Remember My Name - Abbey Clancy MIRA

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realise what you’ve said or what you’ve done. If this thing works out—and I really hope it will—you’ll need to be aware of how you come across in interviews, on stage, on camera. You can still be you—but maybe save the real you for your people who don’t mind getting covered in mud or drenched with cappuccino.’

      ‘Like you?’ I asked, not quite able to stop myself sounding a tiny bit flirty. He was too old for me, I told myself. He was my boss. And anyway—he was out of my league, and probably just being kind. A man as hot as him, working in the industry he did, probably had seventeen supermodel girlfriends on speed dial. Why would he be interested in a slightly tattered blonde former princess from Liverpool?

      ‘Exactly like me,’ he answered, his voice slow and drawling and the sheen in his eyes making my tummy do little loop-the-loops. Oooh, I thought. He was interested—which made the whole thing a lot harder to ignore. It was possible I was reading too much into his tone—but I definitely wasn’t reading too much into the way he’d reached out, and covered my hand with his on the table top.

      He gave my trembling fingers a little squeeze, stroking my palm with his thumb in a way that promised all kinds of interesting skills, and gave me the super-smile again.

      ‘Just don’t worry. I’m here. I’ll help you any way I can. You need to put the work in—but you need to play as well.’

      ‘Play?’ I mumbled, losing my ability to think straight—not that I seemed to have much of that particular ability anyway—and staring at him like a brain-dead muppet.

      ‘Play,’ he confirmed. ‘Have fun. Relax. Let go. And I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, Jess, but one thing I’m really good at is playing …’

      It turned out he wasn’t bragging at all. That first trip out for coffee had been repeated the week after. Then it had turned into a drink after work a few days later. Then it had evolved into dinner. Our hugs at the end of the night had evolved too—into gentle kisses, slow and sensual and oh-so-yummy.

      Jack Duncan wasn’t like any other men I’d met. He certainly wasn’t like any of the men I’d been out with. For a start, he didn’t stick his tongue down my throat the minute we started snogging. He didn’t shove his hand up my top and root around for my bra strap. He didn’t point to his hard-on and say, ‘Come and get it, you lucky bitch’—which admittedly had only happened to me once, but still tops my least-romantic-quote-of-all-time list.

      He was … slow. Teasing. Tempting. He kissed me as though I was precious, as if I was some wonderful delicacy he wanted to savour and enjoy. Like he wanted to make it last, instead of racing towards the next hurdle. And he didn’t just kiss my lips. He kissed my neck, my earlobes, my collarbone, my wrists, all in such a gentle and tantalising way that I was begging for more. Hoping for more.

      But it hadn’t, as yet, gone beyond that. Even though I really, really wanted it to—at least I did at the time it was happening. In the cold light of day, I could recognise that it was a bad idea. In the warm light of night, though, in the shadow of streetlamps and under the gaze of the moon and stars, it always seemed like a very, very good idea indeed.

      It wasn’t just the way he touched me—it was the way he treated me. We had fun together. We enjoyed each other’s company. He told great stories about the music business, and he laughed at my not-so-great stories about the Princess business, and he listened to my hopes and dreams and never mocked them. He understood how hard it was getting through my days, but he never let me feel sorry for myself—he was sympathetic, but tough, telling me it was just a stage, just a step. That one day, I’d look back and be grateful for the fact that I had real insider knowledge of how the industry worked …

      Somehow, he made it all make sense. Somehow, he made my hellish days with Patty and her cronies feel worthwhile, part of my work ethic. Somehow, he made all my fears and doubts and insecurities disappear—at least for a few hours. A few hours of great conversation that would be followed up with one of those delicious, heart-rate-bumping kisses.

      Those nights with Jack were the absolute highlights of my London life—not that they had much competition.

      And, I reminded myself as I trekked back to Patty with her miraculously un-spat-in coffee, tonight was going to be one of those nights. We’d already arranged it, and I couldn’t wait.

      I just needed to keep my head down, get through the day without killing anyone (including myself), and look forward to spending time with Jack. We were going for dinner at Chico’s, a little Italian place tucked away in the cutest mews street I’d ever seen, and then, if I was lucky, I’d get some of those gourmet kisses for pudding.

      At least that was the kind of pudding that didn’t add inches to my apparently ginormous hips.

       Chapter 8

      I half expected someone to spot the difference in me the next day. I thought Patty would notice the glow, and declare I was looking radiant. Instead, she just narrowed her eyes at me and suggested I should start getting more beauty sleep—’like twenty-four hours a day’.

      Huh. So much for my radiant glow, I thought, as I arranged their organic artisanal macadamia nut cookies on a plate. Not that they’d eat them—the whole PR department was on a permanent diet. They just kind of inhaled them, and then spent the rest of the day talking about how guilty it made them feel. If one of them chewed on a chia seed they’d declare themselves full.

      I nipped to the loo while I waited for the coffee to perc, and glanced at myself in the mirror. Hmm. Maybe she had a point—I did look a bit rough round the edges. My hair had a tangle in the back of it the size of Dubai, and my liner had done an unintentional zigzag beneath my left eye. I wasn’t wearing the same clothes as the day before—Jack had booked me a cab home at the crack of dawn to avoid any Walk of Shame scenarios—but I could definitely do with some quality time in the shower.

      Somehow, though, I just couldn’t find it in me to care. I was happy—I was walking on sunshine, as Katrina and her Waves might have said. I was even happier than I’d have been if I’d scoffed all those organic macadamia nut biscuits.

      It had finally happened. After what felt like a month of foreplay, it had finally happened … and boy, had it had been worth the wait.

      Dinner was lovely, even if I did skip the tiramisu—something that would normally have had my mum feeling my forehead with the back of her hand in case I was running a temperature. And after that, we’d gone to this little place in a backstreet in Chelsea that was all dark wood panelling and smelled of brandy and whisky and cigars, even though nobody seemed to be smoking one.

      We’d spent ages talking; just talking and talking and talking—about music, about life, about family and friends and our hopes for the future. Okay, I will admit that he didn’t reveal too much—but it was a nice change to be with a man who wanted to listen as much as he wanted to bang on about himself. He was genuinely interested in me, which took me a while to get used to—I mean, I’m not that interesting, to be honest. At least I don’t usually think I am.

      I’m all right—I’m not so boring someone would fall asleep while they’re having a conversation with me or anything—but I’m not likely to be signed up as a guest on Newsnight any time soon either. And I’m okay looking—I know I’m not a minger, and I scrub up well, but I’m nothing special. Nobody’s going to trip over themselves staring at me on the street.

      But with Jack, I felt different. He made me feel like I was a sexy supermodel, not just someone who scrubbed up well. He made me feel like my stories were brilliant, my views were important, that everything about me was fascinating. We laughed and we chatted and we flirted and we drank—and it was all totally dazzling. It was like being exposed to a completely new species of manhood—one I’d never encountered before.

      Maybe I was a bit star struck, I don’t know. Maybe I was also a bit grateful, that Jack had seen something in me that so

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