Angel Uncovered (27 page)

'It's true what I said on stage,' he replied, looking at
her, his expression serious. 'I love you so much, Angel.'
And he drew her towards him and kissed her. For the
first time in ages Angel actually felt happy.
I think we'regoing to be all right
, she thought. But it was a moment that
didn't last. Cal's attention was claimed by yet another of
his admirers. As Angel was standing beside him, glancing
at the crush of partygoers, Simone sidled up next to her.
Angel's heart sank. There was going to be no escape from
her this time.

'Hi, Angel. I did enjoy your little show on stage, it was
so lovely,' she said, slurring her words slightly. 'Though
let's face it, public speaking isn't your strongest point, is
it? It's that Brighton accent. Makes you sound so – how
can I put this? – common.'

Angel turned to face her, trying to keep her expression
as neutral as possible. Simone's make up was still perfect
but her eyes looked glassy and she kept sniffing. Angel
hadn't had her down as a coke head, but maybe she
needed the drugs to cope with life with Jamie.

'And that show of togetherness was so unexpected,'
Simone continued. 'Especially with Cal playing away and
everything.'

For a second Angel stared at her in disbelief.
Did sheknow then? Was she behind that photograph? Or was shethrowing out accusations just to get a reaction?
A chill ran
through Angel because if Simone did know that Cal had
had an affair, she sure as hell wasn't likely to keep it a
secret.

Somehow Angel managed to compose herself and
reply as calmly as she could, 'I don't know what you
mean, Simone, but I do feel really sorry for you if you
have to obsess about my relationship. Your own not
fulfilling enough then?'

Simone looked furious.

'You bitch!' she sneered, the mask of politeness
slipping. 'You stole him from me and one day you're
going to pay!'

'Ever thought of taking a role in panto?' Angel shot
back. 'You'd make the perfect Wicked Stepmother.'

'And who do you think you are!' Simone spat back.
'Snow fucking White?'

Angel shrugged. 'Well, I guess we all know which one
of us would be the fairest of them all if we looked in the
mirror, don't we?'

Simone turned almost aubergine with rage.

'You'd better wake up, Princess! Your Prince has been
shagging around – whatever he might say now.'
And with that she left, pushing her way through the
partygoers, leaving Angel reeling. It seemed to her that
Simone must know about Cal's affair, and the thought of
her knowing something as damaging as that was
horrifying. Just as she thought things couldn't get any
worse, she turned round and walked straight into
Connor and Gabrielle.

Angel nodded in acknowledgement and made as if to
walk past them but Connor said, 'Angel! Good to see you.
I thought you did really well onstage.'

She was forced to look at him, and tried to work out if
he was taking the piss. But as he had done before Connor
seemed sincere.
Oh, God,
she thought despairingly,
Ipreferred it when he was a cocky git.'

'Thanks,' she muttered, while Gabrielle held tightly on
to her husband's arm and looked as if she could
cheerfully have stabbed Angel with her Yves Saint
Laurent Tribute heels.

'Gabrielle and I were wondering if you and Cal wanted
to meet up for dinner sometime,' Connor continued,
oblivious to the look of distaste on his wife's face.

'Well, Cal's not around much at the moment,' Angel
replied, hoping that would be enough to put him off.

But Connor wasn't going to give in so easily. 'If you
give me your mobile number I can text some dates.'

Angel was all set to give him a wrong number, then
reasoned that she may as well give him the right one so
that when he texted her, she could text him back, telling
him to leave her alone. Only when Connor had double-checked
the number was she finally free to go and quickly
made her way back to Cal.

'Can we go now?' she whispered, putting her arm
through his.

'You look pale, is something the matter?' he asked.

'I'll tell you when we're out of here,' she replied,
desperate to get as far away as possible from Simone,
Connor and Gabrielle.

Later, when the pair of them were in bed, she finally told
Cal what Simone had said – she hadn't wanted to tell him
on the journey home, fearing their driver might overhear.
But once again he shrugged off her worries that
Simone knew about Alessia.

