Bad Boy vs Millionaire (2 page)

“
I think the black dress will be best for dinner tonight.”

“
It's a bit severe,” I said. “I like the red.”

“
This is Japan. Red is not good here. You don't want to look too flashy.”

I
glanced at the other women shopping in the store. Most of them wore pale pink and beige. They wore lots of lace too and little flouncy ruffles. Were they women or little girls? And all of them carried handbags emblazoned with logos. Why was that not flashy? I loved my designer labels as much as the next person but there was no need to be a walking billboard.

“
Wow, is shopping with your dad a thing here? I've never seen so many girls out shopping with their fathers.”

Dad
rolled his eyes. “You are being a bit naive, Han.”

It
took me a minute to register. Sugar daddies? But some of those girls looked like they were just in high school. That was so wrong. Then I realised that — OMG, maybe that's what they were thinking of me. I wanted to rush around the store, telling people, “he
really
is my father.”

“
Hannah, are you trying these dresses on or not?”

“
Sure thing, DAD. It's so nice that my FATHER is taking time out of his day to go shopping with me. You are the best FATHER ever.”

“
Remember, we need to make a good impression for dinner tonight. Tamaki’s quite a guy, huh. Good looking, rich, cultured. It’s unbelievable that he’s still single. A guy like that must have women swooning over him.”

“
Do you have a man crush on him?” I’d often wondered why my father had never had a serious relationship after Mum died. Was he trying to tell me something?

“
That’s not funny, Hannah. I just meant you should cultivate a friendship with him.”

“
I punched him in the nose.”

“
What?”

Dad
looked like he was going to blow something in his insides from the way his face went lobster red and set into hardened lines.

“
I thought he was a bag snatcher. He grabbed my bag and tried to walk off with it. That seemed mighty fishy to me at the time. Who does that? Like a ‘hello, your father sent me to pick you up...’ would kill him.”

“
I sent you a text saying he was coming. Didn’t you read it?”

I
paused outside the fitting room.

“
My phone must’ve gone flat or I couldn’t hear it over that noise. Still, he was quite nice after that. It didn’t seem to worry him too much.”

“
Thankfully. You could’ve ruined everything.”

I
went into the fitting room and tried the dresses on. What could I have ruined? Some business deal, obviously.

As
I'd thought, the black dress looked too severe ― unless I wanted to give off some dominatrix vibe or something. I stepped out of the change room to show Dad.

“
It doesn't work. Told you. And I'm not wearing some beige horror either.”

The
shop assistant hovering nearby pursed her lips and appraised me then found an eggshell blue shift dress. Very simple. Very elegant.

“
It's perfect,” Dad said. “We'll take it.”

***

Hours later, I returned to the hotel with my arms laden with shopping bags. It should have filled me with the long forgotten delight of spending obscene amounts of money on pretty things but strangely it didn't. Instead, all I could think about was the weeks of rent that I could pay with that money or the number of band t-shirts I'd have to sell. That made me kind of sad.

I
did my hair and got ready for dinner. I put on a touch of lipstick and checked myself in the mirror. Then I picked up my phone and started to type a message. But the words didn't fit together and anyway, I had promised Angie I wouldn't contact
him
. I had to get my head together and work out what I wanted. That's what Angie had told me to do and it made sense but I also wanted to talk to him. To make sure he hadn't forgotten me already. He could be out with some skank whore groupie right now and… This was exactly why I shouldn't text him.

But
I could still feel the touch of his fingers on my skin and the thrill that ran through me when his lips met mine. I had Jack Colt brain fever and I needed a cure. A cure that would help me think rationally and get me away from his hot-cold attitude. I put my phone in the drawer and slammed it shut.

“
Tokyo will be awesome,” Angie had said. “Get your head straight and see how you really feel. Work out whether this thing is in your heart or in your pants. You don't want to be messing with this shit. Have a fling with some hot foreign man. Then tell me all about it. I'm so jealous anyway, I always wanted to go to Japan.”

She’d
given me a list of stores to visit, none of which had been on the agenda for today. Angie's list was about what was cute and hot and on the edge. You don't get that at designer boutiques where people tried to avoid being flashy. I sighed.

Love
sucks. Especially other people's love. You know how it goes. You have a perfectly good friendship with someone and do all kinds of fun shit and then they go and get themselves all loved up with a dude and suddenly they are all like “sorry, I'm seeing my boyfriend tonight.” And, even if they do bother to come out with you, they drag their boyfriend out with them and spend the night wrapped up so tight in their own little circle of love that they may as well not be there anyway. If you are going to be like that, you may as well stay at home instead of wasting perfectly good space.

Not
that was what it was like with my friend, Hannah. Not yet anyway. She was just in that stage one of love, the stage where they want to discuss stuff. Stuff about their love guy. Like you say “oh, the sky looks blue today” and they do that sighing and cow eyes and say shit like “Jack has blue eyes…” and he doesn't even have blue eyes, they just want to say his name. Then the angst and the having to analyse everything he says and does.

