‘I’VE BEEN FOLLOWING your column lately,’ Alex drawled. He’d called Ben from his dressing room post-show in New York.

‘Oh?’ Ben leaned back in his office chair, massaging his temples to dispel the lingering hangover from his ill-advised interlude with a bottle of scotch the night before.

‘Hmm, I couldn’t help but notice how unoriginal you are. Couldn’t find your own girl so you took mine?’

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Ben protested.

‘The blonde from the bar, remember? Or “Babyface” as you refer to her. You know you’re a real asshole, don’t you?’

‘What do you mean, asshole?’

‘Has she read any of this?’

‘What’s this, Alex?’ Ben scowled and sat upright in his chair.

‘What you’ve written about her. It’s not exactly flattering. I would have called you on it earlier if I hadn’t been so goddamn busy this past month,’ Alex said distractedly, voice distinctly disapproving. ‘Some of the things you’ve said were just plain nasty.’

‘What the hell are you talking about? I haven’t been nasty at all. Quite the opposite. People love her. I love her.’ Ben said the words glibly, ignoring the sharp pang in his gut as they came out.

‘Huh. That’s interesting, because if she read any of this, I doubt she’d love you,’ Alex retorted. ‘Where was I? What did you call her in that first one that featured me? Here it is. A comical facsimile of a nineteen-fifties pinup who would be much more attractive if she weren’t patently trying so hard.’ He impersonated Ben’s clipped accent, making the words sound cold and harsh.

Ben winced. ‘You’re taking that out of context.’

‘Yeah? How about what you said about your visit to her house: Slumming in a charmingly antiquated convict-built hovel. I’ll admit you said it was charming, but no one likes to have their house referred to as a hovel. And I haven’t even started on the one you wrote about the time you slept with her. Babyface shares the curse of all women in that they think far too much at the most inopportune moments, often resulting in disappointment for all parties present. Dude.’

‘I was thinking that it made great comedy if you bothered to read the rest of the piece.’ Ben did his best to ignore the memory of Amy’s hurt expression the last time he’d seen her. The words tin pot, working-class piece of shit had echoed over and over in his mind for the past twenty-four hours. He wished he could take them back. In fact, he intended to apologise the minute he no longer saw red when he thought about his car. If his current simmering fury was any indication, that wouldn’t be for some time.

Alex emitted a noise that conveyed the maximum amount of scepticism. ‘Yeah, the rest of the piece is funny if you don’t know it’s written about a real person with feelings. Remember those? I hope to hell she knows about your stage act or you’re toast, my good friend.’

Ben feigned disinterest to hide the fact Alex’s words were causing small tendrils of apprehension to worm their way through his veins. ‘You’re boring me.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Alex said sarcastically.

‘So you should be. I think this conversation would be better served if you shut up so I can tell you how my car got wrecked. Then feel free to shower me with all the sympathy I so rightly deserve.’

‘The DB9?’

‘What else?’ Ben said dryly before commencing his tale of woe.

‘Did they catch the guy who did it?’ Alex asked after sharing Ben’s opinion that the perpetrator should be shot, revived, shot again, drawn, quartered and then fed to starving dogs for good measure.

‘No. I doubt anyone will. Amy doesn’t live in a highly vigilant area. It’s more a nesting site for retired hippies and the hipster set. To make matters worse, she has a forest of trees for a front yard, which obscures the house and anything parked in the driveway from view of the street.’

‘You’re referring to the convict hovel, right?’

‘I’d really rather you didn’t repeat that out of context.’

‘So I take it this is serious?’

‘What’s serious?’

‘This thing you’ve got going with this girl, Amy, Babyface. Because you’ve featured her, or more to the point insulted her, for one . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five weeks out of the last three months. That’s got to be a record. From memory, you only wrote about Marcella—’

‘Never mention that name in my presence.’

‘—once.’

Ben frowned and opened his mouth to tell Alex to shove his pithy observations up his arse when his friend cut in, tone thoughtful.

‘Can you give me Amy’s details again? An email address would work.’

‘Email address? Why?’ Ben pushed himself out of his chair and prowled over to the window.

‘Because when she kicks your bitch ass out the door, I want her number. And seriously? If she reads any of this, you are history.’

Ben’s inventive and thoroughly disparaging opinion of Alex’s request filled the room before he hung up, his friend’s laughter echoing in his ears.

