then there it was, the question that she’d never anticipated but that she realised now had been inevitable from the first.
‘Are you pregnant?’
She stumbled, and it was only Joe’s arm clamping round her waist and pulling her tight that stopped her falling on her face in front of the world’s press. And then she was falling anyway, because Joe’s lips were on hers, and her heart was racing and her legs were jelly and her lips...her lips were on fire. One of his hands had bunched in her hair, and she realised that this, this look, this feeling, was what she’d been cultivating in front of the mirror for more years than she cared to think about. Just been kissed, just been ravished. Just had Joe’s tongue in her mouth and hands on her body. Just had images of hot and sweaty and naked racing through her mind. He broke away and gave her a conspiratorial smile. She bit her lip, her mouth still just an inch from his, wondering how she was meant to resist going back for more.
And then the shouts broke back into her consciousness. ‘Go on—one more, Charlie!’
And the spell was broken. She wasn’t going to give them what they wanted. She turned to them, scowl back in place, though there was a glow now in the middle of her chest, something that they couldn’t see, something that they couldn’t try and own, to sell for profit.
She grabbed Joe’s hand and pulled him towards the door of the venue, ignoring the shouts from the photographers.
She dragged him through the door and into a quiet corner.
‘So I guess we survived our first photo call.’
She had hoped the relative seclusion of this dark corner would give her a chance to settle her nerves, for her heartbeat to slow and her hands to stop shaking. But as Joe took another step closer to her and blocked everything else from her vision, she felt anything but relaxed.
‘Are you okay? You look kind of flushed,’ he asked.
‘I’m fine. I just hate...never mind.’ Her voice dropped away as her gaze fixed on his lips and she couldn’t break it away. This wasn’t the time to think about what she hated, not when she was so fixed on what she loved, what she couldn’t get enough of. Like the feeling of his lips on hers.
‘Joe, I thought I saw you come in. And the new missus!’
Ricky, the drummer from Joe’s band, Charlie recognised with a jolt.
More flashbacks of the night before: the band laughing with them in the taxi cab to the courthouse, joking about how they were going to have to sign with her now she’d done this. She had to convince them that they’d been mistaken last night. That she’d married Joe for love at first sight, before they started talking to journalists. If it wasn’t already too late.
She reached for Joe’s hand and gripped it tightly in hers, hoping that it communicated everything that she needed it to.
‘Hi, Ricky,’ she said, plastering on a smile that she hoped broadcast newly wedded bliss and contentment.
‘So your first day as husband and wife, eh. How’s it working out for you?’
She tried to read into his smile what he was really saying. If only she could fake a blush, or a morning-after glow. But in the absence of that, she’d have to go on the offensive.
‘Pretty bloody amazingly, actually,’ she said, leaning into Joe and hoping that he’d run with this, with her.
‘Really?’
Ricky gave Joe a pointed look, and it told Charlie everything that she needed to know. He had thought last night that this was all a publicity stunt, and nothing that he had seen yet had changed his mind.
‘Well, I’m just glad that you both decided to take one for the team.’ He grinned. ‘It was a brilliant idea. I wish I’d thought of it first.’
She opened her mouth to speak, but Joe got there first.
‘I’m not sure what you mean, Ricky. We’re not doing this for the team. I admit it was a bit hasty, but we really meant it last night. We wanted to get married.’
‘Because you’re both so madly in love?’
She felt Joe’s hand twitch in hers and tried not to read too much into it.
‘Because it was the only thing we could do,’ he said. ‘I don’t care what we call it. Love at first sight. Or lust. Whatever. I just knew that once I had Charlie in my arms there was no way I was going to let her go. And if that meant marriage, then that’s what I wanted.’
Bloody hell, maybe he should have been an actor rather than a singer. He certainly gave that little speech more than a little authenticity. She leaned into him again, and this time he dropped her hand and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. She looked up at him, and there was something about the expression in his face that forced her up onto her tiptoes to kiss him gently on the lips.
‘Wow, okay,’ Ricky said as she broke away. ‘I guess I missed something last night. So, someone wants to chat with us about the new album, if you’ve got a minute.’
‘Okay,’ Joe replied, ‘but you do remember what we decided last night. We’re going to say yes to Charlie’s label. I’m not going back on my word.’
‘A bit early in the marriage for those sorts of ructions, is it?’ Ricky looked at them carefully, and Charlie knew that they hadn’t dispelled all of his doubts, regardless of how good an actor Joe was. ‘Either way, we still need to speak to them. Until this deal is signed, we schmooze everyone, as far as I’m concerned. I know the others feel the same.’
She had to call her boss. She couldn’t think why she hadn’t done it before now. She’d do it on the way to the plane. She glanced at her watch. They couldn’t stay long if they were going to make the flight. For a second she thought wistfully of her family’s private plane, and how much easier life had been when she’d been happy to go along with that lifestyle, to take what she didn’t feel she had earned. But it had got to the point where she simply couldn’t do it any more. If she was never going to be able to pay her parents back with the one thing that everyone wanted from her, she couldn’t use their money or their privilege any more.
She had some money left to her by her grandparents—despite her protestations, the lawyers had told her that it belonged to her and there was nothing that she could do about it—and her salary from the record label.
‘I’m sorry, do you mind if I talk to them?’ Joe asked, turning to her.
‘Of course not.’ She forced a smile, trying to live in the moment and forget all of the very good reasons she should be freaking out right now. ‘Go on.’
But Joe turned to Ricky. ‘You go ahead,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there in a second.’
‘You all right?’ he asked, when they were alone. ‘Still happy with everything? Because if you’re going to change your mind, now’s the time...’
She drew away from him and folded her arms. ‘Why would I have changed my mind?’
She didn’t understand what had happened to cause this change in mood. His shoulders were tense, she could see that.
Was
