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right there,’ Larry warned her sharply. ‘What I do in my free time is nobody’s business. Not yours, not Frank’s – nobody’s .’
    ‘It is when you’re doing it with a child,’ Georgie snapped, the disapproval ripe in her voice.
    ‘What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’ Larry demanded.
    After telling him to read the Sunday Herald and see for himself, Georgie said, ‘But you’d better prepare yourself for a shock, because it’s pretty bloody damning.’
    Rubbing at his temples as the headache deepened into a dull, sickening throb, Larry said,‘Okay, cut the cryptic shit and just tell me what it says, ’cos I haven’t got a clue what you’re going on about.’
    ‘The girl who won the show,’ Georgie said quietly. ‘You took her to a club after you left the studio, right?’
    ‘Yeah. So what?’
    ‘So, she’s not as old as she made out. In fact, she’s only just turned sixteen.’
    ‘Fuck off!’ Larry croaked, his stomach flipping as his world slipped out from under him.
    ‘It’s true,’ Georgie assured him. ‘Apparently, the reporter checked it out with the family before he came after you, and Jeremy told me that Frank had it confirmed this morning. Her name’s Tania, and she used her older sister’s ID to get past the security checks. The real Cindy’s in Majorca and knows nothing about any of this. And our girl would have got away with it if her friend hadn’t spotted her and called the Herald .’
    ‘Bitch!’ Larry spat, shoving the quilt aside and dropping his feet to the floor. ‘ Sixteen ? Christ! Everyone’s gonna think I’m a fucking paedophile!’
    Guessing from his reaction that he and the girl had finished the night together, Georgie sighed. She was tempted to point out that Larry wouldn’t have got himself into such a compromising position if he wasn’t such an out-of-control piss-head, but she held her tongue. The girl had obviously fooled the whole production team, so Larry could hardly be blamed for having been taken in by her too.
    But the tabloid-reading public wouldn’t see it like that, and Jeremy had told her that the studio switchboard had already been flooded with complaints from disgusted viewers demanding that Larry be sacked. So even if Frank had wanted to excuse him, he wouldn’t have been able to without risking losing viewers – and there wasn’t a producer in the land who was stupid enough to support the star at the expense of the show.
    ‘What are they saying about me?’ Larry asked now, a vague image of flashing lights and scuffling men flitting through his clouded mind. ‘Are there any pictures?’
    ‘The big Sundays are full of you reeling about on the telethon set,’ Georgie told him. ‘But the Herald ’s the one you need to see. And they’ve got two pictures: one of you and the girl kissing, the other of you a bit the worse for wear, while the girl’s grinning like she’s hit the jackpot all over again.’
    Muttering,‘Shit!’Larry stubbed out the burned-down cigarette and immediately lit another.
    ‘Shit, indeed,’ Georgie agreed disapprovingly. ‘Oh, and they’re all saying it’s nonsense that you were high on flu medicine, by the way.’
    ‘Flu medicine?’ Larry repeated numbly. ‘Did someone slip me something?’
    ‘No, that was just Frank’s explanation for the state you were in. But nobody believes it – not now they’ve seen the pictures of you doing drugs.’
    ‘ What ?’ Larry squawked. ‘No way! I haven’t been near drugs in months. You know that.’
    ‘The pictures say different. There’s coke all over the place.’
    ‘Well, if there was, I didn’t know about it.’
    ‘Maybe you’ve forgotten?’ Georgie suggested quietly. ‘You know what you’re like when you’re drunk. You can’t even remember where you’ve been or how you got home some nights.’
    ‘I always knew if I’d done coke,’ Larry argued. ‘And I know I definitely didn’t do any last night. This is a booze hangover –