Free Living Life the Essex Way by Sam Faiers Page B

felt cared for and happy with
him.
    Then series three started. I discussed with TJ the possibility of him being on the show, but he didn’t want to, and to be honest, I didn’t want him to either. I knew what the
limelight had done to me and Joey . . .
    By now, Mark and Lauren had ended their engagement. My connection with Mark was still there, and we did still flirt – we are weirdly alike on some levels. And Mark kept saying to me,
‘We haven’t given our relationship a proper chance. Let’s just go for it.’
    So I cooled things with TJ as the series began, and Mark and I gave it a go. I felt bad about TJ, but I just felt like I needed to know whether Mark and I could have a future once and for all.
He is good fun and I love his family – they are so friendly and welcoming. I think Carol is an amazing mum, and we get on really well. I don’t have a bad word to say about her. She
always takes time to talk to me and we have a laugh. I think she knows I won’t be walked over, and admires my morals and business mind. I think she would be happy if I was with Mark.
    It’s harder with Jess. I think she will always stick up for Mark, no matter what he does, and that quite often puts up a barrier with other girls because of how he behaves. We get round
that by just not talking about him. We set all that to one side and just talk as friends. She is older than me by nearly six years, but we can talk on the same level, and I consider her a good
friend.
    Despite all the plus sides though, Mark is ultimately so selfish. He will always put Mark first, and I can’t see that working for me. It didn’t help that he decided to go off to the
jungle for
I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here
2011. Although he asked me to go out to Australia with his family to be there when he got out, I couldn’t see that working.
I had too much going on in my own career for a start, and I am not the kind of girl who just follows their man about.
    If he had behaved like more of a gentleman at the time, or been a better boyfriend . . . who knows? But when I told him at the end of series three that I wanted it to end, I meant it. I think he
was shocked by that, and his ego didn’t like it. He tried to tell the rest of the cast that he had told me to end it, but he definitely didn’t – that was what I felt from my
heart. I was just glad that we hadn’t slept together this time around.
    But despite it all, if I am totally honest with myself, there is still something there. There is some mystery to Mark that always pulls me back and means I can never quite close the door on
something happening with him again in the future. It’s like I can’t see there ever being a full stop to me and him, but I just know that now is not the time for that. He will always
mean something to me and be an important part of my life.
    Once I had realised that Mark and I weren’t going to work out, me and TJ started dating again. He really seemed like the whole package. I could trust him and we had a great connection. He
is good-looking and generous and he let me believe I was wearing the trousers, even though he could hold his own when it mattered.
    But I think we rushed things, and I moved him into my house too early, when we should have taken more time to let things develop. The main problem, I think, was that my lifestyle was too hard
for him to take. I am 21 and want to have fun, so I’d go to parties and get pictured chatting with guys. Obviously, nothing ever happened but it was hard for him to see in the papers the next
day. Plus he didn’t like me filming with my exes, Joey and Mark, and would bring up the past, even though he knew from the start that that was part of my job. It also meant that while each
series was on, we hardly got any time together which was hard – and then, when we did, we were arguing.
    He was interviewed and filmed by producers for the show, but for whatever reason they decided not to include him – not that TJ