- The World of Suzie Wong

The cool air smells of roasting meat and pulses, with techno music and the sounds of a seriously good party in progress. As soon as the car noses through the gaggle of paparazzi gathered outside the gates, the guard waves us through and we turn into Cash Hunter’s drive. The house, a massive, modern, glass and steel monster structure, is lit up like a mother ship.

Britney and I get out of the car and walk up to the team of bouncers standing around the front doors. We go through the tall doors and, I’m not kidding, step into every manslut’s wet dream.

The living room has —wait for it—an Olympic-size swimming pool. OK, Olympic size might be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the picture. It is infested with nearly naked, nubile, squealing bodies. As my dazed eyes watch more super-excited, shrieking, gloriously perfect, scantily clad girls land in the water with a splash.

Oh, you should also know that the living room boasts a dance floor (that’s right, a slightly raised square platform that flashes), two well stocked bars (on either side of the pool), and a giant movie screen with images of whales swimming underwater in slow motion. The whales, I’ll admit, is a cool and surreal idea.

Honestly, the whole thing looks like an MTV music video.

Right in the middle of all this fun and laughter is Cash Hunter. Lying on a giant purple inflatable bed between two giggling babes. One of them is pouring champagne straight from the bottle onto his chest. Talk about living a cliché.

Still, awesome, fantastic, wonderful.

This is exactly the kind of stuff I was hoping to run into. Right this minute, the lead singer of ALKALINE doesn’t seem all that attractive. In fact, he looks like a shallow, selfish, vain, egocentric, show-off, media created, hateful, sexual deviant of a jerk. Who in their right mind would ever want a party god like this?

Beside me Britney screams, ‘Cash.’

His head swivels in our direction and our eyes meet. Suddenly the blood in my veins starts fizzing like soda water. Oh God. Apparently, I’m not in my right mind. Because I want him so bad it hurts my stomach, and until he decides to break the eye-fuck I find myself totally, completely, and absolutely unable to look away. I just stand there frozen and stare idiotically at him.

Until his eyes flicker and he turns his gaze to Britney. A smile breaks out on his face. Rolling the girl next to him into the water, he slips into it himself and swims strongly towards us. Placing his palms on the tiles at the edge of the pool, he hauls himself out easily. His eyes are luminous with water reflections.

From his crouched position, he uncoils, full of sexual energy. Water sluices off his body in fast flowing rivulets and I actually feel my eyes widen. Holy crap. What a rush! He lifts his powerful arms and slicks his hair back, and my eyes just follow like some starving, stray dog.

It’s just not fair. Why should anybody look like that? I shake my head to clear the weird hypnotic effect he is having on me. It’s not like I want anything to happen between us.

Britney takes a step forward and pecks delicately at his wet cheek.

‘Great party,’ she says stepping back.

‘There’s not much to your dress,’ he notes darkly.

‘We’re here to have fun,’ Britney giggles.

His eyes narrow disapprovingly. ‘Watch it, Brit. I don’t want to have to bash anybody’s head in.’

‘Oh for God’s sake don’t be such a spoil sport, Cash. I never get to go out and have fun,’ she groans.

He scowls at her. ‘I mean it. I’m not your BFF. I’m your older brother.’

‘‘What time is Taylor Swift coming?’ she asks, craftily changing the subject.

‘Not until later.’

She clasps her hands together. ‘I’m so excited. I can’t believe I’m going to meet her.’

He smiles indulgently. ‘She said she’s bringing something special for you.’

Britney’s eyes become dinner platters. ‘What?’

He lifts one wet, muscular, tanned, taut shoulder. Phew. This man could start a new category of porn – shoulder porn. ‘It’s a surprise,’ he tells her.

‘But do you know what it is though?’ she wheedles.

‘Nope. You’ll just have to wait.’

‘All right,’ she agrees easily. ‘Where’s Prince anyway?’

‘Locked in my bedroom,’ he says.

‘Can I go see him?’

‘Yeah, but don’t let him out.’

‘Oh why not?’ she complains.

He raises his eyebrows meaningfully. ‘Because he’ll do what he did the last time you let him out.’

