by Paige Toon
Needing a diversion, I press the button to bring the privacy screen down. I chat to Davey for the rest of the journey.
We arrive soon afterwards, pulling up right outside the venue. Davey opens the car door to clicks and flashes from the cameras of dozens of waiting paps. I can’t be arsed to deal with the wolves tonight, so I ignore their shouts and head straight for the entrance. The party is in full swing and I can feel eyes on me as I make my way through the crowds, searching for my girl. A few people I know try to stop me, but I brush them off.
‘I can’t talk right now,’ I tell them, one after the other. ‘I’m looking for Meg. Have you seen her?’
When I find her, she’s standing near Kitty on the other side of the terrace. She looks so beautiful tonight, even more so than usual. She’s wearing a black mini dress over skinny black jeans and her blonde hair stands out against the colour. I dig black on her. She appears happy, which is weird, considering the tone of her message, but at least she doesn’t seem to be angry anymore. And then she spots me and her eyes widen slightly, the small smile that was on her lips freezing in place. She says something to Kitty and begins walking towards me.
I keep getting stopped on my way over to her, which is damn annoying, but finally we reach each other.
‘Hey,’ she says.
‘Hi.’
I bend down and kiss her, sliding my hand into her hair and holding her to my chest. God, I need her so much. I can’t believe I’m about to crush her with my news.
She pulls away, looking up at me with a guarded expression on her face. ‘Did you get my message?’
‘Just now,’ I reply, frowning as I remember the crap she was spewing about Joseph Strike. Did she talk to him? Is that why she was looking so pleased with herself? ‘I was already on my way when you called,’ I say, scanning the room. ‘Where is he?’ I ask when I fail to locate him.
‘I think he’s gone,’ she tells me. She looks guilty, which gets my back up.
‘Did you speak to him?’ I know I sound jealous – I fucking am jealous – but I’m damned if I can help it.
She blushes. Great. That’s a yes, then.
‘I said hi, yeah,’ she replies defensively, staring up at me with defiant eyes. ‘Have you seen Dana?’ she asks in turn.
Bollocks. Forgot about her. I scan the room again and spy her pretty quickly, pausing for a second to check her over. Jeez, she looks a state. She’s been using again. You just can’t help some people.
‘Mm,’ I belatedly reply to Meg’s question, before dragging my eyes away from my crazy ex.
‘Do you want to speak to her?’ Meg asks, her voice wavering.
Aw, Nutmeg! My heart goes out to her. Of course I don’t, baby.
‘No,’ I respond firmly, wanting to ease her pain. ‘I have nothing to say to her.’
I lean down again and give her a tender kiss, and then a fresh bout of nerves pulses through me, reminding me of what I need to do. ‘Can I take you home?’ I ask in her ear.
She glances over her shoulder. ‘Um… Kitty.’
‘She looks fine to me,’ I say. She’s flirting with some darkhaired dude. ‘I need to talk to you,’ I add quietly, nerves washing over me again.
Her eyes dart up to look at me.
‘What’s wrong?’ she demands, knowing instantly that something is.
‘I’ll tell you in the car,’ I reply.
‘Is it the boys?’
Jesus, I didn’t mean to freak her out. ‘No, no,’ I quickly assure her, placing my hands on her shoulders. ‘Everyone’s fine.’
She still looks worried, and she should be.
We say goodbye to Kitty and the bloke she’s with and get the hell out of there. Davey is still pulled up out the front, so we get in quickly and he closes the door behind us. I return the privacy screen to its up position and usher Meg to the back of the car. We sit side-by-side and I shift to face her, reaching for her hands.
You’ve just got to say it…
Okay, okay.
Okay.
I take a deep breath, but I can’t look at her.
‘Wendel called me,’ I start.
‘Right…’ she replies uneasily.
I force myself to meet her wary brown eyes, but God, it hurts.
‘Just tell me,’ she encourages. She wants to know, now.
I push myself to continue, but as I speak, I can see the cogs of her brain whirring, ten to the dozen. ‘Wendel spoke to a man earlier today, claiming to be the stepfather of a girl who is the daughter of one of my first fans. Her mother passed away recently. She never told her daughter who her real father was.’
