Shafted Read online

  Larry Logan and mystery lady only had eyes for each other at Bone last night . . .

  Larry and lover at premiere of Ritchie’s latest movie . . .

  Larry and supermodel girlfriend Tania Baxter spotted looking at diamond rings . . .

  Wedding bells for Larry and—

  ‘What the fuck!’ Larry squawked, opening his eyes to find Tania peering glassily down at him. ‘Who the hell are you?’ Sitting bolt upright, he dragged the quilt up over his stomach to cover his need-a-piss hard-on.

  ‘Morning,’ Tania purred. ‘Sleep well?’

  Jerking away from her, Larry glared at her with suspicion, convinced that she was a whacked-out stalker who’d broken in while he was sleeping. At least she was naked, so she obviously didn’t have a concealed weapon on her. But, knowing his luck, she’d probably have something heavy close at hand – to beat his face to a pulp when he rejected her.

  Tempering his tone now, in case he alarmed her and made her do something stupid, he said, ‘How did you get in here?’

  Giving him a quizzical smile, wondering how he could have forgotten, Tania reminded him that he had invited her back here last night.

  Muttering ‘Did I?’ Larry ran a hand over his aching eyes, damned if he could remember.

  ‘Do you want me to get you anything?’ Tania asked, thinking he looked a bit pale and wanting to make him feel better.

  ‘Coffee,’ he croaked, replacing the phone which had somehow been knocked off its stand and reaching for a cigarette. Lighting up, he lay back against the pillows and peered at her through the swirling smoke screen as she climbed out of bed. She did look vaguely familiar, he supposed. But then, she had tits and a pussy, so she could be literally anybody.

  Stretching languidly, hoping that the sight of her naked body in the sunlight would inflame Larry’s desires and cement her place in his heart, Tania tipped her head to one side and smiled coyly down at him.

  Eyebrows puckering with irritation, Larry said, ‘What?’

  Smiling knowingly, she said, ‘You’ve got a hangover, haven’t you? I’m not surprised, with all the champagne you drank last night. You were wrecked enough before we left the studio, so God knows how you managed to—’

  ‘The studio?’Larry repeated. Then, with a flash of recall, he clicked his fingers. ‘You were one of the contestants.’

  ‘The winner,’ she corrected him, grinning proudly as she reached down for her handbag and pulled out the cheque.

  Nauseated by the rocking motion of the mattress when she jumped back onto the bed to show the slip of paper to him, Larry muttered, ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘I thought they were going to cancel everything when you went off,’ she told him. ‘But Matty Kline stood in for you, so it was all right.’

  ‘Matty Kline?’ Larry’s eyebrows knitted together. ‘What was he doing on my show?’

  ‘That snotty director with the bushy hair brought him on after he sent you off,’ Tania explained, adding loyally, ‘But he’s nowhere near as good as you. No one was laughing at his jokes – not like they were at yours. Especially when you gave me the answer to the Britney Spears question. That was classic. Everyone was cracking up over that.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ No recollection.

  ‘Then you had to ask me another one, and it was so funny.’

  ‘Uh-huh?’ Still nothing.

  ‘Then you snapped my strap and my boob fell out, and all the guys in the audience started cheering and whistling.’Giggling now, Tania’s eyes were lit with satisfaction as she added,‘The women went mad, though. You should have seen them, slapping their boyfriends for looking, and everything!’

  ‘Well, you have got nice tits,’ Larry murmured, feeling the hard-on that had died creeping back to life as he eyed her jutting nipples.

  Spotting the movement beneath the quilt, she gave him a catlike smile. ‘Still want that coffee, or would you rather—’

  The phone started to ring before she had a chance to finish the sentence. Glancing at the clock, Larry groaned when he saw that it was only nine-thirty. No one with any sense would disturb him at this time of the morning, so it had to be Jeremy Hislop calling to give him a bollocking. He had half a mind to ignore the phone but decided he might as well get it out of the way so that he could get on with shagging thingy here in peace.