Instead of putting his phone down, Ben kept it in his hand as he debated calling Amy. Something about the assuredness of Alex’s words left him feeling uncomfortable, even a little worried. It was still early in the day so she’d be at work . . .

No, best to leave it. It would be much better to call her later in the evening when she was alone. She’d have cooled down by then and he would have time to get his usual charming veneer back in place.

He would have to be a total prick not to realise he’d royally cocked things up in losing his temper earlier, but he also knew that it wouldn’t take much for Amy to forgive him. It was obvious she cared for him, probably even loved him, so it would just be a matter of apologising before things were back to normal. Ben snorted – whatever normal was in their context.

In the interim, he had a massive number of phone calls to make to atone for his recent absence from humanity. Once all that was finalised and out of the way, he’d be able to devote some serious time to getting down on his knees and looking properly repentant. He might even extend to another Disney film and he’d never, ever consider that for another woman. Amy should think herself lucky.

‘So tell me about Ben.’ Jo turned her head from side to side and inspected the new, edgier pixie cut Amy had just styled for her. She was keeping Amy company while the painters finished the front of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Babyface. Earlier, they’d picked up drive-through KFC for lunch and were now digesting huge quantities of lardy, chickeny goodness. Well, Amy was. Jo had just managed to stomach a few fries.

‘I thought we’d agreed not to go there, m’love.’ Amy tucked her scissors away in her apron pocket and reached for a hair dryer.

‘No, I just want you to tell me about him. Normal stuff.’ Jo shrugged, looking abashed. ‘It just occurred to me I haven’t asked you anything about him, just got pissed off and made a bunch of assumptions.’

‘Yeah, you have,’ Amy said softly. ‘And it’s not worth believing the stuff you read on the net. No.’ She held up a hand before Jo could speak. ‘Keep it to yourself, sweetie. Ben and I had a fight the other day and I’m really upset about it, but otherwise he’s been lovely. He cares for me and he makes me laugh. He’s a lot nicer than any other boyfriend I’ve had and I think—’ Her voice caught. ‘I think I’m in love with him.’

‘Serious? So why do you look like you’re going to cry?’ Jo asked in exasperation.

‘We had a fight—’

‘Yeah, you said. So are you gonna tell me about it or just stand there looking like a soggy chipmunk?’

‘You won’t try and make him into the bad guy?’

‘Out with it, woman!’

Much to Amy’s surprise, Jo listened quietly while she shared what had happened, only pursing her lips to whistle when Amy described Liam’s radical makeover of Ben’s car. Amy felt better for sharing it all. Ben’s words and actions didn’t seem so extreme or intended to hurt her feelings on the retelling, they just seemed like the way any man would react if his valuable property had been damaged.

She wasn’t sure what to make of his friend’s comments on the phone from earlier that morning, though. She wanted to believe they had nothing to do with Ben; she hoped they had nothing to do with Ben. Her chest tightened a little as she glanced at her handbag, wondering if she should check her phone. Maybe he’d already called and she’d missed it.

‘I hate to say it, because what he said was harsh, but he had pretty good reason to blow his top. I know I probably would’ve reacted just as badly if someone had trashed my car like that. It was probably just a vent and he most likely didn’t mean any of it.’ Jo interrupted Amy’s runaway thoughts.

‘I know.’ Amy’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘I’d be really angry, and I am, especially after what he said about my house, but I know how much he loves that car. Plus I’m feeling really guilty since it was Liam . . .’

‘Yeah, I get that,’ Jo said curtly. ‘Okay. So tell me more about this guy. I’ll pretend I know nothing about him.’ She leaned back in her chair, cocking a brow at Amy in the mirror, waiting for her to begin.

Feeling lighter than she had for a while, Amy did.

Later that night, bolstered by Jo’s new supportive attitude, Amy decided that, for once, she was going to be the one to take the initiative in a relationship. She’d had enough time to think now and realised that she owed Ben an apology just as much as he owed her one. His words had been awful, yes, but if she’d stood up to Liam earlier, none of the drama would have happened.

Determined to speak to him and talk things through, she braced herself and called Ben’s number, only to reach his answering service. She debated trying again but then thought better of it. All he had to do was check his messages and call her back. She’d made the first move.