That's
annoying. You have to admit it.

I
think Hannah would have been better off if she'd just shagged Jack upfront. Gotten it out of her system and moved on. That smoldering sexual tension will make a girl think she feels all kind of things that are just plastic fantasies she's built up in her head. Even though I was friends with the band now and got to hang out with them and cool stuff like that, I kinda missed the imaginary Jack Colt I'd created. He was like my best friend but now he was gone and I'd never get him back. You can't go around having sexual fantasies about your friend's kinda sorta boyfriend. So I’d made a deal with her. She could have Jack Colt if she bought me the super awesome boots I wanted in Tokyo. She said she didn’t want him but any fool with a two brain cells could tell she did. And I really wanted those boots. A lot.

It
was all because of that nasty business that blew up at the TV studio. One minute they’re in love and it’s all looking like happily ever after then bam!

I
wasn’t with Hannah when she found out that Jack Colt had made a bet with Spud. If I had been, I’d have got all in their faces, wanting to know what the fuck was going on in their cotton brains.

Seriously,
what kind of guy does that? You want to get rid of your band manager so you make a bet that you can get her to fall in love with you? That’s all smart and business-like. I guess no one would ever accuse Jack Colt of being too smart though. His smarts were pants smarts, not head smarts.

Anyway,
had he never watched one single movie in his life? Bets like that always backfire. He had it for Hannah pretty bad. You could tell by the way he looked at her. And by the way he didn’t look at anyone else. I’d kinda made a major study of the way Jack Colt looked at women.

Hannah
had run off, as you would, hearing something like that. Well, I wouldn’t have. I’d have punched him. But she’d taken off in a fit of despair. Then Jack ran after her, leaving a studio full of embarrassment behind him and that stupid bint, the production assistant, who'd been trying to get it on with Spud stood there, opening and closing her mouth like goldfish. The host had stepped in and made some excuse about technical difficulties and they crossed to a video and all hell broke loose.

T
he bimbo ran up to us, yelling and screaming, mostly at poor Eric who had no clue what had happened.

“
Where is he?” she screamed, stomping her foot. “He needs to be here.”

“
Well he’s not,” said Eric. “We’ll try to sort something out. Give us a minute.”

“
A minute on television is a long time.” She flicked her hair and gave us a death stare, then pranced off.

“
I’ll go get him.” Spud jumped out from behind his drum kit.

“
Sit back down, Spud. I don’t know what’s going on but I have a feeling you have something to do with it. Wait here and don’t make trouble. Jack wouldn’t do this unless he had a pretty major reason. He knows what this appearance means to us.”

So
the two of them stood around kinda glowering at each other and the awkwardness in the air swelled up even bigger.

The
poor guys. They didn't know whether to pack up their gear and get the hell out of there or not. Were they off the show and ruined or could this be saved?

Eric
glanced at me and I shrugged.

You
have to remember that, at this stage, Eric and I were totally in the dark, like two clueless kids, in the middle of the fuss. I didn't even know that Hannah had run off or what had happened in the corridor, just that Hannah was gone and now Jack was gone. I glanced up and Eric still looked at me. I don't know why he kept looking at me. I couldn't solve anything. I'd tried to ring Hannah but she hadn't answered her phone. I thought, at that stage, that something had happened about the nasty business with her dad. Like she'd been mobbed by reporters again or something.

The
annoying chick ran over and told them to stay in place and they had to play out to the break. And maybe, just maybe there would be a chance to slot them in later in the show if Jack come back. It was a mess. A huge mess. Anyone could tell. She’d gone all red in the face and had a sweat moustache.

“
We can't play out to the break,” Spud said. “Not with just a bass and drums. It'll sound like crap.”

The
chick shrugged. It seemed she didn't give a shit one way or the other. They needed some sound, regardless of quality.

“
You have about 30 seconds to sort it out before we come back from the video,” she said and walked off.

“
You play guitar, Eric,” said Spud. “We need someone.”

Eric
ran his hand through his hair and glanced at Jack's guitar like it was a poisonous animal.

“
I'll do it,” I said before my brain caught up with my mouth. Because I can't play guitar. Not really. But I could play a bits and pieces of the chorus of a few songs. Surely that would be enough. It was just a 30 second grab.

Spud
shrugged and Eric gave me an encouraging look so I ran over a picked up Jack's guitar. If I'd have longer than 15 seconds to think about it, I'd have been nervous as hell. I mean playing guitar and singing on national TV. You don't just do that without rehearsal and thinking about it and getting your shit together but the chick was doing her 3, 2, 1 countdown and I managed the chords to the chorus of “Party Dress” and even didn’t sound too bad.

Then
we went to the break before my brain even started up again.

Eric
threw his arms around me, squishing the guitar against my belly.

“
You did it. You did it.”

I
smiled but, before I could revel properly in the praise, we were interrupted.

