Meanwhile, Taye presented her with a ten-carat diamond ring, assured her his indiscretion would never happen again, paid for the boob job she demanded, and normal life resumed.
Only it wasn’t that normal. Ashley forgave, but the problem was, she had no intention of ever forgetting.
As the twins grew, Ashley began to think about her future, and what she could do to become more than just another footballer’s wife. She’d started by informing Taye that any ads or endorsements he did in the future should include her. He’d agreed. Having rocked the boat once, he damn sure wouldn’t be doing it again. Ashley meant everything to him, and he wasn’t about to risk losing her.
So, adwise, they gradually became a team. The Taye and Ashley Show. He with the shaved head, muscled body and killer smile. She with the baby-blue eyes, lush body, amazing boobs and tumbling blond curls. They got together with the best photographers and soon created a partnership brand.
Ashley worked hard on her body, toning and tanning, losing any excess fat and gaining muscle – until she looked almost as fit as Taye, only in a womanly way.
She adored her new breasts, they gave her so much more confidence, and Taye loved them too.
Would he ever cheat again?
He’d better not, because if there was a next time, she’d leave him, take the twins and make his life pure hell.
* * *
Eighteen months previously, Ashley had decided that appearing in ads with Taye was no longer enough for her – it was time she had her own career. The twins were getting older and she’d been thinking about doing something that was all hers. Since she’d always fancied herself as an interior designer, she’d approached Jeromy Milton-Gold, the designer who’d worked on their house and asked him if she could be part of his team. Jeromy, the older boyfriend of Latin singing star, Luca Perez, was always looking for ways to up his profile, and he’d told her that it was a fabulous idea. If Taye was prepared to invest in his business, he said, they could definitely work something out.
Ashley went to Taye and asked him to put up some money.
To keep Ashley happy, he’d obliged, in spite of his business manager telling him he was nuts.
Ashley was delighted that Jeromy wanted her to work alongside him.
Before long there was a new hot show in town. The Ashley and Jeromy Show, interior designers to the stars. Both with famous partners. Both with endless ambition.
It had started out as a winning combination. Lately, things were not so good.
* * *
‘I’ve got somethin’ to show you,’ Taye said, waving a large cream envelope in the air.
‘What?’ Ashley asked, moving away from the mirror and drifting into the bedroom.
‘Wouldn’t you like t’know,’ Taye said, following her.
Taye enjoyed teasing his wife – it gave him a feeling of power. And he was holding power in his hand, for in the envelope with the embossed gold border and exquisite calligraphy was an invitation that, if he knew his wife, would positively make her come!
‘Don’t mess about,’ Ashley said, still slightly irritated.
‘Give us a kiss, then,’ Taye said, putting his arms around her from behind.
‘Not now,’ she said, wriggling out of his grasp.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Taye complained. ‘The kids are at me mum’s. Nobody’s around. It’s the perfect time.’
‘No, it’s not,’ Ashley argued. ‘We’re about to go out to dinner, and I don’t want to ruin my makeup or my hair.’
‘I’ll make it a quickie,’ Taye promised.
‘Don’t be disgusting,’ Ashley responded. ‘If we’re going to do it, then we should do it in our bed like normal people.’
Taye shook his head. Sometimes Ashley acted like a total prude. Normal people! What was that all about? Made her sound like her racist mother whom he barely tolerated.
‘I suppose a blow-job’s out the question then?’ he ventured, edging closer.
Ashley’s look of disapproval informed him that indeed it was.
Whatever had happened to the girl he’d married? Free and easy, up for all kinds of sexual adventures. They’d had sex here, there and everywhere. Now he had to practically plead to get any sex at all. It wasn’t right. He still loved her, though. She was his wife and nothing would ever change that.
‘Later?’ he asked hopefully.
‘We’ll see,’ she said. ‘Now go get changed – and hurry up. We’re meeting Jeromy. He’s off to Miami tomorrow and we can’t be late. You know how punctual he always is.’
