Helen rose slowly and slung her handbag over her shoulder. ‘You know exactly what I’m suggesting, Karin. I’m watching you.’
Helen put two fingers to her lips, kissed them, and then put them down on the arm of the bench. ‘Goodbye, Seb. I miss you,’ she whispered, and walked off into the park.
Karin folded her arms in front of her, her eyes watching Helen go, but her mind completely lost in thought.
56
Whoever said modelling was glamorous, thought Summer groggily, leaning her head against the window of the people carrier as she watched the north Norfolk coast slip by, a blur of fields, cottages and grey sky. It was 6.30 a.m. and she was on her way to her next modelling assignment. Well, modelling-stroke-acting, she corrected herself. She actually knew very little about the job ahead of her, except it was a video-shoot for DHP Records’ bright new hope. The record executive who had booked her, a middle-aged cockney man called Phil Harrison, had been unusually vague about the details of the shoot, which had sent Summer’s imagination into overdrive – what if it was someone really big like Justin Timberlake? Knowing her luck, it would Cliff Richard.
The people carrier dropped her off on the edge of a wide, dark, sandy stretch of beach and she walked over to a small herd of trailers on the edge of the sands.
‘Ah, here she is, looking gorgeous,’ smiled Phil Harrison. Phil had clearly dressed for the season not the weather and looked faintly ridiculous in a long shearling coat and a pair of flip-flops.
‘Fucking freezing, isn’t it?’ he said, glancing at a giant watch around his chubby wrist. ‘You’d never believe it was August, wouldja?’
Summer smiled sympathetically. ‘Is there anywhere I can grab a coffee?’ she asked.
‘Go ahead, darlin’,’ he said, jerking a thumb towards a trailer. ‘Talent’s not here yet, but that’ll give you time to meet the director and go through my vision for the video.’
Phil put an overfamiliar hand on Summer’s shoulder. ‘To give you a heads-up, I’m thinking Helen Christensen in Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” video, know what I mean? I’m thinking you, running along the sand, gagging for it. I’m thinking bleak, moody, sexy. I need to see sex, Summer. Show me sex.’
‘I think you mean Helena Christensen, Mr Harrison,’ said Summer icily and moved towards the trailer, knowing it was going to be a long day ahead of them.
In the six months since Charlie McDonald had last seen Summer Sinclair, he had become the next big thing in the record industry and he was miserable. While on the surface it was every schoolboy’s dream to be groomed as the next platinum-selling rock artist, he couldn’t help but feel as if his identity had been hijacked, and that he was being taken places he didn’t really want to go to. Sure, he loved the attention and the limos and the interviews, but was it really him?
Everything about him had changed, he thought mournfully, catching a glimpse of himself in the rear-view mirror of the black Mercedes that was transporting him to the video-shoot. That DHP Records had insisted he get rid of his band was painful enough, but when they had cut his hair, brought in a stylist and a personal trainer to revamp his image, and had even changed his name to CJ, he was beginning to wonder why they signed him in the first place.
The car slowed as it reached the edge of Brancaster Beach and Charlie felt a little jolt of nerves in the pit of his stomach. When his manager Rob had started talking about a video featuring a sexy girl for his debut single ‘Smile’, Charlie only had one girl in mind for the job. Summer Sinclair. After their night at the Monarch, it had taken him months to get over her. The process was helped along by the stream of groupies, music PRs and female rock journalists who suddenly seemed to find him irresistible. And, while Charlie had not been a monk, when he had seen the Karenza advert plastered all over London, he had realized that he had to see her again.
There was a slight salty breeze, a weak early morning sun beginning to crack through the folds of steel-grey clouds as Charlie walked across the sand to the trailer where Summer was sitting reading a book.
‘Ah, Summer, meet CJ,’ said Sean Clarkson, the video director gruffly, impatient to start filming. ‘CJ, meet Summer. You two are in love, now can we all get to our places?’
Summer looked up, squinting in the early morning sun at the incredibly good-looking man in front of her. For a split second she did not recognize him: his hair was shorter, darker; stubble sat around his jaw; his blue jeans and loose white shirt screamed sexy Texan cowboy, not clean-cut groom.
‘Charlie? Charlie! What the hell are you doing here?’ laughed Summer as Sean rolled his eyes and vanished into the trailer.
Charlie smiled bashfully. ‘I’m the talent, allegedly.’
‘I had no idea it was you,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘You’ve done brilliantly. I didn’t even know you’d got a record deal. I feel an idiot.’
‘You weren’t to know. My debut single hasn’t even been released yet and can you believe my management want to call me CJ,’ he winced.
‘The record company seem so excited about you. Gosh. This is great. And what a coincidence.’
Charlie looked embarrassed. ‘Well, I could lie and say this is an incredible coincidence, but when the record company said they wanted a gorgeous model for the video, I said I knew just the girl.’
She slapped his arm playfully. ‘You just wanted to see me in a meringue again.’
‘Maybe I just wanted to see you,’ he said softly.
Summer felt her heart flip and felt instantly guilty. She was in a relationship with Adam. She shouldn’t be looking at other men. ‘You never phoned,’ she said softly. ‘And things are a bit different now.’
Charlie looked puzzled. ‘Well no, I didn’t phone because I lost your number, but I did come round to see you.’
Summer looked at Charlie, confused. ‘Sorry? When did you …? Where?’
‘I came to see you at your flat. But your mum said you weren’t there. Didn’t she tell you what happened?’