She spent the next few hours whisking through her house, manically cleaning every surface in sight before giving a very long-suffering and rather smelly Gerald a bath, all the while listening out for her phone. That done, she tried watching a movie, then attempted to read her favourite Zadie Smith novel. In the end, restless and tetchy, she picked up her phone and called Scott. He’d been out of the country for nearly a month now and she’d missed him.

He answered on the second ring, voice unexpectedly sharp. ‘Amy?’

‘Hey, stranger. Where are you?’ she asked, enjoying the warm feeling she always got at hearing her friend’s deep voice.

‘London at the moment, but I’ll be home in a couple of days.’ He sounded tired and agitated. ‘I’ve been trying to call you for two days. I was just emailing you now. Why haven’t you returned any of my calls?’

Amy frowned. ‘I haven’t received any, m’love. Not that I’ve seen at least. Are you okay?’

‘Yeah, I’m okay. That old Nokia you have is crap, Ames. I’ve been telling you that for years. It never tells you when you’ve got messages. Anyway. Ah shit . . . I didn’t want to be the one to have to do this, but I’m going to email you something. You’re not going to thank me, but someone had to tell you,’ Scott said, his voice heavy.

‘Tell me what?’ The worried feeling she’d been fighting all day coalesced into a tight knot of tension in her chest.

‘I looked up Ben Martindale’s column in the Enquirer out of curiosity last night. You’ve got to read it.’

‘Is this the same stuff Jo wanted to show me? Because we made up. I told her I’m not reading anything about Ben off the internet.I promised myself. He said he’s had some bad press and I know none of it is true.’

‘Yeah. Well. I don’t think Jo knows about this stuff or I would have seen the explosion from here. She just read up on his ex-girlfriend bagging him out. This is different, Ames. This is me telling you that you really need to look at this. It’s not press. It’s stuff he’s written himself. There’s no other way to say this, but it looks like he’s been using you from the start. He’s been writing about you nearly every week in a column he does, and it could be grounds for defamation. He doesn’t exactly use your name . . . he calls you Babyface, but anyone who knows you can tell who it is.’

‘Defamation?’ Amy sat down heavily on her couch as the air whooshed out of her lungs. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Just read it? Then call me back. I’m seriously sorry about this.’

‘Why? Scott?’ She was talking to herself. She stared at her phone, stunned.

Ben writing about her? Her? Why? And defamation? Amy’s first impulse was to call him. She was put straight through to his answering service again. Instead of hanging up this time, she left him a short message.

‘Ben? I, ah. It’s Amy. I’ve just learned you wrote some stuff about me. I’d really rather hear about it from you, but Scott’s forwarding it to me and I’m reading it now. Okay? Call me back if you get this soon.’

Amy waited another hour, hoping Ben would call her back and explain, but he didn’t. Her mind was left replaying Scott’s words over and over again. Using her? Defamation? No. No, Ben wouldn’t do anything like that. He cared about her. He’d shown it in so many small ways. Surely he couldn’t have faked it. Surely . . .

She might have left it, might have still waited for Ben’s call, but the phone call she’d accidentally intercepted began playing through her mind.

The way the man, Ross, had called her the ‘little blonde barber’ sounded like something flippant Ben would say. The man had referred to Ben doing some writing for him and had sounded like someone Ben worked for, or with. Surely Ben wouldn’t have written about her without telling her about it. She’d been too busy the past couple of months and admittedly a little wary about doing a search online for fear she’d see something she didn’t want to in relation to his ex-girlfriend, but . . . No, he would have told her if he’d written about her, wouldn’t he? The question played over and over in her mind as she paced through her house. Gerald watched on without interest from his beanbag in the living room.

Eventually, when there was nothing else to do and still no call from Ben, Amy gave in, sat down with a cup of tea and followed Scott’s link to a newspaper called the London Enquirer. The page was titled ‘Hello, Sailor’ and featured a photo of Ben at the top sporting his familiar feline grin.

She began to read. It didn’t take long for the mocking tone behind the words to register. It was Ben’s recounting of the night they’d met. She read about how he’d thought her clothes were contrived and her apology to his friend was awkward. The name ‘Babyface’ jumped out at her, laughing at her from the screen. He’d portrayed her as a ditsy idiot, some sort of bimbo who was two brain cells short of a single-figure IQ.

