Scandalous Lies: An addictive, sexy beach read

by Nigel May

  Chloe had been in the chippie buying tea for her sister and waste-of-space dad – maybe the chips could soak up some of the alcohol he’d spent his day guzzling – when Jack had swaggered in. She was immediately smitten. He was thin in the extreme, nothing like the posters of muscled actors and pop stars decorating her bedroom wall at home, but Taylor Lautner and Usher had never breezed into her local fast food joint, hair all tousled in a designer don’t-give-a-shit way and cockily asked for the biggest battered sausage they had. Jack was mesmerising and Chloe could not take her eyes off him. And when Jack spotted her gazing his way, he was quick to react, giving a cheeky wink. Chloe felt her face stain red immediately.

  She’d waited for him outside the shop, running the risk of her food going cold. She didn’t care. Her dad would be too pissed to notice and she could stick her sister’s in the microwave. She might never see this boy again and she had to talk to him. He had winked at her after all.

  When he did appear, his hand diving into his open bag of sausage and chips as he did so, she couldn’t look in his direction and immediately lowered her head to face the floor. The pavement was just as decorated with chip forks as the inside floor of the shop.

  Luckily he spoke. ‘Some people are dirty fuckers, aren’t they? Fancy a chip?’ He pushed the bag of chips in Chloe’s direction. Her face felt redder than a passing double decker bus but she timidly took a chip from the paper and popped it into her mouth. It was surprisingly hot and she awkwardly chewed on it, trying to deal with the burning inside her mouth and say thanks at the same time.

  ‘Don’t scald yourself. Especially your tongue, you might need it later.’ Jack laughed and placed his hand under her chin playfully. It was their first contact and immediately a bolt of excitement shot through Chloe’s body. He was electric. And Chloe could feel a thousand switches turning on inside her as he spoke, his cheeky words causing her to blush ever deeper. By the time Jack had finished his sausage and chips, aided by Chloe, the pair of them had swapped phone numbers and he’d promised to show her ‘a good time that didn’t involve any salt and vinegar’. As Chloe walked back home, a plastic bag full of lukewarm food swinging alongside her, she was euphoric. She’d had boys chat her up before, she was a great looking girl, but there was an excitement about Jack Christie that she had never experienced. She felt charged enough to launch a rocket. Not even the sight of her drunken father slumped on their sofa, a line of dribble cascading from his lips when she arrived home could wipe the smile off her face.

  Jack became Chloe’s first boyfriend. Well, to her, he was. Jack would never say it. He was a free-spirited lad, unable to say any kind of romantic words that would actually tie him to her. Jack the lad was indeed just that and she knew it. She was even prepared to put up with it.

  She gave him her virginity, an act that she didn’t take lightly. She knew that he was probably shagging other girls behind her back but Jack made her feel special. When they lay in bed together after sex, Jack rolling a cigarette as Chloe gazed adoringly at him, it was, to her, pure romance. She had no desire to tame him. Simply to be by his side from time to time was enough.

  She was fully aware of what Jack did for a living. The clues were there. The flat he shared with Andy had lines of white powder chopped out on surfaces and bags of weed laying on the table. Jack hid nothing from her and she respected his honesty. She couldn’t judge him. She knew the world wasn’t a perfect place from her own experience. But hadn’t she always been taught that if you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain? She could forgive any shady dealings he was involved with as long as she could be part of his life; a part that took her away from the hardship of having to deal with a younger sister and a pisshead father at home.

  Jack gave her money to help at home, for bills and weekly shops. She never questioned its origins. Jack had swaggered into her life for a reason and in the eighteen months they spent in each other’s company Chloe turned from a bashful girl outside the chippie into a young woman who was experiencing things she had only ever seen in movies before. Not all of them were legal, but with Jack by her side, life was the closest thing to heaven she had ever known.

