Unravelled (Revealed #2) (12 page)

Shrugging, Cait’s eyes flashed to mine guiltily. ‘I don’t do it that much any more,’ she started defensively, causing me to raise one eyebrow high. Pulling back her sleeve she showed me her wrist, and I saw two small elastic bands. One yellow, one green.

‘My therapist suggested these bands. Instead of picking my thumbs, I give them a quick ping when I’m anxious. The sting is usually enough to help focus my mind.’

Oh. Well, I supposed that seemed like a suitable method of control, even if it did still involve inflicting pain on herself. ‘What’s the significance of the colours?’

Smiling, Cait fingered the two small bands. ‘Nothing. They were the only elastic bands I could find at the time.’

‘So why the red skin on your thumb?’ I asked with concern, because from the small trace of blood it was obvious that she had been picking. ‘Why not pluck the elastic?’

Looking self-conscious, Cait shrugged again. ‘I dunno, really.’ But the flush in Cait’s cheeks said otherwise, so I raised an eyebrow to spur her to elaborate. ‘I had a weird start to the day … and then some job interviews, so that was all a bit stressful, and something reminded me of Greg which is never good, then to top it all off I got your message about you being at the hostel and I was worried. I guess I still do it sometimes without realising.’

Smiling sympathetically, I felt my heart give a tug for my friend. She was so brave going off travelling after everything she’d been through, but even though she’d been determined that the incident with Greg wouldn’t ruin her life, the emotional scars he’d left were clearly still affecting her.

‘What do you mean you had a weird start to the day?’

Her blush deepened, but she adamantly shook her head, her hazel hair drifting around her face like a veil. ‘It was nothing important. Anyway, tonight is for you. What do you think about this place?’ Whatever it was, she clearly didn’t want to discuss it so I let the subject drop and looked around the room again before nodding. I was seriously impressed, and quickly became even more so when I got a glance at the cocktails on the very extensive, and very tempting, menu. This was perfect – and exactly what I needed. Once our drinks were ordered, a barman with an impressively bristly handlebar moustache set about preparing them, flinging the cocktail shaker around, spinning it, bouncing it, and showing off in an attempt to entertain us, which worked a treat.

Once we had our colourful beverages in hand, Cait led me away from the main bar into a second, even quieter, room and we slid onto a red leather sofa side by side.

After taking a sip of my drink I sighed appreciatively at the cool, delicious fruitiness. It had quite a kick to it too, I realised, as I felt a pleasant buzz settle in my throat and quickly warm my stomach.

‘Come on then, there’s only so much my patience can take. Spill the beans, what’s happened?’

With a sigh I placed my drink down and gently gripped the stem of the glass in an attempt to keep my fraying emotions in check. Swivelling it several times as a distraction to my tumbling stomach, I pursed my lips and gave Cait a recap of my morning, right from my heated, lust-fuelled reunion with Sean in the back of his car, to his weak reasons for me needing to stay in a hotel, and finally finishing with my discovery of the newspaper article about his engagement to Savannah and his lame reasons for it.

Sitting back with a huffed breath I looked to Cait and saw her gawking at me, her cocktail raised halfway to her mouth and frozen mid-sip. ‘Engaged?’ she whispered almost theatrically, to which I scrunched up my face and nodded.

‘Although according to Sean it’s not real.’

‘Blimey. I vaguely try and keep up with celebrity gossip, but I haven’t seen a thing about that,’ she pondered thoughtfully, before her cheeks flushed and she gave me an odd look. ‘And you had sex in the back of his car?’ she whispered in a tone which, although shocked, also sounded marginally curious. But then she blinked rapidly, her lashes fluttering like butterfly wings before she shook her head, looking embarrassed as her cheeks flooded with colour. ‘That just slipped out, it’s hardly the most important issue at hand, sorry, Allie … I lost my focus for a second there.’

Snorting out a dry grunt I rolled my eyes and sipped my drink. ‘Yeah, it was a first for me, actually,’ I admitted sadly, wondering if the car would be the last time I ever got to experience something new with Sean.

‘Let’s get back on track and see what we can find out.’ Placing her glass on the table with a decisive bang, Cait began digging through her handbag before pulling out a mini iPad and flipping open the turquoise cover. My eyebrows rose in surprise, and even under the current circumstances I found myself laughing wryly.

