Brit Flick Sweethearts: A Rom-Com With Spanking (9 page)

Her expression
was priceless. She stared at him open-mouthed, her beautiful blue
eyes wide and shiny.

“Marry you?”
she repeated dumbly.

“Well? Will
you?”

She threw
herself into his arms and for a second he thought how bony she had
gotten.

“Yes! Oh my
God! Yes, yes, yes!”

“Oh, darling
girl, I love you so much. We’re going to be so happy together. So
what do you say, shall we blow off this ridiculous thing called
acting and spend the rest of our lives away from the limelight in
retired bliss?”

She pulled out
of his arms slightly, her pretty face suddenly warped with alarm.
“
Retire
? You can’t be serious?”

“Between us,
we’ve made more money than most people do in a lifetime. We could
have a very good life together.”

“That’s not
what I meant.”

“I thought you
felt the same. I’ve got to know the
real
you, Doris. I know
you hate this celebrity, merry-go-round as much as I do.”

“You don’t know
shit.”

His words stung
as surely as a slap across the face. “Well, there’s the Dahlia we
all know and
hate.
”

“Oh, come
on
Curt, if this is a joke I don’t think it’s very funny.
I’ve spent my adult life chasing this career. Am I supposed to give
it all up because
a man
asks me to?”

“No. You’re
supposed to give it all up because you are as disgusted with the
industry as much as I am. You’re supposed to give it up because you
want out as much as I do. I know how much you regret taking the
drugs. I know you hate what this industry is turning you into.”

“Baby, you’re
obviously having a bad day, like, getting all disillusioned and
stuff. I
love
acting, it’s who I am. And I’m clean now, I
promise.”

He frowned at
her slightly, deeply confused.

Had he really
misjudged her to such an extent? And perhaps it was too much of him
to expect her to give up acting.

It was just
that he felt so sure she felt the same as him.

“Don’t look so
sad, baby,” she purred in cutesy-cute little girl voice that grated
on his nerves. “I love you too, and of course I want to marry you.
But we have to finish this film, it’s not like we can walk out on
it at this stage.”

Curt begged to
differ. Everyone was replaceable, he was under no illusions about
that. Even the fabulous Dahlia Dean.

But not to him.
He loved her fiercely. Fair enough, she wanted a career, who was he
to take that away from her?

It just
would’ve been so nice, to disappear with her off into the
sunset…

But who was he
kidding? Real life wasn’t like that. He smiled grimly to
himself.

I am a hopeless
romantic. Who’d have thought it….

“What are you
smiling at?”

“The irony of
life.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.
Come here, beautiful.”

He pulled her
back into his arms, kissing her hard on the mouth.

Then he broke
off the kiss, frowning in confusion.

“What’s the
matter, baby?” Dahlia purred in that same, irritating voice.

The truth was,
Curt didn’t know. Her mouth felt inexplicably different. She
smelled different, she even tasted different… It just didn’t make
any sense.

“Have you
changed the perfume you usually wear?”

Dahlia giggled
girlishly. “Maybe.”

Curt was
confused. For some unknown reason, the woman to whom he had just
proposed, he did not have the urge to kiss.

“Do you mind
leaving? I have a migraine coming on,” he said.

“Shouldn’t that
be my line?”

“I’m sorry
Doris, but would you mind leaving?”

Dahlia shrugged
and exited the trailer, blowing him a theatrical kiss as she left.
“Later, baby. I’m going now to tell everyone the news. I just wish
you’d thought to buy me a huge diamond ring.”

There was that
God-awful giggle that made him wince, and then she was gone.

Curt slumped on
a plastic chair, elbows on the table and his head in his hands.
What the hell was wrong with him, he wondered? He had just proposed
to the only woman he had ever fallen in love with, but instead of
elation, he just felt sadness.

It doesn’t make
sense. I love Doris, I really, really do.

So then why do
you feel like you’ve just made the biggest mistake of your
life?

He groaned
aloud and clawed his cheeks so that the reds under his eyes showed.
Then he stood up.

“I’m being a
prick. I love her,” he said to the empty trailer.