  The day that Chloe learnt that Jack had gone down for five years for breaking and entering was one of the worst days of her life. The cheeky, dirty blonde-haired rogue who had opened her eyes to the world was gone. Not for good maybe, but behind bars and away from her side. He missed her eighteenth birthday, a day that he’d promised to make special, by two weeks. She’d ending up celebrating it, if you could call it that, by buying fish and chips for her sister and dad.

  ‘Why didn’t you want me to come and see you in prison?’ asked Chloe as she sat nervously on the sofa beside Jack. All of the timorous feelings she had experienced outside the chippie all those years ago had flooded back at seeing him again. She hardly recognised him. It was as if someone had pumped him up; his muscles, hitherto unseen by her, inflated to bodybuilder proportions. He had become a man and he looked amazing, even if wearing a completely different outer shell to the one she had last seen him in.

  ‘To do what?’ asked Jack, matter of fact. ‘To show you that I’d fucked up? To let you see that I’d done wrong? I didn’t want anybody to see me like that. And besides, you had your life to carry on with.’

  ‘It all seemed remarkably dull after you went inside. I took your silence as an indication that our time was done. I thought I might have received a visiting order.’

  ‘Nobody did, babe. Nobody.’ Jack placed his hand upon her knee as he spoke. There was that electricity again. It shot from her knee in a direct line to the area between her legs. She needed to think straight, she wasn’t here to rekindle an old flame. There were more urgent matters that needed attending to.

  ‘I didn’t think about you until now. I couldn’t. There was too much going on. Too much you could never share with me.’ The first sentence was a lie. She had often thought of Jack, more than she yet cared to admit. Was there a crease of disappointment in Jack’s face as she’d said that? She wasn’t sure there was. Was he still the island of a man he’d always been?

  ‘So why the sudden text? Need some money to buy some booze for your old fella? Thought you’d see if I was up to my old tricks?’

  There was a levity in his voice, but his words still scored at Chloe’s heart.

  ‘My dad died three and a half years ago, Jack. Choked on his own vomit in front of the TV. My sister had already left home to live with her boyfriend up north. I found Dad. Mum didn’t even make it to the funeral. Said she’d be abroad with her bloke. The house was mine and I sold it. My sister has half the money, me the other.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Jack’s words were genuine. ‘So, how did you know I was out?’

  ‘Lucky guess, I suppose.’ Again a lie, but she didn’t want Jack to know that she’d been counting the days.

  ‘So where are you living now?’ asked Jack.

  Chloe filled Jack in on her life since the death of her father. Finally having nobody to look after or wipe up after, Chloe had looked at her skill set. It wasn’t exactly plentiful. She was good at looking after people, able to cook and clean and had no luggage or ties. Becoming a nanny was the obvious answer. When she secured the job with Victoria and Scott she moved in with them. The house money was now almost gone, but what there was of it she intended to dip into to buy Victoria’s painkillers. That’s if Jack could give her what she wanted.

  She explained about Victoria and her need for the pills.

  ‘So what do you need?’

  ‘You tell me, you’re the drug dealer. Something to stop this woman’s pain. But not too much, eh? I like the idea of her being a little out of action for a while longer yet. I have some plans I need to work on. My job depends upon it.’ Chloe couldn’t stop thinking about Scott. He was a married man but he still seemed to respect her, which was something she had never really had from Jack. The days with him had been fun and adventurous but not ones that she wished to live through again,
that was for sure. She’d been too vulnerable. And certainly not ones that would provide a foundation for a lifetime together. Even if he had blossomed into an incredibly attractive young man, she’d moved on to better, brighter and yes, she was proud to admit it, richer things. She couldn’t risk losing Scott from her life. Not when she thought that maybe there was a chance for them to be together. To form a foundation and potentially never be vulnerable again. Dare she think it? For him to love her.

  ‘I may have just what you need right here in the flat. Andy always keeps a stash of as much gear as possible hidden away.’

  ‘So, what’s it going to cost me?’

