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“What girl?” I snap.
“I don't know, just guessing.” She touches my cheek with her small hand and I jerk my head away. “Let me stay and look after you.” She smiles encouragingly. Okay, this isn’t concern for my welfare but for hers.
The room spins with jet lag and my bed calls. I can't deal with Mia’s blackmail right now; fuck knows what I might agree to. I'll tackle this later.
“You know what, Mia? Stay. I'll talk to you tomorrow about what to do, but you and that thing can't stay here for long.”
Rat dog now sits on the chair opposite, staring at me as if I'm the one with no right to be here.
Why didn't I take my key off Mia last time she left?
* * *
“And you sayI'm too nice!” Liam throws a magazine at me across the large dining table.
“What? What did I do?”
In an attempt to focus on something else, the following weekend I accept Liam's offer of Sunday lunch, a bizarre ritual I'd never thought possible. Liam and Cerys with his soon-to-be stepdaughter, Ella. Happy families.
“I'm surprised Cerys reads these kinds of magazines,” I remark, leafing through the glossy pages of beauty product ads, and pictures of the stars who lie about using them. “Why are you showing me this?”
“They're Emily's.” Emily, Ella's nanny, isn't around and neither is Ella. “Keep looking.”
Toward the back is a spread of the week's celebrity news: who's doing what—or who—as evidenced by the latest paparazzi pictures. In one shot, Mia is leaving my house, dark sunglasses, head bowed with rat dog in the pink designer bag she carries the bloody thing around in.
The accompanying text reads:'Bryn Hughes on again, off again affair with heiress Mia Jordan looks like it's on again!'
Next to that picture is a shot of me and her. I trawl my memories of the last couple of weeks and can't remember going anywhere with Mia in public. Holding the magazine closer, I study the shot.
“That picture’s from last year!”
“So she isn't living with you?” asks Liam.
“No, I mean, yes. The second picture. That's from last year and it's cropped. You guys were with me that day!”
Liam ignores me. “Mia Jordan is living with you?Again? Why?”
“Kind of. Not 'with me', she's staying in one of the spare bedrooms while she sorts her shit out.”
“Hmm. Good luck with that. Don't you remember how long before she left last time?” says Liam.
Unfortunately, yes.
I drag hair from my face. “Okay, I'm a soft touch. Mia cries every time I suggest she leaves.”
“Ah, Bryn, man...” Liam shakes his head. “Can't you see what she's doing?”
“What?”
He taps the page. “Look at the picture. She's pretending to hide herself from the press.”
“But Mia doesn't need to hide; nothing's going on between us.”
“Exactly! But she's making it look like there's something to hide. She wants the world to think you're together.”
I groan. “Oh, fuck.”
Liam laughs. “Yeah, oh, fuck.”
