Although it didn't help Becca's insecurities when Teddy slid into my Twitter DMs the next day, it did help put our plan into motion.

"'Social media can be intense, so I haven't followed you but would love to meet up today to discuss more of your travelling. Are you up for it? Very low key, I promise...'"

Gabby and Becca listened to me read out the message as we ate breakfast. Becca had no tears left to cry but her optimism over our bound-to-fail plan overpowered any residual distress.

"He's probably not lying, to be fair," Gabby said. "Imagine if he followed you. Your timeline would blow up, and I bet some of the messages would be nasty."

"Low key is good, though," Becca said. "If you start things off slowly, it won't seem so suspicious, right? Ask him what he means by low key."

"I didn't exactly hide that I thought his bodyguards were excessive, so he knows I'm not about the fame life. He probably means it'll be simple. Normal."

I sent back my response to ask what he had in mind, and just seconds later my phone pinged.

How does a walk sound?

Becca's eyebrows shot upwards at the fast reply. "Wow, the guy is keen."

Bitterness dripped from her words, but who could blame her?

*

Seeing Teddy Stone again felt like stepping into a parallel universe. From watching him perform in front of thousands, to a casual chat in a bar and private encounter in a stairwell, I found it hard to distinguish between the stage act and the person behind it.

Perhaps I was being overly cautious after how reality had crushed Becca's fantasy, but I struggled to line up safe topics that wouldn't give our game away.

Luckily, whether a pretence or not, Teddy asked again about my travelling so at least a familiar subject kept my fears at bay.

"If you could go to any place in the world, where would it be? Where's on your bucket list?"

Easy question, but I concentrated on navigating over a precarious set of steppingstones before answering. Falling flat on my face—into a river no less—was certainly not on my bucket list.

"My dad moved to Costa Rica after finishing school, and he met my mum when she did a conservation project over there. They both returned to the UK before I was born. I've always wanted to visit but have never had the chance."

"I've never been anywhere in Central America," Teddy said. "It's on my bucket list for sure."

I couldn't imagine there were many places that a global popstar hadn't visited, but my interest was piqued.

"Where else is on your bucket list?"

"You know those islands in the South Pacific that look like paradise?"

"Fiji, Bora Bora, Samoa...?" I prompted.

"Yep. Any of them. Or all of them. Far away, quiet, beautiful... Very different to what I'm used to."

Teddy crouched to re-tie his left shoelace. With his boots scruffy enough to suggest regular use, I briefly wondered how many other girls he'd taken on walks like this one. Private. Rural. No other people in sight.

"Do you go on many holidays?" I asked.

Straightening up, Teddy slid his hands into the front pocket of his hoody. "Not really. I travel so much with my job that staying in the UK counts as a holiday for me. I'd love to get away somewhere, just escape for a week or two."

"You might need more than a week for the South Pacific."

"True. Unless I planned my tour around it. Don't think my manager would be impressed if I took a brief hiatus during my Asian leg, though."

He chuckled, and if I knew him better, I might have wondered if there was a hint of resentment in the laugh.

We took a break from the conversation to concentrate on a steep incline up a hill. I tried to disguise my exhaustion—Teddy didn't look out of breath at all—but my thighs burned, and my mouth begged for hydration. Somehow my morning workouts had not prepared me for this.

"Do you do much walking?" Teddy asked, once the ground beneath us evened out.

He might have been making polite conversation, but I had clambered less-than-gracefully over a stile just minutes earlier and my flushed face no doubt gave away my struggle with the hill, so there was also the distinct possibility that he was taking the piss.

"Not really," I said, shoving my hands into my jacket pockets to look casual and comfortable. "Is it obvious?"

"Perhaps just a little." He flashed a grin at me, prompting me to glance sideways at him to return it.

Even without the need to play along, I'd struggle to resist reacting to those attractive dimples and twinkling eyes.

"Do you?" I then asked. "Walk much?"