‘Jeromy’s such a borin’ wanker. Do we have to go?’
‘Yes, Taye. In case you’ve forgotten, I work with him, so stop moaning and go and get ready.’
‘Okay, okay.’
Since she appeared to have forgotten about the envelope, Taye decided not to show it to her until they came home. He knew it would put her in an excellent mood – that, and a couple glasses of wine, and he’d have no trouble getting a piece of what was rightfully his.
Yes, Taye knew how to handle his wife.
Carefully.
That was the secret.
Chapter Three
Dateline: Paris
There was never enough time in the day for Flynn Hudson to achieve all the things he wished to accomplish. As a respected, somewhat maverick, freelance journalist and writer, he was always on the move, travelling wherever the latest disaster took him. Over the last year alone he’d been in Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Japan and Afghanistan. He’d covered tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, wars.
Flynn was always front and centre of the action, reporting on events, government corruption, human rights. He was an activist who answered to no one except himself, with a website that had almost a million followers, for when Flynn wrote one of his essays, his faithful readers knew they were getting the real deal, not the fake bullshit that most news stations fed the gullible public.
Yet Flynn preferred to keep a low profile. He turned down TV interview requests and avoided being photographed, while home was a small apartment in Paris, where he lived alone.
He did have girlfriends. Several. Although none of them had ever gotten close.
Flynn Hudson was a loner. That was the way he liked it.
Born in England thirty-six years ago to an American mother and British father, he’d been educated across the world as his father was a diplomat. They’d travelled extensively, until at the age of twelve his parents were killed by a terrorist car bomb in Beirut. Miraculously he’d survived the tragedy, and he had the scars to prove it.
After the death of his parents he’d led a double life – spending half his time with his American grandparents in California, and the other half with his British kin who resided in the English countryside. He didn’t mind flying back and forth; it was an adventure.
After attending a university in the UK for a year, he’d switched to UCLA in L.A., before dropping out when he was twenty-one and setting out to roam the world.
He backpacked across Asia, mountain-climbed in Nepal, learned martial arts in China, joined the crew of a fishing vessel in Marseilles, worked as a bodyguard for a Columbian billionaire who turned out to be a drug lord, until finally at the age of twenty-five, he’d sat himself down and written a successful book about his travels.
Flynn could have been a media star, he was certainly handsome enough. Six feet two, strong and athletic, with longish dark hair, intense ice-blue eyes and a permanent stubble on his sharp jawline.
Women loved Flynn. And he loved them back, as long as they expected nothing permanent.
Once upon a time he’d made a lifetime commitment. It hadn’t turned out the way he’d expected. No more commitments for Flynn. He was done.
As an alpha male he respected women, enjoyed their company on a short-term basis, and never tried to control them. He wanted what was best for them, especially women in third-world countries who had to fight every day for their very survival. He helped out when he could, writin
g about the places he went to, exposing corruption, using whatever resources he could get his hands on to assist the not-so fortunate.
Money had one meaning to Flynn, and that was helping others.
* * *
The girl crawled on top of Flynn like a particularly energetic spider-monkey, all long gangly legs and arms, small breasts, cropped hair and enormous khol-outlined eyes. He thought her name was Marta, he wasn’t sure. Sometimes he felt he wasn’t sure of anything any more, not after some of the atrocities he’d witnessed. He’d recently returned from Afghanistan, where he’d watched a photographer colleague get caught in the crossfire between border guards and a car carrying two suicide bombers. The guy had had his head blown off – literally – by getting too close to the bombers simply to catch the best shot.
The image of the car blowing up was embedded in Flynn’s mind, and the headless body of his friend lying in the mud. It was a photograph he couldn’t erase.
After returning to Paris, he, who didn’t drink much, had gotten hopelessly drunk two nights in a row. Marta, or whatever her name was, happened on night two, and he wished he’d never picked her up and brought her home.
