She glanced over at Dave. ‘Anything else?’
‘Clean,’ he grunted.
‘You didn’t have to throw everything around like that,’ Skye complained, looking over at her suitcase, which looked like the contents had exploded; she shouldn’t seem too relaxed at having a strange guy go through her stuff.
‘He’s just doing his job,’ Daniyel said pacifyingly as Dave popped open Skye’s handbag and pawed inside.
She held her breath, watching him; had she misread that look between him and Ramon? What if Dave had decided to take the Investigator’s money and turn her in all the same?
Though honestly, she thought, weeks here without a drink or a Xanax, sleeping in a fucking single bed in a shared fucking dorm room, having to do therapy – maybe if Dave announces he’s found the camera, it won’t be the worst thing ever to happen to me in the world.
‘Just some more Xanax,’ Dave announced, tossing Daniyel another vial.
‘I’m a nervous flyer,’ Skye said.
‘Believe me,’ Daniyel said wryly, ‘no need to explain. No one’s come in this clean in years.’
‘Found an eight-ball on a guy last week,’ Dave grunted. ‘Wouldn’t’ve been such a biggie, but he’d flown in from Hong Kong with it in his jeans pocket. Can you believe it?’
‘Thanks, Dave,’ Daniyel said as Dave nodded and lumbered out of the room. ‘So, Skye, the rules of Cascabel: no one of the opposite sex in your room at any time. No overtly provocative clothes or behaviour. No asking people their last names. No touching other members of the group without asking their permission first. Smoking only outside. You have to be present for all group meetings, which start at eight a.m.’
‘Eight in the morning?’
But Daniyel must have been used to this objection, because she rolled straight over it and continued: ‘You must stay on the grounds, unless you’re on a supervised excursion. If you’re found with any forbidden substances on you, you will be asked to leave immediately. And obviously, there’s no sexual contact at any time. Even –’ she cleared her throat – ‘with yourself.’
Skye sat up and stared at Daniyel, speechless with shock.
‘You’re here for sex addiction, right?’ Daniyel asked, frowning, her gaze cool and assessing as she focused on Skye’s reaction.
Skye nodded. ‘And, uh, I do too much coke,’ she managed to get out. ‘Plus I overuse the Xanax, after I’ve binged on coke. You know?’
‘Cross-addiction is really common,’ Daniyel assured her. ‘That’s why our groups always have a variety of addicts.’
She uncrossed her slender legs and stood up. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to unpack and settle in. We have dinner at six and then a meditation session afterwards before bed.’
‘I’m really jonesing for a cigarette,’ Skye confessed. ‘Can I go smoke now?’
Daniyel’s frown decreased; Skye had clearly said something right.
‘I thought you seemed too OK with us taking your Xanax!’ Daniyel said. ‘I’ve never seen an addict who didn’t put up a fight to keep their sleeping pills before.’
‘It’s all a front,’ Skye said quickly. ‘Inside I’m screaming.’
‘Well, this is a safe place to scream,’ Daniyel said, but she didn’t look completely convinced.
I’ve got to look more addicted, Skye told herself firmly, as Daniyel led her out of the room. I’ve got to watch the others and act more like them. Daniyel’s as smart as a whip, as my mom used to say. And if I’m not fooling Daniyel, I sure as hell won’t fool the shrinks.
‘The garden area is through there,’ Daniyel was saying, pointing down the corridor. ‘Please use the ashtrays provided, OK? I’ll come to collect you for your intake interview. And welcome to Cascabel, Skye. We hope you find what you’re looking for here.’
That was weirdly prescient. Because what Skye was looking for happened to be in the garden, lying on a long stone slab that bordered a pool into which was trickling a tall, elegant bamboo water feature. His head thrown back to the sky, he seemed completely absorbed in an attempt to blow a perfect series of smoke rings. Hearing her step out onto the paving stones, he tilted his head sideways to see who had just arrived; and, on spotting Skye’s blonde hair and curvy figure, he sat up enthusiastically.
‘Well, hey!’ he said, looking her up and down. ‘Just joined us at the Cascabel five-star spa retreat?’
Skye thought she giggled, but she couldn’t be sure. It was as if she had lost control of her entire body the moment her eyes made contact with his. Of course she’d met celebrities before: the Lounge had hosted plenty of them: TV actors and presenters, sports stars, politicians. But never celebrity with this sheer wattage: never a major movie star at the height of his fame and glamour.
