Crystal (21 page)

The mâitre’d greeted them and they were shown to the table.

And there Crystal finally had to abandon any hope that Jake’s mother would be easy-going as she was introduced to an immaculately dressed, Chanel-suited, sixty-something woman, who had obviously been a great beauty in her youth and who still looked beautiful now, albeit in a very cold and distant way. Ingrid just about managed a chilly smile when Jake introduced Crystal. Her eyes were the same amazing blue as Jake’s but had none of the warmth Crystal saw in his. Crystal caught Ingrid look disapprovingly at her outfit.

Harry, his dad, though, couldn’t have been nicer.

‘I’ve been listening to your songs on iTunes, Crystal – they’re really very good.’

‘Really?’ Crystal asked, not quite believing him.

‘Dad’s obsessed with technology – he was practically the first person I know to get an iPod,’ Jake put in. ‘And as soon as I told him about you he was straight on to iTunes’.

‘Yes,’ Ingrid added, tight-lipped. ‘He spends all his time on the computer.’ Her English was perfect; she only had the slightest accent.

God, so would I if I was married to you
, thought Crystal.

Ingrid spent a few minutes telling everyone what they should order, and then interrogated Jake about what he’d been doing. Right before her eyes, Crystal saw her handsome, sexy, talented, charming boyfriend turn into an awkward, monosyllabic teenager. Realising that she had got all she was going to out of her son, she turned her attention to Crystal.

‘So how long have you been singing for, Christy?’

‘It’s Crystal,’ Jake said crossly.

‘Oh, that’s an unusual name, isn’t it?’

Crystal had barely managed to explain about her name before Ingrid fired off the next set of questions. Where did
she live? Was it a house or a flat? Did she own it? Where had she been brought up? What did her father do?’

‘I don’t know,’ Crystal replied in answer to the last question, which momentarily stopped Ingrid in her tracks. She raised an eyebrow, clearly expecting an explanation.

‘My parents divorced when I was eight and my dad remarried and moved away.’

‘Oh,’ Ingrid answered and was clearly about to launch into a further barrage of questions when Jake said, ‘I think that’s enough questions for Crystal, don’t you? She hasn’t had chance to eat.’

Crystal shot Jake a grateful look, then stared down at her plate in horror – smoked salmon. Yuk! She hated smoked salmon but had been so thrown by Ingrid telling everyone what they should have that she hadn’t realised she’d ordered it.

‘Do you want mine?’ she whispered to Jake.

He shook his head. ‘Just leave it, it doesn’t matter.’

But it clearly did matter. Ingrid looked disapprovingly at the untouched plate when the waiter came to clear the table.

‘Was there something wrong with the salmon, Christy?’ she demanded.

‘No, I’m just not that hungry,’ Crystal replied, too pissed off to correct her.

‘Oh, I do hope you’re not one of those girls who starve themselves. Jake had such a wretched time with Eve – he’s probably told you about her eating disorder. I mean, beautiful girl, from a very good family, but the eating thing drove you insane, didn’t it, Jake?’

‘Actually, Mum, it was more her infidelity if you recall,’ Jake said crossly.

Lunch was turning out to be a nightmare. All Crystal wanted to do was get the hell out of there. Then Ingrid started singing the praises of her goddaughter, Stella. She wanted Jake to take her on as an assistant; Jake was not keen.

‘But, darling, she’s so talented and I’ve sort of promised her mother that you would.’

‘Well, you had no right to do that,’ Jake said angrily. ‘I don’t want her as an assistant.’

‘It would just be for a couple of months, just to give her experience.’

‘I’ve got Gavin,’ Jake retorted.

‘And Gavin’s fine, but he’s not very good at the meeting and greeting thing, is he? You need someone a little more polished to interface with your clients. And I’m sure Stella’s beauty and charm will do your business no end of good.’

What a cow
, Crystal thought. Gavin was one of the nicest lads she had ever met and she thought most people would rather ‘interface’ with him than some stuck-up girl.

Jake sighed. ‘I’ll think about it, okay?’

‘Please do, darling, I promise she’s an utter gem.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Jake said as they got into a taxi. ’I should have warned you how uptight my mum can be, but I thought you wouldn’t have come if you’d known.’

‘Too bloody right!’ Crystal exclaimed. ‘I wish I’d been wearing something different; your mum obviously didn’t approve of me at all.’

