Читать книгу Remember My Name - Abbey Clancy - Страница 13

I know, I know.

It sounds bad, doesn’t it? Sleeping with the boss? It sounds like a complete stereotype, in fact—the bright-eyed young wannabe shagging her way to stardom. The older, more experienced record exec taking advantage of her desperation to get a roll in the hay.

Except … it wasn’t like that at all. It really wasn’t. For a start, we hadn’t even done it.

And—although I might sound like I’m trying to convince myself here—everything that had happened had felt very natural, and very real. It wasn’t as though I’d arrived in London, been chucked on a casting couch, and ordered to get jiggy with it. If that had happened, I’d have told him where to get off, and caught the next train back to Lime Street. Team Jessy just didn’t roll that way, thank you very much.

In fact, though, it had all started with a cappuccino. On my first day at the office, Jack had taken me for a coffee at this trendy place around the corner where a cuppa cost as much as a crate of ale. He’d explained my schedule, he’d asked about my flat, and he’d told me what I needed to hear—that I’d done the right thing.

‘Life’s all about taking chances,’ he’d said, sipping his drink and gazing at me with those dreamy dark eyes of his. ‘And that’s what you’ve done. Bravo. How do you feel now you’re actually here?’

I still felt on the nervous side around him, so I wasn’t completely truthful. That would have involved words like ‘petrified’, ‘terrified’, and other things that ended in ‘ied’. Instead, I settled for ‘a bit anxious’.

‘That’s understandable,’ he’d said, leaning back in his chair and smiling at me. He was so calm. So charming. So completely comfortable in his own skin, and in this overpriced café full of beautiful people. ‘And I get it. But you need to know that I’m here for you, even if you fall on your backside in a pile of mud. Metaphorically speaking.’

‘Well, you’ve seen me do it before,’ I replied, ‘and it might well happen again. Although so far I’ve not even seen any grass, never mind mud.’

‘I can fix that. One day, when you’ve settled in, I’ll have to take you out and show you the sights. It’s a beautiful city, and there is plenty of mud to roll round in if you know where to look. And if you’re that way inclined. Maybe if the mood takes me I’ll roll round in it with you—get in touch with my inner druid.’

He was so well turned out in his tailored shirt and posh jeans, he looked like he was more likely to have an inner male model than an inner druid. I tried to picture him dressed in a white toga and prancing round Stonehenge chanting, but that just made me giggle.

Giggling is never a good idea when you’ve just chugged your posh coffee, and I choked on my cappuccino—spluttering it up, and spraying the whole table, his face, and the front of my top with frothy foam. Of course.

I blushed bright red, having one of those you-can-take-the-girl-out-of-Liverpool moments as I felt like every hipster in the place turned to stare at me. Even the girl chalking up the specials on the blackboard stopped to have a gander.

Jack just wiped his face and laughed along with me—putting me completely at ease again, just like he had at Jocelyn’s party. This was starting to become a theme: me messing up, everyone else being amused/horrified by me, and Jack just … not caring. Just keeping calm, and carrying on.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, swiping at the table top with the sleeve of my best Karen Millen jacket. ‘Every time I see, you I seem to be doing something stupid. I’m not normally like this, honest to God. Usually, I can go whole days without a cock up.’

He raised one eyebrow at me, and gave me a very direct look in response to what I’d just said. Um. Maybe I could have phrased that one a bit better. As usual. At home, Luke or Becky would have poked me and said: ‘A cock up where?’ or something equally rude. Here, I realised I was treading on foreign soil.

‘Sorry, again,’ I muttered. ‘I’ve got to learn to think before I speak …’

‘It’s all right,’ he replied, grinning. ‘It’s cute. And anyway, I’m here to help. It’ll be like in My Fair Lady—I can be Professor Higgins to your Eliza Doolittle.’

‘Well, I’m definitely common enough, I’m starting to realise,’ I answered, looking around me.

It was funny, but I’d never felt common in Liverpool. I’d felt normal. But here, people already seemed more precise; more driven. More capable of drinking a cup of coffee without spitting it everywhere.

‘You’re not common,’ he said quickly. ‘And don’t ever feel like you’re not good enough. Didn’t I read somewhere that Liverpool was the pop music capital of the world? You come from a place that’s produced a lot of talent, a lot of stars. Must be something you all breathe in from the Mersey. So don’t ever be ashamed of what you are—just be yourself.’