‘I thought you were some poor, hard-up traveller?’ She flashed me a grin and went back to her task of opening up an internet search. ‘I have two luxuries: a nice outfit to go out in,’ she said, ‘and my iPad.’ Narrowing her eyes, she typed something on the screen and sat back while it loaded. ‘Besides, I might stay in hostels from time to time, but I do work, Allie. I’m not that hard-up.’ She finished with a fond smile as she turned her attention to the iPad.

Her fingers began speeding across the screen, face intent and focused. Placing the iPad on the table Cait then sat back and rolled her shoulders to straighten her posture before turning to me. ‘So, you want me to go through it? Or shall we leave it?’

As tempting as it might be to avoid all things Sean and simply drink myself into a blissful cocktail oblivion, I needed to know if there was any substance to the supposed engagement rumours. Drawing in a deep breath I steeled myself for an unpleasant few minutes to come and nodded. ‘I need to know. What does it say?’ At that moment a waiter poked his head around the door, eyeing our half-depleted glasses. ‘Another round, girls?’ he enquired with a bright smile.

‘Yes please. We have a personal trauma on our hands so keep ‘em coming, I’ll start a tab,’ Cait instructed him in a serious tone as she characteristically avoided all eye contact with him, but then downed the last swig of her drink and waggled the glass in the air.

‘You want me to mix in a few shots for you too?’ he asked with a surprisingly sympathetic look on his face.

‘Hell yes,’ I announced with a watery smile. ‘No tequila though, please.’ Years of drinking had proved time after time that tequila was not the drink for me – it made me veeery ill in the most unpleasant of ways, and always led to hangovers that seemed to seep straight from the bowels of hell. With a nod, he was off, leaving me to turn back to the iPad with a sense of heavy trepidation settling in my stomach. ‘OK, give it to me.’

The tip of her tongue poked out in concentration as she scrolled through the search results before bringing up an article from just over three weeks ago. Leaning across, I scanned the article with her. Along with the text there was a picture which made my heart constrict painfully in my chest; Sean, dressed in black jeans, a fitted white T-shirt, and looking tanned and unfairly handsome, was at the centre of a group of eight people walking along a pavement. It was dark and none of them were looking at the camera, so I could only assume that they were on a night out when the picture had been captured.

The painful part of the image was Savannah, though. One of her tanned arms was firmly gripped around Sean’s waist while the other was pressed into the centre of his chest, her blood red nails standing out proud against the white of his shirt and making me want to pluck them out one by one with a pair of pliers.

Closing my eyes I took a second to stabilise myself and then opened them again, chewing painfully on my lower lip. Even walking along the bloody street she was all over him – it couldn’t have been a comfortable position to walk in, but she was still managing it, as if laying a claim on him. Bitch. So many expletives ran through my mind that I had to forcibly roll my lips together to stop myself having a meltdown.

‘He’s frowning, and he’s not got his arm around her, so maybe she’s just trying her luck,’ Cait pointed out. ‘Let’s see what it says …’ We both fell silent for a second as we skimmed the article, which was fairly sparse in details and didn’t really tell me anything new, apart from one interesting fact – Savannah had been the one to announce the engagement, on her own. Sean hadn’t even been present when she’d made a statement at some public event she had attended.

Interesting. That didn’t seem like the usual behaviour of a happy, love-struck couple, did it? Perhaps Sean was telling the truth.

A bitter taste rose in my throat. It might all be pomp for the public, which I still needed to be convinced of, but regardless of whether or not it was fake, I’d been in regular contact with Sean since he’d been over here – since Savannah had made her announcement – giving him more than enough opportunities to tell me about it, but he’d chosen to hide it from me. That hurt more than I could even comprehend at the moment.

As if sensing my growing distress, the barman suddenly appeared at our table with a tray containing two more colourful cocktails and two small shot glasses filled with a clear liquid and topped with a blue, floating substance. ‘A special shooter of my own creation,’ he informed us as he placed our drinks down with a flourish. ‘Just the thing to sort out trouble,’ he added with a conspiratorial wink before disappearing again.

‘So, what do you think?’ I asked tentatively, taking a sip of my cocktail. It was just as delicious as the last one and as the cool liquid slid down my throat it seemed to make the events of the day just a tiny bit more bearable. Maybe I should back-track to my earlier thought and get blasted on booze.