He was going to
go and see her right now, sort this out once and for all. Maybe he
was just getting cold feet or something, and looking for problems
that weren’t there.

“Where’s
Dahlia?” he asked the nearest crew member when he stepped out of
the trailer onto the set.

“In her
trailer. Getting ready for the first shoot.”

Curt hurried
over, desperate to hold her in his arms and tell her how much he
loved her.

“Doris,” he
said, bursting into her trailer without knocking. “I’m sorry, I
love…”

Dahlia looked
up at him wide eyed from the cocaine she was snorting, crouched
over the little table. A rolled up twenty pound note dangled from
her fingers and white powder decorated her nostrils. Hastily, she
wiped it away.

“Curt, I can
explain…”

“Save it,
Dahlia.
” He turned to leave, then paused for a second. “Oh,
and I retract my offer of marriage. I am done with this
shit.
”

“Curt! Baby,
please wait, let me explain…”

Curt hurried
out the trailer. For the first time in his life, tears stung his
eyes. Incredulously, he wiped them away. He had meant what he had
said in there, and not just about calling off the engagement. He
realised in that moment how much he hated acting. The whole scene
was a load of bollocks. It was all so fake, so narcissistic, so
pathetic.

“Hey, Curt,” a
young guy he didn’t recognise called over to him. “I think you need
to see this, mate.”

The young man
with
Camera Crew
scrawled on the back of his jumper waved a
copy of a British daily under Curt’s nose.

‘
Double
Trouble
!’ blared the headline on the front cover, followed by
the sub-heading: ‘Dahlia
Dean in drug-overdose scandal.
Identical twin, Doris Dean takes her sister’s place to attend the
film premiere for ‘Brick Face’ while Dahlia was holed up in
rehab…’

Curt snatched
the paper to read the article, his heart thumping painfully
hard…

‘
Whoever
would have guessed that model and actress, Dahlia Dean had an
identical twin? After a particular nasty incident involving another
man and a woman, a nightclub toilet and a lot of cocaine, Dahlia
Dean was rushed to hospital with a near fatal overdose. She went
straight into rehab while her identical twin, Doris, stepped in to
take her place, to attend the film premiere of her sister’s
break-through film.

The question
is, was her leading man, Curt Gunner, in on the conspiracy too?
When he announced to the world that he and Dahlia were an item, was
it Dahlia he meant, or Doris?...’

Curt couldn’t
read anymore because he felt sick. With trembling fingers, he
folded up the paper and tucked it under the crook of his arm.

“Hey man, are
you OK?” the young guy asked. “I just thought you might want to see
it…”

Curt completely
blanked him and walked away. He reached the perimeter of the film
set and carried on walking. As he walked he switched off his mobile
phone and discarded it in the nearest litter bin.

Doris didn’t
hear the news until Dahlia phoned her on her landline in Cornwall
later that day.

“Have you
seen
the god-damn papers?” Dahlia spat, her voice nearing
hysteria.

“Hello Dahlia,
how are you? I’m fine, thanks.”

“So you’re
holed up in your shitty little cottage, writing your romantic crap
and ignoring the rest of the world as usual then?”

“What’s
happened? Why are you so ratty?” she asked, ignoring her sister’s
entirely accurate accusation.

“It’s all out.
My overdose, you standing in for me,
everything.
”

Doris’s blood
ran cold and she almost dropped the phone. “What do you mean?” she
whispered.

“It’s pretty
fucking obvious what I mean, wouldn’t you say?”

“OK, Dahlia,
you need to calm down…”

“Don’t you dare
tell me to calm down. This is all a fucking mess. And it was all
going so well too. I hope it wasn’t you that leaked it to the
papers.”

“No! God, why
would I do such a thing?”

“Because you’ve
always been jealous of me. Because when you were fucking
my
boyfriend, you went and fell for him and now you’re doing your best
to fuck it all up for me.”

“Dahlia, you
sound wired, have you been taking drugs?”

“He finished
with me, you know,” she said in the same, high-pitched, manic
voice.

