Two-Faced (19 page)

Kim pursed her lips when he’d gone and glared at Michelle. ‘You’ve done it this time, lady. Mia’s after your flaming blood up there ’cos she thinks you did it on purpose to spite her. And if that’s true you won’t just have
her
to deal with, you’ll have me an’ all, ’cos you know damn well I was relying on that money.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Michelle murmured plaintively. ‘I didn’t mean to mess it up.’

‘I’m not sure I believe you,’ Kim retorted coldly. ‘I know you’re upset about that lad, but it’s not her fault he wanted her instead of you, so there was no need to get back at her like this.’

Before Michelle could say anything to defend herself, Sammy came back into the room.

‘Well, that was interesting,’ he said, looking a little shell-shocked. ‘That was the producer, ringing to make sure that Mia’s all right. Apparently he’s been having a look at the stills from before she conked out, and he thinks they show promise.’

‘So, what are you saying?’ Kim shuffled to the edge of her seat. ‘Are they going to let her have another go at it?’

‘No, they’re not going that far,’ Sammy told her. ‘But he says he’d be happy to consider her for future projects – when she’s got a bit more experience under her belt. Because – and I quote – the vulnerability in her eyes really stands out on film. Unfortunately, it’s translating as terror at the moment, which isn’t quite the image they want to portray with this particular product.’

He turned to Michelle and lowered his head, causing his chins to treble. ‘This is exactly what I meant about attitude. Anyone can have a pretty face, but it’s a rare one who manages to capture you with their eyes. And if you’re one of the few, then by
God
you’d better remember what was going on inside your head today, because that was what made you stand out and get noticed.’

Kim felt as if her heart would burst with pride when she showed Sammy out a short time later. She’d known that Mia was a star from the day she was born, and now the people who mattered were beginning to recognise it too.

It didn’t even cross her mind that the comments had been made about Michelle and not about Mia.

In the same way that it also didn’t cross Mia’s mind when she flew down the stairs as soon as Sammy’s car had driven away. She gave it to Michelle with both barrels, accusing her of trying to wreck her career out of spite, and warning her to stay the hell away from her from now on.

‘You’re just lucky your little trick didn’t work,’ she finished nastily. ‘Because if you’d have destroyed my career you’d better believe I’d have destroyed
you
! And don’t even think about talking to me again, because you’re
dead
as far as I’m concerned.’

Heavy with guilt, Michelle took Mia’s onslaught without a word. She’d warned them that she wouldn’t be able to pull it off but they had begged her to try, and now they thought she’d screwed it up on purpose. Which she hadn’t. At least, she didn’t
think
so. But maybe they were right, and she really was that horrible jealous girl they had always said she was. And if she was and Liam had seen it in her, it was no wonder he’d chosen Mia over her.

Michelle got up when Mia turned her back, indicating that she’d said all she had to say, and wandered upstairs to wash off the heavy make-up.

‘We need to sort out what we’re going to do,’ Kim whispered when she’d gone. ‘There’s no worries about Sammy, because he’s happy to carry on working with us. But he reckons you need more experience before he puts you forward for any more TV stuff.’

‘That’s not fair!’ Mia protested. ‘I worked really hard to get that job, and it wasn’t me who screwed it up.’

‘
We
know that,’ Kim agreed. ‘But they don’t think you’re ready, so you’re just going to have to work even harder to prove them wrong. But first, I’m going to book you in for an appointment to get
that
sorted.’ She nodded at Mia’s stomach. ‘But not a word to her upstairs, ’cos I’m booking you in under her name – make sure it doesn’t bounce back when you’re famous and ruin your reputation. So don’t be forgetting when you get there and giving them your real name – okay?’

‘Fine by me,’ Mia said, thinking that it would serve Michelle right if
everybody
found out, because her sister would be horrified for anyone to think that she’d had
sex
, never mind an abortion.

PART TWO

10

The association hall was noisy as prisoners rushed to finish off discussions, arguments and games of pool and cards in the five remaining minutes before lock-up.

Sitting in the corner, from where he could keep an eye on both staircases for approaching officers, Liam leaned casually down as if tying his laces and slid the last neatly folded ten-pound note into the concealed slit on the underside of his trainer tongue.

