The Indecent Proposal (Short Story)

Chapter 1

Ryan March Dumps Girlfriend, said the magazine cover. Sure enough, there was a photo of Ryan at the Grammys, looking his usual sexy rumpled self, cuddled up with some American singer called Destiny. And beside it was a photo of me, rumpled but not remotely sexy in pyjamas, bed hair and no make-up – because I had been stupid enough to open my door to the paparazzi at six o'clock in the morning.

Even I would have dumped me.

There ought to be lessons in dating rock stars. Never look anything less than stunning, and never open the door to the paparazzi before breakfast. Better still, never leave the house at all.

But I'd reckoned without my friend, Gina.

"Megan!" I heard her familiar voice shouting through my letter box. "I know you're in there. Let me in right now!"

There was no point ignoring Gina. She was likely to keep yelling until I opened the door. So I did – just a crack, to check it was really her.

Whereupon she announced, "I'm not that bloody skinny," and shoved the door wide open.

"I just wanted to make sure you weren't the paparazzi," I said.

Gina rolled her eyes. "There are no paparazzi. There was just the one photographer who got lucky. Get a grip. You've been dumped, so what?"

"That's fine for you to say, your love life hasn't been plastered all over the Internet. My pyjamas now have their own Twitter account."

"Please don't tell me you've been Googling yourself?"

"Absolutely not."

It was an outrageous lie and we both knew it.

"You need to move on," she told me, slightly more gently this time, "if only for your self-respect. It's been what, three months?"

"Two months, three weeks, six days," I said dolefully.

"I can't bear to see you moping about like this. I'm supposed to be visiting my father at the weekend; you can come with me, if only to get you out of the house."

I was pretty sure my mouth had dropped open. Gina was half-Italian, which meant her father lived in –

"Sorrento? I can't go to Sorrento! I have a deadline! Some of us have to work for our living."

Gina worked in the London office of her father's company, which meant she didn't really work at all.

"You don't appear to be working terribly hard right now," she retorted. "You're sitting in the dark like a little mushroom, feeling sorry for yourself."

"I have to keep the curtains drawn because of the photographers."

"There are no photographers. It's old news, everyone has moved on – well, everyone except for you." Her gaze flicked towards my laptop lying closed on the table and I squirmed, knowing what was coming next. "How much of that book have you actually written?"

"I've got as far as chapter six – "

"You were writing chapter six last week. Come to Sorrento. Bring your laptop too, if you must. Judging from the amount of dust on the thing, I expect it would like a holiday."

In the end I had to agree. It was the only way to get rid of her. But when Gina had gone, I took out the well-thumbed magazine I had hidden beneath the sofa and looked again at the photo of Ryan cuddled up to the beautiful Destiny. He looked so happy.

Happy without me, the rat!

Two months, three weeks, six days ... Three very long months. Oh hell, Gina was right. It was time to move on.