The Charmer

by Mandasue Heller

  ‘Naughty girl,’ Joel chuckled, liking her for her vivacity.

  Pursing her lips flirtatiously, she said, ‘So, are you really his boyfriend?’

  ‘Who – Jippi?’ Joel said, frowning incredulously. ‘Please! Don’t tell me you thought I was gay?’

  Giggling, she said, ‘Thank God for that. I was starting to get worried. Seems like everyone who’s good-looking in this place is into arse. Or tits, if it’s a girl. There’s so many lesbians in there, I was scared I was going to go home with a girlfriend.’

  ‘Not into it, huh?’ Joel teased.

  ‘Wouldn’t say never.’ She shrugged. ‘But only if there was a really fit bloke in the middle. What about you?’

  ‘Only if I was the fit bloke in the middle,’ Joel said smoothly, giving her the sexy eye. She was getting to him now, and he was getting an urge to . . .

  ‘Hey, I wonder if that’s the balcony outside the bedroom,’ the girl said, heading for a sloping metal partition separating the balcony they were on from the next. Holding on to it, she cocked her leg to climb across, sending her skirt right up around her hips and revealing her perfect bum.

  ‘Don’t!’ Joel called, worried that she would fall. ‘It’s dangerous.’

  ‘Dangerous is good,’ she laughed excitedly. ‘Come on – you’ll miss all the fun.’ Hopping down on the other side, she shielded her eyes with both hands and pressed her face up against the glass. ‘Oh, my God!’ she giggled, waving him to come over. ‘You have got to see this! It’s like so horny! Everyone’s fucking everyone!’

  ‘Come back over,’ Joel hissed. ‘They’ll see you.’

  ‘Like they care!’ she scoffed. ‘Christ, I’m getting wet.’

  ‘Come here and show me,’ Joel said softly, feeling the hard-on straining to get free.

  Still giggling, she climbed back over and fell into his arms. ‘You’ve got to do me like now,’ she whispered, looping her arms around his neck.

  Pushing her into the corner, Joel unzipped himself and lifted her so that her back was against the slim section of wall at the side of the glass. Holding her legs around his waist, he thrust his dick into the warm wetness and hammered into her, thrilled by the cold air on his thighs, and by the sensation of being visible from all sides.

  ‘Oh, Christ, yeah . . .’ she moaned. ‘Yeah . . . yeah . . .’

  Putting a hand over her mouth as she started to cry out, the coke and alcohol making her forget where she was, Joel gritted his teeth and came in a burst of silver lights.

  ‘Oh, wow!’ she gasped, holding on to him with her legs. ‘That was like amazing! What’s your name?’

  ‘Joel,’ he told her breathily. ‘You?’

  ‘Honey,’ she said. ‘It’s Julia, really, but Honey’s better for showbiz.’

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ Joel said, chuckling now that his breathing was slowing to normal. ‘Gives a whole new meaning to the “Do you come here often?” line, doesn’t it?’

  Giving a tinkling little laugh, Honey disentangled her legs and slid down till her feet touched the floor.

  ‘Guess you’re definitely not that guy’s boyfriend, then,’ she said, reaching into a tiny handbag that Joel hadn’t noticed and which was looped around her waist. ‘Smoke?’ She took out a pack of cigarettes.

  Taking one, Joel pulled his lighter out and sparked it for her.

  ‘Thanks.’ She inhaled deeply. ‘You’ll have to start watching my show now,’ she said, smiling up at him flirtatiously. ‘And when you see me, you can say, “I shagged her.”’

  Joel snorted softly. He could just see himself saying that in front of Maria.

  He shook his head amusedly. How the hell had that just happened? No way had he expected it. But he didn’t feel quite as guilty as he’d thought he would. Maria was a sweetheart, but she was the serious kind. And that was a shame, because she was gorgeous, and lovely, and funny.

  But, oh well . . .

  ‘Do you come to many of his parties?’ Honey was asking, gesturing back through the window.

  ‘Oh, yeah, all the time,’ Joel lied, shrugging nonchalantly. ‘You?’

