Crystal (28 page)

‘That doesn’t mean C, does it?’ Danni asked quietly, pointing at Crystal’s tattoo.

Crystal shook her head and willed herself not to cry. ‘No, it’s J.’

‘Oh sweetheart!’ Jez said, getting up and giving her a hug. ‘I’m sorry.’

That night one of Dallas’s chefs came over to the house and cooked a delicious Thai green curry for them. Danni, Jez and Gavin all hit the booze and ended up quite drunk. But the last thing Crystal wanted to do was lose control so she just had a couple of glasses of wine then stuck to the water. As for Jake, he outdrank all of them, but didn’t seem at all drunk. By the end of the night she realised with surprise that, even given the awkward situation with Jake, she’d actually quite enjoyed herself. When Jake was out of the room, she’d even managed to find out through Gavin that he didn’t have a girlfriend. But she was jolted out of her good mood when Danni whispered, ‘How are you feeling about seeing Belle tomorrow?’

‘I can’t bear to think about it if I’m honest,’ Crystal answered. ‘I haven’t seen her since . . .’ she trailed off. ‘I just know it’s going to be awful, Danni. She hates me and I can’t tell you how bad I feel about what happened.’

She suddenly became aware that Jake was listening to their conversation and looked away awkwardly.

‘Anyway, I’m going to bed. What time are we starting?’ She looked at Danni, who shrugged and asked Jake.

‘I want to start filming by ten at the latest,’ he replied abruptly.

‘Okay, Crystal, I’ll need you at half seven if that’s okay. Dallas said to do your make-up and hair first.’

‘Fine,’ Crystal answered, getting up. ‘See you all in the morning.’

The morning came round too fast for Crystal. She didn’t get to sleep until four, as she was obsessing about Jake. She slept straight through her alarm and only woke up when Danni knocked loudly at her door at seven fifteen.

‘Oh God, Danni, sorry, I’ll have a really quick shower.’ Crystal leapt out of bed and raced to the bathroom, only to find that there was someone in there. Just as she was about to knock on the door and ask them to hurry up, the door opened and Jake walked out. He was wearing just a white towel wrapped round his waist. He looked so incredibly sexy, it took all of Crystal’s willpower not to stare. When they’d been together he’d had a great body, but in the last three months it looked as if it’d got even better; his abs and pecs were even more toned and his skin was a beautiful golden brown.

‘Morning,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You’d better hurry up; I want you on set in a few hours.’

Mumbling ‘Okay’, Crystal dashed into the bathroom. Jake was obviously in the other back bedroom.
Why did it have to be him?
she fretted, as she took the quickest shower ever. But even in her haste she couldn’t resist taking the lid off Jake’s bottle of aftershave and experiencing a rush of desire and longing as she breathed it in.

In the end she was only twenty minutes late for Danni, and Jez sweetly brought her coffee and croissants as she’d had no time for breakfast. She felt so secure with the two of them. But it was strange being made up again. She hadn’t worn this much make-up in months. Danni had gone to town on her eyes, giving her a vampy, smoky-eyed look, with long false
eyelashes. Then it was Jez’s turn to do her hair. That was one good thing about having a bob, she thought: all it really needed was a good cut and blow dry, but secretly she missed her long hair.
After this video
, she told herself
, I’m growing it back.

The video was mainly going to be shot on the beach and at Dallas’s mansion. He wanted this video for ‘Betrayal’ to be their sexiest yet, so all three girls had to wear bikinis for most of it. He’d also brought in three attractive male dancers. (He was obviously banking on people downloading the video on to their MP3 players and phones.) Surprise, surprise, Crystal was playing the villain of the piece – the girl who had stolen someone else’s man. She really didn’t want to do it and thought if Dallas had any kind of imagination he’d have played them against type and made Tahlia the villain. But she was in no position to say anything. She had to go along with what he wanted, however much she hated it. She wasn’t at all happy when she came to try on the first bikini, though. It was a tiny black number; the top barely covered her breasts, and the bottoms were so brief she felt they were almost non-existent. She was sure that the top of her love heart tattoo must be visible. Round her waist she wore a gold chain and that was all.

‘Wow, you look great,’ Jez told her, just as he was about to go over to the other house to get Belle and Tahlia ready.

‘I don’t want to wear it!’ Crystal exclaimed. ‘I wouldn’t even wear it on a private beach. My arse is wobbling about all over the place.’

