Sugar Secrets…& Ambition Read online

  Sugar

  SECRETS…

  … & Ambition

  Mel Sparke

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  CHAPTER 1 THE GATECRASHER

  CHAPTER 2 ATMOSPHERICS

  CHAPTER 3 ALL IN THE BEST POSSIBLE TASTE

  CHAPTER 4 REFLECTIONS

  CHAPTER 5 SNAP DECISIONS

  CHAPTER 6 THIS IS YOUR LUCKY NIGHT…

  CHAPTER 7 DEVELOPMENTS

  CHAPTER 8 ANYBODY LISTENING?

  CHAPTER 9 SONJA’S SECOND OFFENCE

  CHAPTER 10 STRIKE A POSE

  CHAPTER 11 DON’T MENTION THE ‘M’ WORD…

  CHAPTER 12 BORED, BORED, BORED!

  CHAPTER 13 BARBED WORDS AND BAD MOODS

  CHAPTER 14 ME, MYSELF, I

  CHAPTER 15 GREAT EXPECTATIONS

  CHAPTER 16 TRUE LOVE AND HURTFUL TRUTHS

  CHAPTER 17 SOMEONE LETS SLIP

  CHAPTER 18 MATT MISSES THE POINT

  CHAPTER 19 ALL THAT GLITTERS…

  CHAPTER 20 THE GATECRASHER (PART 2)

  CHAPTER 21 COMING BACK DOWN TO EARTH

  SOME SECRETS ARE JUST TOO GOOD TO KEEP TO YOURSELF!

  ARE YOU A DRAMA QUEEN?

  SO ARE YOU A DRAMA QUEEN?

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER 1

  THE GATECRASHER

  “There’s something odd about him.”

  “Mmm. He looks shifty.”

  “He looks really shifty.”

  “Yeah, like a criminal or something.”

  “What’s he up to?”

  Sonja Harvey turned questioningly to her cousin Catrina Osgood. Catrina stopped chewing for a second as she stared thoughtfully at the fidgety boy on the other side of the room. Slowly, she blew out a huge, rubbery pink blob of bubblegum - the exact shade of her mini dress - and let it pop before she finally responded.

  “I know what’s wrong with him,” she nodded to herself and a knowing smile crept across her face. “He’s panicking.”

  Sonja wrinkled her nose and peered through the huddle of chatting party-goers at the dark-haired lad. She wasn’t convinced by Cat’s theory. What did Matt have to panic about?

  He was hosting yet another of his brilliant parties. He had one arm around his girlfriend, Gabrielle, who looked as though she was having a great time. And her friends - who’d come along to the party too - seemed to be practically as mad on Matt as Gabrielle was. They’d been twittering around him all evening so far, like he was some chart-topping superstar and they were his adoring fans.

  Perfect for Matt, really, Sonja mused. Surrounded by a posse of pretty young things. It’s his dream come true!

  “But why would he be panicking?” she asked Cat, raising her voice above the music.

  “Look around this place,” said Cat, with a sweeping gesture at the dozens of people cluttering up Matt Ryan’s huge basement den. “See - there’s Sarah Thomson… Emma Brant… Alison wotsit… that redhead who’s a friend of the guy from Central Sounds… Karen Lunn… that girl with the big nose who was in the year above you… Josie Wilson, Susie Cunningham’s sister… oh, and Susie Cunningham. They’re all here. And at one time or another, Matt’s snogged the lot of them.”

  “Including you,” added Sonja.

  “Including me,” Cat nodded, unperturbed at the thought of being just one more notch on her friend Mart’s long list of conquests. After all, there were enough boys here tonight that she had dated. “And, of course, our Matt is terrified that one of them is going to blow his cover.”

  “As long as it’s not you,” warned Sonja, then turned her gaze back to Matt.

  A fake smile was plastered across his face and his eyes constantly raked the room like a minesweeper, on the look out for unexploded bombs in the shape of tactless exes.

  “It’s amazing, really, that he’s been able to keep Gabrielle in the dark about his past for this long.”

  “Yeah, but it’s a load of rubbish, isn’t it?” Cat sneered. “It’s not like he’s a bank robber or axe murderer or something. What’s he trying to hide from her? He’s only snogged some girls.”

