Page 31 of I Would Die for You

Hannah screws up her face. “But she’s notDaddy’ssister,” she says. “She’syours.”

15

LONDON, 1986

“What if I’m not how he remembers me?” says Cassie, lowering the front of her crinkle swimsuit that she’s paired with a neon-green puffball skirt and white stilettos.

“I’m not sureanybody’sgoing to rememberanythingfrom the other night,” says Amelia laughing.

“Apart from my dad,” mutters Cassie acerbically.

“He’ll get over it,” says Amelia, proving that she doesn’t know John very well. “I assume he doesn’t know that you’re here?”

Cassie looks at her incredulously.

“He would lose his absolute shit,” she says. “I’m grounded and he’s refusing to talk to me, so right now there’s a me-shaped mound of pillows in my bed.”

“Oh my god,” squeals Amelia. “What if he takes a closer look and realizes that you’re not there?”

The thoughthadoccurred to Cassie, and for a split second it wasn’t a risk she was prepared to take. But Ben was expecting her—why else would he have given her an embossed invitation the other night? And she wasn’t about to let him down.

“I’m sixteen!” she says. “He has to realize that he can’t control my life anymore. I’m an adult now.” Though as she walks into the vast entrance hall of the Natural History Museum, with the life-size skeleton of a diplodocus bearing down on her, she suddenly feels out of her depth. This isn’t like the party at the hotel, with all its debauchery and excess; this is an event for real grown-ups, who, Cassie notes, are all power-dressed to the max. Men in pastel-colored linen suits, with shirts open two buttons too low, stare appreciatively at her and Amelia, and women who are too old to be dressed in lamé totter past on impossibly high heels.

“Bloody hell,” mutters Amelia under her breath as they accept the offer of champagne from a passing waiter. “It’s likeDynastyon speed in here.”

Cassie almost chokes, sending bubbles fizzing up her nose. “Well, as long as we’re not Krystle and Alexis…”

“If you stick to the agreement we’ll get along just fine,” says Amelia, more seriously than Cassie would like. “Youstay away from Michael, andI’llstay away from Ben. Speaking of whom…”

“Oh god,” says Cassie, unable to look, as pinpricks of anticipation make her fingers tingle. After five days of every eventuality going round her head, she still hasn’t worked out how this is going to go down. What if he doesn’t recognize her? What if he doesn’t seem pleased to see her?What if… No, she can’t bring herself to go there. “Where is he? Where is he?”

“Over there,” says Amelia.

When she’s brave enough to follow Amelia’s gaze, Cassie can’t help but be disappointed to see she’s talking about Michael. His newly dyed peroxide-blond hair flops into his eyes as he leans in to listen to a man who looks like a headmaster lecturing one of his pupils.

“So, where’s Ben?” asks Cassie, her excitement immediatelyturning to abject desolation as she scans the expansive lobby. She can’t contemplate the possibility that he’s decided to swerve it and go somewhere else instead. She’d feel so stupid. She’s risked so much, and it would all have been for nothing.

“Come on!” says Amelia, grabbing a couple more glasses of champagne as another tray goes by.

She pulls her shoulders back and sticks her chest out as she makes her way through the crowded space, smiling sweetly at the leering men in suits. Thesamemen, Cassie imagines, that Ben had accused of stifling his career. “We haven’t got as much freedom as you’d think,” he’d told her at the hotel the other night, when she’d asked why the band hadn’t performed her favorite song: the B-side of their fourth single. “They insist we go with the masses; follow the money,” he’d said despondently. And as Cassie looks at their smug faces, she doesn’t doubt that their greed represses his creativity.

“Hi, Micky,” purrs Amelia, as she sidles up beside him.

The man he’s with throws him a cautionary glance as he walks away, one that simultaneously says,Be careful, but by god, if I had the chance, I would.

“Well, hello there,” says Michael, looking Amelia up and down, his dilated pupils coming to rest on her breasts. “I recognize those.”

She giggles coquettishly and slaps him, reminding Cassie of a Barbara Windsor character from aCarry Onfilm.

“What are you doing later?” she asks brazenly. “Fancy getting out of here and having some proper fun?”

He pulls a face as if weighing up his options, while Amelia waits expectantly. “We could go back to your hotel,” she prompts, to fill the awkward silence.

Cassie clears her throat, embarrassed for her, but out of the corner of her eye she can sense a tangible excitement in the room, an uptick of energy that she knows only Ben could create.

She forces a deep breath in and out, wanting to look but unableto. Instead, she fixates on Michael, whose expression clouds over with utter contempt. His mouth pulls into a tight line, and he puts a hand on Amelia’s behind and gives it a squeeze.

“Why wait till later?” he says, giving her a push. “Let’s get the fun started now.”

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