He glanced up and sucked his teeth with irritation when a new prisoner sidled up and asked for a lay-on. The guy was shaking, and scratching like he had fleas, and if the officer who was on duty tonight spotted them talking he’d put two and two together and have Liam dragged off for an intimate search.

Hissing ‘Get the fuck away from me’ Liam got up and strolled down to his cell, glad that his cellmate wasn’t back yet because that gave him time to stash his cash and the few small wraps of smack he had left without the other man seeing his hiding place.

Without a sniffer dog, the officers would never have found it. But Liam wasn’t taking any chances with Darren Mitchell. In on an eighteen-monther for beating up his girlfriend, Darren had done all the usual posturing when he’d first arrived, reeling off his lengthy list of crimes to prove what a big bad fucker he’d been on the outside. His list included all the usual: fighting, stealing cars, shoplifting, drug dealing, et cetera . . . But it was Darren’s seeming passion for burglary that had put Liam on his guard. To hear Darren talk about the places that he and his brother Pete had robbed between them, it was a wonder they hadn’t been in prison a thousand times already. But the fact that they had perfected their art to such an extent that they had never been caught was a great source of pride to him.

That, and the fact that he had shagged Mia Delaney – the semi-famous model whose picture was plastered all over the wall beside his bed.

Like most of the dickheads who were banged up in here, Darren had his fair share of family snaps and nudes. But all those shots of Mia grinning out from the pages of the teen magazines that somebody kept sending in for Darren really wound Liam up. He had to admit – grudgingly – that she photographed well, but he still hated her.

It was two years now since he’d followed Michelle home to discover that Mia had tricked him into bed by posing as her sister, and the memory still rankled, because
she
was the reason he was serving time right now. If it hadn’t been for her, he and Kedga Bull might never have crossed paths, and he wouldn’t have been caught in possession of that gun –
or
the coke that the police had found in his bedsit after his arrest. He blamed Mia for all of that, and it didn’t make it any easier to know that she was swanning about out there doing all right for herself.

In hindsight, Liam knew that he should have spotted the difference between them, because there was a coldness in Mia’s eyes that he’d never seen in Michelle’s – a greedy, grasping glint that spoke volumes about the personality which lay behind them.

But there was no sense in winding himself up about it, so, for the most part, he didn’t think about it. And as much as he resented the presence of those pictures in his space, he knew that Darren would only put up new ones if he tore them down so he left them alone – refusing to give Darren the satisfaction of thinking that he’d vandalised them out of envy. And, given that Darren was already convinced that every man in here was jealous of him for being Mia’s first, that was exactly what he
would
think.

Liam had better things to focus his mental energy on – like keeping his head down and building up his money so that he’d be properly set up when he got out.

He didn’t particularly like dealing smack, but he’d decided early on that there was no point letting morals get in the way of his future plans. There were hundreds of hungry junkies in here, and loads of pushers only too happy to peddle them inferior shit – more often than not contaminated by
actual
faeces, coming in as it did via their girlfriends’ arses or babies’ nappies. But Liam had the edge over them all because he had Davy smuggling decent gear in for him, courtesy of a screw that Davy was paying.

Grateful that Liam had taken the full rap for the coke when lesser men would have thought nothing of grassing him up, Davy had vowed to see him right while he was inside. And so far he’d been true to his word. But if he thought he was buying Liam for life he was wrong, because Liam had no intention of continuing their agreement after he got out.

If he’d been determined to stay legit before, he was even more so now. He hated being locked up; despised the majority of the no-marks he was forced to share the rancid prison air with. So, no . . . soon as he got his feet back on that pavement out there, Liam Grant was never coming back through these doors.

And no woman would ever get under his skin deep enough to make him lose his head like that again – that was for
dead
sure.

11

‘Please come with me,’ Bruno begged, pouting at Mia in the mirror.

Mia frowned, and jabbed him in his flat belly with her elbow. ‘Back off, lady-boy. Or are you deliberately disturbing me ’cos you want me to look like a dog’s dinner?’

