‘Waiting for a bus home,’ she said sarkily.
‘Come and have a dance,’ he said. ‘You and me would be amazing together. I’ll bet you know some moves, right? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.’
‘Oh, bore off, Lee,’ she said with a sigh.
‘Oh I see, too good for me are you?’ Lee sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand, an action which made him even less attractive to her if that were possible. ‘Sod you then. I’ve had enough of you stuck up bitches anyway. I’m going home. This is a crap party and I’ve got better places to be.’
He stared at her as if waiting for her to plead with him to change his mind. She was about to tell him to clear off then and good riddance, when the phone in her hand beeped and she glanced down and saw a message from an unknown number. An MMS picture message no less! Someone had money to burn.
Without even thinking about it, she opened the message. Danny had no password on his phone and if he didn’t want people to look at his messages, he should put one on, shouldn’t he? Either that or not leave his mobile in the hands of someone who was incurably nosy.
‘Is that your mummy checking you’re behaving yourself?’ Lee waved his hand in disgust. ‘I’m off. Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance.’
Brooke was barely aware of him walking away as she stared in total shock at the photo she was looking at.
Kirsty!
And not just Kirsty. Kirsty with a man who definitely wasn’t Danny, lying in a bed that, unless Brooke was very much mistaken, was hers and Danny’s, looking all flushed and hot, with mussed up bed hair, as if she’d just been…
She was asleep by the looks of it, but the man with her clearly wasn’t. He was the one taking the photo, and he had a smug look on his face that Brooke would have happily swiped off on Danny’s behalf.
Brooke stared at the picture, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Kirsty had told Danny that she was too ill to come to the party, and had told him to go without her. She was going to get an early night, she’d said. She hadn’t picked up Danny’s messages all evening.
Yet here she was, lying in bed with some strange man who had clearly waited until she was asleep and had then taken a selfie to send to Danny.
Oh, poor Danny!
Kirsty was cheating on him, and it would break his heart.
A feeling of rage surged through Brooke. All the years of trying to bury her own feelings for him and kill her resentment and jealousy of her cousin were suddenly for nothing. All the times she’d hated herself for loving Danny the way she did. All the times she’d bitten her lip and said nothing when Kirsty had bossed Danny around and made him do whatever she wanted. All the times she’d lied to him.
Because Kirsty had been lying to Danny for a while now. Brooke knew because she’d heard her mum and Kirsty’s mum discussing it in the kitchen one evening when they’d thought she was upstairs, and Kirsty’s mum had said she felt terrible keeping it from Danny and she wished Kirsty would tell him the truth about how she felt because it wasn’t fair.
No, it wasn’t fair, and Brooke had kept her mouth shut, even though every part of her wanted desperately to tell Danny what was really going on. But she hadn’t – not for Kirsty’s sake, but because she couldn’t bear to see the pain in his eyes.
And now, after all that, Kirsty was having an affair. She didn’t deserve Danny. She neverhaddeserved him, and Brooke was suddenly determined to tell her so.
She needed to get back to Danny’s house to confront Kirsty and tell her just what she thought of her. She’d bet her cousin didn’t even realise that the sleazeball she was carrying on with had taken her photo. Well, that would be a nice surprise for her, wouldn’t it?
She turned, in a panic, to look for that moron Lee. Where was he? Finally catching sight of the blond highlights near the door she rushed over to him.
‘Would you give me a lift to Camden?’ she asked breathlessly.
Lee looked her up and down. ‘Are you joking? After the way you just spoke to me?’
‘I’m sorry. I’ve had a lot going on tonight,’ she said coyly. ‘It was nothing personal. I just really, really need to get out of here.’
‘You and me both, darling.’ He nodded. ‘Okay. I’m, er, just going to the loo first. Won’t be a minute. I’ll meet you in the car park. Mine’s the Subaru Impreza.’
‘Of course it is. That’s okay. I’ll just get my bag.’
As Lee hurried off to the toilets, Brooke made her way to where she’d left her bag. It wasn’t there.
‘Has anyone seen my bag?’ she demanded. ‘You can’t miss it. It’s a Chloe Paddington.’ Well, it was a very good imitation of it anyway. When she got nothing but blank looks she said desperately, ‘You must know what a Chloe Paddington bag looks like! It has a padlock for goodness’ sake!’
‘Where did you leave it?’ Michael Jackson enquired, while Annie Lennox asked in rather shocked tones, ‘You have a Chloe Paddington bag? Bloody hell, how much do they pay receptionists?’
Brooke was feeling quite desperate. She knew she’d left it somewhere around here…
