Unlikely Love: A Romance Single (16 page)

“I'm scared about what happens when we leave this place. Like you said, we both have such different lives.”

She stared intensely at the painting, not wanting to turn to show Nolan her exposed heart. She was feeling impossible things for the journalist standing behind her.

“Don't be scared,” his hand brushed across her neck, brushing past the loose strands of hair that hung from her messy bun, “it only makes me scared.”

“Why are you scared?”

He went quiet. A small nasally laugh escaped him before he finally spoke.

“I'm scared that I don't think I can get on that plane and go back to my normal life if you're not there.”

It was Delilah's turn to be silent. It's exactly what she wanted to say, and it's exactly what she wanted to hear, but it only complicated things even further.

“You live in New York and I live in LA,” she whispered.

From nowhere, a tear collected in the corner of her eye. Quickly, she dabbed it away, not wanting her mascara and eyeliner to run.

“There are planes,” he said feebly, “and I bet you're in New York a lot.”

It was true, Delilah was in New York, but when she was there, she was working. She wasn't dating.

“We're both so busy,” she dabbed another tear away, “in reality, people like us don't work together.”

“Fuck reality,” his hand traveled across her shoulder and around her neck, pulling her into his body.

Closing her eyes, she let herself fall into him, bringing her hands up to stroke his. She felt so safe and warm.

“So what do we do?”

“We stop worrying,” he whispered.

It was easier said than done.

“But -”

“Delilah, I'm starting to feel things for you. Serious things. Things that are rare and don't come around that often. I'm not going to let anything happen to that.”

She wanted to tell him that her feelings were reflected, but she bit her tongue.

“Do you mean it?” she closed her eyes.

Her mind wandered to André, and then to her manager, Tony.

“I wouldn't say it if I didn't, Delilah.”

The way he said her name made her knees wobble.

“I'm so confused. I keep trying to see past this trip, but everything is so murky.”

“We still have nearly a week together,” he whispered gently into her ear, “a week to figure something out.”

As he started to kiss the side of her neck, she hoped there was a way to figure things out. After the performance, she could give the week she was meant to give to André, to Nolan, before he left. It didn't feel right, but she couldn't imagine spending the time with anybody else. Something was growing in her heart and it was new and terrifying.

Nolan was right when he said that these feelings didn't come around often. She was sure that she'd never felt them before.

She spun around in his arms, and kissed him. Pulling her in closely and warmly, he returned the kiss, wrapping his arms tightly around her shoulders. Whenever their lips met, the bullshit and worry melted away, and it felt natural and right. If only she could spend her life attached to his lips.

As they kissed, Nolan pushed her towards the wall, knocking over the rope that kept the visitors away from the paintings. It wasn't until the alarm pierced through their kiss that she opened her eyes and realized she had her back up against the giant and priceless painting as Nolan kissed her. The doors at the bottom of the gallery burst open and the security guards from the red carpet suddenly appeared with torches. Red flashing lights lit up the shadows of the gallery, and the thick-set guards suddenly found them with their beams.

“Run?” Delilah suggested.

“Run!”

Nolan clutched her hand, and with one last glance back at the party through the open doors, they bolted across the gallery in the opposite direction of the guards, her gold silk dress floating in the breeze.

The next morning Delilah woke once again in Nolan's bedroom, but this time, he was wrapped around her fast asleep. After they managed to get out of the gala alive, they ditched the car Nolan had rented and decided to walk back to the hotel. They spent the walk holding hands and chatting, but by the time they made it back up the winding road, they were both exhausted and they fell on to the bed still in their clothes.

She was about to wriggle off the bed, but Nolan groaned and pulled her in even tighter.

“Where do you think you're going,” he smiled, eyes still half-closed.

He might have only just woken up, but he still looked handsome.

She collapsed back onto the bed and gave in, settling into his body and letting his arms and legs wrap around her. Nolan's gentle snores started to tickle the back of her neck, and she was just about to join him in the land of sleep when she suddenly remembered where she needed to be.

“The performance!” she cried, jumping up from the bed.

Nolan's hands slid off her, and he quickly sat up in bed, pushing his hair from his face. Delilah didn't have time to admire how adorable or confused he looked, she had to grab her shoes and get out of there.

“What performance?” he moaned.

“
The
performance. It's today!”

Nolan jumped out of bed as Delilah tried to find her other shoe. She dropped to her knees and started to feel around under the bed.

“It's only 8am Delilah,” Nolan smiled at her, “you have plenty of time yet.”

“No I don't!” her fingers wrapped around the strap of the shoe, yanking it from under the bed, “I have to be at the studio for 10am for another rehearsal and all of the backstage filming.”

“Do you need me to come with you again?” she paused at his question, bringing her shoes up to her face as she held her head and tried to think.

