finger hitting the switch.
‘Fuck!’
A single dazed moment as she realised what she’d done and then she attacked the remote control. And from there ensued an enormous scramble as she turned the thing back on and waited for it to bloody well warm up only to find that the sports bulletin had moved on to sodding golf. And from there five crazy endless minutes while her heart pounded and her mind spun and she waited for her laptop to boot up so she could find the piece online, and during which she convinced herself that the someone very special to him would be his sister, or an aunt or…and finally, there it was.
‘…Layla Jones. This is for you. I’ll see you soon.’
‘You saw my interview, after the win in Paris?’
He perched on the edge of the two-seater sofa in Lucy’s flat, mug of coffee in hand, having had his telephone offer to fly her out to Paris rejected. Even now she continued to surprise him. This was the first time he’d seen her wearing anything other than her staid hotel uniform, and in her pink T-shirt and boyfriend jeans with her hair in loose waves instead of the sleek professional style she favoured at work, there was an unspoilt quality about her that made his stomach heat up.
Shame about the icy expression on her face. Clearly if he’d thought declaring she was special to the world at large would be enough to make up for his, admittedly crass, quick exit a month or so earlier, he’d seriously underestimated her resolve.
No sign of any support from him when her life had imploded and she’d had to turn her phone off to stop the endless stream of journalist calls, but now he wanted to see her again! She’d had no intention of lifting a finger to go to him. She’d had enough of having her hopes lifted only to be dashed the moment she took her eye off the ball. If he wanted to make amends that badly, he could damn well come to her.
Not that it wouldn’t have been nice to join him at the touted five star luxury hotel. But principles were principles.
‘I saw it,’ she said dismissively, as if she hadn’t rewound it fifty times and downloaded it to her phone. ‘And if you think that’s enough to make up for your behaviour, you are so wrong.’
Her stomach still melted at the sight of him. Broad, tanned, tall, same tousle to his hair, same brown eyes. He wasn’t smiling, which was a good thing. If he’d swanned back in here as if he’d done nothing wrong she might have been tempted to lob her coffee cup at his head.
He ran a hand through his hair and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Course you are. It’s just taken you nigh on a month to get round to saying it.’ She looked down at her mug, anything to avoid looking at the tortured expression on his face. It was so much easier to keep channelling the upper hand by picturing him smugly checking out of the hotel without saying goodbye. ‘I lost my job, Matt. I’ve been
evicted
. Do you know what that means? Can’t imagine you do since you probably own a house on every continent.’
The widening of his eyes told her he had no idea how things had gone for her after he’d left. She was at her lowest point, jobless and sofa surfing at her friend’s house, and he’d clearly jetted out of the country without a second thought to what might happen to her.
‘Oh yes,’ she said, relishing his horrified expression. ‘Just when I’d got my head round the revelation that what happened between us really
was
just a seedy fling, despite all the things you said to me, I’m dragged through the press, I lose my job and on the back of that I lose the flat.’
‘It wasn’t seedy. Please don’t say that.’
‘Are you sure about that? Because it didn’t warrant any kind of explanation before you just took off, did it? What happened to things being different with me? It was all just sweet talk after all, to get what you wanted from me for the week.’
His face twisted as he shook his head.
‘That’s not true.’
She threw an exasperated hand up.
‘Did you or did you not leave without saying goodbye?’
He cast his eyes downwards.
‘It seemed the best thing.’
She gave a bitter laugh which he totally ignored.
‘I want us to be together,’ he said. ‘You and me. What do you say?’
Her heart gave a skippy jolt but she kept a hold on it. She’d been hurt too badly to just wave a hand and let things slide.
‘It can never work,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve got plans,’ she evaded.
‘You’re living on your mate’s sofa with no job,’ he pointed out.
‘This is just a stop-gap,’ she said, ignoring the plummet in her stomach that happened every time she thought of her current situation. ‘I’ve decided to go travelling, just throw caution to the wind. I’ve got a little bit of money stashed from my last pay cheque – not much, but enough to give me a start, and then I figure I might try and work my way around Europe.’ At least about that she was sure.
After the phone call with her mother, she’d seized the idea and run with it. ‘I’ve spent years working hard and trying to have a normal life and it’s got me nowhere.’
Winging it and living for the moment now seemed to have an appeal that it never had before. Within reason of course. She wouldn’t be jumping into bed with anyone else at a moments’ notice.
‘Sounds good,’ he said. ‘Want company?’
Did he know how ludicrous that sounded?
‘When I said I was going travelling, I didn’t mean the insane kind of hero-worship travelling that my mother does,’ she said. ‘I’m not about to traipse around the world following you, if that’s what you think, even if your career allowed for a fat sabbatical to go backpacking. You’d be mobbed everywhere you went.’
He closed his eyes briefly. Her determination to shoot down his every suggestion in flames was infuriating.
‘I’m not an idiot. I know my tennis stands in the way of a lot of normal stuff. I know there will need to be compromises, but at least I’m trying to find some middle ground here.’
She was watching him, a vaguely sceptical expression on her face, but at least she’d stopped firing negatives at him.
‘Travel with me,’ he said. ‘I want to be with you, Layla. Properly. Not just the occasional get-together when either of us has time or happens to be in the same place.’
The blue eyes widened.