‘My mum’s issued to the max,’ he sighed. ‘As you can see, I don’t have the greatest relationship with her. My gran was the one who really brought me up. You’d have liked her.’ He looked sad. ‘She died four months ago, just before I split up with Eve. I really miss her.’

Crystal found his hand and squeezed it, ‘Sorry, that must have been tough.’

‘Yeah, well, it definitely wasn’t the happiest time of my life. But please forget about my mum; she doesn’t approve of anyone.’

‘Except Stella,’ Crystal corrected him. ‘She seems to love Stella. And by the sound of it, who wouldn’t, so beautiful and so charming.’ She couldn’t help being sarcastic; she hated being round people who thought they were better than everyone else.

‘Hmm,’ Jake was clearly keen not to carry on the
conversation about her, but Crystal’s curiosity had been aroused and if she was honest she couldn’t help feeling a tiny pang of jealousy. She was not at all sure she wanted some beauty hanging out on a daily basis with Jake.

‘So is she very beautiful then?’ Crystal asked.

‘If you like that sort of thing – long blonde hair, perfect skin, pretty face, slim, blah, blah, blah. She’s always seemed a bit of a trustafarian to me and I don’t happen to find that kind of girl attractive.’

‘Oh?’ Crystal replied, moving closer to him. ‘I expect you like a bit of rough like me.’

‘I certainly do,’ he answered, pulling her on to his lap and kissing her deeply.

The day improved dramatically after that. As they wandered through Soho, Jake stopped to buy her a bouquet of velvety dark red roses, saying, ‘These will do for now. I’ll buy you something proper to make up for lunch.’

‘Okay, just as long as it’s a really expensive piece of bling, you know what us pop stars are like,’ Crystal teased, secretly thrilled by the romantic gesture.

Then they met up with Danni, Jez, Tahlia and Hadley at the Soho Hotel for cocktails. Everyone got on well and conversation flowed easily; there was none of that awkwardness Crystal had sometimes experienced in the past between her friends and boyfriends. Jake went out of his way to be friendly and charming to everyone.

‘He’s lovely!’ Tahlia whispered to Crystal when Jake and Hadley were talking.

Crystal looked over at Jake and her heart flipped. ‘I know,’ she whispered back and wanted to add that she was falling in love with him but didn’t.

But there was something bothering her about Jake – the ex factor. Clearly the break-up had left him feeling bitter and insecure and Crystal couldn’t help wanting reassurance that he wasn’t still in love with Eve. Maybe she should have left well alone but it had been on her mind ever since they started seeing each other and Crystal just had to know. The night
had been perfect. After the drinks Crystal and Jake had gone back to her flat and made love – each time felt better than the last. Now, as she lay with her head on his chest, she asked the question that was starting to bug her. ‘Were you really in love with Eve then?’

Instantly she felt Jake tense. ‘I don’t want to talk about her.’

‘It’s just that every time her name comes up you seem so angry,’ Crystal said, ignoring his request.

‘I don’t want to talk about her,’ he repeated. ‘Don’t fuck up a really good evening.’ He sounded distant, abrupt. ‘I’m really tired; can you turn the light off now?’

For the first time he didn’t hold her as they lay in bed.
Why did I have to ask him about his ex? And why is it still such a big deal to him?
The questions went round and round in Crystal’s head, making sleep impossible. At three a.m. she was still wide awake.

‘Can’t you sleep?’ Jake finally asked as Crystal fidgeted yet again.

‘No. Sorry, am I keeping you awake?’

He sighed. ‘No, it’s me. I should be able to talk to you about Eve. It’s stupid, but I still find it hard. We were going to get married and then I found out about the affair. It totally threw me. I did love her and I thought she loved me. It felt like the three years of our relationship had been a lie.’

Crystal moved closer to him. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t a lie.’

‘I don’t know that for sure. Anyway, because of that I find it really hard to trust people, women. Until I met you.’ He turned round to face Crystal and kissed her. And Crystal was so close to telling him about Max.

