The Pearl Necklace (2 page)

Suddenly,
I longed for it.
Really, really longed for it.

I did my
business, then washed my hands and rejoined Bob. He glanced at his watch,
looked at me with eyebrows raised, and I knew what he was telling me. It was
nearly
time
for my slot, a ten-minute interview where
I gushed, yet again, about the pink pills and urged every viewer to buy the
book just so they could find out for themselves how fantastic their journey
could be if only they got on the Pink Train. I sighed and headed back the way
we’d come.

“The Pink
Pill Diet
Woman,
isn’t it?” a female called.

I
plastered on
my I
’m-so-happy-to-have-been-recognised
face and turned to see Jungle Lady waving me over to her table. If I slighted
her she wouldn’t be happy, even if I explained that I couldn’t stop to chat,
darling, I have a live slot in a few minutes, don’t you know. I actually had
two live slots, one Bob’s cock would fit into very snugly, but she didn’t need
to know that. I walked over to her—if I didn’t she’d start a catfight at the
drop of a very expensive hat. I smiled widely.

“I
thought
it was you!” she said, standing
to give me air kisses as though we’d been friends since the day we’d learned to
walk. “How
are
you?”

I wondered
why she cared and remembered yet again that this was just the way of stars. You
acted as though you knew everyone intimately, giving out the impression to
anyone watching that you belonged to an elite group. It was still alien to me
and I didn’t think I’d ever get used to it.

“Oh, I’m
fine,” I said, air kissing her in return and getting a dose of her latest
perfume up my nose for my trouble. “How are
you?
”

“Oh, you
know how it is, busy
busy
.” She turned her attention
to Bob, eyeing him as if she wouldn’t mind him settling between her legs.

I bristled
at that. He was my fantasy fodder and I didn’t want to share him.

“And who
is
this
bunch of hunk-o-mania?” she
asked, stroking Bob’s arm and looking up at him with heavily made-up eyes that might
snap shut at any moment because of the weight of her fake lashes.

“Oh, it’s
Bob,” I said.
“My bodyguard.”

She raised
her eyebrows then turned to glance at her entourage. “How come,” she whispered,
leaning towards me, “I don’t get any good-looking bodyguards?”

I smiled
sympathetically, thinking that she’d had good-looking bodyguards in the past
and had fucked them all and left them in pieces.

“I think I
might well poach you,” she said to Bob, moving her hand higher so it rested on
his shoulder. “God, you’re so tall.
So…manly.”

Bob smiled
tightly, and I sensed he was uncomfortable with her attention. Any man would
be, given that she was a vulture in a dove’s clothing.

“We need
to go, Miss Hillary,” he said, staring at me.

Was that a
plea for escape in his eyes?

“Oh,
goodness me, yes,” I said to Jungle Woman. “So sorry, we really must go. I
interrupted the hairdresser mid-style. I have to get back…”

“I did
wonder,” she said, dragging her gaze from Bob to me, stroking his cheek with
her fingertips, “whether you were sporting some new, all-the-rage trend I’d yet
to hear about. I wouldn’t like having my hair done in that style, but I’d wear
it if it meant I was up there in fashion.” She laughed. “You know how it is.”

Yes, I
knew how it was. She was a catty little bitch and I wanted to get away from
her—get Bob away from her—as soon as possible. Part of me worried that she
would
try to poach him and he’d go. To
cover my unease, I laughed back, nodded,
then
waved as
I walked off. Bob was at my side like a limpet, and as we rounded the corner
into the hallway, he let out a huge sigh.

“I’m not
comfortable around her,” he said.

I turned
to look at him as we sped down the hallway, surprised he’d said something to me
other than his usual patter. I decided to offer him a personal snippet of my
own. “Me neither. In fact, I’m not comfortable with any of this, any of them.
This life, this…this
shit.
”

His mouth
dropped open, but he closed it quickly, clearly not intending to give me a
response. I shrugged inwardly, and we continued back to the dressing room in
silence, me with a nugget of jealousy in my gut that Jungle Woman had touched
Bob where I’d often dreamed of touching him. I just had to be grateful she
hadn’t put her grubby little mitts on other parts of him like I had in my
dreams.
His cock, for one.