“
Give me back my guitar.” Jack stood in the studio with Hannah tailing behind him.

So
, it was all sorted, I thought. Little did I know it was as unsorted as it possibly could be.

Hannah
had her arms crossed and that look on her face like she was going to erupt from containing all the rage simmering away inside her. And Jack paced like he did when he was nervous or stressed.

Meanwhile,
Spud had sweet talked the annoying chick into moving the schedule around so they could still play on the show. She lapped up his attention like some desperate groupie but at least it worked and this hadn't all been in vain.

Looks
kept flashing between Jack and Hannah that I couldn't even begin to interpret and, when Spud came back to the stage, Jack seemed like he wanted to strangle him.

Hannah
dragged me out into the green room before they went back on camera and told me the whole story.

“
What do I do?” she asked me. “Do I trust him? I have no idea what's going on.”

She
picked at her fingernails while she said this as if, by achieving the goal of picking every bit of polish off her nails, she'd find the answers she needed there. I put my arm around her even though Hannah is definitely not the hugging type. I usually have an opinion for every occasion but this was one time I had nothing to say. I sure as hell didn't want to be encouraging her in any way that would get her heart broken.

“
What do you want, Hannah?” I rubbed her arm.

She
shrugged. “I want to feel safe and I know that will never happen with him. I want something sure to hold onto. This morning, at the beach house, I’d have done anything for him. It felt so real. Like we connected. Now I have no idea what is real and what is being powered by his damn stupid arrogance.”

“
He came after you,” I said. “He risked everything, which has to be a real thing. When did he make the bet?”

“
Does it make a difference?”

“
Hells yeah. He hated you at first. He wanted you out of his life any way he could. If he made the bet then, I could understand it. But later, when he was all
I love you Hannah but I'm no good for you
, if he made it then, he's a cad.”

“
He never said he loved me, just that he wanted me. Different things.” She blew on her nails to get rid of the all the chips of polish.

“
It's romantic as hell though, him running to you like that.”

“
Why did he do that? I made him come back here to the studio. I'm his manager. I can't let him ruin his career.”

I
searched her face, trying to work out what was going on that head of hers. This whole thing was screwed up. It’d taken a huge leap for her to even trust Jack and then this had screwed everything up. It made me wonder if Spud had known she could overhear when he’d said it. He was malicious enough but I dunno about how much brains he had.

“
Didn't you want to just want to hold him in your arms and keep him there forever?”

“
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe that was more lies so I wouldn't believe he'd actually had that stupid bet with Spud.”

“
I don’t think he’d take a bet that far.”

Hannah
stared at the monitor in the corner of the room. The vision had switched to Storm, ready to play their new song. Spud tapped his drumsticks together then the camera did close up on Jack's fingers sliding along the neck of his guitar, his voice gravelly and strong. The sound and the close up on his profile created a buzz like static electricity jumping out of the screen. Thrills that ran through your body. The image pulled back to the three of them on the corner stage and you could see Jack's body move. He didn't jump around the stage, and he didn't need to. Even a toe tap or a shrug of the shoulder was enough to create the mood.

“
Anyway, I couldn't deny him this moment. Deny the entire band. They said ― Spud said ― I was poison as a manager. I couldn't let that be true. And we'll have time to talk. Later. As manager to client, I mean.”

I
could see what she meant. Jack had been ready to lay it all on the line but he'd have regretted it and, even if he didn't blame Hannah for it, Spud would. And that would create trouble in the band.

Then
she’d hit me with the news about going to Tokyo.

“
No way. Bitch!”

I’d
tried to convince her that she should talk it out with Jack before she left. Like sane, sensible people would do. But she’d refused to listen to my words of wisdom and had spent the night packing instead. Well, packing in between tears and non-stop melodrama – “I hate Jack Colt, I never want to see him again…” kind of stuff.

So
, Hannah was in Tokyo and I was stuck in class. My phone buzzed. I got a dirty look since I'd been sitting in a Film History lecture and we were supposed to have our phones switched off but nobody really does.

It
was Hannah. She couldn't find her hotel and she wanted me to check how to get there because her phone battery was about to go flat. She included a selfie she'd taken with Japanese buildings in the background. If you ask me, she could've saved her phone battery for looking things up herself instead of taking photos but I bet she just didn't know how to use GPS properly so wanted me to do it for her.

I
was really tempted to ignore her message. After all, she was in Tokyo, the city I'd always dreamed of visiting, and I was stuck in a boring lecture with the lecturer going on and on about the narrative structure of David Lynch films which, to be honest, we'd covered every single year. I'd ignore her and let her be lost because I could do that. Everyone thinks I'm sweet and pixie-like but I'm not. I could be dark. I could be really dark.

Then
I remembered that she'd wanted me to go with her and also she was buying the boots I needed the fuck out of so I'd have to be really sensible and responsible which killed me.

I
sent her a message back telling her to find the hottest guy around and ask him for directions. But started looking up maps, trying to get her bearings.