Joe Jeffreys was the sexiest man Skye had ever met. Actors were almost always a disappointment, height-wise; an action hero might look over six foot onscreen but in the flesh would turn out to be five foot six. Joe Jeffreys had to be six foot two, wide-shouldered and big-muscled; he towered over her. And he had so much natural charisma that it actually radiated from him like a wave of heat. It was what hit her first, even before she realized how handsome he was: his sheer personal magnetism. She found herself walking towards him without even being aware of what she was doing, as if he’d lassoed her and pulled her in like the big gorgeous suntanned cowboy he could easily have been.
Golden hair, bright denim-blue eyes, dark-gold skin; he was like sunshine come to life. She could have held out her hands and warmed them in his force-field.
Skye goggled at him as he said, looking at her with a more-than-appreciative grin, his deep sexy drawl infinitely familiar to her already from all the movies of his she’d seen: ‘I’m Joe.’
‘I’m Skye,’ she managed, amazed she could even get her lips to move, let alone form coherent words.
‘I’d give you a hug to say hi, but they’ve got these no-touching rules here,’ Joe said, rolling his eyes, ‘and I’ve got busted a coupla times already.’
The mere thought of being hugged by him sent waves of heat up and down Skye’s body.
Thank God I touched up my makeup when we were taxiing to the stand at Burbank, she thought with huge relief. Her big blue eyes were outlined with mascara, her cheeks were lightly touched with blusher, her lips were pale pink and shiny with L’Oréal plumping gloss. She’d applied fresh DKNY perfume; she was wearing snug jeans and a T-shirt that clung to her without being so low-cut that Daniyel would make her change it. And she’d brushed her hair into a glossy, high ponytail. There wasn’t a man in the States who didn’t like a ponytail. It reminded them of cheerleaders.
‘Yeah, I just got the rules breakdown from Daniyel,’ Skye said, pulling her cigarettes out of her pocket. Joe was there with a lighter before she’d even put the Merit to her lips.
‘Thanks,’ she said, inhaling, raising her gaze so he got the full, upward-tilted flirty look through her long lashes. ‘Oh, and you’re not supposed to ask me my last name either.’ She flashed him her best sexy stare; the nicotine, plus the familiar routine of dragging on her cigarette, were helping her get her confidence back. ‘Though you probably recognized me as soon as you saw me, right? ’Cause I’m a really famous movie star.’
Joe frowned automatically, aware that couldn’t be true, because he would have known her if it were. It took a beat, no more, before he realized she was finding a cute way to refer to his near-godlike status without sucking up to him.
His grin widened into a big, appreciative smile.
‘Pretty and funny,’ he said happily. ‘Well, I got lucky, didn’t I? Come over here, Miss Skye, and tell me all about yourself.’
Not half as lucky as you’re going to get, Skye thought happily, following Joe Jeffreys over to the fountain. The back view was nearly as breathtaking as the front. The muscles of his back and arms were clearly defined, even through his T-shirt; his ass, in faded blue jeans, was as firm and round as a speed skater’s, and he walked like an athlete. Skye remembe
red photos she’d seen of him in People magazine, a high-school quarterback at eighteen, holding his helmet and grinning at the camera, before he’d been spotted by a model scout and whisked away from the Iowa cornfields for ever.
Joe lowered himself on the stone slab again. It was warm from the sun, and as she curled up opposite him, she felt like a cat settling itself down, purring with pleasure.
All I need is Joe stroking my fur, she thought naughtily.
She looked at him, and was more than happy to see that his gaze was openly directed to her figure, checking her out, lingering on her thighs, her narrow waist, and the swell of her breasts, before rising again to her face. She met it with a glint of acknowledgement in her eyes, a dimpling smile, that told him she knew exactly what he’d been looking at and she didn’t have the least objection in the world.
‘I should tell you straight up, Joe, what I do for a living,’ she said, going in for the kill. ‘I’m an exotic dancer.’
She widened her eyes and gave him her most innocent stare, knowing that her big blue eyes, her pretty, girlish features, were a perfect contrast to the admission she was making. Reaching round, she took hold of her ponytail with one hand and played with it, tilting her head to the side as she continued: ‘Well, a stripper, if I’m being completely honest.’