‘That’s not what Professor Higgins says to Eliza,’ I replied. And I should know—it was one of my favourite musicals, and I’d watched it maybe a hundred times.

‘Fair point … okay, be a better version of yourself. One you feel comfortable with, but also one where you don’t feel embarrassed when you realise what you’ve said or what you’ve done. If this thing works out—and I really hope it will—you’ll need to be aware of how you come across in interviews, on stage, on camera. You can still be you—but maybe save the real you for your people who don’t mind getting covered in mud or drenched with cappuccino.’

‘Like you?’ I asked, not quite able to stop myself sounding a tiny bit flirty. He was too old for me, I told myself. He was my boss. And anyway—he was out of my league, and probably just being kind. A man as hot as him, working in the industry he did, probably had seventeen supermodel girlfriends on speed dial. Why would he be interested in a slightly tattered blonde former princess from Liverpool?

‘Exactly like me,’ he answered, his voice slow and drawling and the sheen in his eyes making my tummy do little loop-the-loops. Oooh, I thought. He was interested—which made the whole thing a lot harder to ignore. It was possible I was reading too much into his tone—but I definitely wasn’t reading too much into the way he’d reached out, and covered my hand with his on the table top.

He gave my trembling fingers a little squeeze, stroking my palm with his thumb in a way that promised all kinds of interesting skills, and gave me the super-smile again.

‘Just don’t worry. I’m here. I’ll help you any way I can. You need to put the work in—but you need to play as well.’

‘Play?’ I mumbled, losing my ability to think straight—not that I seemed to have much of that particular ability anyway—and staring at him like a brain-dead muppet.

‘Play,’ he confirmed. ‘Have fun. Relax. Let go. And I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, Jess, but one thing I’m really good at is playing …’

It turned out he wasn’t bragging at all. That first trip out for coffee had been repeated the week after. Then it had turned into a drink after work a few days later. Then it had evolved into dinner. Our hugs at the end of the night had evolved too—into gentle kisses, slow and sensual and oh-so-yummy.

Jack Duncan wasn’t like any other men I’d met. He certainly wasn’t like any of the men I’d been out with. For a start, he didn’t stick his tongue down my throat the minute we started snogging. He didn’t shove his hand up my top and root around for my bra strap. He didn’t point to his hard-on and say, ‘Come and get it, you lucky bitch’—which admittedly had only happened to me once, but still tops my least-romantic-quote-of-all-time list.

He was … slow. Teasing. Tempting. He kissed me as though I was precious, as if I was some wonderful delicacy he wanted to savour and enjoy. Like he wanted to make it last, instead of racing towards the next hurdle. And he didn’t just kiss my lips. He kissed my neck, my earlobes, my collarbone, my wrists, all in such a gentle and tantalising way that I was begging for more. Hoping for more.

But it hadn’t, as yet, gone beyond that. Even though I really, really wanted it to—at least I did at the time it was happening. In the cold light of day, I could recognise that it was a bad idea. In the warm light of night, though, in the shadow of streetlamps and under the gaze of the moon and stars, it always seemed like a very, very good idea indeed.

It wasn’t just the way he touched me—it was the way he treated me. We had fun together. We enjoyed each other’s company. He told great stories about the music business, and he laughed at my not-so-great stories about the Princess business, and he listened to my hopes and dreams and never mocked them. He understood how hard it was getting through my days, but he never let me feel sorry for myself—he was sympathetic, but tough, telling me it was just a stage, just a step. That one day, I’d look back and be grateful for the fact that I had real insider knowledge of how the industry worked …

Somehow, he made it all make sense. Somehow, he made my hellish days with Patty and her cronies feel worthwhile, part of my work ethic. Somehow, he made all my fears and doubts and insecurities disappear—at least for a few hours. A few hours of great conversation that would be followed up with one of those delicious, heart-rate-bumping kisses.

Those nights with Jack were the absolute highlights of my London life—not that they had much competition.

And, I reminded myself as I trekked back to Patty with her miraculously un-spat-in coffee, tonight was going to be one of those nights. We’d already arranged it, and I couldn’t wait.

I just needed to keep my head down, get through the day without killing anyone (including myself), and look forward to spending time with Jack. We were going for dinner at Chico’s, a little Italian place tucked away in the cutest mews street I’d ever seen, and then, if I was lucky, I’d get some of those gourmet kisses for pudding.

At least that was the kind of pudding that didn’t add inches to my apparently ginormous hips.