“No, it's okay this time. Marcus said there will be a translator for the actual show.”

He smiled at her and nodded, but she couldn't ignore the hint of sadness in his eyes.

“You stay here and get some work done, and I promise you'll be getting a knock on the door as soon as I'm back.”

“Promise?” he winked at her.

“Promise,” still clutching her shoes, she leaned in and kissed him gently on the cheek, “I better go before Marcus kills me.”

As she was about to run for the door, Nolan gripped her wrist, spinning her around and pulling her close to his body. He planted his lips firmly on hers and kissed her forcefully and passionately.

“I'll see you tonight,” he pulled away from the kiss and bit his lip.

“Tonight,” she nodded, panting at the same time, lips still wet.

With one final kiss, he let go and showed her to the door, not letting his eyes leave hers until she managed to fiddle the key in the lock.

After a quick shower and change, Marcus banged just as expected, filled with panic. He was half surprised to see her there, and equally surprised that she was alone. It didn't take long for him to pull his phone out.

“I went down to the pool earlier and managed to get a signal.”

“Good for you,” she shouted as she blasted her hair off with the tiny dryer in the bathroom mirror.

In the reflection she saw Marcus smugly hold out his phone. On the screen stood a beautiful woman in a flowing gold dress posing elegantly for the camera. It took Delilah a moment to realize that the elegant and beautiful woman was her.

“
TMZ, E!, BuzzFeed, Fox
...they're all running the same story.
'Delilah White and mystery hunk attend Madrid's Annual Fine Art Gala ahead of her big performance
'.”

She tried to hide her shock at the media picking up on the story so quickly, but she shouldn't be surprised. She couldn't sneeze in LA without somebody catching it on camera.

“I don't care,” she shrugged.

“Tony does,” he tapped on the screen to show her over a dozen angry texts in capital letters which she didn't bother reading.

“Good for Tony! Tony isn't here.”

“But he's still your manager!” Marcus snapped, “He's blaming this on me saying I should have a tighter leash on you.”

“Leash?” she threw the dryer onto the counter, letting the wire retract and pull it back into its stand on the wall, “I'm not a fucking dog, Marcus.”

“He's not happy De,” his voice dropped as he read over the texts again, “he's really not happy.”

“Like I said, I don't care,” she tried to sound strong, but her stomach turned.

She tried to imagine how much trouble she'd be in once she was back in LA.

“That's not the worst bit,” Marcus whispered, “they're running another story.”

If it wasn't for Delilah's curiosity, she would have told Marcus not to tell her., “spit it out.”

“There's a quote on TMZ from André. A pap showed him the pictures of you and Nolan linking arms and he said that he was going to fight for you.

Delilah almost snorted with laughter.

“I'm not his to fight for,” she snapped angrily.

Snatching the dryer, she carried on blasting her hair, making sure to send spurts of hot air in Marcus' direction.

“He said, and I quote '
I won't let a man with glasses take my beautiful Delilah. She is the one I will marry
'.”

Delilah couldn't contain her laughter this time. She thought about all of the times they'd spent together, and how much of that time they'd spent alone. They usually went to bars and restaurants, occupied by an entourage and an army of chasing paparazzi. The time they did spend together was usually spent naked. She hadn't even had sex with Nolan, but he'd made her feel more alive than a quickie with a deluded French model.

“I don't want him anywhere near me,” she stopped drying and made fierce eye contact with Marcus, “you don't give him this hotel's address, you don't tell him about Nolan and you don't let him anywhere near me. Understand?”

“Delilah, you know I-”

“Understand?” she growled through gritted teeth.

Marcus dropped his eyes and nodded. He stuffed his cell into his pocket and scurried out of the bathroom, leaving Delilah to dry her hair alone. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, and imagined Nolan next door. She hoped and prayed that he didn't have a secret addiction to gossip websites.

***

They arrived at the studio with plenty of time to spare. Marcus kept his mouth shut and only spoke when Delilah spoke to him. She felt bad that he was taking it so badly, but he needed to remember which side he was on, and she was sure it wasn't hers.

Quickly, she was sat to the same dressing room as last time, and sat in the chair as the same stylists started to work on her. The little man with the ponytail started to apply her makeup, but he seemed even angrier and heavy handed than last time.

“Is the translator here yet?” Delilah asked Marcus.

“I don't think so, I'll go and ask the director.”

He disappeared, leaving Delilah alone with the team to create the pop star. Every time she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror, she saw how extreme her makeup was looking.

“This isn't what you did last time,” she shot at the makeup artist.

She guarded her face to stop him applying more eye shadow, but he quickly slapped it out of the way to carry on.

“Don't you know who I am?” her voice trailed off to silence when she realized she hadn't said that seriously in a while.

In the mirror, she looked over to the small leather sofa where Nolan had been sat last time, and she was glad he wasn't there to see her retreating back into her diva ways.