‘Joe might be at Cascabel under false pretences, but he’s got to think you’re completely legit,’ Kevin had warned her. ‘Don’t be fooled by that country-boy act he pulls. He’s pretty smart. If he thinks for a moment you’re a plant, you’re fucked.’
‘You’re not going to look down on me ’cause of my job, are you?’ Skye finished, giving him a pleading, seductive look.
Have I gone too far? she wondered for a second. Was that too obvious?
And then Joe’s ridiculously handsome face broke into a shit-eating grin, as he threw his head back and burst out laughing.
‘Look down on you? Baby, I’m more likely to . . .’ He winked at her. ‘Well, let’s just say I’d goddamn love to look down on you, if you catch my drift! Jesus . . .’ He shifted on the stone, and Skye’s gaze was drawn down to his crotch. His jeans were old and worn, but not so loose that she couldn’t see the effect her body and her admission had had on him.
Oh, thank God – he’s built to scale, she noted with huge relief. He was smiling at her ruefully, acknowledging his erection, giving a slight shrug of his shoulders that said, Hey, what can I do? You’re a gorgeous chick and now you’ve got me picturing you in a thong on a pole!
All her flirtatious artifice forgotten, Skye broke into a big, happy smile, as natural as his. This was how things were supposed to be: easy, fun, both of you laughing from the get-go, knowing perfectly well you were going to end up naked and giving each other the ride of a lifetime.
‘Boy oh boy,’ Joe said, shaking his head, his eyes glinting, and reaching for his pack of Camels. ‘Trapped in sex rehab with the girl of my dreams, and banned from laying a finger on her.’
He lit up and blew a big, round smoke ring straight at her. Skye puckered her lips into a kiss and blew it back at him; for a moment, before it dissolved, they watched it hang in the air between them. Shifting again, pulling at his jeans to ease off the pressure on his crotch, Joe let out a long sigh of infinite frustration.
‘I tell you, babe,’ he said frankly, ‘this is going to be the longest goddamn month of my entire life.’
Petal
‘This is crap! This is total, fucking crap! I shouldn’t even be here!’ Petal wailed. ‘This is a shitheap!’
She kicked the bed furiously, then wailed as she stubbed her toe.
‘And you – get out of my bag, for fuck’s sake!’
Stumbling, she lunged towards Dave, who was unbuckling the straps of her beloved Balenciaga bag and reaching in one wide, meaty hand.
‘That’s my stuff! It’s personal!’
‘We have to go through everything, Petal,’ said Daniyel from behind her. ‘It’s Cascabel policy.’
Petal swung round on her, hands on her hips, her small form radiating fury, like a kitten having a tantrum.
‘You get off on this, don’t you?’ she snapped furiously. ‘You get off on the power!’
Infuriatingly, Daniyel refused to be drawn. Instead, she replied sympathetically: ‘I understand it’s unpleasant to see someone going through your things. But we can’t let you keep items that are banned here. If you’re carrying drugs, you could risk an overdose, for instance—’
‘I just flew in from London! How the fuck do you think I’d manage to score between the airport and here!’ Petal screamed.
‘Codeine,’ Dave said flatly, dropping onto the coverlet the two big red packets of Solpadeine Petal had picked up at Heathrow.
‘That’s headache pills!’ Petal wailed. ‘What if I get a headache?’
‘Codeine’s a narcotic,’ Daniyel pointed out, as Dave unzipped Petal’s gold leather Tarte vanity bag and dumped out the contents. ‘We can give you medication for headaches, if you have any withdrawal symptoms.’
‘Ritalin, Xanax . . .’ Dave said, pawing through the plastic strips of pills and containers. ‘Uppers, downers. The usual suspects.’
‘Oh my God, you’re taking those?’ Petal’s jaw dropped. ‘I thought I was just here about doing coke!’
She watched in horror as Dave pulled a flimsy plastic bag out of his pocket and scooped all her pills into it, handing it over to Daniyel. Desperately, she lunged towards the bag, trying to rip it away from them; but somehow Dave’s bulk interposed itself between her and Daniyel, and his sheer size blocked her completely. He had to weigh over twenty stone; her hands, beating briefly on his torso, looked so tiny and futile they fell to her sides almost immediately in defeat.