After reaching an unsatisfactory orgasm he managed to slide her off him.
‘Comment c’est fini?’ she said indignantly.
‘Not tonight,’ he mumbled. ‘Go home.’
So she did. Reluctantly.
In the morning, nursing a massive hangover, he discovered she’d taken his wallet with her.
No more drinking.
No more random sex.
It was his own fault, he should’ve known better.
Lately, things were getting on top of him. His recent visit to China, where in some places it was deemed acceptable to drown baby girls at birth. Another trip to Bosnia, attempting to give aid to women who’d been raped. And then to Pakistan, to write a story for the New York Times about an American citizen who’d been drugged by a prostitute and had one of his kidneys cut out and stolen.
Flynn needed a break.
Sorting through his mail, mostly bills, he came across a fancy envelope addressed to:
MR FLYNN HUDSON & GUEST
Extracting the invitation, he scanned it quickly.
It wasn’t his kind of thing, but then the thought occurred to him – why the hell not?
Maybe this was exactly the break he’d been looking for.
Chapter Four
Dateline: Los Angeles
Being the girlfriend of a huge movie star did not sit well with Lori Walsh’s ego. Oh yes, in one respect it was all strawberries and cream. Her name was out there – people were exceptionally nice to her – important people. Her photo was in all the magazines, frolicking on the beach in Malibu, or walking her significant other’s two large black Labradors. She was always included in the endless red-carpet interviews at premières and award shows, hovering beside the famous one, looking like the adoring, albeit slightly awkward, girlfriend.
But why was her name out there? Why were influential and powerful people nice to her? What was it all about?
Because . . .
Because she was the live-in girlfriend of Cliff Baxter. The Cliff Baxter – the man with the George Clooney charm, Jack Nicholson acting talent, and irresistible good looks. Mister Movie Star. No mistake about that.
Mister – ‘I get my ass kissed every time I fart.’
Mister – ‘Everyone wants to be my friend.’
Mister – ‘Even when I’m full of shit, you’re still gonna love me.’
Lori, an actress herself – although much to her chagrin she was constantly referred to as ‘former waitress’ – had been Mister Movie Star’s girlfriend for the past year. ‘A record,’ his friends had informed her, as if she’d won some kind of amazing race. ‘You must have something special,’ his friends’ wives had whispered in her ear with slightly puzzled expressions, because in their minds surely Cliff could do better?
Yes, she had something special all right. Patience. And the knack for pretending not to know when her famous boyfriend ordered in a late-night call girl for a midnight snack in his pool-house office, or spent time on his computer watching porn.
Apparently his former girlfriends had objected. And with the objections came banishment, then after they were gone it was onto the next.
However, Lori was smarter than all of them. She was going for the prize. The ring on the finger. She was one canny girlfriend who was sticking it out.
Cliff Baxter was heading full-tilt towards fifty, and he’d never been married.
Lori was twenty-four, half his age – which was the perfect Hollywood age difference. Besides, she loved him in a kind of screwed-up way. She felt safe and protected with him – and sometimes, she even felt loved.
The truth was that she wanted to be Mrs Cliff Baxter even more than she wanted a career, and that was saying something as she’d always harboured an ambition to be the next Emma Stone. She and Emma even looked a little alike. They had the same athletic body and slightly toothy grin, although Lori considered herself to be a sexier version of the talented actress. Cliff was very into Lori’s amazing mane of red hair, although what really turned him on was her matching pubes. She’d offered to do a Brazilian for him, but he was having none of it. ‘I like a woman to be natural,’ he’d told her. ‘Enough with the shaved pussies, they’re not sexy. Keep it real, babe.’
So be it. Whatever Cliff wanted, Cliff got. It was quite a relief not to have to go through the agony of having the hair ripped from her crotch by a harassed Polish woman with a penchant for inflicting pain.
