Free Lizzy Harrison Loses Control by Pippa Wright Page A

‘If I could just interrupt your love-in for one moment, we need to establish some parameters here.’
    ‘Absolutely,’ I say, turning to face her with what I hope is a look of compliant obedience. ‘Fire away, Jemima.’
    ‘Well. Okay.’ Jemima is disarmed; nothing undermines a bully quite as much as agreeing with everything they say. ‘This relationship has to seem genuine for it to work. I hope that’s clear? One word to a single loudmouthed friend, or even to your mother, and we may as well give up on trying to save Randy’s career. Do you quite understand?’
    ‘I understand,’ I say, wondering how I’m ever going to get this past Lulu.
    ‘Jemima’s right, you know,’ says Camilla, suddenly all earnest. ‘As far as everyone outside this office is concerned, you are the new love of Randy Jones’s life and he is yours. No one else can know this isn’t true.’
    And suddenly I think: what more visible sign can a girl give that she’s losing control than getting involved with a celebrity shagger? This is practically guaranteed to get Lulu off her ‘Lizzy Harrison needs to lose control’ bandwagon with no risk to myself – I mean, it’s not as if it’s real.
    ‘Absolutely. You can count on me,’ I say, and I mean it.
    And yes, I know what you’re thinking – here we go, standard romantic novel plotline number three: heroine is forced into close proximity with man she claims to find unattractive. Her brittle defences overcome by his charm, she discovers she loves him, the end. We’ve all seen The Proposal . But let me remind you that I’m doing this for work reasons. I’m far too professional (okay, uptight) to consider getting into bed with a client in anything other than the metaphorical sense.
    Besides, if I fail to live up to the romantic heroine role, Randy is hardly the classic romantic hero of every girl’s dreams either – I don’t recall Mr Darcy getting it on with a multitude of nubile Regency babes before settling down with Elizabeth Bennet. I mean, it’s one thing to know your boyfriend has put it about a bit in the past, and quite another to have seen his penchant for bondage and outdoor sex detailed in breathless prose in countless kiss-and-tell exposés in the national press.
    Not to mention that if Mr Darcy had personal hygiene issues, Miss Austen forbore to mention them.

7
     
    I am in the middle of Hyde Park, hair frizzing in the light mist, wearing, over my T-shirt and leggings, a distinctly BO-scented blue nylon vest with a large white 72 on it, jogging furiously on the spot while being shouted at by a small, squat half-man, half-bulldog whose neck is significantly wider than one of my thighs. Thank you, Lulu. Thank you so very much.
    I had thought that out of everyone I had to lie to about Randy Jones, Lulu would be the one to see through it in an instant, but instead of questioning how I’d gone in the space of one night from accidental celibate to new girlfriend of the Shagger of the Millennium, she’d taken it as a personal triumph.
    ‘Seeeee!!! Seeeee ??? Just one night away from the Spinsters’ Social Club and already you are seeing the benefits! You’re seeing Randy fucking Jones! You’re fucking Randy fucking Jones! Oh my God, I am quite, quite brilliant!’
    ‘Lulu! I’m not fucking him! Jesus! I spent the night with him, but in his spare room. Who do you think I am?’
    ‘Well, just get over your nun-like self!’ exclaimed Lulu. ‘I mean, there’s no escape for you now you’re seeing Randy Jones; it’s only a matter of time before he gets you into his bed. Get ready to say goodbye to your born-again virginity, Harrison! You can thank me later.’
    So thrilled was she at this proof of her own wondrousness that she barely asked me a thing about it. Instead she was fired up with a crazed sense of her own power and influence, and on Monday night I got a call.
    ‘I have a treat in store for you,’ she crowed over the phone. ‘A new exercise