I left him
outside the dressing room, greeted inside by the hairdresser frantically pacing
and worrying her fingers.

“Oh,
God.
There
you are!” she said, pouncing towards
me and ushering me to the chair. “Someone came in to find out how we were
getting on, and I told them you’d gone to the toilet.” She began farting about
with my hair again. “And I got told off for letting you go! It wasn’t my fault,
you just went, and now I’m worried about being told off again by my boss for
not doing my job in time and I can’t lose my job, you know, I have bills to pay
and—”

“I’ll make
sure you don’t get the blame,” I said, cutting in just so the poor love could
take a breath. I really didn’t fancy her
karking
out
on me. “Calm down. Honestly, you won’t be in trouble, I promise.”

She
sighed, thanked me,
then
gave up trying to pin wayward
strands into the French pleat that refused to be the sleek wonderment it was
supposed to be. Instead, she eased some wavy bits loose to settle around my
face then covered the whole thing with liberal amounts of hairspray. As I sat
and tried not to choke, I told myself that I just had this one TV appearance
today and then I could go home and relax for the weekend.

Sort
of.

But how
could
I relax when reporters were usually
camped outside my house whenever I’d appeared on a show? How could I relax when
I knew cameras were being pointed at my property, the people holding them just
waiting to get a shot of me naked? Because, although it was difficult for me to
take in, I’d been turned into an icon, a woman with a body to die for, and all
because I hadn’t been able to stop my stupid little fingers tapping out an
angry response on my keyboard.

Life was
too bloody strange sometimes.

Chapter
Two

Any minute now I’m going to ask if you want to
have a coffee with me.

I sat in
the back of Bob’s black SUV, staring through the side window at the darkened countryside
flashing by. He was taking me home after the usual checks in the rear-view
mirror and him driving around the city a few times to lose anyone who might be
following.
A pointless task, really, when the press would be
there to greet us when we arrived at my house, loitering by the high iron
gates, eager to surge forward once the car came into sight and push up against
it as Bob eased onto the driveway.
He usually spent most of his nightshifts
at my place standing in the hallway beside the front door, and I’d wondered on
many occasions whether he got bored and if he had a bladder made of steel.

Tonight
would be different. I was going to do what I’d been told not to and engage in personal
conversation with my bodyguard, talking about everything and nothing—anything
so long as it wasn’t about pink pills and their wonderful effects. I was going
to be a person again, not some doll who was directed all the time and virtually
had to check in every time she had a shit.

My house
came into view, a modest place by stardom’s standards, bigger than ten people
needed, which was far too grand. To me it was massive, to someone like Jungle
Woman it was the equivalent of your average one-bedroom flat. I could only hope
management didn’t have some daft idea for me like they had with her. She’d just
finished filming a fly-on-the-wall documentary about her life, with crews in
her house shadowing her every move and her playing up to the public to make out
she was a lost soul in need of TLC. What she needed was a good slap around her
mean face, but I wasn’t going to be the one to do it. She left destruction in
her wake wherever she went. I prayed stardom didn’t take me down that rocky
little path.

Reporters
were indeed outside the gate, a huddle of them, some sitting, some standing,
talking, smoking, and two sitting on the kerb, typing furiously on laptops.
They’d get piles if they weren’t careful. One leaned against the security guard’s
cabin, talking on a mobile phone. I put my head down from habit even though
they couldn’t see through the tinted windows and listened to their shouted questions
based on my appearance on
You
Ain’t
Seen Nothing Yet
. When would I do a sexy mag
shot? When would I be revealing my new, slender body? Had I heard yet that
Raunchy
magazine had asked my manager if
I’d do a centre spread?

The only
spread I was interested in was the kind I’d maybe put on toasted crumpets in a
little while—or the spread of my legs if Bob, the real-life Bob, was willing to
get between them.

How could
I explain to these people that I could never do a nude shot? How did I tell
them that even though I now had the body I thought I’d always wanted, that I
still had the issues every other woman had? Whatever size I’d been, I was still
me deep down. Of course, I couldn’t tell them anything of the sort, my contract
didn’t allow it. I was, to all intents and purposes, a glamour girl.
A strong, confident glamour girl, peddling drugs to women who also
wanted to look like me.
I felt dreadful about it, because I was pushing
the need to be slim on women, when I should have been encouraging them to just
be happy with
who
they were. I had a year of my
contract to go, and then I’d be free of that bullshit and everything that went
with it.

