"Jesse, please say something."

This was the fourth red light we'd sat at in silence, and it was killing me. I would have preferred him just to yell at me and for it to be over already. He'd answered on the third ring, his voice clear and awake even though it was past midnight, and arrived in front of the restaurant a mere ten minutes earlier. He'd even opened the passenger door for me. But now he refused to speak. At all.

"Jesse," I pleaded, and as the light turned he stepped on the gas with a little too panache. I was thinking a little too late that I should have answered at least one of his calls today. "Jesse-"

"Susannah." Jesse sighed, and pressed down on the brake a little. The car slowed at the lights (sheesh, just how many sets of traffic lights were there in California?) and he rested his head on the wheel. "Please. I don't really have anything to say."

I twisted in my seat at the outright lie. "I know that's not true," I said. "If you're mad that I screened all your calls today, then I'm sorry, I was just feeling a little-"

But before I could finish, Jesse had turned left at the lights, pulled into a little lay-in on the side of the road and cut the engine. My mouth hung open in the shape of my last syllable, and my forehead crinkled in confusion. Was he kicking me out of the car?

"Susannah," he said again, and I was a little alarmed as to how my heart reacted. It didn't just flutter – it slammed violently into the front of my chest and I had to swallow to ease it. Hard. "This isn't about you screening my calls. This is about how you feel about Paul."

Boom-boom-boom. There went my heart again, with increased force. I swore it was going to burst out of my chest and straight into Jesse's lap.

"What-?" I began, but Jesse was still going.

"How can you let him just walk all over you, querida?" he demanded, and I had to look away from his dark, penetrating eyes. "He treats you like… well, like a dog. And not even a showdog like Kelly, either!"

"I am not a dog," I argued, indignantly. "And Paul doesn't walk all over me. He's my boss; he's supposed to tell me what to do." Jesse lowered his voice, and the anger rumbled through me like a seismic wave.

"You don't always have to follow his orders, Susannah," he said. "You need someone who is going to care about you and not the money you're making his record company." I felt like I'd been slapped. I was still reeling a couple of seconds later, when my mind was struggling to put the pieces of that sentence together.

"Like who?" I spluttered, which turned out to the stupidest thing possible to say, considering what happened next.

Which was that Jesse had surreptitiously slipped a hand around my neck and pulled me inexplicably towards him.

I won't lie. It was a good kiss. A good kiss. His lips were soft and his breath was fresh and cool and was blowing my mind. But my lids lifted for a second to see his tanned arm shift slightly on my shoulder and I found myself wishing it was somebody else's tanned arm resting against me…

And pulled away.

There was a crinkle in Jesse's forehead similar in the one I had in mine as he sat back. "I'm not going to pretend that it was a mistake, Susannah," he said, and I had to refrain from screaming. I was confused; it had been the best kiss I'd ever received – not that I had a varied range of experiences – but I loved Paul. Passionately, heartbreakingly, devastatingly. I had to get out of the car.

"Querida!" Jesse called as I opened the passenger door. There was unmistakably hurt in his voice, but I couldn't face talking to him. If I'd had any doubt that avoiding his calls had been a good idea, I was now thoroughly convinced I'd made the right decision. This apparent demonstration of feelings would have been even more agonising over the phone.

"I can't," was all I said to him, and I closed the door on his crushed face. My heart was still left thudding – albeit heavier now than before – as he drove away, and I couldn't help wishing I'd called a cab in the first place. I'd ended up in the same place anyway – abandoned on the sidewalk. Only now I had a much bigger problem to deal with.

-x-

I arrived home to find two empty beds in my hotel room – but I didn't even want to think about where Kelly was. My heart and my pride had taken enough damage that night and all I wanted to do was sleep until I couldn't avoid getting up any longer. About an hour later, when I was still lying awake tormented, Kelly crept in stinking of booze and cigarettes, and the stifled sobbing I'd heard – muffled as it was through the duvet cover – convinced me further that she'd been with Paul. Didn't I know that he could make you feel on top of the world – but just as easily snap your heart in two.

I woke up an indistinguishable amount of hours later, not able to remember actually falling asleep. Kelly's bed was empty again, the duvet crumpled and stained with mascara. And with a pang the previous night came back to me and I realised that I had to make it right with at least somebody. I decided on the least humiliating.

I dressed quickly, pulling on jeans and not exhausting the usual effort I did when I planned on seeing Paul. I had a feeling he wouldn't care what I looked like today – more like what I had to say. And even then, if it wasn't an apology, he'd have limited patience.

I slipped out the hotel room and down the corridor, wringing clammy hands and blowing sweaty bangs out of my face. My pride detested apologies of any kind – particularly alluded to events where I'd been intoxicated – not that there had been many. Only one other time when Cee Cee had fed me too much Bacardi at a slumber party and I'd sat on her mom's prized china. It had taken weeks of grovelling to allow me over there again.

Tentatively I knocked on Paul's door, and my heart leapt when he rumbled, "Coming." Not even my banging head nor his stern expression when he opened the door deterred me. I had to fix this.

"Listen, Paul, I'm really sorry about last night-"

Paul sighed, before opening his door wider. "Come on in."

"I'm sorry for not signing the contract," I began. "I wasn't in my right mind – I was drunk, for God's sake. And I was mad at you for not understanding about my family. I mean, I've just ditched them so I can lead the life they're not happy about. How could I turn back to them and ask them to suddenly support it?" Paul sighed again, and a tired smile played on his lips.

"I'm sorry too, Suze," he said, and he took my hand so he could massage the skin with his callused thumb. "I was being stupid – I thought a bit of alcohol would loosen you up a bit. I know how much this new lifestyle freaks you out."

"I think the banging headache I have right now would argue against 'a bit of alcohol'," I argued, though I couldn't help laughing. "Ugh. I'm such a lightweight." Paul chuckled, and rubbed my shoulder as I massaged my aching head.

"But you're my lightweight," he said. "So it's O.K." I smiled. After feeling so low, I was suddenly on top of the world again. Jesse had been wrong – Paul did care about me. Maybe not in the way I hoped he did, but he wasn't just screwing me over for profit.

But the longer we lingered there – with my eyes meeting his and his hand still on my arm – the more I began to doubt even that. Maybe he did like me as more than a friend. At least the way he was looking at me then suggested that. And as he leaned in and my heart began to race I began to feel the way I did as I stood before riotous applause – beautifully, wonderfully, blissfully inebriated. Nothing could ruin this now, I thought, as Paul's lips were inches from meeting mine…

And then the fax machine we were both leaning on beeped insolently and spewed out a couple of unidentifiable pieces of paper. Paul jumped like he'd been electrocuted and pressed a button to stop the beeping, and I rubbed my forehead. Oh my God. That had almost been all my dreams come true, but now I had a sickening dread that it was never ever going to happen again.

Especially as the next time Paul turned to me, papers from the fax machine in his hand, he slapped me hard across the face. My cheek burned red hot instantly and I glared in his direction.

"What the hell was that for?" I demanded, and he threw the papers at me. With shaking fingers I shook the A3 page straight and with some difficulty focused on the big bold headline at the top of the page.

"How could you be so stupid?" Paul hissed.

MY SECRET RELATIONSHIP WITH SUSANNAH SIMON!

Oh my God.

But it got worse. Especially as I read the next line.

Suze's secret man Jesse De Silva reveals all in this two-page spread.

The newspaper fell to the floor.