  ‘This is my first,’ Honey admitted. ‘My agent got me the invite. He only did it ’cos he wants to get in my knickers, but he couldn’t get here ’cos his wife caught him phoning me and told him he couldn’t come. But it’s not my problem – so, tough!’

  ‘So you’d have shagged him instead of me, would you?’ Joel asked with a smirk.

  ‘No way!’ Honey blurted out. ‘He’s got to be forty if he’s a day! I only said I’d come ’cos I wanted to meet Jippi Wotsisface. He’s like mega-cool.’

  ‘He’s all right,’ Joel said, amused that she was so star-struck, for all her bragging.

  He didn’t actually see Jippi as a star. He’d met him a couple of years back by accident – literally. They’d both been involved in fights and ended up in A&E. Jippi was still an unknown back then, and had only been in town to promote his first exhibition. Scared of being infected by the motley crew of Saturday-night drunks and tramps, he’d made a beeline for Joel, and Joel had amused himself by feeding him the music-biz line. Then, when Jippi had asked him outright if he knew where to get hold of any drugs, he’d taken him outside and sold him a gram – sure that no one as weird as Jippi could possibly be connected to the police. He’d been supplying him ever since – whenever Jippi was in town, that was. But now that he’d bought this place, it looked like he was going to be around for a while. Which was great news for Joel, because there were bound to be more parties.

  ‘I go to loads of do’s,’ Honey was saying now. ‘TV stuff, mainly. Nothing like this. I’ll have to take you to one sometime. I know loads of soap stars who like a bit of coke. You’d do all right out of it.’

  ‘I don’t get much free time,’ Joel said, still playing it cool. ‘But you can take my number if you want, then you can ring me if you need anything.’

  Taking her phone out of the bag, Honey tapped his number in.

  ‘Thanks for that,’ she said. ‘It’s way cool knowing a big dealer. I’ll be like Miss Thang when I go back on set.’

  ‘Er, best keep it to yourself,’ Joel said, nervous that she would blurt it out to all and sundry and get him busted.

  ‘Oh, yeah! Course! Like I’m really gonna give it out to everyone! If they want anything, they can ask me, and I’ll ring you. You never know, we might just meet up on another balcony sometime. That’d be cool, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Way cool,’ he said, mimicking her.

  It was almost six in the morning before Joel got back to the house. Sober now, having hopped out of the taxi a half-mile away to let the air clear his head, he had a quick shower, then joined Maria in bed.

  Stirring when she felt him beside her, Maria rolled over and opened her eyes.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, her voice husky with sleep. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Great,’ Joel said, trying to remember who he was supposed to have been with. Oh, yeah – Gareth Gates. ‘You were, um, right, by the way. He’s not doing much at the minute, but he’s contemplating getting started again, so he wanted to run through all the possibilities. That’s why it took so long. His manager was there, and we ended up at his hotel, chatting in his room.’

  ‘Glad it went well,’ Maria murmured happily, snuggling up to him.

  Putting his arm around her, Joel stared up at the ceiling in the semi-light coming through the curtains and smiled as she drifted back to sleep with her sweet-smelling hair fanned out across his chest.

  He had almost six grand in his pocket, a load of new clients, and a good idea of the kind of lifestyle he wanted to aim for. As long as Maria didn’t get wind of what he was doing and carried on supporting him, life was definitely on the up.

  Be great to get an apartment like Jippi’s, though. But he’d never be able to rustle up that kind of money. If Maria were to sell this place, though, he was pretty sure they’d be able to afford it.

  Definitely something to think about for the
future . . .

  That, and a car, so that he didn’t have to keep wasting money on cabs.

  18

  The next six months flew by, and Maria was in a state of constant bliss. She and Joel had settled into a comfortable routine: him going out to meet with his high-flying clients, her staying home to keep house.

  She was more than happy to potter about until he came home, making everything nice for him. When he had free time and they were both here, they were just as loved-up as it was possible to be, so her efforts were more than worth it. In fact, the only thing that could have made her any happier would have been if Joel were to propose. She would say yes in a heartbeat, but it hadn’t come to that – yet.