‘You can’t . . .’ she wailed, but she already knew it was a lost battle. Gulping, throwing herself on the bed, she grabbed her handbag and rifled through it, going for the snug inside pocket that contained her Swarovski-studded mobile phone. Frantically, she hit a familiar key sequence and started texting; but the next thing she knew, Daniyel’s slim hand reached down over her shoulder and slid the phone out of her grasp so efficiently that Petal didn’t even have time to tighten her grip.
‘That’s mine!’ she yelled.
‘Cellphones are banned,’ Daniyel said gently, slipping Petal’s into her pocket, ‘though we may allow you to have yours back for controlled periods if you’re responding well to treatment. We do have a phone here that you’re allowed to use, out in the hall.’
‘Oh my God!’
Petal burst into hysterical floods of tears. She was jet-lagged, mildly hungover – she’d been hitting the free champagne heavily on her Virgin flight over, knowing it would be the last alcohol she’d get for weeks – and in huge withdrawal from Dan, who she was already missing terribly. She’d practically crawled home from her meeting with Gold and Jinhee and spent the rest of the day, and her last night, wrapped in his arms, crying and cursing her fate.
Tas and JC had come round, of course. And they’d all come in the limo with her to Heathrow, drinking fizz like it was going out of fashion in a vain attempt to cheer her up. Tas, the only practical one in the bunch, had done her best to spin Petal’s stay at Cascabel as a positive outcome.
‘You were caning it,’ she’d said with her normal brutal frankness. ‘You know you were, man.’
‘Tas—’ JC started, but Tas wouldn’t be cut off.
‘No, come on!’ she’d said, looking around her. ‘We all know Petal was caning it! She missed every single appointment we got for her. We’re a team, yeah? All for one and one for all. But we can’t make it without Petal doing her bit.’
Petal had slumped back against Dan, hanging her head.
‘Accessorize . . . Rimmel . . . they won’t look at me now,’ she’d muttered guiltily.
‘No, but what about when you come back all cleaned up?’ Tas had said encouragingly. ‘They’ll be all over you! Everyone goes to rehab nowadays, it’s cool! You do some big
interviews . . .’
‘“My Drug Hell”,’ JC muttered.
‘– and everyone’ll be queuing up to get your face on their ads!’ Tas had finished cheerfully.
‘Bit of scandal never hurt anyone in the long run,’ Dan had agreed, stroking her hair. ‘And we’re going into the recording studio next week, pet. I’ll be in there all hours. You’d barely have seen me anyway.’
‘You’ll all ring me, won’t you?’ Petal had pleaded miserably. ‘Every day? I’m going to be so lonely . . .’
They’d all promised faithfully that they would; but she’d assumed, of course, that she’d be able to keep her mobile with her. Now, looking around her nasty shared room at Cascabel, Petal could see that there was no TV – worse, no computer. And her phone was tucked into Daniyel’s pocket.
‘I wouldn’t have come!’ Petal collapsed on the bed, grabbing a pillow to hug for comfort. ‘I wouldn’t have come to this fucking place if I’d known I wasn’t even going to be allowed to text my boyfriend . . . God!’
I’ll be gone for a whole month, she thought frantically. Anything could happen in a month! There’ll be tons of girls after him – he’s so gorgeous, and now we’ve been photographed together all the time, everyone’ll be chasing him to try to get where I’ve been. How is he ever going to resist all those girls throwing themselves at him if I can’t even get in touch with him?
‘We can schedule calls for you and your boyfriend,’ Daniyel said kindly, but that just made Petal sob even harder.
‘He’s in a band! He’s practically a rock star!’ she yelled through the pillow. ‘You don’t schedule calls with rock stars, for fuck’s sake! He doesn’t work in a bloody bank!’
‘I’m going to give you half an hour to feel your feelings,’ Daniyel said, as Dave left the room with Petal’s stash of pills. ‘Then I’ll come and collect you for your intake interview. Would you like me to bring you a cup of tea? Maybe camomile? It’s very calming.’
‘Go away!’ Petal screeched, her voice rising high enough that it could easily have been heard by any bats in the Los Angeles area. ‘Go away, go away, go away!’
Bad Girls Page 16