I experience a pang as I watch her confusion transform into horror. She knows exactly where I’m going with this. I squeeze her hands tighter.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, feeling like I could hurl at any given moment.
‘Tell me everything,’ she says flatly.
And so I bring her up to date, breaking into a cold sweat when I realise that her hands have gone limp in mine. She’s looking pale by the time I finish.
‘Do you remember her?’ she whispers. ‘Candy?’
I glance out of the window and nod. ‘Yeah, I remember her.’
‘So it’s true?’ she says.
I swallow. Nothing is definite yet. Wendel wants Jessica – Jessie – to do a paternity test. Maybe Candy lied to Stuart, Jessie’s stepdad, back then. Maybe I’m not the biological father. Maybe…
But no, I have a feeling about this. I shouldn’t give Meg false hope.
‘There’s a chance that it is,’ I reply.
‘But… But… What if she slept with someone else?’ It hurts to watch her clutching at straws. ‘What if the girl isn’t yours?’
‘That’s possible, of course. Wendel is arranging a paternity test.’
To my dismay, she rips her hands away from me. I reach across to try to comfort her, but she shrugs me off. ‘Don’t touch me!’ she yells, flinching away from me.
‘Fuck,’ I mutter, covering my face with my hands. I feel like the walls of the incredible life we had are crashing down around me. It’s all going to shit.
‘Don’t you feel sorry for yourself!’ she shouts suddenly, making me jolt. ‘I should have known this was going to happen when I married you!’
‘But you did marry me!’ I raise my voice at her, the anger masking my fear. ‘For better or for worse!’
And then her face crumples and I pull her to me and hold her against my chest, telling her I’m sorry, over and over again. ‘We’ll know as early as next week,’ I murmur as she sniffs. ‘It might be nothing to worry about.’
But even as I say it, I know it’s not true. I have a strong feeling that a teenage girl called Jessie is about to become a permanent feature in our lives.
I wonder what she’s like…
Daisy Says Goodbye
I tend to write my books in real-time, and then I get myself into all sorts of trouble if I try to cameo past characters in new stories – I literally get headaches trying to work out who would have been doing what at which time!
When I decided to touch base with Daisy and Luis for The Hidden Paige, I considered writing about what they might be doing now. But, actually, what I really wanted to do was go back in time to soon after the end of Chasing Daisy and find out what happened next, so luckily I saved myself a headache with this one…
Lots of you have asked for another mini sequel since reading this, and I do have some ideas, so stay tuned!
Even with my thick winter coat on, I can still feel the cold dampness of the stone bench seeping through to my skin.
I don’t mind. It’s worth enduring the temperature for this view.
I take a deep breath of the clean, crisp air and exhale slowly, gazing towards the pine-blanketed mountains. The sun has only just dipped below the peaks and now the land is cast in shadow and all around it’s still and quiet. There are no goats in the small adjoining paddock these days, and no chickens. Since my nonna passed away, there’s no one
here to look after them, but we try to come when we can. This is still my favourite place in the world – and I’ve been to a lot of places.
When you’ve worked on the Formula 1 circuit, travelling goes with the territory. I no longer work on the circuit, but I still travel a lot. That goes with the territory of having a Formula 1 racing driver as a boyfriend…
Luis and I spent Christmas at his home in Brazil within the vast bosom of his enormous family, but now we have retreated to Northern Tuscany in the mountains near Lucca for an intimate New Year’s Eve. It’s getting increasingly cold and dark out here, but behind me, the little stone cottage nestled into the hills is cosy and warm. Just as I think it might be time to venture back inside, I hear the front door open.
‘Daisy?’ Luis calls, and there’s concern in his voice.
I look over my shoulder to see him standing in the open doorway. ‘I’m on the terrace,’ I call back, getting to my feet.
‘It’s freezing out here!’ he exclaims.
‘I was watching the sunset,’ I reply with a smile as I walk towards him. He still looks half asleep. I left him out cold on the sofa about forty-five minutes ago.