  Being in love was an alien feeling for Maria. After the pain of losing her mum and being sent away from her home and her friends, she had built a protective wall around her heart, afraid of letting anyone get too close in case they too were taken from her. Apart from Beth and, to a lesser degree, Sharon and Leanne, she had never allowed herself to really care about anybody.

  Her previous boyfriends had been mystified by her coolness, and the speed with which they found themselves dropped if they tried to take the relationship to a deeper emotional level. She had never imagined she would ever let the barriers down enough to fall totally and hopelessly in love, but Joel had slipped into her heart as if he had been there from the start. He was the one.

  She’d had plenty of time to think about this when Joel was away, and she’d realised that her life had been a series of events leading to where she was at present. If her mum hadn’t died, Elsie Davidson would never have seen the news report and hired the private detective to track Maria down. Then Maria wouldn’t have inherited this house, and would probably still be living on the Merrydown – or wherever the council had relocated them to now that it had been demolished. And if she was still there, chances were she’d have been as broke as the rest of her old friends, and couldn’t have even dreamed of staying at the Britannia. And then she wouldn’t have met Joel.

  Neither of them had known the importance of that first meeting, but fate hadn’t allowed the initial misunderstandings to keep them apart. It had pushed them back together on her very next visit to Manchester. And the rest, as they say, was history.

  Joel was in London at the moment. He’d driven down yesterday to meet with the manager of a new boy band he was organising a tour of universities for, and he was due back later this afternoon.

  Before he got back, though, Beth would have arrived for her first visit since Maria had moved back to Manchester. And that gave them a few hours alone, to catch up and gossip.

  Maria kept rushing to the window now, in between polishing and dusting, to see if the taxi was here yet. She’d just finished vacuuming the lounge when she heard the squeal of brakes as the taxi came to a stop at the gate. Taking a last look around, she ran to the door.

  Paying the fare, Beth waited for her change, then gathered her things together as the driver walked around to take her case out of the boot.

  She’d called Maria before she caught the train this morning, and had been relieved to hear that Joel wouldn’t be here till later. The one aspect of this trip that she’d been dreading was the Joel overload. She got it every time they talked: Joel said . . . Joel did . . . Joel thinks . . .

  The one thing she hadn’t heard was that Joel had finally found a flat.

  It was perfectly obvious that he had moved in, and Beth didn’t know why Maria was hiding it from her. It wasn’t like she could do anything about it – apart from tell her friend that she was being stupid, maybe. Or that, in her – admittedly limited – experience, men like Joel Parry didn’t do the faithful-boyfriend thing. But they were only words, and Maria was more than capable of not listening when she didn’t like what she was hearing.

  Getting out of the taxi now, a huge smile crept across Beth’s face when she saw Maria standing in the porch – looking even more gorgeous than usual, the bitch!

  ‘Gonna stand there all day and leave me to carry my own bags?’ she called out.

  ‘Lazy as ever!’ Maria shouted back and grinned, running to help her.

  ‘I was only joking,’ Beth said, hugging her. ‘You look amazing. Poncing about in mansions obviously suits you.’

  ‘Not quite a mansion,’ Maria said, taking Beth’s case from the driver. ‘But I’ve got my eye on a nice little castle down the road, so I shouldn’t think I’ll be here too much longer.’

  ‘You are joking?’ Beth said uncertainly.

  ‘Course I am,’ Maria laughed, stepping aside to let her go in.

  Putting her bags down, Beth tugged her gloves off and hugged Maria again. ‘I’ve missed you so much. It’s not been the same without you.’

  ‘Don’t – you’ll make me cry,’ Maria said, sniffing and laughing. ‘I miss you too. And how are the girls? Did Sharon get the birthday card?’

  ‘Yeah. She said to say thanks, it was lovely. And they’re both dead busy, or they’d have come with me.’

  Taking her coat off now, Beth looked around with surprise.

  ‘Wow! I can’t believe how different it looks in here,’ she said, stroking the textured wallpaper. ‘It looks amazing. And it’s so warm. Oh, I love that rug . . . And where did you get that mirror? It’s fantastic!’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Maria said proudly. ‘I got it at this incredible shop Joel found in Ancoats. All the Man United players get their furniture there when they get flats in town, apparently. So it’s quite expensive, but well worth it. Anyway, come and look at this.’ Pulling her into the front room, she waved her hand with a flourish. ‘Da da!’