  ‘Do us a favour and get us that coffee while I take this,’ he said, waving her towards the door. ‘You’ll find everything you need in the kitchen.’

  Blowing him a kiss, ecstatic that everything seemed to be going so well between them now that he’d remembered who she was, Tania slid off the bed and sashayed out of the room.

  Reaching for the phone when she’d gone, Larry started speaking immediately, intent on depriving Jeremy of the pleasure of lecturing him.

  ‘Yes, Jez, I know I was a twat, but I’m really, really sorry, and I promise it’ll never happen again.’

  ‘You’re right there,’ his agent, Georgina Wise, replied coolly. ‘You’re sacked.’

  Frowning because he hadn’t expected to hear her voice – or to hear what she’d just said – Larry said, ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You’re sacked,’ she repeated. ‘I’ve just had Jeremy on the phone, and he says Frank’s absolutely had it with you.’

  Sure that it was a wind-up – Frank’s way of punishing him for taking off before the after-show party – Larry said, ‘All right, Georgie, you can quit now. We both know I’m worth way too much for Frank to want rid of me.’

  ‘Not any more,’ Georgie countered, her serious tone making Larry wonder if this was actually for real. ‘As of now, your contract is terminated.’

  ‘He can’t do that,’ Larry blustered. ‘And if he tries, I’ll have him in court so fast for unfair dismissal his head will explode.’

  ‘He can, and he has,’ Georgie replied. ‘And if I were you, I’d read the papers before you make any threats about suing anybody, because you’ve given him more than enough rope to hang you with this time. And you can’t say you weren’t warned. I mean, did you really think you’d get away with being drunk on air?’

  ‘Christ, trust Frank to overreact,’ Larry snorted. ‘All this fuss over one little drink.’

  ‘You were pissed as a fart,’ Georgie reminded him. ‘And I don’t even want to know what you thought you were playing at when you exposed that girl’s breast.’

  ‘So I like tits,’ Larry drawled unconcernedly. ‘Shoot me, why don’t you.’

  ‘This is not a joke,’ Georgie told him irritably. ‘And Frank’s adamant that he’s not going to change his mind this time. He says it’s bad enough having to justify putting you on the telethon in the first place, but what you did with that girl—’

  ‘Exposing one stupid tit?’Larry interrupted.‘Do me a favour! It’d be the highlight of the show, if the public had even seen it – which we both know they didn’t, because Jeremy would have edited it out as soon as it happened. What’s the big deal?’

  ‘The big deal,’ Georgie echoed, ‘is what you did after you left the studio.’

  ‘Stop right there,’ Larry warned her sharply. ‘What I do in my free time is nobody’s business. Not yours, not Frank’s – nobody’s.’

  ‘It is when you’re doing it with a child,’ Georgie snapped, the disapproval ripe in her voice.

  ‘What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’ Larry demanded.

  After telling him to read the Sunday Herald and see for himself, Georgie said, ‘But you’d better prepare yourself for a shock, because it’s pretty bloody damning.’

  Rubbing at his temples as the headache deepened into a dull, sickening throb, Larry said,‘Okay, cut the cryptic shit and just tell me what it says, ’cos I haven’t got a clue what you’re going on about.’

  ‘The girl who won the show,’ Georgie said quietly. ‘You took her to a club after you left the studio, right?’

  ‘Yeah. So what?’

  ‘So, she’s not as old as she made out. In fact, she’s
only just turned sixteen.’

  ‘Fuck off!’ Larry croaked, his stomach flipping as his world slipped out from under him.

  ‘It’s true,’ Georgie assured him. ‘Apparently, the reporter checked it out with the family before he came after you, and Jeremy told me that Frank had it confirmed this morning. Her name’s Tania, and she used her older sister’s ID to get past the security checks. The real Cindy’s in Majorca and knows nothing about any of this. And our girl would have got away with it if her friend hadn’t spotted her and called the Herald.’

  ‘Bitch!’ Larry spat, shoving the quilt aside and dropping his feet to the floor. ‘Sixteen? Christ! Everyone’s gonna think I’m a fucking paedophile!’