"I try to. I like the peace and quiet—it's a nice break from the usual chaos of my everyday life. The public also don't tend to notice me. The middle of the countryside isn't exactly a hotspot for people like me."

It sounded like he spent a lot of his life trying to avoid the people who'd contributed towards his fame. A true victim of his own success. Perhaps I shouldn't judge him for that—after all, I had no idea what his life was like—but I couldn't help thinking he'd been quick to take advantage of his position with Becca.

"Also," he said when I didn't reply, "it's good exercise. A nice way to maintain my fitness. I hate going to the gym. It's so boring."

"Do you get much chance to do it, though?"

"The gym? I have to, unfortunately. Two hours a day. But if I keep to it then the label isn't as fussy over my diet, so it's the lesser of two evils."

I'd actually meant walking, but my mind drifted back to his body, unable to stop myself from wondering what he looked like beneath his clothes if he did two hours at the gym each day.

"That must be tough amongst everything else you've got going on."

"It's worse when I'm touring. Going from stadium to stadium, hotel room to hotel room, there's not much chance to breathe in the fresh, countryside air. Add the gym on top of that and my schedule is insane."

This time, I did correct his misunderstanding.

"I meant the label keeping tabs on you like that." I glanced over my shoulder, but his men were too far behind to be able to hear me. "Having a team accompany you everywhere, a strict schedule, compulsory gym sessions... Do you ever get tired of it?"

Teddy didn't answer straightaway, but he did offer his hand to help me over the next stile. I took it out of politeness—and also fear that I'd make a fool of myself again—but his warm skin, smooth fingers curling around mine, wasn't unpleasant.

"I won't pretend it's easy," he said eventually as we continued walking, "but I'm grateful for the life I have, and the complications are just part and parcel of that."

"I guess nobody has the perfect life."

"Exactly. Everyone will have something hanging over them, whether that's money, a bad job, family issues..."

All of those applied to me, but rather than admitting it, a confession disguised as a light-hearted joke slipped out before I could stop it.

"Wondering whether you've locked the front door..."

A rumble of thunder bounced off the hills behind us, and one of his men shouted across that we should start to head back.

"Do you get that every time you go out?" Teddy asked as we began to retrace our steps.

"Get what?"

"The worry over the locked door thing."

"Oh. Sometimes. It's not so bad when my flatmates are home. It's when I'm the last person to leave and the responsibility lies with me for ensuring I've left the place in a safe state."

Stop talking, for fuck's sake.

Ironically, this was what Becca and Gabby had told me to do—be friendly, get close to him—but I'd intended for each move to be a calculated, measured one. Admitting habits without thinking made me worry that Teddy Stone had already lulled me into a false sense of security. After all, he'd had that effect on Becca, too.

"I totally get that," Teddy said. "It's one of those things you're used to doing without thinking, and because you do it without thinking, you then don't remember actually doing it."

I pressed my lips together, not wanting to discuss it any further. As the sky above us darkened, I considered changing the subject to the weather, but Teddy brought up another topic that I'd wanted to avoid.

"I think we should address the elephant in the room. I feel really bad about Becca. I hope there are no hard feelings."

Somehow, I doubted he actually felt bad about it. Having sex with someone, throwing them out of bed straight afterwards, and then asking about their friend is hardly a lapse of judgement that you'd feel guilty about in hindsight. Nobody can be that thoughtless.

I'd have had more respect for him if he'd just owned it, admitted he'd been a dick, and then asked if I was still willing to get to know him.

"No hard feelings," I said, glancing across to smile at him. "Becca understands. She's a huge fan of yours so obviously she's disappointed that nothing more is going to happen between you two, but she's not going to stand in the way. Everyone has to move on, right?"

I hated myself. Even though I'd just recited the paragraph that the girls had made me memorise, I still hated the words that came out of my mouth.

Teddy, however, looked relieved. "That's reassuring. I do feel awful. It was a genuine misunderstanding."

"These things happen."

But only with famous popstars who have no concept of human decency.