‘Just say you’ll come, and I’ll leave you alone,’ Bruno persisted. ‘Please, please, please, plea—’

‘All
right
!’ Mia groaned, slamming the eyeliner pencil down on the cluttered worktop. ‘Though why the hell
you
want to go to a place like that, I
do
not know.’

Bruno slapped her on the arm and hissed, ‘Shut up! I’ve
got
to go. My dealer’s threatening to cut my willy off if I don’t bring his money.’

‘Oh, great, so now you’re trying to put
me
in danger?’

‘There won’t be any danger,’ Bruno assured her, contradicting himself. ‘Honest, he’s cool. Soon as I pay up we’ll be fine, and I’ll be back in his good books.’

Giving him a doubting look, Mia said, ‘I don’t see how you can owe him that much in the first place. What have you been doing with it? Plastering the walls?’

‘It’s not all
me
,’ Bruno reminded her indignantly. ‘You’ve had your fair share.’

‘Don’t try and guilt-trip me,’ Mia shot back. ‘I didn’t know you were putting yourself in debt for it.’

‘No, ’cos it grows on trees, doesn’t it?’ Bruno gave her a sour look.

‘Why don’t you just cut your losses and ask Simone or Mark to get you something instead?’ Mia suggested. ‘They’ve always got something on them.’

‘The shit
they
pass off as coke?’ Bruno pulled a face. ‘Do me a favour. I’ve had bigger hits off my baby nephew’s bum powder!’

‘So you’d rather traipse down to some skanky little dive in Levenshulme to get stuff off a madman?’ Mia looked at him as if he was the world’s biggest nutter, shook her head and reached for the blusher brush.

‘He wouldn’t hurt me really,’ Bruno insisted. ‘I used to go to school with him.’

‘You just said he was threatening to chop off your willy.’

‘Only if I don’t pay up.’ Bruno was getting exasperated now. ‘Look, I’ve got to go – and you’ve got to come with me. You promised.’

Gordy, Bruno’s paranoid boyfriend, came over just then to get his suit off the rack. As he heard the end of the conversation his eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘Come where?’

‘To the
toilet
,’ Bruno informed him huffily, giving him a dirty look before flouncing away.

Gordy watched him go, then glared at Mia in the mirror. ‘I know that was a lie. Where are you really going?’

‘Word of advice,’ Mia said smoothly, stroking an extra layer of gloss over her lips. ‘I’ve known Bruno a lot longer than you have, and if you don’t stop quizzing him you’re going to lose him.’

‘I’m not quizzing him,’ Gordy replied indignantly. ‘But I think I’ve got a right to know where my boyfriend’s going, and what he’s doing.’

Mia shook her head, got up and stalked away. She’d met Bruno on a magazine shoot several months ago, and they had immediately clicked because he was as much of a bitch as she was. And their mutual passion for shopping had certainly helped to keep their friendship alive. But she neither liked nor gave a toss about his clingy boyfriend. She wouldn’t have minded so much, but Gordy and Bruno had only met a few weeks ago at the casting for this show for which they were about to begin a week of rehearsals and their relationship was already on the rocks. But that was Gordy’s problem. She’d warned him, but if he didn’t want to listen there was nothing she could do – apart from sit back and laugh when Bruno dumped him.

‘Everybody ready?’ Arni Fabrizi called out, swooping down out of nowhere with the ridiculous collection of gold chains he wore around his fat neck clanking and jangling against his barrel chest.

He eyed his team with disgust and pointed at Anjeta, the gorgeous Polish girl, sneering, ‘You are
way
too fucking fat for that dress. And
you
,’ he turned on Simone, who looked like a young Cher, ‘look more like a man than
him
!’ He pointed at Bruno, who gave a gasp of mock indignation. ‘And
you
,’ he barked, spittle flying out of his mouth as he turned his wrath on Mia, ‘aren’t even fucking
dressed
yet! Do you think you’ve got all day, you stupid girl? You’re supposed to be going on in a minute!’

Murmuring ‘I’m
so
sorry, Arni, I got held up,’ Mia tugged her outfit on and snapped her fingers at one of the two dressers to hurry up and fasten it.

Muttering curses under his breath, Fabrizi rolled his eyes and stormed away with his assistant Francie hot on his heels.