The Millionaire's 'Friend' - Natasha's Story

Chapter 2 - Girl's Night

"Oooh, get you sexy lady." Fliss let herself into my flat, just as I was finishing up with my make-up for our girl's night out.

"Likewise. If I didn't know better, I'd say someone was on the pull." I arched a freshly plucked eyebrow at her.

"Well, you never know." She said innocently, despite me reminding her earlier in the day that tonight was about having fun – and not about men!

She nudged into me as she checked her own appearance in the only mirror I had in my cosy little studio apartment. She'd really gone to town with her plastered on makeup and barely-there dress. But, Fliss liked dressing up, and from experience I knew her Wetherby's friends lived along very similar lines.

Not that I could comment tonight. I was flashing a lot more flesh than I would usually bother, but to be honest the weather's been baking recently and, after spending all day in skintight leather pants, my legs felt the need to breathe. From the bottom of my drawers, I'd dug out an old pair of white tailored shorts and matched them with a shimmery, long, gold top. I let my dark hair hang long, loose and natural.

"Here. Brought you the eye shadow you requested. Wasn't sure which one you'd want though, so I brought a selection." Fliss handed me a white leather bag crammed with her makeup collection, or rather, crammed with a fraction of her makeup collection.

My own dressing up box was in a poor state; consisting of a dried out foundation, one raisin berry lip gloss, a nearly full bottle of silver nail polish and an eyeliner pencil. I had a compact with some eye shadow in it once – one of those cute little round pots with four different shades in it – but I'd managed to lose it somewhere along the way and never bothered replacing it.

Fliss on the other hand was like her own mini makeup supplier. She had every conceivable item and every conceivable colour. I dug my hand through the array of black plastic tubs and held up two Rimmel pots with a soft gold that would compliment my top. Only, to me, they looked so similar in shade I was sure they were the same thing.

This wasn't the first time I was borrowing Fliss' things. In fact, it's kind of how we met. After a couple of weeks in London my wandering feet had led me to the front door of the auction house that she worked in. Wetherby's were advertising a display of Italian Renaissance pieces that were to be sold off later that month. Curiosity had gotten the better of me and I'd just passed through the revolving doors – only to be manhandled by a guard straight back out again. He treated me like he'd just spotted someone who was on the UK's ten most wanted list; not an innocent passerby who walked in for a nosy. It took several minutes, and many heated words, before Fliss wandered over and informed me that the guy had taken offence to my jeans and Primark t-shirt. Out of the blue, she dragged me back to her flat, dressed me up like a toy doll in a simple navy dress and some hardly used heals, and returned me to Wetherby's; where the same guard never even clocked that I was the girl he'd thrown out not an hour earlier. From that moment on I'd found a kindred spirit who shared my upfront, no bullshit approach to life.

Except when it came to men of course. God's lesser creation had the effect of turning Felicity Reeves into a jibbering, mindless, needy being, with no ability to make decisions or hold serious conversations.

But, apart from that unfathomable side to her, we'd clicked and have been best friends ever since. In an incredibly short space of time we'd covered eachother's life histories – which was a completely knew experience for me. I'd had a rough few years, before moving to London, and parades of shrinks and councilors barely got two words from me. And yet sitting in the park, with a bright eyed young woman from the north, I found myself singing like a prisoner on death row. I told her practically every detail of my tumultuous life, something which I've not done with another living sole.