  ‘Well, how about this for starters, Chloe?’ He gave the bulge straining underneath the crotch of his jeans a squeeze. ‘You’re looking good and maybe we can work it into some kind of discount for the drugs.’

  As he spoke, he unzipped his trousers and let his erect cock spring forth. He placed one of his hands around it and worked the shaft in his palm. Chloe noticed the large bird ring on his finger as it moved up and down.

  Forty minutes later Chloe was walking down the street with a blister pack of strong painkillers in her pocket and the salty sweet taste of bargaining on her lips. Jack had given her a discount for blowing him. It was a price Chloe was more than happy to pay.

  Forty-Two

  Devon and Tanya’s private jet came to a halt on the runway as it touched down in London. Neither of them had spoken for the entire journey. Tanya wasn’t sure that she ever wanted to speak to Devon again after what had occurred in Milan. She had faced many dangers in her life, especially back in her homeland, but the fear that Devon had put her through in Italy outweighed everything. She placed her fingers to her temple, a small disc of bruise still painful to touch. She looked down at the chaffing on her wrists, the red marks a sore reminder of the moments just hours before when she had thought that her life would be over. Ended by the man she loved, or at least had loved. Did she anymore? Could she?

  The tears rolled down Devon’s face as he held the gun to Tanya’s forehead. His hands shook as he pushed the hard, cold metal of the barrel against the soft, pink, tender flesh of her skin.

  Tanya froze, afraid that any excess movement would cause the trigger to explode, spraying her brains in a mucky arc against the silk pillowcases and across the bedhead between two of the four posters. So this was how she would die. At the height of five star luxury at the hand so her own husband. Why was Devon doing this? It was as if he was possessed, no longer in control of his own sanity. His calm transformed to carnage before her very eyes.

  It was true what they said. When you are staring into the jaws of death your life does indeed flash before your eyes. And Tanya’s was a life that contained a collage of images that most people would have no notion of comprehending. Images of her father, her childhood, her orthodox upbringing, the men she had loved and those she hadn’t all flooded into her thoughts, the images changing with a high-shutter speed that she was finding it hard to keep up with. Snapshots of her marriage to Devon raced through her brain; the feel of his lips against hers, so tender and loving as they exchanged vows, now seeming somehow meaningless. An image of Aaron, their time together brief, beautiful and burning.

  Tanya prepared herself for the end, her fear blanketing her. This was to be lights out, the final curtain on the production of her life. One that would now always to be remembered as a tragedy.

  She stared into Devon’s eyes, trying to understand the torture that lurked there, the darkness that was polluting him from within. She searched for an answer, something to hold on to as she drew her last breath. For a millisecond there was a glimmer of doubt in his eyes. The hatred replaced by some faint ember of love that still glowed.

  She continued to look deep into his soul. Somehow, it worked. Moving the gun away from her forehead, Devon buried it deep into the pillow behind her head and fired it. An eruption of feathers fountained into the air around Tanya’s head, some landing on her face, sticking there, glued by the tears that still wetted her cheeks.

  She felt another kind of moisture as a flow of warmth pooled between her legs, a pitiful yellowish puddle forming on the sheets where her own distress had caused her to lose control of her bodily functions. After everything it was the ultimate humiliation. The tears came, flowing freely, in relief that maybe she would survive the ordeal, at least physically. They continued to flow as Devon, also still sobbing, untied the gag around her head and the two restraints on her wrists. As a silent Tanya undid those attaching her ankles, she could see a sliver of daylight coming in through the gap in the velvet curtains dressing the room. She wanted to scream, she wanted to grab the gun and force it into Devon’s skin, to let him know how she had felt. But watching him, slumped on the floor, naked, tears still flowing down his face, she didn’t know what to think. She wanted to hate him, but before she could do that, she needed to understand him. Why had he treated her in such a way?