However, being just the girlfriend was risky. A year was a long time. What if Cliff got bored with her? What if he discovered the porn and the call girls were enough to keep him satisfied?
She didn’t care to think about it. She dreaded going back to being just another Hollywood starlet begging for a job. Oh no, that was not about to be her future.
To protect herself she’d made it her mission to find out all of Cliff’s dirty little secrets – facts that nobody knew about him. She was determined to discover the real Cliff Baxter, not the adored icon with the starry image and self-deprecating charm.
Lori was extremely adept at underground activities; she’d learned from her mom, Sherrine, at an early age that it was useful to dig out people’s secrets and use them to advantage. That’s how they’d gotten by after her dad had done a midnight runner. They’d survived because Sherrine had known how to manipulate people – such as their randy landlord who was cheating on his wife, the supermarket checkout clerk who was padding customers’ bills and pocketing the cash, and the cable guy who was into making money on the side.
Free rent. Free food. Free cable. They got by. While her mom juggled a series of boyfriends who also contributed to their survival.
Lori hadn’t spoken to her mom in eight years, ever since Sherrine had caught her making out with one of her transient boyfriends. At the time Lori was sixteen. Sherrine’s boyfriend was twenty-five and a total stud. And Sherrine was thirty-five and beyond pissed. She’d thrown Lori out along with the boyfriend, who’d allowed Lori to camp out at his place for a few weeks until she’d run into Stanley Abbson, an elderly gentleman who drove a Bentley and was very partial to underage girls.
Stanley Abbson was seventy-five years old, but thanks to Viagra he was still able to get it up. They’d met on the boardwalk in Venice when Lori had skateboarded into him and almost knocked him flat. He hadn’t minded at all, and after a couple of lunches he’d invited her to move into an apartment where he kept two other teenage girls. It was a decent apartment overlooking the ocean. Lori could hardly believe her luck.
Stanley – who she’d found out lived elsewhere in a large house – gave the girls a generous allowance; all he asked in return was the occasional girl-on-girl show, which was doable – until he started bringing along a few of his pervy old business acquaintances to watch and sometimes participate. That’s when Lori decided it was not the life for
her, so she’d packed up and left, taking with her Stanley’s solid gold watch and the stash of cash he’d kept hidden in the apartment. The money was enough to pay six months’ rent on a rundown beach shack in Venice, where she lived for the next four years, taking acting classes, working as an extra, waitressing, doing some escort jobs that did not involve sex, and generally getting by.
Boyfriends came and went. A car salesman. A burned-out comedian. Several out-of-work actors. And a low-rent showbiz manager who offered her a career in porn, which she politely declined.
At twenty-two Lori had realized she was getting nowhere fast, so she’d decided to move to Vegas.
Because she was a pretty, fresh face, with luxuriant red hair, long legs and a winning smile, she immediately scored a job at the Cavendish Hotel as a cocktail waitress. The pay wasn’t great, but the lavish tips made up for it.
The customers loved Lori, as did the manager, for she could persuade almost anyone to order the best champagne, the most expensive cocktails, and the high-priced caviar hors d’oeuvres.
It wasn’t long before the manager promoted her to chief cocktail hostess in the VIP lounge, and that’s where she’d met Cliff. He’d come in one night pleasantly drunk, accompanied by an entourage of six, and a skinny, model-type girlfriend, who kept crawling onto his lap and tongue-kissing his ear.
Lori tried not to look impressed at the sight of such a famous man, although she remembered Sherrine taking her to see one of his movies when she was eleven, and she clearly recalled Sherrine stating at the time that Cliff Baxter was the sexiest man on two legs. Lori reckoned that even though he must be in his forties now, he still looked pretty hot.
She played it cool.
He flirted.
His girlfriend gave her the stink-eye.
She ignored the skank.
When Cliff and his entourage left, he slipped her a thousand-dollar cash tip.
She shoved the money down the neckline of her skimpy outfit and didn’t share with the other staff, even though she was supposed to.