‘Get up,’ she snarls.
‘What the fuck?’ he says.
‘Get up you little worm.’
‘Calm down, Britney,’ he says, looking around him worriedly.
‘If you don’t get up I’m going to tell my brother what you did.’
He flies up from his seat and looks at her with shifty eyes. ‘Listen,’ he starts to explain, but he gets no further.
‘That’s for what you did to me,’ she says, and delivers a vicious karate chop to the side of his neck. He goes white, his body arches, and his mouth opens and closes like a goldfish.
‘This is for Tori,’ she cries ferociously and aims two blows in quick succession into his midriff. He clutches his stomach and bends double. His face is contorted and a hoarse rasp struggles out of his mouth.
‘And this one is for messing with my brother’s girlfriend,’ she says, and executes a sideways kick into Gavin’s nuts just like Rita Ora does to the bad guy’s belly in her Black Widow video.
His eyes bulge with the agony and shock, then he blinks and crashes to the right, knocking down a stool. He curls up on the ground, odd choking sounds crawling out of his open mouth.
‘Oh, and just in case it’s not perfectly clear yet, you are uninvited to my party, tomorrow,’ Britney spits. She turns to me. ‘Come, Tori. Let’s go.’
I am too stunned to do anything so Britney holds her hand out and helps me up from the floor. I take one more look at Gavin writhing on the floor before I turn away. All around us people are staring. As we take our first step we come face to face with Octavia. Her mouth is open in astonishment. She snaps it shut, and throwing a furious glare at us, she dashes forward to help Gavin.
We walk to the toilets without saying a word. I turn to face Britney. ‘What did he do to you?’
She takes a shuddering breath. ‘You know that night at the party in Cash’s house.’
‘Yeah,’ I say.
‘He pushed me up against a wall and forced his fingers inside me. I didn’t expect it so I was too shocked to do anything, but luckily someone else came into the room and he let go of me. I ran away and came to find you.’
‘Oh! My God, no.’ I stare at her in horror. Suddenly it all makes sense. That is why she had been crying and in such a state. What a sick bastard. I wish I had kicked his face in too.
‘Why didn’t you tell anyone?’ I ask her gently.
‘I didn’t want to get him in trouble. I always fancied him and I was afraid that maybe I had encouraged him. I liked it when he first started kissing me, but then he started to get rough.’
‘Oh, Britney. It’s not your fault. I’m so much older than you and he managed to take me by surprise. I thought he was a nice guy trying to help me. It was all just a pretense.’
‘I think he must be very jealous of Cash. That is why he did that to me and you.’
‘Hell, Brit, when did you find out about me and Cash?’
‘I’ve known for ages. The two of you are like two elephants roaming about the house at night.’
‘We didn’t really make that much noise, did we?’ I protest, red faced.
‘You woke dad up,’ she says flatly.
‘What?’ I blurt out in horror.
‘Exactly.’
My jaw drops open. ‘Mr. Hunter knows?’
‘Um … I might have told him,’ she confesses with a sly grin.
My eyes pop open. ‘You did not,’ I cry.
‘I did,’ she admits calmly.
‘He’s not upset, is he?’
‘Why should he be?’
‘Oh my God! I’m freaking out right now. Tell me exactly what he said,’ I demand urgently.
‘Actually he just laughed and said, “Looks like I killed two birds with one stone.”’
I look at her worriedly. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
She shrugs. ‘You know how dad is. He’s always talking in riddles. I asked but he refused to explain further.’
I chew at my bottom lip. ‘And you don’t mind?’
‘Mind?’ she asks in a surprised voice. ‘I think it’s wonderful. I wish he would marry you.’
I stare at Britney, all kinds of thoughts and sensations slam into me at her innocent words. Marry? Cash and me? I was thirteen when I bought a little fake gold ring and pretended to be Mrs. Cash Hunter.
‘It’s not that kind of relationship,’ I croak.
‘But wouldn’t you like to marry my brother though? It’ll be such fun. We’ll be real sisters then.’