  ‘Don’t you ever let that fucking gardener lay his hands on you again, or I swear next time I’ll kill you both. Now start packing, I’ve arranged for the jet to leave in two hours.’ Despite his sobs, Devon’s meaning was clear. He’d planned the whole thing. This was his revenge. The trip, the spending spree, the cocktails. Hadn’t he drunk, too? Now that Tanya thought about it, maybe not. He had needed to be in control. That would explain why she’d had so much and felt so drunk. No wonder she’d slept while he tied her to the bed. He had mapped out the evening in his mind, mapped out the whole Italian trip. Maybe even mapped out her death. Did he plan to kill her? Had he bottled it or was scaring her so much the plan all along? Tanya didn’t know.

  Forty-Three

  The celebratory vocals of Meghan Trainor’s ‘All About That Bass’ burst out from the speakers.

  It was the first time in a long while that Georgia had let her hair down and immersed herself in a classic seemingly carefree piece of ‘dance like nobody’s watching’. Even if she knew deep down that really she was just putting a brave face on things for the sake of the evening’s celebration she was determined to paint on a party smile. And the fact that she was able to dance with Charlie gyrating his snake hips alongside her was the icing on the cake as far as making herself faux-happy for now was concerned. The cake in question being the rather ginormous three-tiered one at the corner of the dance floor with a sugar paste Hollywood sign perched on it and a top-heavy fondant Nova decorating the top layer. The two balls of fondant forming her breasts alone were the size of tennis balls.

  Georgia was enjoying the party to celebrate the Super Nova ratings and she had to admit that it had been a long while since she had been so star struck by those around her. She’d already spotted about half a dozen singing stars she had downloaded onto her iPod, several TV talent show judges and countless Real Wives, Drag Race queens and Top Models. It was autograph hunter heaven and a fruity mix of vamp through to camp. Georgia couldn’t help thinking that Mitzi would have loved it.

  Charlie’s arrival eclipsed any shining star though in Georgia’s eyes, and he had arrived at the party’s venue, directly from the airport, changing into a muscle-hugging tuxedo in the back of a limousine on the way. If he was suffering any jet lag then he certainly wasn’t showing any signs of it as he flexed his body across the dance floor.

  Planting her lips on his as they vacated the dance floor – she would never tire of kissing him – Georgia and Charlie moved over to a corner of the club where Nova and Jacob were holding court to a group of revellers. Nova squealed with delight as they approached, reaching out her arms for Charlie. She had hardly left him alone all evening.

  An eclectic mix of people stood listening to Nova as she announced yet again that Charlie was her ‘pride and joy’. A pair of drag queens, between them a shower of cat’s-whisker-long false eye lashes, poppy-red lips and ceiling-skimming wigs, hung off Nova’s every word, pouting and laughing at what they deemed to be the right moments. Beside them, a couple of fifty plus suited gentlemen, whom
Georgia assumed must be network bigwigs, seemed bemused and stunned into silence by the gaiety of the party yet happy to be quaffing bubbles by the flute full and downing nibbles from any passing waiter. Completing the group were two girls that Georgia recognised as being part of the Super Nova crew from her day watching filming poolside, and a man she recognised but couldn’t immediately place.

  Any confusion was short-lived as one of the girls introduced themselves to Charlie and Georgia.

  ‘I’m Addison Downes. I work with your mother as a production assistant. This is Sarah Ellison, second assistant on the show, and this is Aaron Rose from the UK. He’s in town for an audition for one of the network shows next season and I think your mother has taken quite a shine to him. As have our friends here,’ said Addison, signalling the drag queens. Both raised their already sky-high eyebrows to another stratosphere and flashed sets of the whitest teeth Georgia had ever seen.

  Georgia suddenly twigged where she had seen Aaron before. She had seen his photo in the press reports about Mitzi as the man who had been picked to dance with her friend on the television. Plus she kind of knew him from his former TV show back in the UK too.

  The group exchanged pleasantries for five or so minutes, Georgia taking the opportunity to enjoy yet another free cocktail and also work out if she liked Aaron, Addison and Sarah. Her first impressions said she did.