‘Well –’ I shrugged – ‘you’re Ethan Duke.’
‘You’d be surprised how few people in this industry really hear what you’re trying to say.’
He abruptly straightened up as he saw someone come into the room, not even noticing that in doing so, he’d knocked over his drink onto the table, narrowly missing splashing the Queen of Spain’s gown. I followed his eyeline and then everything made sense. His uninterested texts, his ‘playing-it-cool’ attitude, even that night at the fashion show and the car ride home.
‘Does he know?’ I asked, placing a hand on Ethan’s arm.
‘What?’ he asked, flustered.
‘Jacob. Does he know you like him?’
Ethan sighed and shook his head. ‘No. I’ve never told him.’
We both looked over at Jacob who’d sauntered into the room with a familiar-looking model on his arm. I remembered he had been standing next to Jacob when we’d gone backstage afterwards.
‘That guy was on Lewis Blume’s catwalk too,’ Ethan explained. ‘When we went backstage, Jacob told me he was going to ask him to be his date for the Christmas Ball and I had to get out of there right away – by a stroke of luck, so did you. I felt like such an idiot. But you were so nice in the car . . . and I thought it might be fun to come here with a friend, rather than as a third wheel with Jacob and his date.’ He looked over at the two of them chatting to Lewis Blume. ‘Have you seen that guy? How can I compete?’
‘Have you seenyou?’ I retorted. ‘You were sculpted by the gods.’
He smiled weakly.
‘You should tell him,’ I insisted. ‘Maybe not tonight, but some time. How do you know that he doesn’t feel the same way about you?’
‘He would have said before now.’
‘He might be thinking the same about you!’ I pointed out.
Jacob saw us and waved across the crowd.
‘Go say hey.’ I nudged him.
‘Yeah, I will.’ He smiled at me. ‘I’m really glad you agreed to be my date.’
‘Me too. We’ll talk about the vlog later. I’m thinking I could talk about Colin Whittle.’
‘Who’s Colin Whittle?’
‘Oh, he’s averyimportant figure in the hotel’s history. You wanted to know about that sort of thing, right? There was this ghost and stuff . . . Trust me, it will blow your viewers’ minds.’
He leaned over, gave me a kiss on the cheek and made his way through the crowd. As I watched him leave, I was surprised at how . . . OK I felt. I should have been angry, or upset, or disappointed or something. But I felt fine. I think I had secretly known that Ethan wasn’t interested all along and at some point I suppose I lost interest too. I did feel a tiny bit mournful about that chiselled jaw, though.
I felt a hand on my elbow and found Grace beaming at me.
‘You’re here!’ I squealed, giving her a hug and then stepping back to admire her pretty pink dress and the delicate rose clips carefully pinned over her hair.
‘Is it lame to have brought my brother as my plus one?’ she asked, stepping aside to point at Olly coming towards us holding three drinks.
‘Hey,’ he said, passing one to each of us. ‘Wow, Flick, you look beautiful.’
I was so stunned by (a) seeing him there (b) the fact that he’d just called me beautiful and (c) how good he looked in a tuxedo, that I genuinely couldn’t scramble my brain together quick enough to reply.
‘You . . . uh . . .’ I spluttered.
Grace must have noticed I was just staring at her brother, opening and closing my mouth like a fish, as she interjected, ‘Mum said he looked like a young James Bond. I think he looks like one of those rubbish magicians at a kid’s party.’
‘Thanks, sis. Always there to bring up my street cred.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Where did your date get to, Flick?’
‘Oh,’ I began, finding my ability to speak, ‘he’s gone to say hey to someone. We’re just friends anyway. Are you both having fun?’