‘You should’ve woken me,’ he replies, kissing me gently on my lips and drawing me inside, pushing the door closed behind me. ‘Now I’m going to be up all night,’ he adds.
‘Is that a promise?’ I raise one eyebrow and he grins at me, sliding his hands around my waist and pulling me against his hard chest. He lowers his head and kisses the hollow of my neck, making me giggle, but then his kisses continue upwards to my jawline, and a shiver starts at my scalp and ripples all the way down my spine to my toes. I clasp his face with my hands and pull his mouth onto mine.
I will never get tired of kissing this man. It has been a whirlwind couple of years, but I swear I fall in love with him a little more every day. He lifts me and carries me through to the bedroom.
Dinner can wait.
‘Cheers.’ We smile at each other across the small candlelit kitchen table and chink glasses.
‘Happy New Year,’ I say, taking a sip of fizzing prosecco before tucking into my meal: a warming lamb casserole that needed to be rescued with hot water earlier to loosen the gravy. It was in the oven for much longer than it needed to be, but it still tastes great, even if I do say so myself.
‘Mmm.’ Luis obviously agrees with me.
Cooking is my passion. I’m doing a culinary arts course and loving every minute of it. It’s been a challenge trying to juggle my studies around going to the races with Luis, but so far I’ve just about pulled it off. I’m more worried about my upcoming sandwich year when I’ll be working in a restaurant. I’m terrified my new boss will be a ball-breaker about me taking time off at the weekends. I might have to miss some of Luis’s races and it’s going to kill me to not be able to support him. He loves seeing me standing on his side of the garage, but I do feel like a nervous wreck most of the time.
‘Are you okay?’ Luis asks, sensing my apprehension. ‘Is it the magazine?’
‘What? No!’ I exclaim with a grin. ‘I told you I was fine about it.’
He looks relieved.
‘Surely you know me well enough to know that,’ I chide.
He shrugs. ‘I thought I did.’
We picked up some magazines and newspapers at the airport and I was a bit taken aback to come across pictures of my ex boyfriend’s recent wedding. Johnny is a famous rock star and he recently married his former personal assistant, Meg. I used to be his personal assistant, too, once, and I know from experience that he’s capable of mixing business with pleasure with sometimes disastrous results. It used to hurt, thinking about him, but Johnny has nothing on me these days.
Luis and I actually met him and Meg last summer at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, a motorsport event in the UK. Luis helped to carry their baby son’s buggy up some steps for Meg, having no idea of her connection to me. Later we saw them both outside on the lawn watching the fireworks. It was the first time I’d spoken to Johnny since I quit working for him, but I had seen him around, and each occasion had left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
This time it was different. He was different. He seemed happy and content, like he’d finally left his wild days behind him. We exchanged a few words and he was friendly and kind – very different from the selfish bastard who broke my heart years before. I felt at peace with it, with him, but seeing his wedding pictures still came as a bit of a surprise.
I think Luis will always worry that our history will come back to bite us.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask with concern, sensing that something is still troubling him.
He looks across the table at me, his brow creased.
‘What is it?’ I ask, feeling a flutter of panic in my stomach.
‘It’s nothing,’ he replies with a small smile.
He’s not a very good liar.
‘Luis?’ I say warily.
His face breaks into a sheepish grin. ‘I wanted to wait until midnight.’
‘Wait for what?’ I ask with alarm as he pushes his chair out from the table and stands up, coming around to my side of the table. Now I’m really confused.
He crouches down in front of me so we’re eye to eye. ‘You know how much I love you, don’t you?’ he says in a low voice.
‘Yes. I think so. But you’re worrying me now.’
‘Don’t be worried,’ he implores, but he looks freaked out, so why shouldn’t I be?
‘Just tell me,’ I say.
‘I’m not telling,’ he says cryptically. ‘I’m asking.’
I frown at him. And then he proffers up a small, velvet black box and everything becomes clear. I draw a sharp intake of breath as he opens it up, revealing a white platinum band, encrusted with an array of sparkling diamonds, large and small.