Feeling as if she’d been publicly stripped naked, Amy read on to the third column, which was about Ben’s first visit to her house. While this one wasn’t quite as awful, Ben still referred to her as Babyface, a clownishly naive female who lived in a hovel and impersonated a fifties housewife. It wasn’t until she got to his fourth entry, a comedic description of the first time they had slept together where he said he’d been disappointed, that she spun away from her laptop, clutching her chest, gasping for air. She felt sick. Gut roiling, she made it to the kitchen sink just in time, heaving until the contents of her stomach were long gone and the reality of the last few months sank in.

She’d been living in a dream world. None of it had been true.

If Ben had stripped her naked and ridiculed her in public, it wouldn’t have hurt this badly. It was obvious he’d never once considered her feelings. It was obvious she’d never meant more to him than some sort of fuel for his creativity, someone he could ridicule for his readers’ amusement.

Amy’s own culpability, her complete gullibility in this whole affair, came crashing down on her. How stupid could she have been? She’d trusted him. She’d defended him and deliberately kept herself in the dark about the rumours surrounding him, hoping that, this time, she wasn’t going to end up falling flat on her face. Stupid.

Yeah, sure, a millionaire celebrity wanted to spend time with her, she thought cynically. Jo had been right. With Ben’s looks, charm and money, he’d be able to be with anyone he wanted, so why had she believed for a second that he’d be serious about a hairdresser? A nobody. She’d just been an amusing little detour. A try-hard pinup wannabe with sexual hang-ups who lived in a hovel.

It turned out that he’d written five – five! – pieces about her, the most recent focusing on their weekend away. That one had been even worse than the others. Using a flippant, wry tone, Ben turned Amy’s bittersweet return to her childhood home into a hike through the Australian countryside with a manic pixie in Spice Girl shoes, who had a messed-up white-trash relationship with her ex-boyfriend.

His writing was entertaining, sharp and . . . wrong, so incredibly wrong. How could he have turned something so private into public fodder in such an awfully hurtful way?

Why would he do this to her? Why would he put so much effort into making her believe he cared and then do this? Somewhere along the way, while reading and re-reading his words, seeing herself being made fun of with such obvious disregard for her feelings, Amy’s disbelief and hurt transformed into a roiling, volcanic outrage that put anything she’d felt for Liam in the pale.

She surged to her feet.

This wasn’t something she could swallow and smile about tomorrow; this was too big, too horrible to have sitting in her, leaving her feeling this violated. Hands shaking, she called Ben’s number again, then threw her phone across the room with a shriek of pure rage when it went through to voicemail.

Startled, Gerald barked at the noise, scampering out of the way when Amy swept through the house, galvanised into action. This time, this time, she wasn’t going to be some shrinking violet who let another arrogant bastard make her feel like crap for years on end. She hadn’t deserved this and by God, Ben was going to know about it. She reached her front door before realising she didn’t have her car keys, then turned and strode into her bedroom where she’d last seen them, throwing clothes out of the way and dumping books, make-up and shoes onto the floor. Finally finding them in the pocket of her dress from that morning, she turned to leave again, then caught sight of her reflection in the dresser mirror.

She looked like a wild woman, eyes unnaturally shiny, face pale and streaked with mascara and clothes far too casual. This wouldn’t do at all. She’d be damned if she’d give Ben any more ammunition to write about next week. If she was going to do this, she’d bloody well do it right. Ben had already found more than enough in her behaviour to write up for the amusement of his readers; she’d be damned if she’d give him anything else.

Ben stood up, rubbed his hand over his jaw, stretched out his muscles and threw his phone onto his desk. He’d been stuck on a conference call with his lawyer and Colin for the past two hours and had reached the limit of his civility. What did the French call small-picture people? Fuckers of flies – that was it. He’d have to share that with Colin later, who’d been just as exasperated as he had in having to go through the tedium of a lawyer dissecting the draft of Ben’s manuscript to determine whether or not it contained anything that would invite litigation.

Ben knew it was a completely unnecessary process since he was the main subject matter. Everyone else, even his own parents, were kept strictly in the realm of pseudonyms and nicknames. He normally wouldn’t dream of doing all this until the final draft, but in this case he didn’t want to bother polishing something he’d have to omit in the long run.

His doorbell rang and he looked at the clock. Nine at night was a little late for Mormons, and his few Australian friends knew far better than to drop in unannounced.

He opened the front door to find Amy standing on his doorstep. He blinked to make sure he hadn’t conjured her out of his imagination. His imagination surely couldn’t do the vision in front of him justice.

