Page 110 of Read My Lips

I felt sick.

A little tinge of pink backlit Simon’s face. I only noticed because he looked like that when he was fucking me.

I stood sharply, pushing my chair out with the back of my shaking legs, nearly stumbling as I stepped away from the table. All three of them turned to look at me.

“Ben?” Simon was already on his feet, but Richard had his hand on his shoulder. The waiter stepped close like the hero I hadn’t realised he was.

“Restrooms are this way, sir.”

“Thank you.”

CHAPTER

THIRTY

The bathroom door fell closed on weighted hinges, and I stared at the gilded mirrors on the wall above the sinks. The wallpaper was dense with hand drawn tropical plants outlined in gold. A leopard peeked out between the leaves and if I stayed where I was, I couldn’t see my reflection.

Maybe I didn’t really exist. A proper fake boyfriend through and through. Vampires didn’t have broken noses, but maybe ghosts did.

What had I got myself into?

Leaning on the counter top – marble, obviously – I slackened my strangling tie, and it felt like giving up. I clashed with everything in here. What was the point?

The door swung again, but it wasn’t Simon who followed me in.

Richard paced over, dabbing at his front with his napkin. “Bloody olive oil. Can’t take me anywhere.” He barked a laugh, flipping the tap on like the excuse to follow me wasn’t as translucent as the dotted dribble on his shirt. Could he not have waited five sodding minutes so I could finish hyperventilating?

He pumped out soap and dabbed and scrubbed, like he wasn’t going to give his laundry to someone else to sort out the minute he got back to his estate. In the mirror, side by side with him, I absently touched my shirt front too. This was how the film had so many people fooled. From the shoulders down, the biggest difference between us was the expense of his suit. When everything was soft-focus on the shapes of muscles and the tone of skin, I was his three-quarter-sized twin. That’s all I’d been good for.

Water gushed into the basin, running down the drain in a bubbling frothy-soft spurt. Totally wasted. Richard flipped the tap off.

“Bloody awkward out there, wasn’t it?” He ruffled the fall of hair shadowing his eyes, giving me a blokeish nudge. “Honestly mate, good show trying to help out. But it’d be easier all round if you duck out and let me and Simon take it from here. He’s still going with that journalist chap. But all this makes more sense if you’re not trotting out sob stories about your gran, don’t you think?” He winced. “Bit embarrassing, yeah?”

I bristled. “I didn’t say anything about my gran.” She was the last person I would ever have brought into this. “Simon did.” And he’d had no bloody right to.

“Well. Don’t worry, they’ll get bored of you very quickly now I’m back in the frame. Let us take over.” He straightened, cricking his neck as he rolled his head side to side, like he was warming up for the performance.

Fuck that. Simon should never have mentioned Gran, but I wasn’t letting Richard pretend I’d never existed. “No. It’s fine. I just need a minute.”

“Oh for godsake. Let it go.” Barely glancing at me, he smoothed his shirt even flatter along his stomach, inspecting the damp patch he’d created. “I told Simon there was no need for all this theatre, but he insisted we didn’t contradict your ludicrous attempt at an explanation.”

“What?” Every muscle in my body tightened.

“Catch up.” He straightened his tie. “I only put the film out to shake things up.”

My stomach dropped. The trees in the wallpaper started swaying. I slumped hard against the tiles next to the hand drier to hold myself up. “You leaked the footage? Yourself?”

“A little quieter, will you?” He glanced towards the door as if Luke might hear me all the way back at the table.

I didn’t drop my voice. “You nearly got Simon fired!”

Richard balled the wet napkin he’d been mopping up with, shaking his head. “Did not. You’re as bad as him, going on about reputations.”

I wanted to hit him, standing there, not even looking at me properly. Treating both of us like nothing.

“Maybe because ours matter!” We couldn’t snap our fingers and have new branding opportunities appear at our feet. One clear swing, right in the gobshite’s aristocratic nose so it looked like mine would be some kind of justice. But the fall-out from that would burn me worse.

“How could you land Simon in it, and not even tell him?”