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Nick unfurled his body from the armchair and walked towards her, arms outstretched, but Lizzie jumped to her feet and moved away. How could she talk about the sordid things she’d obviously done with one man, while being comforted by another? Even more so, when that man was Nick.
A mixture of hurt and frustration flashed across his face as his rejected arms fell uselessly to his side. ‘I know this is hard for you, but I need to know what happened,’ he told her stiffly as he sat back down in the armchair. ‘If I don’t, I can’t help.’ His eyes pleaded with her. ‘I want to help.’
She understood, but God, on a scale of 1 to 10 of the most cringe-making things a woman could discuss with the man she had a crush on, this must rate somewhere near 100. Perching on the side of a small table, her legs like blancmange, she cleared her throat and tried again. ‘I can’t remember the friend’s name. Matthew, maybe? All I know is it wasn’t long after he joined us that I started to feel funny. Like I was drunk, though I’d only had two glasses of wine. My head felt as if it was spinning off my shoulders so I told Charles and he checked me into a room at the hotel, telling me I needed to lie down.’ Her hands were trembling so she clasped them in her lap. ‘That’s it. The rest is a blank until I woke up in the hotel room the following morning. There was a note on the bedside table from Charles saying he hoped I felt better and that he’d come round later that evening to check up on me.’
‘You don’t remember anything of what happened during the night? No flashbacks, no blurred images?’
‘No. When I woke I was naked and I knew I must have had sex. The smell . . .’ She shut her eyes, still smelling it now. ‘I remember wondering what sort of man Charles was that he’d made love to a woman so clearly out of it.’ Her voice grew smaller and smaller. ‘I didn’t have to wait long to find out. He came round that evening and handed me an envelope full of photographs.’ Finally she raised her eyes to Nick. ‘You said you’d seen them?’
He nodded. ‘And before you ask, yes the video clips as well.’
Swallowing hard, Lizzie blinked. There were thousands, maybe millions of people watching her have sex at this very moment. With not one, but two men. And Nick had seen it, too — Nick, who hadn’t even found sex with her appealing enough when she’d been a virgin. Right now he must be thinking she was only one step up from a whore.
‘Charles threatened to take the pictures to the press if I didn’t pay up.’ She rushed the words now, desperate to get to the end of the sordid tale. ‘I could have found the money, but I remember thinking bugger him. He’d already degraded me. He wasn’t going to make money out of me, too. I had no thought for the consequences. I just didn’t want to let him win.’
‘So you didn’t pay up and Mr Genuine followed through with his threat.’
She flinched. ‘I didn’t need the reminder of how gullible I was.’
He leaned forward and ran a hand across his face, instantly contrite. ‘No, you didn’t. Sorry.’
‘I wasn’t aware of what he’d done until I read the newspaper the next morning.’ For the rest of her life she’d remember the horror and disgust, the disbelief when she’d turned to that page. ‘The phones started ringing then and they just wouldn’t stop.’ Shaking away the memory, she remembered what had puzzled her earlier. ‘How did you get past the security downstairs? I explicitly told them not to let anybody upstairs without buzzing me first.’
‘The guard did buzz up, but you didn’t answer. I told him I was your lawyer, and that if he didn’t let me up, I’d have him done for kidnapping.’ His mouth curved at the memory. ‘It was the best I could come up with at the time.’
‘Are the press still out there?’
‘Oh yes, in force.’ He gave her a direct look. ‘I don’t think I realised quite how famous you are.’
‘After this fiasco I’ll be a damned sight more so, and for all the wrong reasons.’ Tears threatened again. Angrily she rubbed them away. ‘God, what a mess.’
‘Lizzie, have you contacted the police?’
Vigorously she shook her head. ‘No. What good would it do? I haven’t got any evidence to prove I didn’t wilfully go to bed with the pair of them. Charles was my boyfriend, for heaven’s sake. I can hardly cry rape. Not when the pictures show how much I’m apparently enjoying myself.’
‘You were drugged,’ Nick stated quietly.
‘Yes, I think I was. Either that or I’d had a lot more to drink than I thought.’ She let out a frustrated sigh. ‘I’ve got no proof of that, though. It’s been too long after the event. There won’t be anything in my bloodstream any more.’
* * *
Nick had done his best to sit quietly while Lizzie had been speaking. She would never know what it had cost him to remain outwardly calm, while inside he’d swung between wanting to shake her and wanting to find Charles and shove a fist into his smirking face. Then haul him up by his fancy lapels and punch him again. Why had she lowered herself so much to go out with that snake in the first place? Didn’t she realise how special she was? Far too special to be sleeping with a glorified bodybuilder.
He tried to rein in his anger, but some of it seeped out as he spoke. ‘Why didn’t you go to the police straight away? As soon as the bastard turned up with pictures?’
She recoiled sharply. ‘Oh sure, that was my first reaction. Charles, thanks so much for showing me those photos. Do you mind if I call the police while you wait here? Oh and do help yourself to a drink.’ She let out a humourless laugh. ‘I wasn’t thinking, damn it. I was too stunned, too shocked. And, oh God . . .’ Tears once again flowed freely down her cheeks. ‘I was ashamed. There were pictures of me naked, having sex with two men. I couldn’t bear the thought of talking to a starchy police officer about it. Heck, to anyone about it. Plus I never for one moment thought Charles would do as he’d threatened.’ She grabbed the last tissue from the box. ‘I thought I meant something to him. Even when I realised he only wanted me for a meal ticket, I stupidly believed what we’d shared would be enough to stop him from humiliating me. Guess I was wrong.’
Nick’s gut twisted as he stared at her puffy blue eyes, the blonde hair that hung limply around her shoulders. It was humiliating to realise he was as much in love with her today as he had been all those years ago, yet in her eyes they were so estranged she hadn’t even bothered to call him when all this had kicked off. He’d had to barge over uninvited, uncertain of his reception. He couldn’t even haul her into his arms because she was sitting on that blasted table, as far away from him as she could possibly be, her body language screaming leave me alone. He was left sitting on the armchair, looking at her helplessly. ‘We’ll work all this out, Lizzie.’
‘I don’t see how. I’ve been such a bloody fool.’ Agitated, she pushed off the table and began to pace.
‘If you’re guilty of anything, it’s being too trusting.’ He clasped his hands together to stop from reaching out to her. ‘What about your contact at the agency? Don’t you have a manager or agent or whatever the term is? Someone who can handle the press for you?’
‘Yes, yes I do.’ She laughed sadly. ‘I didn’t even think of calling her. Too terrified of her reaction, I guess.’
He scowled at her. ‘This isn’t your fault.’
‘No. Deep down, I know it’s more to do with one man’s greed than my naivety, but . . .’ She buried her head in her hands. ‘God, I’ve just signed a contract to be the face of a new perfume. Innocence.’ She began to laugh uncontrollably.