  Guessing from his reaction that he and the girl had finished the night together, Georgie sighed. She was tempted to point out that Larry wouldn’t have got himself into such a compromising position if he wasn’t such an out-of-control piss-head, but she held her tongue. The girl had obviously fooled the whole production team, so Larry could hardly be blamed for having been taken in by her too.

  But the tabloid-reading public wouldn’t see it like that, and Jeremy had told her that the studio switchboard had already been flooded with complaints from disgusted viewers demanding that Larry be sacked. So even if Frank had wanted to excuse him, he wouldn’t have been able to without risking losing viewers – and there wasn’t a producer in the land who was stupid enough to support the star at the expense of the show.

  ‘What are they saying about me?’ Larry asked now, a vague image of flashing lights and scuffling men flitting through his clouded mind. ‘Are there any pictures?’

  ‘The big Sundays are full of you reeling about on the telethon set,’ Georgie told him. ‘But the Herald’s the one you need to see. And they’ve got two pictures: one of you and the girl kissing, the other of you a bit the worse for wear, while the girl’s grinning like she’s hit the jackpot all over again.’

  Muttering,‘Shit!’Larry stubbed out the burned-down cigarette and immediately lit another.

  ‘Shit, indeed,’ Georgie agreed disapprovingly. ‘Oh, and they’re all saying it’s nonsense that you were high on flu medicine, by the way.’

  ‘Flu medicine?’ Larry repeated numbly. ‘Did someone slip me something?’

  ‘No, that was just Frank’s explanation for the state you were in. But nobody believes it – not now they’ve seen the pictures of you doing drugs.’

  ‘What?’ Larry squawked. ‘No way! I haven’t been near drugs in months. You know that.’

  ‘The pictures say different. There’s coke all over the place.’

  ‘Well, if there was, I didn’t know about it.’

  ‘Maybe you’ve forgotten?’ Georgie suggested quietly. ‘You know what you’re like when you’re drunk. You can’t even remember where you’ve been or how you got home some nights.’

  ‘I always knew if I’d done coke,’ Larry argued. ‘And I know I definitely didn’t do any last night. This is a booze hangover – period!’

  Jumping up now, he paced the length of the bedroom, his mind ticking over painfully as he struggled to remember what had happened the night before.

  ‘It’s a set-up!’ he declared after a minute. ‘You know what those paps are like – they’ll do anything to discredit you when you’re at the top, and they’re always gunning for me. I’ll bet the bastard who did this got himself a nice pay-off. But let’s see what he’s got to say when I sue him for libel! And I’ll have a blood test to prove I didn’t touch any drugs. They’ll have to retract the story then, and Frank will have to give me my job back.’

  Instinctively believing him – about the drugs, at least – Georgie said, ‘Okay, Larry, I’ll arrange a blood test if that’s what you want. But it won’t change anything as far as Frank’s concerned. He is absolutely not going to change his mind this time.’

  ‘He will if he knows what’s good for him,’ Larry shot back, looking around for his jeans.‘Star Struck is my show, and when I prove I’m innocent he’d better reinstate me or I’ll sue him as well. There’s nothing in my contract that says I’m not allowed to have a couple of drinks when I’m working, so he’s got no justification for sacking me.’

  ‘No one who saw the telethon will ever believe you’d only had a couple, so you’re onto a loser with that argument,’Georgie told him firmly.‘Even without the subsequent drug stuff, and the girl’s age, Frank is well within his rights to fire you, because you made yourself incapable of performing the work you’re contracted to do.’

  ‘It was a one-off,’ Larry said, pulling the jeans on without bothering with underwear. ‘I’m not letting this go without a fight. Where’s Frank now? At the studio?’

  ‘I believe so. But he really doesn’t want to see you.’

  ‘Only because he’s believing the shit in the papers. Soon as he realises it’s a set-up he’ll—’

  ‘He’s already signed up your replacement,’ Georgie cut in, sounding genuinely sorry for him now. Larry was a pain, but she knew how much he’d loved the show. Unfortunately, just not enough to make him pull himself together before it got to this.

