Paparazzi Princess (17 page)

‘Alisha, I have something to tell you and I hope you won’t hate me—’ I started.

‘You’re the anonymous source.’

‘Oh! How did you know?’

‘Put two and two together.’

‘I’m
so
sorry. I didn’t mean to—’

Alisha nodded. ‘Tell me everything,’ she said. Her face over the camera didn’t give anything away and I felt my palms sweat as I quickly filled her in on the whole Riko escapade.

‘Hmm,’ she said finally. ‘Bummer.’

‘I’ve been dreading you finding out in case you don’t want to be friends any more and I wouldn’t blame you.’

Alisha shrugged. ‘Hey Jess, we all make mistakes, believe me, I’ve been there. When Dad first started to be newsworthy, all sorts of people wanted to be my friends. People who’d never given me the time of day at school before. Suddenly I was Miss Popular. It’s true what the article said. You don’t know who to trust or what people’s motives are. I blabbed my mouth off to someone in the press and next day it was all over the papers. Dad was so cool about it. He just said, lesson learnt, end of story. I’ll say the same thing to you. Lesson learnt?’

‘Lesson learnt. Does the rest of your family know it was me?’

Alisha shook her head, then grinned. ‘Nah. They’re not as smart as me.’

‘I’ll never trust a journalist again,’ I said.

‘Actually, no,’ said Alisha. ‘You have to be wary but some of them are OK. They’re just people doing their job. Some are snakes, no doubt about it, and they’ll do anything to get a story then twist it to get a good headline but some of them are good writers and will do a good piece. You’ve got to distinguish between the two. I had to learn that too.’

‘Maybe, but I never want to go through that again.’

‘Poor Jess. I can imagine.’

‘So, still mates?’

‘Still mates,’ she said. ‘What happened to Riko?’

‘Sent back to school double-quick. It was meant to be a punishment but actually, she’d have been happy about it. She was missing her mates.’

‘As the article said.’

‘She doesn’t exactly know it was me who blabbed because I didn’t admit it to her but like you, she guessed. Please don’t tell anyone. No-one else knows apart from you, Pia, Aunt Maddie and Dad.’

‘Your secret’s safe with me, Jess, and I’m glad you feel you can trust me enough to tell the truth.’

‘That’s what mates do, even if it’s harsh.’

Alisha looked well chuffed. ‘Yeah. So, how’s your Christmas been?’

‘Mixed. Story of my life. I go from joy to despair and all in the space of five minutes.’

Alisha laughed. ‘Welcome to my world. My mum says it’s our hormones. Whatever, it makes us interesting. How’s the boy research?’

‘I’ve closed the page down. I’m going to leave it as one of life’s great unsolved mysteries. I’ve realised they really are an alien species. I have no idea what goes on in their heads.’

‘Me neither,’ said Alisha with a laugh. ‘Hey, just a sec. JJ’s just come in. He wants to say hi.’

JJ appeared beside her on my screen.

‘Hey there, Miss UK,’ he said and flashed his killer smile.

‘Hey yourself. How’s things?’

‘Great. We got some good skiing in. It’s been great. Quiet but chilled, you know?’

‘And is your girlfriend still with you?’

JJ shook his head. ‘She went back to the States.’

Alisha nudged him aside and her face filled the screen again. ‘Big lesson for my bro this Christmas and that is, you can’t ever go back. Got to move on, hey JJ?’

‘Butt out,’ he said and pushed her out of the way. ‘I’m talking to Jess. As I was saying, Jess, yes, I have learnt to move on, which is why I’m looking forward to coming back and picking up where
we
left off.’

Alisha nudged him out of the way again. ‘Woo-oo. Flirt alert. Is something going on here that I don’t know about?’

‘None of your business,’ said JJ.

‘Jess?’ asked Alisha.

‘I . . . nn . . .’

Alisha grinned. ‘I get it, Miss UK. Just don’t go breaking his heart.’

‘As if,’ I said. So Tom wasn’t interested, but maybe JJ was. Suddenly my future had just got a whole lot brighter.

After they’d gone, I took a hamper of food from Gran’s out for Eddie. He was curled up in a blanket, asleep in his usual doorway.

‘Happy New Year, Eddie,’ I said quietly, as I put the box down next to him so that he’d find it when he woke up ‘I wish I could do more.’

To his far left, I noticed there were a couple of paparazzi hanging about. No sign of Bridget. She hadn’t been seen in days. She’d got her story and moved on, leaving me with a dull ache when I thought of her, but a lesson well and truly learned, and that is that not everyone who befriends you is your friend.

As I made my way back to Porchester Park, I remembered that Dad had asked me to drop an envelope into an apartment on the first floor. I went back inside, collected it from his office, made my way across the reception to the lift where I pressed the button for the first floor. The lift appeared seconds later and the doors opened.

‘Just a sec,’ said a voice behind me. I turned to see the most divine apparition had pressed the hold button. I felt as if my heart had stopped, as well as the lift. This boy wasn’t handsome. He wasn’t cute. He was one hundred percent
beautiful
. Tall and blond with an amazing jawline, high cheekbones and piercing blue eyes.

‘Hi, I’m Alexei,’ he said in the sexiest of foreign accents. ‘You must be Jess.’

‘Umf,’ I said.

‘I was hoping to bump into you,’ the boy continued. ‘My father told me that Mr Hall had a daughter and a son. I’ve been away at school many years but now I am to go to classes here. I don’t know many people so I hope we can become friends. Forgive me being forward, but, how else I make friends?’

I gave him my best smile. ‘Yeah sure,’ I said, trying to sound casual. Inside, I felt like I’d had a shot of adrenaline and could do cartwheels across the hall.
Ding dong merrily on high, in heaven the bells are ringing
, I thought as I got out a scrap of paper and wrote my phone number and email address on it for him.

A new year, a new chapter, new possibilities!

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