'She's just being spiteful, she doesn't know anything,'
he said, clearly anxious to change the subject. 'If she did,
do you really think she'd have been able to keep it to
herself?'

'Maybe she was waiting to see what would happen once
I knew about it – maybe she thought we would split up if
I found out? She looked shocked when she saw us
together.' Angel's mind was racing. She still felt deeply
disturbed by her encounter with Simone. She curled
round Cal. Since she had seen Simone she'd felt
unusually cold and shivery.
Perhaps the Wicked Witch hadput a spell on her?

Cal sighed. 'Angel, she always looks like that whenever
we see her. She's just a bitter woman. Forget about her.
She's nothing to us.'

Angel didn't mention Connor's dinner invitation,
deciding that she would nip that in the bud as soon as he
texted her.

The next morning all the papers carried coverage of
the awards night with the pictures of Cal revealing his
tattoos featuring in nearly all of them. There were also
pictures of Angel and him posing on the red carpet and
looking like the ultimate loved up celebrity couple. The
headlines were all about how happy they still were. Cal
smiled ruefully when he saw all the coverage but Angel
felt less than pleased. It was too soon after the recent
bombshell for her to feel wholly comfortable. The press
were making out that they were the perfect couple when
she knew they were not. It felt as if they were being set up
for a fall . . .

Cal was flying back to Italy that night which cast a shadow
over the rest of the day for Angel. She didn't want him to
go, and couldn't go with him either as she had several
shoots that week. They spent the day in Brighton. It was
early-April and a beautiful day – the sun was shining and
the sky was a clear blue, not a cloud to be seen in it. They
strolled along the seafront, pushing Honey in her buggy,
then had lunch in Angel's favourite Italian restaurant.
Honey was on top form. She was a year and a half now,
and laughed and babbled contentedly throughout the
meal. Cal was being so lovely as well.

I'm right to have stayed,
Angel thought to herself,
watching her husband and daughter together.
And maybeone day I'll even be able to completely forgive him for what hedid.

Cal caught her looking at him. 'Why so serious, babe?'
he asked.

'I don't want you to go,' Angel said, and suddenly her
eyes were full of tears.

'Hey!' he exclaimed, reaching out and taking her
hand. 'I'll be back next week – and then maybe the
following week you and Honey could come out with me?'

Angel nodded and brushed away her tears, but she
couldn't brush away the feeling of sadness within her so
easily. They spent the afternoon wandering around the
shops, Cal spoiling both his girls with presents – a cute
toy dog for Honey and a red Louis Vuitton scarf for
Angel.

Connor sent a text saying that he would love to meet
up with her to apologise properly for his behaviour.
Without letting on to Cal, she texted him back telling him
that she wasn't interested and he was never to contact her
again.

Back home she gave Honey her tea while Cal quickly
packed. At six it was time for Angel to drive him to
Gatwick – her mum had come over to the house to babysit
Honey as it was Lucy's day off.

When it was time to say goodbye, Angel felt very
emotional. She watched Cal go through to Departures,
waiting until she could no longer see him.

It was just a twenty-minute drive or so from the airport
to her house along the motorway, a route Angel was very
familiar with, so she didn't worry unduly when the sky
darkened and it began to rain – a downpour that quickly
turned torrential. She immediately reduced her speed
and moved to the inside lane. The heavy rain forced her
to slow right down to thirty.

She was so busy concentrating on the road ahead that
at first she didn't notice the car behind her, but suddenly
she was almost dazzled by headlights which shone at full
beam into her mirror. They were dangerously close, she
realised.

'Back off!' she shouted out, panicking.
What the hell werethey playing at?

The car – some kind of huge 4x4 – continued to crawl
closer to her, forcing Angel to increase her speed. But the
conditions on the road were treacherous and she was
terrified of skidding out of control. Desperate to get
away, she moved to the middle lane, thinking that the
other car would stay on the inside, but to her horror it
pulled out behind her.