‘What about your celebrity love-in? You chose that over me once before. What’s changed? What’s so different now that I should believe you’re not just going to get bored with me after five minutes?’ She shook her head at him. ‘Leaving me like that after what we had, what I
thought
we had…it had an air of inevitability about it, Matt. I don’t even really blame you. Why would I? It’s happened before. I might be an OK distraction for a while but when you put me up against fame and excitement I can’t possibly compete. My father managed five years, drifting in and out of my life in between gigs, before he decided it wasn’t worth the effort. My mother turns up every few months, and every time I fool myself into thinking she might stay put this time, start living a normal functioning life instead of some insane nomadic festival-obsessed existence. I’ve got it wrong every single time so far. I think it has novelty value for a few weeks, maybe a couple of months, the idea of actually being a mother, but after that she starts to get itchy feet and then before I know it she’s off again.’
The defeated expression in her eyes made his heart twist in his chest.
‘Why would I expect anything different from you? After all, for you the fame and the celebrity is real. All my parents ever did was ride on its coat tails.’
He grabbed her hand, frustration rising that he couldn’t make her understand.
‘You still don’t get it do you?’ he said urgently. ‘The playboy image, the womanising. All of that is
what people see in me
. I don’t let anyone know me beyond it because I know what would happen.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Behind all of it I don’t measure up. I never have, not for anyone, not in any way that matters. I was scared that if you saw me for long enough for the gilt to rub off you’d lose interest. That’s why I left, I thought I was doing you a favour, sparing us both a load of grief. The fame, the public persona, it’s the only way I know to make myself count. But then when I walked away it just wasn’t that simple. I just couldn’t move on. I didn’t want to move on, not without you.’
He held her blue gaze in his, knowing he needed to prove he was sincere.
‘I told you a bit about my background before. You know I was adopted. I’ve always felt like a spare wheel in my family, however much they might love me. There’s always been this feeling that someone gave me up. Someone rejected me once, for whatever reason. I look back at my behaviour and I’ve spent so much time over the years trying to make myself count, latching on to anything that made me feel worthwhile. The fans were all a part of that.’
‘The truth is, I’ve lived this way for so long that without all the in-your-face public persona I’m not sure anymore who the hell I really am. And I was afraid that if I stripped away all of those things the person left wouldn’t be worth an awful lot. And that…well, that wouldn’t be good enough for you. You deserve so much more.’
Layla felt her resolve loosen as she took in the anguish in his eyes. It was just so hard to believe that someone with his success could feel anything but super-adequate in every corner of their life.
‘But you’re assuming that the reason you were put up for adoption had something to do with
you
,’ she said. ‘How could it be when you were just a baby? It was about circumstance. Haven’t you ever tried to trace your real parents, look into it?’
Maybe that might have brought him some peace of mind.
He gave her a rueful smile.
‘No. But a couple of years ago my birth mother found me.’
She stared at him in surprise, forgetting she was meant to be channelling cool and aloof.
‘She did?’
‘Only when I’d become famous. She never bothered before. I was only worth finding once I’d made it big.’ He shook his head. ‘As soon as I realised she’d only reappeared because she thought there might be a quick buck involved I cut all contact. I’ve never followed it up again since.’
There was bitterness and regret in his voice, and her heart went out to him for the terrible disappointment that must have been. She could see now that he was at his heart insecure, that his playboy behaviour had come not from any selfish drive but from his own feelings of inadequacy, and tears came pricklingly to her eyes because one thing she knew about was not feeling good enough or loveable enough.
‘So what exactly are you suggesting?’ she said doubtfully, and just the fact she showed some interest in any suggestion he might make felt like a victory. Hope kicked in, making his heart rate gather pace.
‘If we keep seeing each other, where does your persona fit in to that? Are you planning on passing me off as a platonic friend? How exactly is that all going to work? Because you know the worst thing of all about this whole…’ she paused briefly ‘…
affair
was that I can understand my mother’s behaviour better now than I ever have. I can totally see how she could be sucked in by it year on year, going back to normality for a month or two before she gets itchy feet and necks off to some music festival or gig or other.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Because I feel like that about you. Part of me thinks I could put up with anything as long as I can keep you. I want to kid myself that I can do that, that I’ll happily take whatever crumbs of your life are leftover once the matches and the partying and the socialising are over with. Because I want the lovely feeling to stay on that I have when I’m with you.’
His heart tried to soar at her words and yet the defeat on her face held him in check.
‘I think I preferred it when I could take the moral high ground. When I didn’t have that understanding and I could criticise her quite happily from my own safe standpoint of normality, with my career aspirations and my folders of interior decorating ideas and my mailing lists of houses. Suddenly that feels like the most mundane, most miserable existence in the universe. But I won’t swop it for some half-life just because it means you’ll be thrown in.’
He was on his knees at her feet, her small hands clasped in his, her blue eyes meeting his.
‘Not some half-life. No partying, no crazy socialising, no groupies. I want to be with you. Properly. Not as some groupie or hanger-on. You travel with me, share my life, come to every game if you like. I’ll reinvent myself as clean-living, no more posing in magazines or courting paparazzi.’
She looked into the melting brown eyes. He was ready to do all he could to be with her. And of course there was still risk involved, but still, how could she possibly come off worse than she already had? She’d already lost her job, her home and her heart. Stepping out of her comfort zone had never looked so attractive. What really did she have to lose?
Her mother’s voice suddenly popped into her head.
Sometimes the best things in life are things you do on impulse.
‘OK,’ she said and then before she could elaborate she was in his arms, laughing with him, his hands everywhere, his mouth finding hers, desire bubbling through her and taking her breath away.
And it turned out sofas were good for something after all.
THE END
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