  Slumping down onto the edge of the bed, Larry said, ‘You’ve got to be joking. He can’t do this to me.’

  Assuring him that it was true, Georgie closed her eyes when Larry demanded to know who had been signed in his place, and murmured, ‘Matty Kline. Sorry, Larry, but it’s a done deal.’

  ‘I’ll kill him!’ Larry snarled, the blood boiling in his veins. ‘I will fucking kill him!’

  Sensing that he’d taken as much of a kicking as he could stand right now, Georgie said, ‘Look, go and clear your head with a cold shower before you do anything stupid. I’ll get onto the doctor to arrange that blood test. And when you’re feeling better, we’ll sit down and talk about finding a new show for you. But, whatever happens, you’ve got to knock the drinking on the head, Larry. You might think you’ve got it under control, but the fact that you can’t even remember what you were doing last night should tell you that you haven’t.’

  It was good advice, but Larry didn’t hear a word of it; he was too busy staring at Tania, who had just come back into the room. Disgusted that she was parading around naked with a stupid smile on her face while his whole world collapsed around him, he felt the rage welling up inside him.

  ‘Larry . . . ?’ Georgie’s distant voice drifted out of the phone. ‘Are you still there?’

  Switching the phone off without responding, Larry followed Tania with his stare as she slinked over to the other side of the bed and placed the coffee cups on the table.

  Pretending not to notice his intense gaze, Tania strolled to the dressing-table and leaned provocatively forward to smooth her hair in the mirror. If there was one thing she knew about boys, it was that they were natural voyeurs who got turned on by watching girls who didn’t know they were being watched. Laughable, really, when you considered that girls always knew when they were being watched.

  ‘Get dressed,’ Larry spat, sickened by the sight of her preening herself.

  Turning, Tania gave him a questioning smile. ‘Sorry?’

  Barking ‘You heard!’ Larry got up and marched out of the room.

  Staring after him in disbelief, Tania winced when the front door slammed a couple of seconds later. Chilled by his angry tone, she rubbed at her arms, wondering what had happened to make him bite her head off like that. She’d heard him raise his voice a couple of times when he was on the phone, and wondered if it had been a woman – one of his girlfriends, maybe – who’d found out about him taking Tania to the club and had rung to have a go at him about it. If so, it hadn’t sounded like he’d been begging for forgiveness, which had to be a sign that he wanted Tania more than he wanted the girlfriend. And it would certainly explain his sudden mood swing, because he was too nice to dump a girl without feeling even a little bit guilty about it, so she wouldn’t hold it against him for taking it out on her.

  Just as she’d managed to convince h
erself that everything would be okay, Larry marched back into the room, with the Sunday Herald he’d just borrowed off a neighbour clutched tightly in his hand.

  Flapping the paper in Tania’s face, he said, ‘Just tell me one thing . . . were you in on this from the start, or did they persuade you to do it after we got to the club?’

  ‘In on what?’

  ‘Don’t play the innocent with me! This what you wanted, was it? To make me lose my fucking job?’

  ‘I haven’t seen the papers,’ she reminded him, stepping nervously back because he looked like he was going to hit her. ‘I’ve only just got up. What’s wrong?’

  ‘Like you don’t know!’ Marching away from her to put distance between them – because he did feel like throttling her – Larry threw the paper down onto the bed and snatched up yet another cigarette with shaking hands.

  Hardly daring to move in case he shouted at her again, Tania tilted her head and peered at the paper. She couldn’t see the headline, but there were two pictures: one of her and Larry kissing; the other of her smiling and Larry looking confused, while the guys from Unreal looked shocked and angry as their minders scrambled to their feet. She couldn’t see details, but she genuinely didn’t see anything wrong with what she could see – nothing to make Larry so angry, anyway. In fact, she thought she looked particularly pretty.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re looking so proud of yourself,’ Larry spat, noticing the way she was studying the photos. ‘You’ve destroyed my life with that little stunt of yours.’