Page 49 of Bad Influence
‘It was fairly explicit in your contract that guests aren’t allowed,’ he replied. ‘Anyway, I’m not really up for it,’ he said resignedly. ‘I feel like a total party pooper at the moment.’
‘I’ll call you instead, it’ll be nice to commiserate with you when they cut short my contract.’
‘Oh baby, you never know – be positive, okay?’
‘I’ll try.’
After we said goodbye, I stared into space for a few moments, thinking about the call. Something didn’t feel right. I’d rarely heard Rob so lacklustre. He felt so far away. I couldn’t think about it for too long because I needed to get back downstairs in the annexe to start packing up the clothes from the shoot.
As I began carefully folding up items and putting them back into the bags in which they arrived, I remembered with alarm that Mandy had been wearing the diamond earrings earlier in the kitchen. They were on a strict twenty-four-hour loan and would be collected by a security guard later this evening. With a price tag of over ten thousand pounds, I couldnotafford for them to go AWOL.
I WhatsApped Blair to see what they thought I should do but got no reply.
So that was how I found myself on all fours outside Mandy’s bedroom door half an hour later, trying to look through the keyhole. The house was really quiet. Everyone involved with the photoshoot had long gone, and I hadn’t seen Jimi for the rest of the day, after he disappeared from the kitchen when Mandy did. Coco and Philippa were pottering around in the kitchen.
There was no response from Mandy’s room when I knocked softly, although there was every possibility she couldn’t hear me. Either that, or she was sleeping soundly. There was no option other than to creep into Mandy’s room to retrieve the earrings; hopefully she had left them somewhere obvious – on the dressing table, a bedside table, or perhaps in the bathroom. If I couldn’t find them, I’d just have to come clean and find a way to delay the collection.
I pushed the door open slowly and poked my head around it. The room was in complete darkness. Shadows hid the corners, making the space feel larger than I knew it was. I edged forwards, my eyes slowly acclimatising to the darkness. I could make out a light around the closed door to the en suite, and then the edges of pieces of furniture. At the far side, the end of the bed was becoming visible, and to my left, Mandy’s dressing table. It was there I decided to look first.
I crouched down, figuring it was better to crawl to keep out of sight, just in case Mandy woke up. The contour of a body in the middle of the bed told me she was in it. I was about halfway across the floor when I heard a floorboard creak on the other side of the room.
I looked towards the door to her en suite, an orangey glow under it suggested a light had been left on in there. I scuttled forwards towards the end of her bed, and a less vulnerable vantage point. A shadow moved across the spool of light under the door, and the floor creaked again. The Mandy-shaped mass in the bed stirred and rolled over. I froze, holding my breath. I could hear my heart thudding inmy chest, it was beating heavily and more quickly with each second. Someone was in the bathroom.
A moment later, the door opened a little, and I glimpsed a shadowy shape. It was tall, muscular, definitely human. And definitely not Mandy. Could it be Jose? But I thought he was away.Who could be in Mandy’s bathroom?
My next thought was of an intruder. I’d heard of this happening in celebrity houses – a criminal climbs in through an open bathroom window, grabs whatever valuables are on show, and gets out again.
My heart continued to pound as I slunk back, crouching close to the floor at the end of her bed, my body tight. I bowed my head, eyes fixed to the floor, desperate to keep myself hidden so whoever was there wouldn’t see me.
The intruder kept moving very slowly. The bathroom door opened a little wider, and a quick glance up revealed the figure was wearing nothing but tight black Calvin Klein boxer shorts. I could see now they were holding an iPhone and using the torch for light. They were illuminated for a split second, before the light was extinguished. My gaze wandered up, it was impossible not to notice their perfectly defined body, tanned skin, and a large bulge in the tight underpants. The darkness moulded them into a rough form again. But in that split second of light, there was no mistaking it. There weren’t many people on the planet with a physique as perfect as his. It was Jimi.
What is Jimi doing in Mandy’s bedroom, half naked, while she is asleep in bed?
A moan came from the bed, Mandy was stirring. Sheturned over in her sleep and called out, ‘Baby, are you back?’ Her voice was muffled, sleepy.
Jimi didn’t reply.
She rolled over again, nestling into her duvet, and purred something indistinguishable in the other direction.
I froze again, afraid to move a muscle, too scared to breathe.
Did Mandy just call Jimi ‘baby’?This wasn’t the way she normally referred to him. A panic set in. I knew I had to get out of here. Fast.
If I have just uncovered what I think I’ve uncovered, there is no question that I am done for.
But getting out was not so easy. In one direction was the bathroom, in the other was a sleeping Mandy, and I was metres away from the safety of the bedroom door through which I had entered. Any chance of finding the earrings in the darkness, with two people to avoid, was feeling more and more hopeless. I was berating myself for thinking this was a good idea in the first place.
Jimi hadn’t moved since Mandy called out. He definitely wasn’t hurrying to get back into bed with her. When the room fell quiet for a few seconds, he began moving again, very slowly. I watched from my position on the floor as he carefully closed the en suite door and padded across the carpet. A floorboard creaked again, more loudly. The hairs on my arms stood on end. Jimi froze like a statue. The sound made Mandy jerk awake, she appeared to sit up briefly.
‘Is it the morning?’ she muttered drowsily.
Jimi stealthily, silently, dropped down to the floor, like aninja. Now he was just a few feet away from me, around the other side of the bed. It seemed that Jimi didn’t want Mandy to know he was in her room either. I could hear him breathing, he was so close.Shit. Now what am I going to do?
We both waited. As I listened to his every breath, I tried to hold the air within my lungs so he wouldn’t notice me. He began moving again. I stayed still, aware that I didn’t want to give Jimi the shock of his life, only to have him scream and wake Mandy for sure. How would we explainthat?
I tucked myself in close to the bed, just as Jimi’s face appeared around the corner. Suddenly we were nose to nose. His eyes widened as he took me in. ‘Fuck! Amber!’ he whispered.
‘Shhh!’ I raised my finger to my lips.