  “Well, a whole load of girls,” smirked Sonja.

  Cat grinned widely. “OK, so maybe it would be easier to count the girls he hasn’t snogged in Winstead.”

  “Who are you two being horrible about?” asked Maya Joshi, wandering back to her friends after getting caught up in a million conversations on her way to the loo and back.

  “Matt,” answered Sonja and Cat in unison.

  “Uh-huh,” nodded Maya, glancing over at the object of their ridicule. “I see he’s still in a panic about being found out then.”

  “See?” Cat nudged Sonja, happy to have her diagnosis confirmed, even though Sonja hadn’t been contradicting her.

  “He should have been honest with Gabrielle in the first place,” continued Maya. “Just because she hasn’t been out with anyone before, it doesn’t mean she expects him to be Mr Squeaky Clean.”

  “Yeah, but he’s just been a big wimp about all of this, hasn’t he?” shrugged Cat, idly twirling a pink string of bubblegum around her finger.

  Sonja and Maya sniggered at the idea of Matt being described as a wimp. Handsome, hunky, drop-dead gorgeous… that was the way most girls thought of him. But not his girl mates. Not Cat (well, not any more); not Sonja (although she’d tried to); and certainly not Maya or Kerry, or even Anna.

  They all knew that behind that good-looking exterior was a sometimes insecure, tactless boy, with zero common sense, a tendency to be a bit selfish, but who was also sweet and funny when he wanted to be. And right now, he was definitely being a wimp.

  “It’s like, the longer he’s avoided telling her, the worse it gets,” Cat went on. “Tonight, for instance, he can’t even enjoy his own party for worrying. How’s it going to sound when Gabrielle finally finds out that she’s the last in a long line of females who’ve had intimate knowledge of her boyfriend’s tonsils?”

  “Like I said before,” Sonja leaned closer to her cousin, her eyes wide and serious, “just don’t let it be you who lets slip. We all promised Matt that we wouldn’t tell…”

  “Even if we all do think it’s a really stupid idea,” Maya chipped in.

  “…and you, Madam,” Sonja continued, pointing a finger at Cat, “have come far too close to opening your big gob at times.”

  “Me?” squeaked Cat, all innocence. “I’d never—”

  “Yes, you would, so don’t waste your breath,” Maya chided her good-naturedly. “Like Sonja says, it’s up to Matt to tell Gabrielle.”

  “Unless he has a heart attack first…” Cat muttered sulkily.

  Over the other side of the room, Matt wiped a few trickling beads of sweat from his forehead, unaware of Cat’s typically catty comment. He was feeling stressed all right.

  When he’d first started going out with Gabrielle, he’d been so stunned when she’d admitted that he was her first ever boyfriend that he’d done something really stupid. He’d told her he’d only ever had two girlfriends (which was just about as far from the truth as it was possible to get).

  He’d also omitted the fact that he and Cat had dated, and continually dreaded that his mischievous mate would spill the beans to Gabrielle (she’d been close to it plenty of times). He wished now that he’d told Gabrielle straight out; it would have been better, he knew. But the longer he left it, the bigger a deal it became. So Matt took the coward’s way out and said nothing.

  Having this party was a bad idea, he decided. Too late. There were just way too many opportunities for hints to be dropped and gaffes to be made.

  Already, when he’d gone up to the loo, Danny Eccle
ston’s sister had pinched his bum and flirtily told him off for never phoning her after their date. The trouble was, Matt could only vaguely remember the date, months before, and certainly couldn’t remember the girl’s name. What if Gabrielle had been around to witness that? What if… wots-’er-name tried it on again later, in full view of Gabrielle or any of her mates?

  “Matt?” a voice interrupted his fretting. “Who are those three girls over there? They’re staring.”

  Matt gazed down blankly at the questioning face of Gabrielle’s best mate and then looked in the direction she was pointing.

  “Oh, them!” he said with a huge amount of relief. He’d half expected to see a huddle of mutinous and irate exes standing on the far side of the room, plotting his downfall, but instead it was just the girls.

  He gave a wobbly, relieved smile and wiggled his fingers limply at Maya, Sonja and Cat. In return he got a wry smile (Maya), a thumbs-up (Sonja) and a tongue stuck out (Cat).