‘I love you so much,’ he says, emotion wracking his voice. ‘Will you marry me?’
My eyes fill with tears and we both stand up, me throwing my arms around him and him holding me so tight I can barely breathe.
‘Of course I will.’ I squeeze my eyes shut, but a tiny potent memory pierces my moment of happiness, and just for a millisecond I imagine Will standing there in my nonna’s kitchen, staring at us both.
The next few months are hectic, to say the least. My clever, talented fiancé – it still feels strange to be calling him that – won the championship last autumn so the media attention goes into overdrive once the racing season kicks off again in March. I’m used to the cameras hunting me out for the prerequisite supportive partner shots, but now the news of our engagement has hit, I’m even more of a target.
We’ve decided to get married in Brazil this August – Luis didn’t want to wait a sensible person’s length of time, and God knows, I’m all for living life in the fast lane.
Some would call me crazy, but I’ve handed over almost all of the organisational reigns to Luis’s mother. I have very little time to plan a wedding and I actually don’t care what happens on the day, as long as I’m married to the love of my life by the end of it. Judging by all of the ideas Mariana – Luis’s mother – keeps emailing me, we’re going to have one hell of a wedding.
All I have to sort is my dress and my shoes. It’s June now and I am leaving it pretty damn late, as my friend Holly remarks when we go shopping together in London. She’s my chief bridesmaid, and Luis’s three sisters will step into the other roles. Four bridesmaids seems pretty excessive to me, but it was a much kinder option than having to choose between them.
‘I can’t believe you’re so relaxed,’ Holly comments as I hold one dress up in front of me and gaze at my reflection in the full-length mirror. ‘Beautiful,’ she comments obligingly.
‘You’ve said that about all of them so far,’ I point out.
‘And I meant it. You could wear a sack and still look good.’
I roll my eyes good-naturedly and she smirks at me. ‘What about you?’ I ask. ‘Have you found a dress yet?’
‘Oh, I�
�ve got some pictures to show you, actually,’ she says, pulling out her phone while I hand the dress to the waiting attendant and ask to try it on. She heads off to hang it in a changing room while I turn my attention to the photos on Holly’s phone.
It’s customary in Brazil for the bridesmaids to choose their own dresses as long as they’re the same length (skimming the floor) and all of a completely different colour. Luis’s sisters have already chosen their dresses, so Holly has to avoid blue, green and mauve.
‘I like the yellow one,’ I say, peering at the photos on her phone as she flicks through them. ‘Definitely. It looks incredible on you.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘I wish I could make snap decisions like you.’ She shoves her phone back into her bag. ‘Seriously, how are you so laidback? I can’t believe you’re letting Luis’s mum plan everything. Aren’t you worried?’
‘Not at all.’ I shake my head. ‘I’m just grateful she’s happy to do it. Luis’s sisters keep telling me that she’s having the time of her life.’
Luis is a national hero in Brazil, and his entire family were beside themselves when we told them we were getting married in his home country rather than in America, where I hail from. My parents were less thrilled.
‘Does your mum mind being left out of all the planning?’ Holly asks carefully.
The corners of my lips turn down. ‘She’s not happy about it, but I think she understands. She hasn’t exactly been there for me over the years. My father was more pissed off.’
‘Why?’ Holly pulls a face. She knows we barely speak, so she can’t think why he’d care about my wedding plans.
‘I’ve robbed him of his chance to blow his cash and impress his buddies,’ I explain.
‘Oh,’ Holly says in a small voice.
‘But hey, it could’ve been worse. At least we sent him an invite.’
My father and I have never been on the best of terms. He likes to control the people around him and has been incensed on more than one occasion when he’s discovered that he can’t control me. He got me fired from my hospitality job at the Formula 1 team that Luis drove for because he pulled the strings behind the scenes of one of our major sponsors. Luckily, I was ready to move on anyway. I’m over it now. When I didn’t go running home with my tail between my legs, he had to admit defeat. Although he never actually apologised, my mother has been trying to mediate, and she has said that they will both be attending the wedding.