Bob drove
the SUV up the drive and, as usual, I glanced back to make sure the gates had
closed without any members of the press sneaking inside. One of the guards out
the front was there to ensure that didn’t happen, but all the same, I had to check
for myself.

“You’re
safe with me, Miss Hillary,” Bob said. “I’d never let anything happen to you.”

I turned
back to look through the windshield, smiling a little at Bob always saying the
same thing every time we came through the gates. Was he paid to say that as
well as look after me?

“I know,”
I said. “And I’m very grateful, it’s just that…this is all still so strange for
me. I was just Sasha Hillary before, a wedding planner who had no chance of
having a wedding herself, and now, here I am, supposedly the object of many
men’s desires. It’s…weird.”

Bob
nodded.

“
D’you
know
, I really am quite
lonely,” I said, seeing my house coming closer. “My parents have moved
abroad—something they’ve always wanted to do—my old friends got the hump with
my success and ditched me, said I didn’t have time for them anymore, and I can
understand how they came to that conclusion. And all I have left to look
forward to when I get home is keeping away from the windows so strangers can’t
take pictures of me or spending time with
Pippa
.”

Bob nodded
again.

“I must
sound an ungrateful cow,” I said, undoing my seatbelt as we stopped outside the
house.

“Not at
all,” Bob said.

He got out
and opened my door. I joined him on the drive and glanced up at him, wishing I
could go on my tiptoes and reach out to touch his
stubbled
cheek, slide my hand to the base of his neck and pull his head down so I could
kiss the life out of him. Even without the audience of snappers down there I
couldn’t, it just wouldn’t be cricket.

I stopped
staring at him and walked to the front door, thinking I could hear the cameras
clicking, the questions being shouted, but the press were way off at the end of
that long drive. The wind, which had picked up while I’d been at the TV studio,
would swipe away anything they were saying anyway. I slid my key into the lock,
and from there Bob took over. He went inside first then closed the door behind
us. A security guard, who had been on duty while I’d been out, came through
from the kitchen and nodded.

“Clear,”
he said to Bob. “Have a good shift.” To me, he said, “
Pippa’s
due for a spell in the garden shortly. Last went out around an hour ago.”

He nodded
again, and I thanked him before he stepped out into the night to go home to his
wife and three kids. I envied him—envied everyone who was able to just be
themselves
after their work day was over.

“Come and
have a coffee with me?” I asked Bob, dreading his answer. He’d say he wasn’t
allowed, that he was paid to look after me, not drink my caffeine in my company.

“All
right,” he said. “All right, I think I will. Thanks.”

I hid my
surprise and delight by walking into the kitchen, dumping my bag on the counter
then stooping to greet
Pippa
, who waddled over as
best she was able on her little stubby legs and piddled on one of my shoes in
her excitement. Yes, she did need a visit to the garden.

After
she’d calmed down and trotted back off to her bed, sounding like an asthmatic
as she breathed, I stood upright intending to clean up her mess only to find
Bob was there with a cloth and spray detergent.

I took it
from him. “Thank you. You’re not paid to clean up after my dog, so take a seat
and I’ll get your coffee in a second.”

He took
the cloth and
spray
back, his fingers brushing mine. I
stared up at him, took in his soul-searing eyes and ultra-kissable lips, and
swallowed, unable to find a thing to say. God, I could just gobble him up
whole, every last bit of him.

“I know
I’m not paid to do it,” he said, “but I want to.
You
take a seat, and
I’ll
make the coffee and be with
you
in a
second.”

Again, I
was lost for words. Who would have thought he was the strong,
ordering-people-about type? Oh yes, he looked strong, but in all the time he’d
been looking after me so far he’d never displayed that
thing
that would have told me he could be anything but sweet and quiet.
Now I realised maybe he’d also been playing a role, doing his job in making
sure I was all right with the utmost courtesy, when all along…

When all
along what? I was letting my imagination run away with me again, thinking just
because he’d offered to clean up dog pee that he was about to turn all swagger
and knight-in-shining-armour on me.