She was stunning in a calf-length, figure-hugging red dress with a neckline that showed enough cleavage to set his imagination alight and a pair of black boots that Ben had never seen before but definitely wanted to see again, often. He finally raised his eyes to her face and took in perfectly coiffed hair, blood-red lips, cold blue eyes and white, white skin. Too white. Something was seriously wrong.

‘This is for you. It’s the T-shirt you left at my house.’ Her voice was all wrong, too. It was as flat and cold as her expression. She thrust the plastic bag she was holding towards him and he took it automatically, noting that her hands were trembling.

‘Is everything alright? I was just about to call you.’ He reached for her, intending on drawing her against him but she took a quick step backwards out of his reach.

Her killer lips curved in a humourless smile. ‘Too late for that, Ben. You should have picked up earlier when I tried to call you. I left you a message.’

Ben tried once more to reach for her, but her entire body stiffened, her eyes narrowed and he dropped his hand, immensely confused and beginning to genuinely worry. He knew she was upset over what had happened at her house but he hadn’t expected anything like this.

‘Come inside.’

She shook her head. ‘No, I have to go. I just wanted to tell you . . .’ She drew a deep breath and clasped her hands together so tightly in front of her that her knuckles turned white. ‘I’ve read what you wrote about me in the London Enquirer. I don’t understand why you would do something so cruel, but I’m not going to let you do it again. I don’t want to see you any more, Ben. It’s over.’

He watched the beginnings of tears form in her eyes and his stomach flipped, his skin dampening with sweat. She couldn’t mean it. Didn’t mean it. She was just upset. All he had to do was get her inside and they could talk.

‘Amy. Sweetheart—’ He stepped towards her just as her cool façade shattered.

Her eyes flashed pure, unadulterated fury and her hands curled into tight fists at her sides as she erupted, a vengeful porcelain doll wading into battle. ‘You bastard! How dare you call me sweetheart after what you did? Scum, Ben. That’s what you are. You used me and laughed at me behind my back – publicly – and then you have the nerve to call me sweetheart like you care? Fuck you,’ she spat.

Ben flinched at how ugly the words sounded. He opened his mouth to talk but she held up a shaking finger.

‘I let you into my life. I trusted you. I cared for you and you . . . you screwed me. Quite literally, didn’t you?’ Her mouth twisted into a horrible semblance of a smile. ‘I bet you enjoyed writing that week. “Let’s make fun of the silly bitch who thinks too much to come.” Did you laugh, Ben? Did you?’ Tears filled her eyes again before she impatiently swiped them away. ‘How long was this going to go on? Until you ran out of things to make fun of every week? Oh, just wait. It’s pretty endless with me, from my shitty house and novelty businesses to my pathetic clothes and my hilarious – what did you call it? – bloody-minded inability to relax and enjoy the moment. You made it sound like a mystery. Well, I’ll tell you what it was all about. I didn’t trust you enough to let myself go. I should have stuck to that but instead . . . instead I thought you cared. Stupid me . . .’ She heaved a shaky breath, her face crumpling. ‘Stupid. Stupid me.’

‘Amy. Come inside,’ Ben commanded, panic rising in his chest.

‘No.’

‘Come on. You’re upset and overwrought right now. Come inside and we’ll talk about this rationally.’ He immediately regretted the words. The condescending tone was all wrong. He regretted them a sight more when Amy’s fist came out of nowhere, sucker-punching him in the solar plexus, leaving him doubled over and gasping on his own doorstep.

‘That’s being overly dramatic, you bastard. You told me to tell you if there’s ever anything wrong – that I shouldn’t care about your feelings. Well, I’m doing it now. This is the second time this week I’ve had to tell a man in my life that I never want to see him again. The first time was easy, so easy compared to this, because I didn’t care about him. You . . . you’ve just torn me to shreds and all you can say is that I’m overwrought?’ She took another step towards him, eyes blazing, and Ben had the good sense to step backwards.‘I felt so guilty about your car and blamed myself when the whole time you were using me like some kind of comic prop. I hate that you did this to me. I loved you and you ruined it.’ Before Ben could say anything more, potentially ramming his foot further into his mouth, she spun on her heel and ran to her car.

Stunned, hand over his bruised abdominals, his chest feeling like it was about to explode, Ben braced himself against the door frame and watched her go.