'Shit!' Angel exclaimed, not liking this one little bit.
Could it be a pap following her? Surely they wouldn't be
driving so dangerously? Or could it be a fan? God,
perhaps she shouldn't have driven her pink VW Beetle –
Cal was always going on at her, saying it made her too
recognisable. The rain lashed against the windscreen.
Angel increased her speed slightly, the car behind did the
same – it was no more than six feet away now. She was
terrified that it was going to go into the back of her.
Usually she'd have had her hands-free mobile kit with
her but she'd left it in their other car and her mobile was
in her bag on the back seat.

Frantically she looked ahead, trying to see through the
rain if there was a turn off she could take. She was now
doing sixty and the car behind showed no sign of pulling
back – the faster she went, the faster it went, like some
terrifying game of cat and mouse. The ordeal carried on
for about three miles, with Angel thinking that at any
minute the car behind was going to crash into her, then,
thank God, she saw a turn off. She made it look as if she
was continuing straight on and then, at the last possible
second, swerved sharply on to the slip road. To her
intense relief the driver behind didn't react quickly
enough to follow her.

Thankfully there was a service station nearby and
Angel pulled into it. She was shaking so much that for a
few minutes she couldn't get out of the car. She tried to
calm down, taking deep breaths, all the while anxiously
scanning the car park for the 4 4. Then she ran through
the rain into the bright lights and warmth of the service
area. Costa Coffee had never looked so welcoming
before.

She sat down at one of the small tables and scrabbled
through her bag for her phone to call Ray, her security
guy. She quickly told him what had happened and he
promised to come and pick her up as soon as possible
with one of his lads to drive her car back. He advised her
to call the police but she insisted she would wait until she
was back home – not wanting to draw even more
attention to herself.

She was desperate to phone Cal but his plane would
only just have taken off; she thought of calling her mum
and dad, but didn't want to worry them. She felt deeply
shaken by what had happened so got up and bought
herself a cup of tea, conscious all the time of the people
around her. She was aware of quite a few curious looks
from people who obviously recognised her, but luckily no
one came over. Angel felt far too jumpy to be surrounded
by strangers. As she sat down with her tea, she kept
looking round the service area.
What if the person in the carhad realised where she was and followed her?
She felt horribly
exposed, sitting where she was.
Nothing's going to happenhere,
she tried to tell herself.
There are CCTV cameraseverywhere. No one would do anything here.

After she had finished her drink she wandered round
the shops, picking up magazines and aimlessly flicking
through them, anything to distract her, but kept
continually looking over her shoulder. At one point
someone tapped her on the shoulder and asked for her
autograph. It nearly gave her a heart attack. After about
twenty minutes her phone rang – it was Ray, to let her
know he had arrived. It was such a relief to see his
familiar face when they met up that Angel almost burst
into tears.

'Are you all right?' he asked.

She'd known Ray for years. Before he'd gone into
security he had worked with her dad so he was someone
she trusted completely.

'Not really,' she said, shaking her head. 'Can we just
get out of here?'

*

Back home, the first thing Angel did was to pick up her
daughter and cuddle her close while Ray and her mum
insisted that she call the police.

'D'you really think I need to?' she asked. 'Nothing
actually happened, and I can't even give them the
registration or make of the car.'

'You must report it,' Ray replied, looking serious. 'And
I don't think you should drive the Beetle for a while.
Stick to using the Merc, it's more anonymous.'

Just then the doorbell went. He said he would answer
it and Angel went into the living room to call the police.
They promised to send an officer round to the house to
take a statement in the next couple of hours. In a way she
felt reassured that they weren't rushing straight round, it
made her feel as if the incident hadn't been too serious
and maybe she was overreacting. That was until she
walked back into the kitchen and discovered Ray and her
mum staring in disbelief and shock at a huge wreath of
lilies.

'What the hell's that!' Angel exclaimed.

'I've no idea. It was delivered by a florist while you
were on the phone,' Ray told her, looking worried.

Angel marched over to the arrangement, reaching for
the small hot pink envelope attached to it. She ripped it
open. Inside was a single piece of pink paper with the
words '
R.I.P. Angel
' written on it.