Lost Angels were away in Paris, Rome and Madrid for the next week promoting their latest single and it was the usual hectic conveyor belt of performing live on TV and radio shows, interviews and photo calls. It was a punishing schedule which meant being up at the crack of dawn and often not going to bed until the early hours. Belle drove Crystal and Tahlia mad with her non-stop moaning about
how knackered she was. She also managed to fit in several diva outbursts: when the hotel had put the wrong flowers in her suite – Belle always demanded white roses; when the mini bar hadn’t been emptied of all chocolate; and when one of the journalists failed to recognise her. Tahlia and Crystal remained positive – the promotion went hand in hand with the music as far as they were concerned, though Crystal was starting to be wary when she was interviewed, especially when she was asked about Jake. It was early days and she didn’t want to scare him off by sounding too keen. But it was now public knowledge that she was seeing him. Pictures of them together had already appeared in the tabloids and in
heat
and all the other celeb mags. Crystal tried to give as little away as possible, however persistent the questions, but it was hard not to let on how much she liked him.

And then there was the matter of finally telling Belle the truth. Jake’s revelation that he trusted her had been the final spur. The trouble was, it never seemed to be the right time. Crystal didn’t want to tell her just before they went on TV or before an interview. She thought she might have a chance on their last night in Madrid, the final European city in their schedule. The girls were VIP guests at the opening of a hot new club. It had been designed to look like an underwater paradise – the walls and floors were glass aquariums filled with brightly coloured tropical fish and what looked like miniature sharks; the guests could recline on waterbeds while the waitresses, who all wore designer bikinis and looked like models, fetched their drinks. It reminded Crystal of a Bond movie set and she kept expecting to see Blofeld sitting in a black leather chair, stroking his white Persian cat, pressing a secret button and opening up the floor to send some unfortunate sod to meet the sharks.

‘Max would love this place,’ Belle said. ‘He’s trying to make his new club as spectacular as possible, to attract the celeb crowd.’

‘How is he?’ asked Crystal, steeling herself for what she was about to say.

‘Really good; of course we miss each other, but actually I quite like being able to do my own thing and then catching up with him every other weekend,’ Belle said breezily.

‘And he hasn’t been like he was that time in Ibiza when he got so angry about the contracts?’

‘No!’ Belle exclaimed. ‘He’s got a temper on him, but I just ignore him when he’s like that.’

‘He’s never hurt you, has he, Belle?’ Crystal asked tentatively

‘God no!’ Belle replied, sounding shocked. ‘What makes you ask that?’

Gathering all her courage Crystal was about to make her confession when they were suddenly surrounded by photographers who wanted them for a photo call. By the time they’d finished posing and chatting it was late and Belle was pissed after one too many Bellinis. Crystal had missed her chance yet again.

‘God, Tahlia’, Crystal sighed as she got into bed (the two of them usually shared a suite when they went away; Belle insisted on her own), ‘when am I ever going to be able to tell her?’

‘Don’t worry, babe, there’ll be time.’ But maybe you’re worrying too much. You heard what Belle says; he’s never hurt her, she doesn’t get upset by his moods. Maybe you shouldn’t rock the boat.’

‘No, I’ve got to tell her. I’m sure he wasn’t like that just with me. I couldn’t sit back and let her marry him.’

As soon as Crystal got off the plane the next morning she called Jake and was surprised to hear a posh female voice on the line. ‘Jake Fox’s office’.

‘Hi, can I speak to him, please,’ Crystal asked, wondering who the hell the woman was.

‘I’m afraid he’s busy at the moment. Can I take a message?’

‘No, he’ll want to speak to me, it’s Crystal,’ she said impatiently.

‘I’m sorry but he did say—’

Crystal cut across her angrily. ‘I’m his girlfriend. Please go and give him his mobile.’

It must be Stella. Crystal instantly disliked her just from the plummy sound of her voice and arrogant manner alone.

‘Crystal, is there a problem?’ Jake came on the line, sounding distracted.

‘No, I just wanted to let you know that I’m back. Shall I come over?’

‘Sure, I’ll be done in a couple of hours.’

Crystal wanted him to say that he’d missed her and couldn’t wait to see her and was slightly put out that he hadn’t. Still, maybe he was surrounded by people and couldn’t talk. She was knackered from the trip but sleep couldn’t have been further from her mind. She had missed him so much and now all she wanted to do was make up for lost time.

As soon as Jake opened the door to her she wrapped her arms round his neck and kissed him, slipping her hands under his T-shirt to get her fix of his smooth skin.

‘I missed you,’ she murmured, pulling back to look at him.

‘I missed you too,’ he replied, kissing her again, unbuttoning her shirt and caressing her breasts.