A lone tear runs down my cheek and he licks, yes licks it from my face. “Shall we go home so you can show me your tits?” he asks with a grin.

“You’re such a charmer Maca.” He gives me his full on, rock star on the front cover of a magazine, smoulder.

“Yeah, you think, am I good enough to get into your knickers later?”

“Erm babe, you did that about an hour ago, over my brother’s desk.”

He looks horrified. “Aw shit, was that you? Sorry, I thought that was some random bird, throwing herself at me.”

I stop dancing and put my hands on my hips. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m joking, I’m joking, come on, say goodbye to your mates and let’s get out of here.”

“Mine or yours?” I ask.

“Well I’m assuming Marley won’t be leaving without Ash so let’s go to yours.”

We say our goodbyes and leave the club by the back doors as apparently there are number of reporters waiting out the front. Milo walks us out and jumps into the front of Sean’s Land Rover that’s waiting outside for us. I’m introduced to Dave our driver and we’re driven through the night back to my flat, me trying to keep Sean’s hands from sliding into my knickers all the way there.

CHAPTER 21

My Dad had this lame saying that he used to quote to my brothers; it was usually when my Mum asked who had made the mess in her kitchen. De Nile is not just a river in Egypt, it never failed to make us groan but I had had that saying going around in my head for two weeks now and I was unsure why. Well I wasn’t, not really, I knew why and if De Nile was just a river in Egypt, I was drowning in it, I had drowned in it, for two weeks, I had felt like I had stones tied around my neck and I was firmly weighed down and on the very bottom of that river and the reason being was the guilt I felt over Cam. Not for what I had done, not for the way things ended but for the fact that I missed him so much. I loved Sean; I love Sean with a passion that defies logic. We have spent every spare moment together this past two weeks and he’s been in my bed every single night, we’ve woken up together every single morning, we’ve talked and talked and talked, we’ve decided not to waste time, we’re already looking for our own place. The press haven’t worked out where I live yet but they know who I am. Last weekend one of the Sunday tabloids run a front page and a whole double spread inside about mine and Sean’s ‘Great Love Story’. How we were childhood sweethearts and how we were ripped apart by his fame, they didn’t mention the rape incident because the accusation was withdrawn, charges dropped and the press threatened with legal action if they ever mentioned the incident, without making it perfectly clear that it was a fabricated story so it was just never mentioned but because the press knew who I was. They had camped out at the gates of my parents drive and the house had been bombarded with phone calls and post for me, lots of the calls were abusive from fans, lots of the mail were hate filled threats for me to back off. Sean was theirs and I needed to stay away. Some letters were actually really sweet, telling us that what we had was something special and wishing us well. Some were just plain weird, pictures of blokes’ dicks, with notes telling me I was beautiful and that they bet Sean wasn’t as well-endowed as they were. In the end, everything sent for me to my parent house was put in sacks and sent to Sean’s personal assistant Andrea. She siphoned through it and only sent us the things she thought we would like to read, which wasn’t much. All of the publicity had done wonders for trade at the shops, lots of new customers coming in, buying something small, just to see if I was there but I had stayed away.

My Mum and I had met for lunch on the Tuesday after Sean and I got back together, we talked through everything and I told her I forgave her. I’m not entirely sure that I did but I did understand her motives, I had said then, that I would carry on with work as normal but now, two weeks into my relationship with Sean, it was becoming apparent that this was going to be impossible so after a meeting yesterday. We had promoted Ashley as area manager and put a new full time manager in all six stores that we now had, and we had taken on an admin team consisting of a personal manager, staff in charge of accounts and orders and two new buying assistants, basically, my Mum and I, were part of the business in name only.

The band were touring the states next year and Sean had asked me to go with him, because of Len and Jimmie’s wedding they had taken the whole of June off and were only committed to a few television appearances over the rest of the summer. They were back in the studio in August to start recording their new album, due to be released in March as the U S tour kicked off. Sean and Marley had written a few new songs for the album but they would start getting together more regularly in July so that they were prepared to start laying down tacks by about September. All of this meant lots of free time for Sean and I to spend together but when he got a song in his head, he was gone, off with Marley to do their thing and as I was too scared to go out because of the press. I stayed home and had too much time to think and to feel guilty that I was missing Cam and that’s exactly what I was doing on this Friday lunch time, almost two weeks after I had last seen Cam. I’d just finished talking on the phone to Jimmie, her hens do was in a week’s time, twenty six women, all off to Marbella in Spain for five nights, friends, Mums, sisters, cousins, ranging in age from eighteen to sixty five and I couldn’t wait. Hopefully Marbella was going to mean anonymity for me, five whole days of nobody knowing who I was, I had only experienced two weeks of this fame game and already I was over it.

My buzzer on the intercom went and my belly went over, I was worried all the time that the press were going to find out about our little love nest. They had besieged Sean and Marley’s place and were totally confused about Sean’s whereabouts as he hadn’t been back there, he’s had Milo bring his clothes and toiletries and guitar here and here we had hidden away for two weeks, waiting for the ridiculous amount of interest they had in me to die down, which so far, had failed to happen. My palms were instantly sweaty as I stood up on the intercoms second buzz.

“Hello,” I said nervously.

“Georgia?”

“Who’s that?”

“Georgia Darlin’, it’s Benny, Cam’s Benny, dya think I could come in and have a chat babe.”

What on earth did Benny want? I was suddenly nervous, had Cam sent him to kill me, would Cam kill me, did he despise me that much?

“What’s wrong Ben, why do you need to chat with me?”

“Georgia, look Darlin’, its Cam, I don’t wanna do this over the intercom love, I just need five minutes.” I thought about it for a few seconds. Dave had been assigned to look after me when Sean wasn’t around and was sitting outside in a big Toyota four wheel drive when I looked this morning.

“I’ll come out,” I said to Benny.

“Sweet.” I heard him reply.

I looked out of the window onto the parking space below, Dave was out of his car and was obviously watching Benny and looked a little bit unsure of what to do. I went out and opened the door to Ben and stepped outside, I put my hand up to Dave to let him know that everything was okay and then turned to talk to Cam’s minder. “What’s up Ben, what can I do for ya?”

“Georgia, look this is a bit embarrassing, I know you’re with that pop star an’ everything now an’ I’m sorry an’ all that but the boss is a mess an’ I don’t know what to do. His bruvers an’ his sister av bin an’ tried to sort ‘im out but he ain’t ‘avin none of it, ‘is hittin the bottle and he could keep an army marchin’ for a month on the Charlie ‘is snortin an’ it’s all since you left ‘im.”

He looks at me pleadingly. “I’m scared love, I’m really scared ‘is gonna neck ‘imself.”