‘Honestly, you look fab, stop worrying. Anyway, you know it’s pointless to say anything to Dallas. He’d just say if you don’t like it take it off and do it naked.’

Crystal sighed. Jez was right but it didn’t make her feel any better. She grabbed a sarong and followed Jez. It was time to meet Belle.

Fortunately Tahlia was the first person she saw. She was sitting by the pool with Leticia. As soon as she spotted Crystal, Leticia raced over and threw her arms round her waist.
‘Crystal come in the pool with me please!’ she begged.

Crystal laughed. ’I promise I will when we’ve finished filming, but I can’t right now. If I get my hair and make-up wet Jez and Danni will go mad!’

Tahlia got up and hugged her, stepping back to look at Crystal’s bikini. She raised her eyebrows. ‘God, I hope mine’s bigger than yours!’

‘Oh no,’ Crystal groaned, ‘is it that revealing?’

‘Do you really want me to answer that?’ Tahlia replied. ‘Put it this way, it looks like you’ve gone way beyond Brazil, if you know what I mean.’

‘Yeah,’ Crystal answered, ‘I’ve been to Hollywood, and it bloody well hurt. Never again.’ She tied the sarong round her waist.

Tahlia laughed and even Crystal managed a smile. Then a familiar voice said, ‘Danni’s ready for you now, Tahlia.’

Crystal turned round and found herself face to face with Belle. She hadn’t seen her for three months, but there hadn’t been a day when she hadn’t thought of her. She cleared her throat nervously. ‘Hi, Belle.’

Belle seemed to look through her. ‘Let’s get one thing straight, Crystal. I’m only doing this because Dallas threatened to sue me if I didn’t. After this week I never want to see you again. As far as I’m concerned you’re just a girl Dallas got in for the video. I don’t know you any more.’ She turned away from Crystal and marched back into the house. Not even the fact that her footballer boyfriend had recently proposed to her had softened her attitude. It was only to be expected though.

‘Are you okay, babe?’ Tahlia asked sympathetically, having heard what Belle had said.

Crystal nodded. ‘It could have been worse, I suppose.’ But inside she felt awful. She had a week of this to endure and she didn’t feel in the strongest emotional state.

‘Leticia, will you come with me now. I’ve got to get ready,’ Tahlia asked her daughter.

‘No, I want to stay with Crystal,’ Leticia pleaded.

‘Is that okay?’ Tahlia asked.

‘Sure, we’ll go to the beach,’ Crystal said, wanting to spend as little time as possible at Dallas’s mansion. It brought back too many bad memories.

But no sooner had Crystal left one awkward encounter than she walked bang into the middle of another as she ran into Jake and Gavin getting ready for filming. They’d been joined by three cameramen and a sound engineer and were busy marking out where they wanted to film. Leticia immediately went running over to Jake while Crystal trailed behind.

‘Hey you,’ Jake said, bending down, and scooping Leticia into his arms, making her giggle.

When Crystal and Jake had been together they’d spent a lot of time with Tahlia, Leticia and Hadley. Leticia had adored Jake and clearly still did. Crystal hung back watching him talking to Leticia. Being close to him was like being slapped in the face. Why was it that everything about him was so perfect? Not only did he look great and have a great personality, he was also great with kids, good dad material judging by his rapport with Leticia. And she had lost him.
Fuck.

Finally Jake seemed to register that Crystal was there. He straightened up and Crystal was aware of him taking in her revealing bikini. She folded her arms and looked defiant.

‘Come on, Leticia, let’s go and look for shells. I’m sure Jake’s got work to do.’

‘See you later small stuff,’ he said to Leticia. And just as Crystal thought he was going to ignore her altogether he called out, ‘And we’ll start in about an hour and half, Crystal’ as she walked away.

‘Okay,’ she called back without turning round.

‘Let’s get one thing straight,’ Crystal hissed at the cocky young lad grinning at her as they both lay on a towel at the water’s edge. ‘When I kiss you I don’t want your tongue rammed into my mouth!’

They were shooting the beach scenes. All three girls had
been paired with a good-looking dancer but, while Belle and Tahlia were able to stroll along the beach hand in hand with theirs, Crystal had been directed, by Jake –
how fucked up was that?
– to kiss hers. She kept trying for innocent kisses, but Kyle had other ideas and forced his tongue into her mouth and groped her breasts.

He just shrugged and said that’s what he’d been told to do.

