Page 82 of Bad Influence


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‘And this from the social media expert,’ I replied, with venom. ‘How reassuring. I thought we were trying to be real here?’

My eyes bore into the side of Jimi’s face. Far from leaping to my defence, he sounded bitter. I’d never seen this moody side of him before and I didn’t like it.

Jimi considered his response for a moment, and then replied, ‘So, Amber, would you say it’s like sometimes we’re leadingdouble lives– one in the physical realm and another in a parallel universe?’ He raised an eyebrow.

My heart picked up speed.

Leading double lives? Is he referring to us?My paranoia about what was, or wasn’t, going on between us made me feel anxious. I remembered the message I had sent him last night.

‘But what about freedom of expression?’ I replied, digging further into what Jimi might be getting at. ‘Sometimes it isn’t clear cut.’

‘I just know that some people behave very differently when they’re face to face than when they can hide behind ascreen.’ He said the last sentence in such a way that I knew exactly what he meant.

I looked Jimi in the eye, hoping he might give me a sign that everything was okay, and I was reading too much into this, but he just looked ahead and said, ‘I think I need another coffee.’

Chapter Twenty-Two

WEEKS FIVE AND SIX

In the weeks following the LA trip, most of Mandy’s time was spent in meetings with Jose or going for prenatal appointments, and I witnessed Philippa shepherd a stream of beauty therapists back and forth to her bedroom for at-home wellbeing treatments. When I saw her for fittings and at mealtimes, Mandy enjoyed telling me about the cold feeling of the gel and sonographer’s wand on her belly, and the miracle of seeing the baby on a screen, ‘grooving around’ in her uterus. She was five months pregnant now and there was no mistaking her bump. The amount of freebies Mandy received from baby brands was doubling by the day, and unopened boxes of nappies, clothes, cots, and pram paraphernalia were piling up in one of the spare rooms in the house. Julie-Ann and Blair would wander around, swatches of fabric and colour charts in hand, making plans for the nursery makeover in the LA home, for which they had enlisted a top interior designer for free, in return for some branded content on Mandy’s channels.

Jimi and I resumed our gym sessions and I told myself I was cool with it, although I was more flushed than usual around him. I found it harder to compartmentalise what was going on with Jimi in my working life, and the realme who was living with Rob. I was in awe of how Jimi could seemingly just switch on and off our attraction to each other, and it made me constantly question whether the kiss in LA had been real.

‘He’s playing you,’ was Vicky’s verdict when I raised this with her. Although my rational mind suspected this when Jimi gave me a charming smile, or our arms accidentally brushed in the house, something would ignite within me, and my heart was so taken by the excitement of it all. I wanted to live in the moment and not worry about the future. In my limited experience of relationships, I wasn’t naive enough to think that Jimi was anything more than a bit of tantalising fun. But then something else would happen – a look, a touch that would throw it all up in the air again and make me think this was so much more than just a flirt.

I questioned my own prejudices, thinking it wasn’t Jimi’s fault he was blessed with perfectly symmetrical looks and plump, kissable lips.

If he wasn’t so good-looking, would I be feeling the same way?

The West Wittering trip was postponed twice due to bad weather, but I continued to fill my days arranging Mandy’s clothes, prepping for the shoot, and organising a trip to the Surrey Hills Spa for Lucy’s pared down hen do with Mum.

For West Wittering, Mandy set her sights on pieces from the lauded latest collection by British designer David Koma. It took its influence from the Greek goddess Aphrodite, a symbol of beauty and femininity, and gave her an ultra-modern makeover, using transparent water-like sequin fabrics in aqua green and soft pink, body-contouring crop tops, gowns with sensual cut-outs, and mesh dresses. It wasn’t easy to get my hands on many of the pieces from the collection, so I put in a call to Jasmine at Smith’s boutique to see if she could enlist her best fashion contacts to help me. Another morning, Coco taught Blair and me how to make date, coconut, cacao, and chia seed balls that tasted so similar to chocolate, everyone in the house was giddy with happiness when they were served as a regular after-dinner treat. As Mandy was no longer on a strict fertility-inducing diet, but something more substantial for a woman carrying a child, we were offered bread with some meals, which lifted all of our spirits. Even Philippa seemed more relaxed, as though she might actually quite like our presence in ‘her’ mansion. It felt as though our unlikely squad had finally bonded.

I was on my way to meet Blair one morning, when I walked straight into Jimi in a pow-wow with Jose in the hallway. They both looked serious and stopped speaking the moment I was within earshot.

‘Is everything okay?’ I asked.

Lately I’d become paranoid Jimi was talking about me every time I saw him with Jose.I wonder if he’s told his brother anything about us.

‘There’s been some negative commentary on Threads about Mandy not giving enough back to her UK fans despite living here,’ Jimi said. His concerned expression was akin to someone reading the latest news from a conflict zone.Sometimes it was hard to keep a sense of perspective when living in this celebrity commune.

‘It means we need to do something special and exclusive to mark being five months pregnant,’ Jose replied to us both. ‘Whatever the British weather throws at us tomorrow, we go to West Wittering and get the beach shots. We just need to do it,’ he commanded. ‘You can make that work, can’t you, Amber?’

‘Yes, she can,’ Jimi interjected.

‘Right.’

‘Talking of which, Mandy’s mentioned a David Koma dress,’ said Jose. ‘She’s obsessed with it, it’s straight off the runway. If I find a photo, you can get it, can’t you, Amber.’ There was no question mark at the end of this statement.

‘Of course. Send me the exact one, I’ve already been looking into his collection, and it won’t be a problem,’ I said with a certainty I didn’t yet feel.

I sprinted back to my laptop in my bedroom.

Minutes later the dress image came through from Jose. It was a stunning white, body-contouring, sheer midi dress with a cut out front, and hand-embroidered roses, bejewelled with silver crystals and stitched onto the finest tulle. In the photo it was being worn by Jennifer Lopez.

I could see why it appealed to Mandy. This was the kind of dress that was sheer enough to make her curvaceous body the focus, to hug her baby bump, and to ooze sex appeal at the same time. Some quick online investigating revealed there were two in existence, one had been worn by Jennifer Lopez, and the second was last seen on the runwayat London Fashion Week in February. I frantically located it on David Koma’s website, where it was marked SOLD OUT.

Who can get me the David Koma dress probably hanging in Jennifer Lopez’s wardrobe right now?My brain was buzzing. I called Jasmine at Smith’s, but she couldn’t help. I messaged Vicky to see if one of her old colleagues in the fashion department atGlamourmagazine might know, but hit a brick wall. My finger hovered over Mona Armstrong’s number, I seriously considered it for a moment, but thought better of it. Even though some time had passed, my PTSD from working with her was still unresolved. Then it hit me like the bouncing medicine ball had smacked me in the face. Joseph! That was it, Joseph, my old boss at Selfridges, had mentioned he was mates with David Koma when the subject came up for a window display. I WhatsApped him straight away.