‘I thought it was a great laugh,’ she says with a little naughty giggle.

‘Seriously? You want a repeat?’

‘So he jumped into the pool. He’s friendly. It’s hardly his fault that everybody else was silly enough to behave as if a man-eating crocodile had got into the pool with them,’ she defends.

‘Britney,’ Cash says patiently, ‘after he emptied the pool he ran outside and shook himself all over the buffet table and slobbered on the barbequed meat so no one had anything to eat.’

‘Your friends don’t eat anyway,’ she retorts.

Way to go, Britney. This is the version of her that I could really start to like.

‘Prince doesn’t get out, or you’re never coming to my parties again,’ he says. His voice is flatter than the flattest thing you can think of.

‘Fine,’ Britney agrees sulkily. ‘I won’t let him out.’ She turns toward me. ‘Do you want to come and meet Prince, Tori?’

I do very much want to meet Prince. I know that he is an enormous, pale tan beast of a Kangal. Two years ago it was all over the news how he had been found in a drug dealer’s backyard, snarling, his bones showing, and his ears chopped off so that he would look fiercer. He was already in the police dog pound waiting to be put down since Kangals are classified in some countries as one of the dangerous dog breeds, but Cash had seen his picture in the newspapers and fallen in love with him. I suppose he must have called in a whole lot of favors because he got the dog.

Kangals are intimidating monsters, capable of warding off wolves, bears and jackals, but the only photos I have seen of his dog are those where he is standing on his hind legs and resting his great big front paws on Cash’s shoulders while he licks his master’s face like some great big puppy.

I’m about to agree to go see him when Cash speaks up.

‘No, you go on ahead. Let Tori stay here and say hello to me.’

‘All right,’ she agrees and moves away.

I take a deep breath and look up at Cash.

He lets his smoldering eyes slowly travel down my body. I think I manage to keep a version of a too-cool-for-school expression going on my face, or maybe not, since my skin gets so hot my eyebrows feel like they are on fire.

Baring icy white teeth, he drawls, ‘You look ravishing, but … Zebra prints? That’s false advertising surely.’

I frown. ‘What are you trying to imply now?’

‘I’m not trying to imply anything. Just sayin’ it might have been more truthful to go with wildcat prints, but I guess we both know you’re not very honest.’

‘And what the hell is that supposed to mean?’ I demand, getting more and more annoyed.

‘You want some of this,’ he flicks his hand down his annoyingly hunky body, ‘but you pretend not to.’

‘God, you sure have an extraordinarily big head, don’t you?’ I mutter, irritated that he is 101% right in his assessment of the situation.

His eyes gleam. ‘That’s me. Big head, big mouth, big cock …’

I roll my eyes so hard it hurts my head. ‘Oh, here we go again.’

‘Why are you so mad at me? I’m just trying to be helpful. You know, reading out the label so there are no surprises later.’ He drops his head, looks down at his feet so his wet eyelashes are almost sweeping his cheeks, then looks at me through the spiky curtain.

God, damn him, even though I know it’s all callous manipulation and technique, it still stirs my heart. It’s so freaking difficult to keep pretending and saying no, when all I want to do is fall into his fantastic arms and let him sweep me off to his lovely bed. I desperately need to put some distance between us.

‘You’re not that cute, and I will never fall for that tired, old stunt,’ I say, pulling together my scattered wits.

‘Never?’ he asks.

‘Never,’ I say firmly.

‘You could crush a guy saying things like that,’ he murmurs.

‘It doesn’t seem to be doing you any harm,’ I retort.

‘I’m worried about the drip, drip effect,’ he says softly, his eyes twinkling with mischief. ‘Over time even very hard things can be worn down.’

I ignore the sexual innuendo. ‘Don’t worry, I don’t think I’ll be around long enough for you to notice such an effect.’

‘I don’t know. After a mind-blowing climax with a side of wow, you might want to stay around. Maybe even stalk me.’

If only he knew. I was already stalking him. ‘Men like you badly need to slip on a banana skin and fall flat on your butt.’