Crystal looked up at the wall of people surrounding her. Jake raised his eyebrows as if he couldn’t see what her problem was.

‘Dallas,’ she shouted out, ‘I need to talk to you.’

Dallas strolled over, immaculate in a cream linen suit. Crystal got up from the towel she was lying on and tried to make herself look taller, but it was hard to assert her authority in a teeny-weeny bikini.

‘I don’t like the way he’s kissing me, and he shouldn’t be touching my tits,’ she hissed.

Dallas raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, it’s supposed to look sexy, you can’t just be lying there reading a book. But perhaps he is going a little far. I don’t want to end up with a parental advisory warning on the video.’ He addressed Kyle, ‘Hey, no tongues and no touching her tits, okay?’ Kyle shrugged.
God he was vile
, just being near him made her skin crawl, so she went on, ‘If you want it to look sexy, then I need a drink.’ She lowered her voice so Kyle wouldn’t hear and said, ‘I can’t do it sober with this creep with everyone staring at me. I want champagne.’ Crystal didn’t particularly want a drink but she knew the alcohol would help make her feel slightly less inhibited.

Dallas laughed again. ‘I always knew you had it in you to be a diva. Okay, Crystal, vintage Cristal suit you?’

For the next hour Crystal was filmed writhing on the sand with Kyle. She’d acted before and often had to kiss other actors but this went way beyond anything she’d ever had to do. Not only did Kyle kiss her lips, though thank god he cut out the tongues, he was also directed, by Jake, to kiss the rest of her body, moving further and further down while the
camera focused on Crystal’s face, a shot which they kept having to retake as Crystal looked less than ecstatic. Then she was directed to straddle him. The champagne took away some of the edge but Crystal couldn’t help feeling humiliated. There she was simulating a sex scene in front of her ex-lover and ex-friend. In between takes, Jez and Danni were the only ones who made her feel better, telling her she was doing great, that it would look fantastic in the video. Finally, Crystal was able to take a break while the action moved to Belle and Tahlia. She slipped on the white shirt that Danni handed her, wishing she could become invisible.

Gavin called over, ‘Great job Crystal, you’d be such a good actress, you know. Doing those kind of scenes is the hardest thing, but you got it straight off.’

Crystal was about to thank him, but Jake cut in with a sarcastic smile: ‘Oh, I don’t know if Crystal was even acting. Behaving like that is probably second nature to her.’

Both Jez and Danni looked shocked by the comment, and Gavin muttered, ‘That’s a bit out of order, mate.’

Jake turned away abruptly and walked off to talk to one of the cameramen.

Crystal was so stunned that for a moment she couldn’t say anything. She’d never known Jake to be deliberately cruel before. But now she was furious; how dare he say that to her! She marched over to where he was standing and without caring who was listening, she said, ‘Fuck you, Jake. I would never humiliate someone like that. I’m doing this because I have to, not because I want to.’

He looked as if he was going to say something, but Crystal had already turned away and was running down the beach, back to the guesthouse. Angry with herself because she couldn’t stop the tears.

She raced upstairs to her bedroom and threw herself on the bed, sobbing. She lost all track of time; she was more humiliated and unhappy than she had ever felt. It had been bad enough when Jake left her, but somewhere deep down
she’d always hoped that one day she would be able to put right what had happened. Today was the final proof that she couldn’t. That she’d lost him forever.

‘Crystal?’ Danni was knocking at the door. ‘Are you in there?’

Wiping her eyes and sniffing, Crystal mumbled for her to come in.

‘Are you okay?’ Danni asked, sounding concerned. ‘We’ve got an hour and then they need to film you again. Are you up for it? I could tell Dallas you’re sick or something.’

Crystal shook her head miserably.

‘And ignore Jake, it was a shitty thing to say and it’s not true.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Crystal answered. ‘He only said what everyone else must be thinking.’

‘Nobody thinks that, Crystal, and I don’t believe Jake thinks it either. You and him have got unresolved business. It’s obvious that he’s still got feelings for you.’

‘Yeah, feelings of hatred,’ Crystal said bitterly.

‘No, that’s not what I meant. So shall I tell Dallas you can’t do it?’

Crystal shrugged. ‘I don’t have a choice, Danni. I have to do this, even though I know it makes me look like the biggest slag in the world. I’m never going to live it down, am I?’

‘Look, the song’s great and people will just see the video as a bit of fun.’ Danni did her best to reassure her.