  ‘The dreary old couches are gone,’ Beth said, casting an approving eye over the new cream suite. ‘About time, too! Did you sell them?’

  ‘Yep. And I didn’t have to do a thing, because Joel sorted it all out for me,’ Maria gushed. ‘He’s so good, Beth. I haven’t had to worry about anything since he came to stay. He’s been looking after my accounts as well, making sure the investments are working for me.’

  ‘What about Nigel?’ Beth asked with a flicker of concern.

  ‘He’s still my solicitor,’ Maria said, flapping her hand as if that were unimportant. ‘He’s there if I need him, but he shouldn’t have to be bothered with the money side of things. That was just a favour he was doing me. But Joel’s got a really good head for figures, so I trust him. And he’s been great with all the work I’ve had done on the house, too – making sure it all gets done properly, and that no one’s ripping me off.’

  ‘Uh huh,’ Beth murmured lightly. ‘I take it he still hasn’t managed to find a flat, then?’

  A flicker of a frown flitted across Maria’s brow. Beth asked that question every time they talked. And Maria’s answer was always the same: ‘It’s not that easy finding anything decent in Manchester.’

  And she said it again now, even though she knew it was wearing thin.

  She wanted to come straight out and tell Beth that Joel had moved in. But then Beth would be bound to say something derogatory, and she’d have to tell her to mind her own business, and they’d end up falling out. And she didn’t want that.

  She didn’t know why Beth was so suspicious of Joel. She’d only met him once and didn’t know the first thing about him apart from what Maria had told her – and every word of that had been good. But Beth was always so unresponsive when his name was mentioned, like she thought he was some kind of con merchant, or something. Now that she was here for the weekend, Maria was hoping she would get to know him properly and see how lovely he really was.

  ‘Come and see the kitchen,’ she said now, dragging Beth down the hall. ‘I know I’ve told you about it a hundred times, but it looks so much better than it sounds. I love it. I spend all my time in here.’

  ‘Nice fridge,’ Beth said, opening it up to take a look. ‘And you’ve even got proper food in it – I’m impressed.’

  ‘Gorgeous, isn’t it?’ Maria beamed. ‘Joel chose it.’
r />   Why doesn’t that surprise me? Beth thought, closing the door and wiping her hands on her skirt.

  ‘You’ve got it really nice,’ she said when she’d looked at everything. ‘And it feels lovely and homely. I told you the house liked you.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I like it, too,’ Maria said, sighing contentedly. ‘Anyway, come upstairs and see your room. I found some gorgeous bedding in your favourite colour, so you’ll love that. And there’s a portable TV, in case you can’t sleep.’

  ‘No en-suite?’ Beth teased, reminding her that she had said she would get one put in.

  ‘Sorry.’ Maria gave her a sheepish smile. ‘Joel said—’

  ‘I was joking,’ Beth held up a hand to stop her. She didn’t want to hear any more Joelisms. She’d only been here two minutes, and she hadn’t even seen him yet, but she was already fed up with him.

  ‘Joel’s on his way back from London,’ Maria said, unzipping Beth’s case to see what she’d brought with her. ‘He drove up yesterday to meet the manager of some boy band he’s organising a tour for. He’s so busy, the poor thing. Always travelling up and down the place.’

  ‘Oh, well, at least he’s still working,’ Beth said, not bothering to mention that Maria had already told her all this.

  ‘Yeah, course.’ Maria nodded. ‘He takes the odd day off here and there, but he’d never quit – and I wouldn’t ask him to. He’s so lucky, meeting all those stars.’

  ‘You met any yet?’ Beth asked casually.

  ‘No, but I don’t mind. It’s business, at the end of the day. Joel’s friendly with them, but he’s got to be professional about it. Anyway, most celebrities are wary of the public getting in on the behind-the-scenes stuff, because they’re always scared someone’s going to sell stories about them.’