Ooh, if only he would…

I sat at
the table and watched him hunker down to clean. There was something about him
doing that. I got a bit hot and bothered, found it sexy as hell, and squirmed
in my seat, resisting the need to get up and mess his perfectly waxed hair,
making it soft enough so that I could sift it through my fingers. Other ideas
came to mind, naughty, sexy images of him crawling over to me and burying his
face between my legs. In my imaginings, I didn’t have these tight jeans on. I
was naked except for my string of pearls and ready for him to do whatever he
wanted. Stand me up with my back to him at the table so I could bend over it
for him to slap my bum. Or lay me on top of
it,
take
me there and then with such force the table juddered across the floor. Or even,
with one of his hands holding my wrists together, push me against the wall
beside the fridge and kiss me until my legs went to jelly and I forgot who the
hell I was.

“All
done,” he said.

I shook my
head, vision clearing, and waited while he stowed the cloth and spray in the
cupboard beneath the sink, then washed his hands. My face was hot, my cunt even
hotter, and wet, so wet. I cleared my throat quietly and smiled at him,
studying the way he put cups beneath the coffee dispenser and pressed various
buttons until a steady stream poured out. He was allowed to take refreshment
when he was working his nightshift here, only I’d never seen him anywhere but
at the front door or walking through the house doing his checks. I wished, as
he added creamer to our drinks, that when he went inside my bedroom to make
sure everything was in order before I retired, he imagined me in bed, waiting
for him.

I doubted
it, and besides, a girl couldn’t have everything, could she? I had more than most—except
the one thing I did want was way out of my reach, even though he stood only
feet away.

Sighing, I
kicked off my shoes, so glad to get the spiteful little bastards off, then stripped
away my short leather jacket and hung it in the back of my chair. My black vest
top showed off my sculpted, operated-on boobs to perfection, my cleavage well
and truly displayed if he had a mind to take a look. It seemed he didn’t. He
walked over to the table and placed our cups on it, sat opposite me. He sipped
and closed his eyes for a few seconds, giving me an idea what he looked like
when he slept. I felt a bit
pervy
, ogling him like
that, but I had to grab every chance I got to stare at him when he didn’t know
it so I could use the images for pleasure when I went to bed.

I didn’t
feel
like a pervert, I
was
a raging pervert.

He opened
his eyes and caught me looking. That was a bit of a bugger, wasn’t
it.
I laughed to cover my embarrassment then grabbed my
coffee, making things worse by spilling some over my hand. He’d think I was a
complete
prat
, but there wasn’t anything I could do
about it now. If I spoke I’d babble a stream of useless words, and if I
screeched, which I felt like doing because,
deary
me,
my skin burned, I’d hardly come off as the glamour girl I was supposed to be.

“Bloody
hell, Miss Hillary,” he said, jumping up to go to the sink and wet a dishcloth
under the cold tap.

He came
back and laid it over my hand, the coolness instantly erasing the heat. He
pressed his fingertips into my palm, and tingles went through me as I imagined
what those fingertips would feel like elsewhere. I blushed and hoped he’d take
it as a sign I felt stupid at my clumsiness.
That he’d forget
why I’d spilt the coffee in the first place.

“Thank
you,” I managed.
“So kind.”

And wasn’t
that just a bland thing to say, when what I’d really wanted to utter was “Sod
the cloth and strip me naked.”

“Not kind
at all,” he said. “I’m just making sure you’re all right at all times.”

God, how I
wished he did that because he wanted to and not because he was getting paid for
it. Still, I’d take any caring actions from him that he offered. Better than
not getting any at all.

“I’m
okay,” I said, “
it
didn’t burn me properly.”

“I’ll need
to check that.” He lifted the cloth, inspecting the red blotch on the back of
my hand. “Doesn’t look like it’ll blister, but I think you ought to run it
under the cold tap for a bit, just to be
sure.
”

He was
still holding my hand, and I let him continue holding it as he led me across to
the sink. He turned the tap on and drew my hand under the stream, and all the
while I was imagining us in the shower, naked and writhing against the black
tiles in my bathroom. My face got hotter, my cunt wetter, and I had to focus on
the water hitting the base of the sink in order to get him out of my
peripheral.

“I ought
to let
Pippa
out,” I said. “Take her for a walk,
even.”