Second Shot by Zoe Sharp Read Free Book Online

closed her eyes momentarily.
    The hallway was small and painted pale yellow, with three doorways leading off it and a carpeted staircase to the upper floor. The pictures on the walls were conventional mass market prints in cheap but cheerful frames. I wondered briefly if the fact that Simone could now afford to shop for originals would change her taste in art.
    “How long have they been here?” I said, jerking my head towards the driveway.
    “It seems like forever,” Simone said wearily, opening her eyes. “Since first light, I think. That’s when they started ringing the goddamn doorbell, anyway.”
    “Where’s Ella?”
    She rolled her eyes upwards. “They were scaring her, banging on the front windows, so I told her to stay upstairs. She has her own TV and stuff in her room.”
    “Sean said Matt had gone public. What happened?”
    Simone glanced briefly towards the stairwell as though to check there were no tiny ears within hearing distance. Then she picked up a folded newspaper from the hall table and thrust it towards me.
    “Here. Read it for yourself.”
    I scanned the front page quickly. It was all laid out under a big bold, if somewhat coy, banner headline:

R!CH B!TCH!
     
    Underneath it was a luridly written story about how Simone had won millions and had then, with casual cruelty, thrown the father of her child out of the house they’d shared for the past five years. I glanced up to find Simone watching me, her face tight with embarrassment and anger. I read the piece again, more fully this time, making her wait.
    Even allowing for gutter press exaggeration, Matt had clearly wasted no time airing his grievances. The way he’d told it, the moment Simone had realized the size of her win, she had more or less sent him out to the supermarket and changed the locks while he was gone. Now she was refusing to give him access to the daughter he idolized and, when he’d tried to bring the little girl a simple present in a public restaurant, Simone’s “hired thugs”—that was us—had jumped him.
    It was the stuff of tabloid editors’ dreams. A scorned lover, a tug-of-love child, a whiff of violence, and—best of all—money. Lots of money. They’d wrung every last ounce of salacious indignation out of the story.
    Somehow they’d managed to snatch a long-range picture of Simone, cradling Ella, with a caption claiming she was “heartlessly out on a spending spree in London’s Knightsbridge” while her rejected suitor was reduced to camping on a distant relation’s sofa.
    In the picture both Simone and Ella were wearing the same clothes they’d had on the previous day Some fast-moving paparazzo had obviously snapped them in the street as we’d left the restaurant. The fact that there were clearly no shopping bags to be seen was conveniently overlooked.
    When I’d reached the bottom of the page I looked up and caught the sheer disgust on Simone’s face.
    “How could Matt do this to us?” she demanded, her voice low with rage. “And how the hell can they get away with printing crap like that? It’s all pure fabrication.”
    “People lash out without thinking when they’re hurt,” I said, suddenly feeling the need to come to her ex’s defense. “And what Matt didn’t tell them they’ve probably made up anyway. Once you’ve let them out of their cage, you can’t hope to control them.”
    She swallowed, pulling a face, and was about to say more when Ella edged into view at the top of the stairs. She’d lost the bounce I remembered from the day before, seeming listless and subdued.
    “What is it, sweetie?” Simone said quickly.
    “I’m thirsty, Mummy,” she complained, her voice whiny “Is it OK if I come down and get a drink of water?”
    Simone’s face softened. “Of course you can.”
    Ella negotiated the stairs with care, holding on with one hand and trailing a comfort blanket and a small rather grubby stuffed Eeyore in the other, its detachable tail obviously long-since lost.