Page 127 of Never Tell Secrets
“Yes.”
He gave me a small, secretive smile. “Alright, just remember, you asked for this.”
“What? Are you going to complain about the peanuts?”
Alfie didn’t answer. We arrived at the airport and headed through the sea of people, Alfie attracting admiring glances as ever. We gained even more attention as we boarded the plane.
Elliot helped us with our bags before taking the seat in front of us that should have been Maia’s.
“Do you want the aisle seat?” I asked Alfie.
“That’s alright, I should probably take the window.”
I eyed him as he sat but didn’t say anything. I was settling in for the journey, checking out the in-flight movie, when a giggle caught my attention. I looked up to see a couple of girls side-eyeing us. I ignored it at first but by the third time I caught them staring my patience was wearing thin, and when one of them got her phone out to take a photo, it snapped altogether.
“Can I help you?” I asked, loudly.
The girls looked startled for a minute before the one with the phone asked, “Are you two together?”
“Yes, do you want to take a picture of me too?” I snapped and she turned around whispering. I sat back in my seat, ignoring the extra attention we’d just gathered.
“What was that about?” I muttered but Alfie just looked at me, not saying a word. When it finally dawned on me why Damien had wished me luck flying coach with Alfie, I felt like an idiot for not realising it before. “You’re famous. Why do I always forget that you’re famous?”
“Because I’ve never taken you anywhere public like this.”
“What are you talking about? We’ve been in public loads of times.”
“When?” he asked.
I opened my mouth to give him a dozen examples but paused when I found none there. I thought back through the entirecatalogue of our relationship. Any restaurant or concert we’d attended had been private. We’d been to the pub once, a badly lit pub where everyone was too drunk to care who was there. We’d been in the lobby of The Carlton Hotel and had been stared at but I always thought that was because of my antics, not his.
He was right. He’d smoothly avoided putting me in a situation where this might happen and I was grateful, but now I was very uncertain.
“How bad is this going to get?”
“Not bad. Just don’t cause a scene.”
“When would I ever do something like that?” Just then, Elliot passed back his phone and Alfie smirked at it before passing it to me. Staring back at me from an Instagram feed was my own face, filmed from a few minutes ago. She hadn’t been taking a picture, she’d been filming me. Filming me admitting to being the girlfriend of Alfie fucking Tell.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I gasped, staring at the screen. I looked up, my eyes finding the back of that bitches head. I stood up, rage pooling in my gut. “Hey, what the hell is your?—”
Alfie grabbed me, yanking me back into my seat. “Leave it.”
“But I?—”
“Lola, so help me God I will spank the ever-loving shit out of you,” he hissed. Elliot cleared his throat, reminding us we were very much in public. Alfie sat back, smoothing his mask back into place.
“Alfie, I can’t just let them?—”
“You can and you will. Trying to reason with insipid people doesn’t work.”
“How do I deal with this?” I whispered, well aware of the growing attention we were gathering, of the tittering girls trying to angle their phones to get another photo.
“Ignore it,” he sighed, “this doesn’t happen often anymore. We just have to be discreet.”
“Hence the jet?”
“Hence the jet.”