  “They’re cool,” he said to Gabrielle’s friend. “They’re my mates.”

  “Oh,” shrugged Angelique, pacified. “I just wondered.”

  Matt nodded and didn’t know what else to say. Nerves had emptied his mind of any of his usual silver-tongued charm - or even straightforward banter. The other problem was, he was finding it hard to put names to the faces of Gabrielle’s five friends; apart from her best mate Angelique, whom he’d met in passing, he’d never set eyes on the other four till tonight.

  And what a waste, he thought ruefully, aware that he was the envy of most of the lads in the room. I’m so wound up that I can’t even enjoy the fact that I’m surrounded by six very cute girls.

  When Matt had first discovered that Gabrielle was only fourteen, he hadn’t been sure what to do. At eighteen, and being someone who considered himself super-cool, he momentarily wasn’t sure if going out with someone so much younger was quite the right image. But knowing Gabrielle’s age didn’t change the fact that she was gorgeous, fun-loving, had loads in common with him - and simply made him glow, all the way through. The fact that she’d fitted into the crowd so easily confirmed things, and Matt had been able to relax.

  But not tonight. Tonight he felt that his past had come back to torment him with a vengeance. He was acutely aware of not just the difference in their ages, but in their experience.

  A squeeze around Matt’s waist made him look round into Gabrielle’s smiling face.

  “Hey,” she whispered in his ear, standing on tiptoe to do it, “Jasmine says she quite fancies Joe!”

  Matt scanned the faces of the four girls grinning at him and wondered which one was Jasmine. And which one was Gemma and which one was Lauren. And which one was Caitlin, for that matter…

  “Do you think Joe might be interested?” asked Gabrielle, raising her dark eyebrows.

  Matt might not have known which was which when it came to the girls, but they all seemed friendly and nice, as well as pretty. Though what shy-boy Joe Gladwin would make of having an admirer was anyone’s guess.

  The last time that had happened - when Joe and Matt had met two girls at a birthday party where Matt was DJing - it hadn’t ended well. The girl who’d come on to Joe frightened him half to death and she’d ended up slapping him for ignoring her.

  Scanning the room, Matt noticed that Joe was over by the sound system, talking animatedly with two males. Peering closer, he recognised them as Billy and Andy who played in The Loud with Joe and Ollie.

  He has to be talking music, Matt decided. Nothing else gets Joe going like that.

  “Should we get him to come over?” suggested Gabrielle.

  Matt’s mind raced - he didn’t know how to handle this. Joe would run a mile if he got a whiff of the fact that he was being set up, and Matt hadn’t a clue how to do it subtly.

  He needed to ask Ollie for advice, but where on earth was Ollie? He and Kerry hadn’t shown up yet and that wasn’t like them; they hadn’t said anything about not being able to come tonight.

  “I, uh…” Matt faffed, not wanting to deny Gabrielle anything, including pairing her mate off with his.

  But before he could waffle any more, Matt felt a tidal wave of panic engulf him as he spotted Ollie and Kerry finally making an appearance at the door of the den - with a very unexpected and not entirely welcome guest…

  CHAPTER 2

  ATMOSPHERICS

  Anna Michaels had read an interesting article in a magazine about intuition. The gist of it was that everyone should try to develop their instincts more: try to feel what others are feeling, aim to sense moods and changes.

  She’d been giving it a whirl in the café all week and was quite pleased with the results. When a grumpy young mum had come in with her baby on Wednesday afternoon, Anna had sensed that her snappiness while ordering was due to tiredness, not nastiness.

  “What a beautiful baby,” Anna had complimented the woman as she placed a cup of tea in front of her. “Is he always such a little angel?” “Not during the night, when he wakes up wailing every hour on the hour.” The woman had given her an ironie smile. “Still,” Anna had continued, trying to lighten the young mum’s mood, “I bet he makes up for it by being adorable the rest of the time.” “Yes, yes, he does,” the woman had positively beamed.

  By sensing the mood and then saying the right thing, Anna was sure she’d made a difference. But she hadn’t got it right all the time.

  When Dorothy had arrived for her shift on Thursday, Anna sensed that something wasn’t right and worried that the pensioner was feeling ill. “Everything all right, Dorothy?” she’d asked. “No,” grumbled the grey-haired woman as she pulled on her apron. “My stupid daughter-in-law phoned me last night - right at the beginning of Coronation Street! Missed the whole thing!”