The man barked something at her in Spanish and carried on with his work. Soon, she had a full bag of hair clipped into her head, curled and backcombed to within an inch of its life.

When Marcus returned, it was enough to push her over the edge.

“Translator?” she demanded.

Looking nervously at the ground, Marcus shook his head, “they are stuck in traffic. The director doesn't know when they'll get here.”

“Does this director speak English?”

“Kinda,” Marcus shrugged, “not very well.”

“Get him here, I need to talk to him,” she winced as the stylists from hell yanked at her hair, adding more hair than she thought her scalp could handle.

“I think he's busy -”

“Does he want me out on that stage? If you don't get him here, I'll go on that stage on live TV and I won't move my lips once. Go!”

Marcus scurried off, leaving Delilah alone with the stylists. She screamed at them to stop, and for once they listened to her. The makeup artist with the ponytail pulled a packet of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and the other two stylists followed him out of the room, leaving her alone.

She slammed herself back into the makeup chair and stared at her reflection with hatred. If she looked like a clown last time, she looked even more like one this time. The man with the ponytail had done so much structure altering contouring, she didn't look vaguely like herself. She was looking more and more like the Photoshop'ed version of herself that the label plastered on her single covers. Normally, she wouldn't complain. She used to enjoy transforming into someone else by makeup or digital trickery, but this time was different. She couldn't put the genie back in the bottle. She was nothing more than a puppet, and she knew that now. Nolan had helped her see that.

“What is wrong?” Marcus dragged the director in the room by his arm.

He had a headset around his scalp, a clipboard in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. He didn't look the slightest bit interested in Delilah.

“I'm not happy with all of this,” she circled her finger around her face, “your stylists are making me look like something I'm not, but they don't speak a word of pissing English, so I can't tell them to stop.”

“My dear, they do speak the English,” he sighed, “you look fantastic. You be on stage in an hour to rehearse.”

“You're not listening to me,” Delilah could feel herself getting heated under the pounds of heavy makeup, “I don't want any of this. I want to look like me.”

The director looked up from the clipboard and sipped his coffee. He flicked through a few of the papers on his clipboard and pulled a photograph from the mix, handing it to Marcus to hand to Delilah. It was one of the heavily edited promotional images they used to send out to the press.

“See, this is you,” the man walked over and held the picture up to Delilah in the mirror, “and this is also you. You look beautiful.”

“You don't understand,” she sounded defeated, “none of you even try to understand.”

“You want coffee?” the man asked, “I get you coffee. Chocolates?”

“Just go away,” Delilah waved her hand, “everyone just go away!”

She kicked the makeup counter in front of her and slammed her elbows onto it, dropping her face into her hands. She didn't care if she ruined the makeup, she just wanted to lock the door and stay there all night. The performance was the furthest thing from her mind.

When she lifted her head, the director was gone, but Marcus was stood behind her, nervously hovering with his cell in his hand.

“Why are you still here?” she let out a long sigh, “isn't there a cute boy you should be trying to have sex with?”

“De,” Marcus tilted his head and put his hand on her shoulder, “I don't like seeing you like this.”

“Get used to it,” she said, letting another sigh escape her mouth, “I don't want to do this anymore.”

“You're just having an off day, but you'll get through it. You love singing,” he rubbed her shoulder, trying to sooth her, but it was aggravating her more than anything.

“Exactly Marcus. I want to be a singer. I never wanted this,” she pulled at her gigantic hair, “I never wanted to be this puppet.”

“You're not a puppet De. We all care about you. Tony cares about you.”

“Tony cares about his bank balance.”

Tony was the first person to believe in her when she was 18, but since then, he'd turned from a father figure into a figure of control and power. Delilah was his prize pet, and he wasn't going to let anything get in the way of the pet making him money.

“Just get through today, and when we're home, you can talk to him. Try and compromise on something, yeah?”

“LA isn't my home,” she shrugged his hand off, “England is my home. London is my fucking home Marcus. Do you know how long it's been since I went home?”

“I don't -”

“6 months,” her voice trembled, “when did you last see your family?”

“Last week before we went to the airport,” he dropped his eyes from hers.

“How is that fair?”

“It's not but you're a -”

“A what? A star? A singer? I'm a paycheck. A cash cow.”

“C'mon De, just -”

“I'm done with this life Marcus. I'm exhausted. I've been doing it since I was 15. I'm 23 and I've only just got my big break, but people are never satisfied. They want me to work harder and get bigger. They want me thinner, and they want my hair bouncier and my makeup heavier. They want me to dance more and smile when asked. Do you know how tiring that is? I've just gone along with it, because I thought the people around me had my best interests at heart, but they were just distracting me with shiny things and luxurious places so I didn't notice them taking away my identity and my freedom.”