Heavy raindrops started to pummel us, and we picked up the pace. Thankfully, I'd had the common sense to wear a jacket, but Teddy's hoody became drenched within minutes. Not that he complained—until we got in the car.

"Thought you'd checked the forecast, Mark?"

Finally, a name to put to the face of Teddy's main man. Mark glanced up at the rear-view mirror, quirking an eyebrow.

"Thought you'd made it clear you wanted to go on this walk whatever the weather?"

My lips twitched, pleased to see that the bodyguards weren't robots after all. At least not all the time, anyway. Mark then tossed a top into the back, which Teddy snatched out of the air before it hit him in the face.

"I'd offer you some spare clothes, too," Teddy said to me, "but expecting you to change in front of me might be a bit weird at this early stage."

Before I could agree, Teddy tugged off his hoody and t-shirt in one go, revealing the kind of ripped body I'd only ever seen on TV and in magazines. Slabs of hard muscle with defined grooves and ridges glistened from where the rain had soaked through his clothes. At least the twice daily gym sessions were working...

"Do you often carry spare clothes in the car with you?" I asked.

"Yeah." He pulled the t-shirt over his head, and the muscles disappeared beneath the fabric. "I'd tell you why, but you wouldn't like the answer."

If he'd intended to goad me, it worked, because my curiosity played right into his hands and I asked why.

"If I'm being hounded by paparazzi, I sometimes change into a different outfit so they don't automatically recognise me when I get out of the car. Unfortunately, not all of them are that stupid, so it doesn't always work."

"Why wouldn't I like that answer?"

Teddy cocked his head to the side, a playful smile tickling his lips. "You find the measures I take excessive."

"Only because I'm completely ignorant to what your day-to-day life is like," I said.

Perhaps I actually had offended him at the hotel, but if that was the case then I hadn't offended him enough to scare him off, so that could only work in my favour.

"You know," he said, the words slow as if he were thinking hard over what to say, "it can be very intense and it's not for everyone, but I would love to carry on seeing you if you're able to accept that I come with a lot of baggage. My men are good... I know you're not a fan of them, but they will keep you safe and your privacy intact, if that's what you want."

Once I'd got over the mortification of Teddy declaring that I didn't like his men, in front of his men, I considered the rest of his speech. Had he prepared that just like I'd prepared mine about Becca?

"I'm sorry if I'm coming on too strong or being naïve," he said. "I don't usually do the dating thing. I wasn't kidding when I said it's rare I meet people who aren't fans."

"You don't date within the industry?"

Teddy shrugged and wrinkled his nose. "It's difficult. Cameras everywhere. When there are two people in the public eye, you have to accept that your relationship will always be public. It's like what I said earlier—this is what I signed up for. But if I'm lucky enough to date someone out of the public eye, then I am totally within my right to avoid that publicity, for their sake."

Just like I'd said to Becca, I was the convenient option. The person who gave Teddy an excuse for privacy. Maybe I should have been offended, but I only felt relief. We were both using each other, and that made my task much easier.

"Maybe I'm the naïve one," I said, "because I didn't realise this walk was a date."

Teddy grinned. "Wow, I'm better than I thought, then."

Turning serious, I realised this was the ideal opportunity to shape this relationship in the way that I wanted. A slight deviation from the original plan, but one that could work out better.

"The Becca thing is still fresh," I said. "She says she's cool with it, but maybe out of respect for her, we start this slow. Friends first?"

I'd expected him to disagree. If Teddy Stone was used to getting his own way, and used to girls falling into his bed, he probably assumed that even those who weren't fans would still succumb to his charm.

Instead, he surprised me.

"That's fair. If you and I do turn into something more romantic, I'd want your friends to be totally on board with it."

Too easy. Teddy Stone had been too easy to manipulate. Maybe this would be okay, after all. Or maybe he was playing me just as much as I was playing him.  

***

Thank you for reading :) xx

***

Do you think Sophia's suggestion to start off as friends will help or hinder the girls' plan? Is she being paranoid about Teddy or do you think he's not to be trusted?