  Anna put her miscalculation down to inexperience, but still felt that there was something in it. She might yet have a talent for this intuition business.

  Like tonight. As she walked back down the stairs into the basement room with a big bag of Kettle crisps she’d got from the kitchen, Anna could feel a chill spread over her. One quick glance round didn’t throw up any obvious clues - the room was still heaving with music and talk and people, and the occasional dancer. So what was it?

  Anna took the last step into the den and slid her back along the wall to the left of the entrance. She tried to concentrate, taking a deep breath and a longer, slower look around.

  Over to her right, Sonja and Cat were still perched where she’d last seen them on a long, low set of drawers, with Maya standing alongside. They were all transfixed by something in the middle of the room, but Anna couldn’t make out who or what it was because of the crowd of shouty boys directly in front of her.

  She felt her eyes being drawn suddenly to the opposite wall where Matt was still standing, surrounded by Gabrielle’s mates. Even in the darkened room his face looked shockingly white, as if all the blood had been drained from it, while the girls partied on unwittingly.

  “Anna!” said a voice in her ear.

  She turned to find Joe at her side, with Billy and Andy hovering behind by Matt’s towering racks of CDs.

  “Hey, Joe!” she smiled, then realised he too looked uncomfortable and very glad to see her. She must have only been out of the room for about twenty minutes - she’d got chatting while she was raiding the kitchen - but something dramatic had happened in that short space of time, that was for sure.

  “You’ll never guess who’s shown up,” Joe half grinned, half winced.

  “Who?”

  “Ollie’s twin sister, Natasha,” said Joe, rolling his eyes to indicate trouble.

  Only Anna couldn’t figure out quite what the trouble was. She knew Matt and Natasha had gone out together briefly, which would be uncomfortable for Matt right now, but it didn’t totally explain the wave of tension she could sense.

  And it also didn’t explain why Cat and Sonja in particular looked less than ecstatic.

  Joe spotted her perplexed expression and realise
d that Anna, who was still relatively new to the crowd, wouldn’t realise the full implication of what he was saying.

  “Natasha isn’t exactly popular with anyone - well, except Ollie, of course,” Joe explained. “Like with Cat - you know that she used to go out with Matt?”

  Anna nodded and gazed over at Cat, who seemed to be smouldering with animosity. Yes, Anna knew about their past relationship; she’d been there when Matt had made them all promise not to tell Gabrielle about his ridiculously long list of ex-girlfriends, which included Cat.

  But why would Cat’s fur stand on end withthis particular girl? wondered Anna. Isn’t this whole party full of his cast-offs?

  “Y’see,” began Joe, about to shed light on the whole affair, “Natasha is the reason they split - Matt snogged her in front of… well, all of us.”

  Loads of pieces of the puzzle slotted together for Anna; snatches of conversation that hadn’t meant anything to her before she’d got to know Ollie and his friends properly now made sense.

  “Tasha’s been out with us occasionally since then and Cat’s tried to be civil to her for Ollie’s sake,” Joe continued, “but she really can’t stand her. It’s just a bit humiliating for her, y’know?”

  Anna’s gaze now flipped from Catrina to the visibly quaking Matt. Joe followed her gaze.

  “Matt’s problem is—”

  “He doesn’t want Natasha blurting out anything in front of Gabrielle,” Anna interrupted, sure of that connection at least.

  “Oh, no - it’s not just that,” Joe shook his head. “It’s also the fact that Natasha thinks Matt’s the biggest, sleaziest scumbag around.”

  “Why? He’s a bit, well… y’know. But he’s not sleazy!”

  Anna didn’t have to explain that to Joe. Like all the friends, they knew Matt was a bit too sure of his own attractiveness, but he didn’t deserve - Anna felt sure - to be labelled that badly.

  “It’s a long story,” shrugged Joe, “but, basically, ages ago, Natasha picked up something he said all wrong and thought he was a total lech. Matt was really hurt, and Ollie’s tried to straighten it out heaps of times, but Natasha’s never listened. Matt’s tried his best to be all friendly with her since, but that’s never worked either. “