‘It’s way too early to tell, Brit. We barely know each other.’ I pause for a second and quickly steer the conversation away from this topic. ‘Are you going to tell Cash about what Gavin did to you?’
‘I don’t know,’ she says thoughtfully. ‘It could break Alkaline up.’
‘But you have to tell someone. What he did was wrong. He’ll do it to someone else if there are no consequences. Maybe you should at least tell your dad.’
‘You’re right. I’ll tell dad. He’ll know what to do. He always does.’
I smile at her. ‘You were badass out there. Those self-defense classes sure came in handy.’
‘Look at my hands,’ she says showing her hands.
They are still trembling with reaction and I grab them in mine. ‘I know your dad will be super proud of what you did today. It was very courageous,’ I tell her.
She grins at me. ‘I’m not the same person I was before. Thanks to you.’
‘I’m so proud of you, Brit. You’ve come a long way in a very short time. Thank you for sticking up for me.’
She looks at her fake nails nonchalantly. ‘No problem. I can always fit a little drama into my life.’
I laugh.
‘Cash will be looking for you. You should repair your lipstick quickly,’ she says.
I look at the mirror and see that my lipstick is smudged and smeared on my left cheek. I pull out some toilet paper and wipe my mouth and cheek clean before I apply a new layer of lipstick. Then I turn around and hug her. ‘You do know that I didn’t kiss him willingly, right?’
‘I know you and I know Gavin,’ she says simply.
I smile at her.
‘Come on, let’s go find Cash,’ she says.
We go out. Enrique Iglesias is singing I Like It, and Cash is outside looking for us. ‘Where have the two of you been? I’ve been looking all over for you girls.’
We go back to the party and neither Gavin nor Octavia are anywhere to be seen.
Chapter Thirty-five
Tori
‘Wake up, you morsel of sexiness.’
I groan and, turning away from the voice, curl up into a tight ball.
‘Come on. I’ve got something really special to show you,’ Cash says in my ear.
I open one eye. ‘What?’
‘Want to see The Last Supper?’ He licks along the shell.
My aunt told me she came to Milan and though she desperately wanted to see The Last Supper, she couldn’t. She joked tickets to see it were harder to come by than front seat invitations to a Gucci fashion show. I open both eyes. ‘You have tickets?’
‘Three if I’m keeping it real.’
I stretch luxuriously and yawn. How could this guy have so much energy? He lights up a stage for more than an hour, he parties until late at night, has sex until the early morning hours, and wakes up at first light.
He nibbles my lobe. He’s starting something here. ‘Unless you just want to stay in bed and we can have sex all morning.’
I pull back slightly. ‘As delicious as that sounds, I do want to see The Last Supper.’
He grins. Cocky and confident. ‘That’s what I thought.’
‘What’s the time?’ I ask.
‘Nine.’
‘Already?’
‘Get in the shower and I’ll go wake Brit up,’ he says slipping out of the room.
Totally naked I pad over to the shower. Warm water rains down on me, bouncing off my head, face and shoulders. It’s a
good way to wake up. I’m already out of the shower and getting into my clothes when Cash comes back in.
‘Is Britney getting ready?’ I ask.
‘She doesn’t want to come.’
‘Why not? I thought she loved art.’
‘Yeah, the modern stuff. Her exact grumpy response was, “Go away. I’m not getting out of bed to stand for half-an-hour in front of a painting that’s been so heavily restored it’s not even Leonardo’s work any more.”’
I giggle. That so sounds like Britney. ‘Did you tell her it’s a mural and not a painting?’
‘Nope. I didn’t think it would make a blind bit of difference.’
‘So what does she want to do?’ I ask picking up the hairdryer.
‘She wants to go to see the Duomo so she’ll meet us before we set off for that. I’ll arrange for the driver to pick her up and bring her to us.’
I point the hairdryer at him. ‘Aren’t you worried you’re going to get recognized and mobbed?’
He walks over to the desk and picks up the beard and the moustache he used that night we went to The Ministry of Sound.
I laugh. ‘Sterling idea.’