Cait skimmed the iPad results once more and then bounced her head a little from side to side as if weighing up the options. ‘Some of these articles back up Sean’s story saying that the engagement came out of nowhere and seems a little too conveniently timed with the promos for the new series. It seems from those pieces that fake engagements and relationships are actually quite common in Tinseltown.’

Giving me an intent look, she raised her eyebrows. ‘If you want my honest opinion, then from the brief meeting I had with him at your house in January, he’s clearly crazy about you, so I think he’s probably telling the truth.’ Sliding her iPad back into her bag, she turned to me with a sympathetic smile. ‘You love him, don’t you?’

This wasn’t something I’d actually confessed to Cait. She knew I was crazy about Sean, but it wasn’t exactly the type of thing you could discuss over a phone call, so I’d never really divulged the exact depth of my feelings. Swallowing loudly I slung back my shot, relishing the burn in my throat, and then nodded my head decisively.

‘Yep.’ My voice was thick with emotion, but I was definitely getting a good buzz from the alcohol. My limbs felt looser, and my melancholy certainly seemed easier to deal with, which could only be a good thing.

‘Wow,’ she whispered softly, giving my arm a supportive rub. ‘Well, granted he’s not dealt with this situation in the best of ways, but it seems to me you have little choice in the matter. You should cool off for a day or so, but then you need to meet up and give him a chance to explain it to you.’

Tipping my head back, I stared up at the ornate ceiling rose that surrounded the elaborate light fittings, and drew in a few deep breaths as I tried to settle my swirling emotions. That was basically the same conclusion I’d come to, and I found myself nodding as I lowered my head.

‘Has he called you?’ I was about to explain that I hadn’t given Sean my new number, but we were interrupted by Cait’s phone as it chimed on the table. Glancing at the screen she smiled, ‘It’s my mum. Even after three years of travelling she still likes to check in with me most nights,’ Cait joked, but I saw a slight tightness around her eyes and immediately suspected that her mum must still be paranoid about her safety after the trouble with Greg, much like I was.

Our conversation drifted through easier, less stressful topics as we caught up on each other’s news, but after a few more expertly mixed drinks from our moustached cocktail master, the conversation came back around to my man troubles with Sean. Levelling her glass at me, Cait nodded sagely, looking more than a little tipsy. ‘I know I don’t have all the specifics, but this town is full of fake, fickle fools. Stories get invented every hour, none of them with a shred of truth to them. Don’t you dare let him off easy, though, Allie, celeb or not, you need to make sure he treats you right.’

I knew that Cait’s warning came from her own personal experience, and felt a brief pang of pain for her again, but Cait wasn’t hanging around for any pity tonight, ploughing straight on with more advice. ‘I think you should give him a few days to stew, just to make him realise that he shouldn’t have hidden it from you, and then go and see him.’

Nodding, I took a second to absorb her words. Sean had always treated me perfectly up until now, I thought miserably, feeling a tight lump settle in the top of my throat. He’d perhaps been a little domineering in some of our sexual encounters, but I rather liked that side of him.

‘Of course, my advice is partly selfish,’ Cait confided with a small smile to brighten our moods. ‘Because if you are staying away from him for a day or so then it means I get you all to myself!’

Grinning at Cait’s tipsy words, I nodded my agreement before suddenly feeling quite overwhelmed and immensely glad that my best friend was here with me when I needed her the most. To try and distract myself from the tears that were suddenly threatening to spill from my eyes again I finished off my drink. Alcohol might have seemed like a great idea earlier, but mix it with the exhaustion of my flight, not to mention the high emotion of the day, and I was quickly wavering towards a meltdown.

Placing my empty glass down I stared at it fixedly, willing my eyes to dry and the room to stop spinning, when my stomach gave an almighty rumble. Hmm, that had probably been my third cocktail on an empty stomach, and that wasn’t counting the shots the barman had prepared for us.

Standing up, I looked intently at my drinking partner. ‘I need to go and get something to eat,’ I announced. I was surviving on the airplane food I’d eaten that morning, and with all the drinks I was consuming I’d be steaming drunk soon if I wasn’t careful. Actually, testing my balance with a few adjustments of my stance, I decided I didn’t feel too drunk at all. Maybe the cocktails were more fruity than alcoholic, but still, dinner was definitely needed in the very near future.