‘I’d love to see you eat a banana. I bet you kill it,’ he says huskily.

I open my mouth to reply and nothing comes out. God help me. I have a vision of myself running kisses along his jaw.

Without warning he moves in for the kill, his mouth inches from mine, his arm brushing mine, the clean male smell of him making my senses reel. Horrified, I lean back.

‘By the way,’ he whispers seriously. ‘That’s not pussy you’re smelling. I just ate a tuna fish sandwich.’

There’s no fishy smell. Gross bastard. He knows I want him and he’s just keeping me in the sexual prey zone. An image of his head between my legs slips into my mind and something inside me lurches. I should shove him away, or say something cutting.

‘I hate to break it to you, but you’re a very shallow person,’ I croak.

His breath is hot against my cheek. ‘For a very shallow person I can go very deep.’

‘You’re unbelievable,’ I breathe shakily. It’s clear I should push him away and I do want to. Really, I do.

‘I’m hoping you’ll be keeping to that storyline later,’ he says with a chuckle.

‘You’re so full of shit there can’t be much room left to house your brain.’

‘I’m a simple man. I keep my brain in my dick.’

‘Cash,’ a hard voice raps.

Shocked by the sudden intrusion, I stumble away from him, and snap my head towards the voice. Octavia Harding. In real life she looks like she lives on low fat, no sugar, gluten free toasted wheat crackers with lettuce and half a slice of tomato, and sucked out whatever little bum fat she had and injected it into her lips. She is everything I am not. The contempt in her eyes is calculated to try and make me feel worse than a used condom. Completely ignoring me after that first dismissive glance, she fixes her attention on Cash. She flashes an insincere smile.

‘I need to speak to you privately.’ Her voice is professional with a tinge of sexy.

Cash takes his own sweet time answering her. ‘Relax, Octavia. It’s a fucking party.’

‘EMI has sent three executives out. I’ll relax once you’ve met them.’

Not taking his eyes off me he says, ‘Say hello to Tori Diamond first.’

Something dismissive and resentful flashes in her eyes. ‘I’m not paid to say hello to every bimbo you fuck, Cash.’

My back prickles. Wow! First time for me. I’ve never come face-to-face with a twenty-four carat bitch before.

‘Don’t mind her, Tori, she’s been digging into her stash of bitch crisps again,’ he mocks, before turning back towards her, his eyes hard. ‘Tori is Britney’s new PA. You could be seeing a lot of her, so it might be a good idea to play nice.’

Octavia’s lips stretch into a malignant smile. ‘Hello.’

‘Hey,’ I say, unsmiling.

Her eyes narrow. ‘Are you an American?’

‘Yes.’

Her eyes glitter. ‘Hmmm. Do you have a permit to work in this country? They don’t usually hand out work visas for lowly PA jobs.’

Don’t sock her. Don’t sock her. I take a deep calming breath and open my mouth.

‘Tori is allowed to work here. Her mother’s English, so she holds a British passport as well as an American one,’ Britney explains cheerfully, having come back from seeing Prince.

‘Hello, Britney. You look wonderful,’ Octavia says, her voice one degree warmer.

‘Thanks, so do you,’ Britney says unenthusiastically.

‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to steal your brother away. He has very important people waiting for him.’

‘They can wait. Nobody asked them to come,’ Cash says coolly.

‘I did,’ Octavia says. She appears to take stock and realizes she is going about this the wrong way. She softens her tone. ‘Come on, Cash. It will only take a minute. Gavin and Joseph are already there. You can party after you finish with them. How about that, hmmm?’

‘Go ahead, Cash,’ Britney says. ‘Tori and I will go help ourselves to the fruit punch. I’m dying of thirst.’

He turns his eyes away from Octavia and looks down sternly at his sister. ‘Go easy, you.’

‘Stop worrying. I’m not a bloody child. I’ll be eighteen soon, and anyway, dad said I could have a couple of drinks.’

‘Right.’ He turns to me, his expression warming up. ‘Don’t lose your head until I get back.’

I flush to the roots of my hair. He’s like a safety pin to the bubble I have spent so long blowing.