“
What?
”

Now the phone
was so slippery in her trembling, sweaty palm, she had to cling
onto it with both hands. She didn’t know if Dahlia’s bombshell came
as a relief, or had her heart sinking down to her comfortable,
thick, house-socks.

It should be
neither,
she silently reprimanded herself.

“He said I’d
been acting weird lately, ever since filming for Brick Face ended.
He said he didn’t know who I was anymore and he didn’t like the
drip I’d turned into. He said he wanted to keep up the pretence of
us being an item for the sake of our careers but he had no feelings
for me whatsoever.”

“You’re lying,”
Doris whispered, but already half believing her twin.

“Why would I
lie? After he dumped me, he must have seen our little story in the
news. I doubt his male proud could take everyone laughing at him so
he did one.”

“What do you
mean, ‘he did one?’”

“He’s
gone,
dear sister. Curt Gunner has deserted the fucking film
and left us all in the lurch.”

It took a
moment for Doris to digest the words being spoken to her. There was
a lump in her throat that made it impossible to speak.

“Well,
thank-you
so
much for your support, Doris. I’ll just get
back to my job. If I’ve still fucking
got
one. Goodbye.”

The hum of the
dead line in her phone-ear seemed to be the trigger for her pent-up
tears. Doris threw herself onto her tatty sofa, burying her face in
a cushion. He hated her and now he was gone. She would never see
him again and she would never get to explain why she had lied to
him.

But he dumped
you anyway, remember? He dumped you because you’re a stupid, fat
drip.

The rational
part of her mind didn’t believe it. But it was hard to be rational
when you were sobbing out your broken heart.

This wouldn’t
do. She was a grown woman, not a lovesick teenager.

It suddenly hit
her how horribly in love with him she was. So much so in fact, she
wasn’t about to let him go without a fight. Surely he wouldn’t have
said such a thing about her? She ignored the self-doubt eating away
at her sanity, and reached for her mobile phone, which was switched
off and charging on the coffee table.

Curt’s phone
when straight to voicemail and she ended the call without leaving a
message. Jeremy, however, picked up after the second ring.

“Doris. I was
about to call you. I gather you’ve heard?”

“Yeah. Dahlia
called.”

“Oh dear, she
said she was going to.”

“Where is
he?”

As if the ‘he’
needed to be elaborated on.

“I don’t know
sweetheart, he just walked off the film set without a word.”

“Surely
someone
knows where is? Can’t you give me his agent’s
number, or something?”

“What good
would that do? He’s not home and his mobile is switched off. No one
knows where he is.”

Doris let out a
shaky sight. “So that’s it, then? Am I supposed to just forget
about him and never get the chance to make him understand why I
lied to him?”

“You really do
love him, don’t you?”

Doris didn’t
want to lie anymore. Not to anybody. “Yes.”

Jeremy made a
funny little choking sound that was half sigh of despair, half
groan. “I wasn’t going to tell you this.”

“Tell me
what?”

“It’s not like
me to be a shameless romantic, but to hell with it, the damage is
already done. I
know
I shouldn’t tell you this, but you’re a
nice kid. And do you know what? I think Curt probably is too.”

“Tell me
what
? Come
on
Jeremy, spit it out, for God’s
sake.”

“Curt proposed
to Dahlia this morning. Must have been in the seconds before he saw
the newspaper.”

Doris’s heart
started hammering painfully hard. Why hadn’t her sister told her
this?

Because the
proposal was meant for me, and she knows it.

“How do you
know this?” she asked shakily.

“Darling, I
know everything. You think I don’t have friends on the film set of
‘Death Car?’ As soon as he had got down on bended knee, your sister
shared the good news with my good friend Jeff, one of the camera
guys.”

“And then he
saw the paper and walked out,” she finished, suddenly lightheaded
and shaky.

“There’s more.
Dahlia told Jeff that he asked her to give it all up.”

“Give it all
up? I’m not with you.”

“Give up
acting,
darling. Run off with him into the sunset and
disappear out of the public eye forever. I’d heard on the grapevine
he was of those reluctant actor types, but I had no idea he was
that serious. It’s the only reason I’ve told you darling, I suppose
a proposal like that really does deserve to reach the ears of the
person it was intended for.”