But the money belonged to him anyway.
So he took it. Pocketed it. And barged past her, down the stairs where he stopped short to holler through to his father.
“Is my old bike still in the garage?”
Gerald didn’t even peer over the top of the paper. He just ruffled the pages, the front page visible enough to show the image of his own face with the headline, Released. Jackson tore out of the house and around to the garage, shunting open the sliding door, and it rumbled like thunder.
There it stood. The first bike he’d ever ridden. Memories flashed before his eyes. Of roaring around country lanes, wind trailing through his hair, with whoever was flavour of the month wrapping their arms around his waist. That bike had given him his independence back then. His parents had controlled so much of his early life and career, reaping the benefits of his child stardom, that when he’d bought the Ninja, it had been his first taste of freedom. He could only hope it would do the same for him now. It was probably rusty. It might not even start? He couldn’t imagine his father had bothered with the upkeep.
Jackson flung his leg over, straddling the Kawasaki and grabbed the leathers hung on the hook beside it. He slipped his arms into the jacket, another snug fit, then unhooked the keys from the wooden board. First go, the engine roared. Jackson smiled. Then twisted the handle to add a few revs before unlinking the helmet from the handlebar and slipping it on over his head.
Without even a glance back to his parents, he spun tyres on tarmac and left nothing but dust in his wake as he sped out of the driveway with one name etched on his brain.
Fletcher Doherty.
Chapter Four
Any Other Duties
Fletcher had been stuck in the Meridian’s lounge bar, a rather swanky hotel in the heart of Piccadilly, for far too long. Measured in both the time he was spending there today and overall within his career as a gossip columnist. Many of the hotel and bar staff knew him by name. For how personable they all were with him, it might seem he was here of his own volition. God, he could only wish to afford a room by the night in a place like this. Sadly, he was only ever at the Meridian at the request of those who wanted to divulge the details of the latest kiss-and-tell scandals that made the click-throughs worth his wage and the permanent position at London Lights magazine.
“Do you think you’ll print it?” Lily asked, eyes puffy, and sniffing back her sobs.
Fletcher handed over another tissue. Lily accepted it gratefully then, in stark contrast to her outward glam, she proceeded to trumpet her nose into it. He fought the urge to roll his eyes. He wasn’t unsympathetic to a woman’s tears, anyone’s tears for that matter, but it just happened so bloody often with Lily he was unsure whether they were the true emotional outpourings of an unlucky-in-love socialite, or if they were all part of her act.
Lily had been nipped and tucked to within an inch of her life. Probably to the point that her own mother wouldn’t have recognised the transformation from new-born cherub to Barbie doll. With her perfectly feathered brunette bob framing her serious jawline and delicate size-zero frame with pert and rounded Harley Street breasts poking through the chiffon of her shirt, Lily could’ve been roaming the catwalk rather than the late-night haunts she so often did. It appeared so effortless, of course. As though she’d thrown her outfit and make-up on in a whim. Whereas, in actual fact, she’d spent hours in front of the mirror.
Slapping down his notepad, Fletcher leaned back in the booth, draping his arm along the garish red leather-encased foam.
“I don’t know, Lily,” he said, scrubbing his fingertips across his forehead. “I’d need something a bit…meatier.”
He didn’t. Her kiss-and-tell was the usual write-up his editor slapped him on the back for. But, for some reason, the novelty of putting words to a night of debauchery, with the only distinguishing feature being that one of the culprits was an A-lister, and one, well, wanted to clamber up the alphabet, was losing its appeal. Rapidly.
Eyeing the empty mug of coffee, his second, parked in front of him, Fletcher wondered if three in a row would cause any damage to his writing ability. Feck it. He waved over to the bar and shortly after the coffee machine surged to life, drowning out the jazz music that had been tinkling on a loop.
“How so?” Lily asked, mascara-clad eyelashes widening with a hopeful sparkle as she flipped open her phone to read an incoming message.
After a brief and subtle peek at her screen, Fletcher noted there were several other magazines offering a pretty penny for whatever story she was selling. So he shuffled up in the seat, and thought he’d best show her some willingness. He needed the scoop. If it even was one.
When her blue eyes found his, he cocked his head.
“You know the drill, Lil. I need proof. I can’t write something just on your say so.” He could, and had. And was encouraged to do just that. Any one person’s say so was good enough for gossip. News was a different story. “Either you bring me a picture, or a text message, or something to back up your claim.” Because that would elevate a one paragraph non-story to a whole newsworthy article.
“I’m here, ain’t I?” She waved her manicured nails around at the hotel. “Where he took me last time.” She peered at him through lowered lashes. “You remember that. You wrote about it.”
“I did. Back when he was single and it was a simple, look-who-Ricardo’s-wooing storyline. Now he’s married. With a child. I can’t just go ahead and slander him without at least something to back it up.” He didn’t much fancy doing it at all. But that was what paid the bills. As much as he relied on Heston for the roof over his head, he still needed his own money. And he wanted to at least be on equal income terms with his boyfriend.
Plus they had been planning an overseas holiday, where Heston had said they could get married illegally. And that, right there, had tied the noose around his neck. Not noose. Knot.
Not neck. Finger.
Heston’s once-straying finger.
“Knew you’d be on his side.” Lily ripped him from his own turmoil when she folded her arms with a pout. “Typical man.”
Fletcher laughed at the absurdity. “I’m not on anyone’s side. Least of all a soccer player who cheats on his wife by playing away twice in one weekend.”
“But you’re a man!” Lily declared, rather obviously. “All you men stick together. In the locker rooms, bragging about your latest conquest. Not caring what she’s going through.” She broke down again, sobbing into yet another tissue that Fletcher had handed over before she’d finished her sentence.
He waited. And recited passages from Heston’s monologue in his head to keep himself amused. Soon enough, she sorted herself out and glared across the booth at him.
“I’m gay.” He didn’t put any inflection into his voice, no accusation, no announcement. Deadpan. ”So I do know a fair bit about bastard men,” he added. Because didn’t he just?
If he was an honest man, he’d have told her he intended to marry one so he didn’t have to fly back home with his tail between his legs because there wouldn’t be any way he could afford to live in London on his salary alone. But she didn’t need to know all that.
Lily gasped. “No, way.”