Page 16 of The Match Faker

Actually, that wasn’t true. When those pictures Sunrise posted went viral, he’d messaged to congratulate me.

Nice to see you take after your dad in the dick department, he’d said. Ladies love a big cock. You’re welcome, son.

What kind of a father said shit like that to his child? But he wasn’t a father. That was why he’d always be known as The Sperm Donor.

And boy did he love to spread his seed. I’d lost count of how many children he had. Several were conceived whilst he was still married to Mum. And now he wanted me to pay for their fucking computers? Plural? He could go to hell. I shoved my phone back in my pocket.

A brunette at the bar who I recognised as one of the actresses in the play made eye contact. She smiled, twirling her hair around her finger. I raised my glass at her and smiled back.

Just at that moment, Mia walked past swinging those perfect hips and pouting her full lips. The lips I used to dream about when I was a dumb, horny teenager. And maybe a few times since. I knew better now, though.

Mia’s eyes narrowed. She looked between me and the woman at the bar, then shook her head like a disappointed parent.

See? Exactly what I was saying. Mia hadn’t changed.

Since when was smiling at another woman a crime?

And what the hell did it have to do with her anyway?

I knocked back my drink and walked past Mia and straight over to the lady at the bar.

So what if she thought I was some low-life man whore?

If I wanted to have fun, no one, especially not some stuck-up ex friend I hadn’t seen for years, was going to stop me.

7

Mia

As I squeezed into the Tube carriage and spotted an aftershave advert, I groaned and muttered under my breath.

Liam bloody Stone.

The man was everywhere. It was bad enough that I’d seen him last night, now I’d have to stare at his face for the entire journey to work.

Ever since I’d bumped into Liam, I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

No. Not like that.

I was a grown woman, not the silly lovesick girl that used to go gaga over those sparkling brown eyes, long lashes, annoying dimples and crooked smile. Those days were long gone.

Yeah, there was a time when we used to hang out together after school that I thought something might be brewing between us. But those delusions were quickly crushed when Liam started dating Natalie Davies. Then Angela Peters, swiftly followed by Simone Wokoma, Annabel Elliot…

The list of Liam’s conquests was endless. The saying that a leopard didn’t change its spots was definitely true.

So, no. I wasn’t thinking about him in a romantic way. It was just weird to see him again in the flesh after so long. Now he was a big star, I expected him to hang out at fancy parties. Not small theatre productions.

I’d got used to seeing him on billboards and the big screen. Not that I’d watched his films. Romcoms were more my style. Okay, maybe I’d seen one or two things he’d been in, but only out of curiosity or because there was nothing else on.

And I’d have to live on Mars to avoid the constant stream of tabloid stories. I didn’t seek them out. They were just there.

But, whatever. So what if I’d seen him? I was already over it. I wasn’t giving Liam another thought.

I stepped into the office and saw Trudy tapping away on her keyboard with one hand and holding a cup of coffee with the other.

‘Morning!’ she chirped.

‘Thanks for the coffee.’ I glanced at the cup on my desk. Whilst Trudy seemed full of energy, I was still recovering from last night’s cocktails.

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