Page 154 of Joker in the Pack

“I was until I met my new boyfriend.” Edward looked surprised, the bastard, and I decided to take a leaf out of Maddie’s book. “Now I’ve moved to Chelsea, I’m farther away from my old haunts, but the view of the river from the penthouse is worth it.”

Becki shifted uncomfortably, and I couldn’t resist sticking the knife in.

“Oh, and Becki, I happened to see an excellent anti-cellulite cream advertised inCosmolast month. It might be worth you giving it a go?”

I choked back my giggles as we hurried to catch up with Janelle. She greeted the doorman by name, and the velvet rope magically moved aside to let us through.

Oh yes, revenge was sweet.

In the club, the music pounded as the cocktails kept coming. We may not have had Taurus, but our waiter certainly gave him a run for his money, and when Janelle slid a twenty-pound note into his waistband, he even took his shirt off.

“Should have brought that baby oil,” Maddie whispered.

All I could do was blush—I’d already used it playing with Nye the week before.

“My head hurts,” I complained the next day.

“Probably something to do with the naked dude serving you cocktails.”

“He wasn’t entirely naked.”

Okay, Janelle had convinced him to lose the trousers too by the end of the night, but we had a private room and she let him keep his boxers. And Nye wouldn’t have found out anything if she hadn’t drunk-dialled him at two in the morning begging for a cheeseburger.

Saint that he was, he’d turned up with Happy Meals for all of us and carried me to bed.

Now we were cuddled up on his new sofa, and he passed me a packet of paracetamol. “I warned you Jannie was a bad influence.”

“Yes, I know that now.”

I was just about to pinch a mouthful of his tea when his phone rang with a ringtone I hadn’t heard before: Meredith Brooks singing “Bitch.” Nye groaned, and when I glanced down at the screen, it saidMother calling.

We still hadn’t talked about his family, and I’d assumed they weren’t close. After all, Nye said he’d hated living at home, and whenever I hinted about his past, he swiftly moved on to a new topic.

“Why don’t you let it go to voicemail?” I suggested.

“Because I’ll never hear the end of it.”

He picked the phone up, holding it like a poisonous snake. “Hello, Mother.”

I only heard his end of the conversation, but he seemed far from happy. The worry lines that had started to fade turned back into deep furrows.

“No, I haven’t forgotten Grandma’s birthday dinner… No! I certainly don’t want you to invite Cressida Haworth as my date… I’m perfectly capable of meeting a nice girl by myself.”

He clearly hadn’t told his mother about me, and that stung. Was he ashamed? Did my background not meet with his family’s expectations? He may have been happy to have me in his home and his bed, but now I realised there were parts of his life I wasn’t compatible with.

“I’ll be there, Mother. Just promise you won’t invite any more women.”

He hung up and looked at me sheepishly. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

“I’m sorry I had to hear it too. Why didn’t you just tell me you had a problem with me meeting your family?”

“I didn’t know where to start.”

“It’s simple, Nye. I know I can be a disaster in public. I’d rather you’d simply said up front that you didn’t want me embarrassing you at family functions.”

“Babe, that’s not how it is at all. You know which fork to use better than I do.”

“Then why the secrecy?”

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