had found what she’d come looking for. ‘She’s only a kid, Scott,’ she’d told him, closing the door softly behind her. On it was a sign that read STRICTLY NO ENTRY!
‘Don’t you think it’s messed up?’
‘Not really. She’s one of about a trillion so you’d better get used to it.’
He’d shuddered. ‘Girls are weird.’
Kristin remembered his words as they pulled up outside the hotel. A doorman helped her with her bags and within minutes she was safely ensconced in her suite, where she ran hot water and salts into a roll-top bath. Sitting on its edge and guiding her hand through the steaming, fragrant water, she decided to try not to think about Scotty. Just for tonight.
When Scotty Valentine was a boy, he had never imagined he would be waking up at twenty-two with a multi-million-selling album to his name and more wealth and fame than he’d thought possible. Spending his formative years in The Happy Hippo Club had groomed him for a life of entertainment, but he couldn’t have expected anything remotely on this scale.
On his sixteenth birthday the record execs had come knocking. Kristin had already been signed to her label, so had a couple of the other guys, and the pressure was on to get selected. Producer Fenton Fear had been among them, casting through the assembled boys like an emperor through his minions. He had been assembling a band, already had four in the bag…but who would be his missing link? Scotty had auditioned on the spot, posing for a variety of modelling shots, in one of which he’d had to pout in a too-big tuxedo and clutch a bad-tempered rabbit that kept nipping his fingers. ‘Can you sing?’ Fenton had asked, with an expression that implied it didn’t matter if he could or not. But Scotty had surprised everyone: he possessed a rich if inconsistent tone that could be worked upon, and that same tone would soon overtake the other band members and cement his place as lead vocalist in Fraternity.
In a matter of hours Scotty had been settled on: the sublime addition that completed Fenton’s picture. ‘You’re it,’ Fenton had said, as Scotty basked in the sunshine of his praise, enjoying the lunches Fenton took him on to discuss their world domination plan, the lavish spa treatments whenever Scotty needed some down-time, the city breaks Fenton paid for when a change of scene was in order. ‘You’re the most perfect creature I’ve ever seen.’
Now, at a press conference at the Tokyo Grand Hyatt, only half listening as Luke took the first of the questions, Scotty felt insanely insecure. He craved those early days when he had been the apple of Fenton’s eye. Fenton had barely glanced at him all afternoon. On the flight from LA he had chatted with the others, ignoring him, and had barely caught him for a word even after the explosive success of their show. What had changed?
He knew what. It was that Kristin had insisted on tagging along. Scotty had told her no but she’d gone on and on, and in the end he had been forced to capitulate. How could he not? There was no way he could arouse suspicion, especially after the other week’s disastrous sexual episode. The fact was he didn’t want to make love with Kristin. He’d never wanted to make love with her. When he saw her body, he was cold—and she knew it. There was only so long he could stall the process before she started asking the questions that mattered.
Fenton needed time together; Scotty got that. He needed it, too. Tokyo had been the perfect opportunity to release their urges, and then Kristin had ruined it all.
‘Would you say that success has strengthened your friendships or challenged them?’ A journalist stood to deliver the question, holding out her Dictaphone.
‘Aw, we’re all buddies!’ Doug enthused. ‘It’s another family, we’re just like brothers, so, yeah, some days we fall out, but nothing serious…’ He jostled with the others. Scotty made a good fist of joining in but it took every ounce of will he had.
It was such a mess. The label was to blame, deciding that Scotty and Kristin would make the perfect couple, and who cared if Scotty actually wanted to or not? Kristin was like his sister, he felt nothing sexual for her whatsoever, and, while they had shared history and of course he was fond of the girl, that was strictly as far as it went.
Fenton had broken off their secret affair in accordance. If the matter were ever discovered there would be outrage, and four traumatised band members and an army of hysterical teenage girls would be the least of their worries…for Fenton had signed Scotty when he was sixteen, and the industry wasn’t to know that they hadn’t begun sleeping together until two years later. That spelled interference with a minor. But Scotty knew it was more than that. Fenton thought that Kristin would turn him, that after everything he’d wind up finding happiness with a woman. Scotty had asked himself the same. Who knew, maybe if he liked girls after all, wouldn’t that be so much easier? But he didn’t. He never would.
And he hadn’t got over Fenton. He would never get over Fenton. He was in love. The snatched nights they shared, so few and far between, were the hours he lived for. Several times Scotty had suggested they jack it in, Fraternity, their careers, and run away, but Fenton couldn’t. Scotty had his whole life ahead of him, he said: what was he doing anyway with a forty-three-year-old man with a gut and a reliance on hair plugs? Scotty was beautiful, Scotty was his angel, and sooner or later Scotty would wise up and move on. He knew that was how Fenton saw it, and however many times he reassured the man that it was him he wanted, hair plugs and all, insecurity and self-loathing eternally got in the way.
Worse was the fact that Fenton refused to let him split from Kristin. You need a girlfriend, Scotty. I don’t have a wife. Don’t get caught up in that rumour mill…
‘We’ll take a question from the back,’ directed Fenton from his chair at the side of the panel. ‘The woman in the grey jacket, please.’
‘Scotty, I’d love to know: is there a wedding on the cards for you and Kristin?’
Scotty was so deep into his thoughts about Fenton that the rehearsed response failed to trip off his tongue. ‘Er,’ he stalled. ‘No. Absolutely not.’
The woman seized on it. ‘Trouble in paradise?’
‘No, we’re very much together.’ Pull it back, Scotty, you’re good at this. ‘We’re both so busy at the moment, but that doesn’t change the fact we’re totally in love. Who knows, maybe some time next year.’ He flashed the Valentine grin. ‘If she’ll have me!’
Everyone laughed, and Scotty with them. Nobody saw the fleeting glance he threw Fenton’s way, so brief it was hardly there, a promise that he hadn’t meant it, that it was Fenton he adored and craved and it always would be. But Fenton didn’t look back.
9
Turquoise hit London for a charity gig. Hyde Park was teeming with crowds, the festival spirit so indigenous to this country, as girls in torn vests perched with sunburned shoulders on their boyfriends, waving plastic pints under a warm autumn sky. Balloons were released into the air along with the heady smell of pot. Nearer the front the fans were younger, bright-eyed and awestruck, holding aloft banners that rippled in the light breeze.
TURQUOISE IS MY IDOL. I HEART KATY. ROBIN RYDER ALWAYS.
Her set flew. New single ‘Wild Girl’ was an uncontested hit. Turquoise ran an extended version and by the end was throwing the mic to the audience, getting their arms in the air and waving along so the throng of gold shook before her like a field of corn. Cameras flashed as she powered to the bass, her silver catsuit teamed spectacularly with her whipping stream of hair and impressive five-inch heels
