“Are you?” I said, breathlessly. And in response to his confused look, “You know, sciencey. You don’t look sciencey.”

“Oh. No.” He grinned, all foxy and delicious. “That was just an excuse to keep kissing you.”

“What do you do, then?”

“I freelance, mainly for sites that wish they were BuzzFeed.”

I knew it. I fucking knew it. He had been far too eager to overlook my many, many flaws. “You’re a journalist.”

“That’s a pretty generous term for it. I write those lists of x things about y where you won’t believe z that everybody hates but seem to read anyway.”

Twelve Things You Didn’t Know About Luc O’Donnell. Number Eight Will Shock You.

“And, sometimes, I make those quizzes where it’s like pick eight pictures of kittens, and we’ll tell you which John Hughes character you are.”

The rational version of Luc, the one from the parallel universe where my dad wasn’t a famous shithead and my ex-boyfriend hadn’t sold all my secrets to Piers Morgan, tried to tell me I was overreacting. Unfortunately, I wasn’t listening.

Cam tilted his head quizzically. “What’s wrong? Look, I know it’s not exactly a sexy job, and I don’t even have the comfort of saying ‘Someone has to do it’ because we totally don’t. But you’ve gone weird again.”

“Sorry. It’s…complicated.”

“Complicated can be interesting.” He went up on tiptoes to smooth a lock of hair behind my ear for me. “And we’ve got the kissing down. We’ve just got to work on the talking.”

I gave what I hoped wasn’t a sickly grin. “I’d rather stick with what I’m good at.”

“Tell you what. I’ll ask you a question, and if I like the answer, you get to kiss me again.”

“Um, I’m not sure—”

“Let’s start small. You know what I do. How about you?”

My heart was racing. And not in a fun way. But, as questions went, that was harmless, right? It was information at least two hundred spambots already had. “I work for a charity.”

“Wow. Noble. I’d say I’d always wanted to do something like that, but I’m far too shallow.” He turned his face up to mine, and I kissed him nervously. “Favourite ice cream flavour?”

“Mint choc chip.”

Another kiss. “Book that literally everyone else has read but you haven’t.”

“All of them.”

He drew back. “You’re not getting kissed for that. It’s a total cop-out.”

“No seriously. All of them, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, anything Dickens ever wrote, All Quiet on the Western Front, that one about the time-traveller’s wife, Harry Potter…”

“You really do own your illiteracy, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I’m thinking about moving to America and running for public office.”

He laughed and kissed me, staying close this time, body pressed to mine, breath against my skin. “Okay. Weirdest place you’ve ever had sex.”

“Is that for number eight?” I asked, with a bleaty laugh that was meant to show I was incredibly cool and unconcerned.

“Number eight what?”

“You know, twelve celebrities’ kids who like to fuck in weird places. Number eight will shock you.”

“Wait.” He froze. “Do you honestly think I’m kissing you for a listicle?”

“No. I mean…no. No.”

He gazed at me for a long, horrible moment. “You do, don’t you?”

“I told you it was complicated.”

“That’s not complicated, that’s insulting.”

“I… It’s…” I’d pulled this back before. I could pull it back again. “It wasn’t meant to be. It’s not about you.”

This time, there was no ear tweaking. “How is it not about me if you genuinely have this concern about my possible behaviour?”

“I just have to be careful.” For the record, I sounded extremely dignified when I said this. And not at all pathetic.

“What the hell would I even write? I Met a Has-Been’s Kid at a Party? Celebrity’s Gay Son Is Gay Shock?”

“Well, it sounds like it’d be a step up from what you usually write.”

His mouth fell open, and I realised I might have gone the tiniest bit too far. “Wow. I was about to say I wasn’t sure which of us was the arsehole here, but thanks for clearing that up.”

“No, no,” I said quickly, “it was always me. Trust me, I know.”

“Really not sure that helps. I mean, I can’t figure out what’s worse. That you think I’d fuck a mildly famous person to get ahead. Or that you think if I was going to make such a profoundly degrading career choice, the person I’d pick to make it with was you.”

I swallowed. “All good points. Very well made.”

“Shit on a hot tin roof, I should have listened to Angie. You are a world of not worth it.”

He stalked off into the crowd, presumably to find someone less fucked up, leaving me alone with my lopsided bunny ears and a profound sense of personal failure. Although I guess I’d accomplished two things tonight: I’d successfully demonstrated my support for a man who in no way needed it, and I’d finally proved beyond all reasonable objection that nobody in their right mind would date me. I was a cagey, grumpy, paranoid mess who would find a way to ruin even the most basic human interaction.

I leaned against the bar and stared at the basement full of strangers having a far better time than me, at least two of whom were probably having a conversation right now about what a terrible human being I was. The way I saw it, I had two options. I could suck it up, act like an adult, find my actual friends, and try to make the best of the evening. Or I could run home, drink alone, and add this to the list of things I was unsuccessfully pretending had never happened.

Two seconds later, I was on the stairs.

Eight seconds later, I was out in the street.

And nineteen seconds later, I was tripping over my own feet and landing flat on my face in the gutter.

Well, wasn’t that just the ill-fitting crown on my inbred Hapsburg prince of an evening? And no way was it coming back to haunt me.

Chapter 2

It came back to haunt me.