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31. Grey

Chapter 31

Grey

F or the second time today, the loud sound of a phone ringing wakes me abruptly.

Cracking one eye open, I stare at the contact name flashing up on my mobile, blearily registering the fact one of my brother's is calling me – Blake. Repressing a yawn with the back of one hand, I use my other hand to swipe the pad of my thumb over the screen, accepting the call and holding the phone to my ear.

"Is Delilah with you?"

Those are the first word's out of Blake's mouth.

"Morning, to you too, mate."

"Is she?"

The strained tone in Blake's voice makes me rub the crusty sleep from the corners of my eyes and sit up. "No, she had to go into an emergency work meeting. Why what's wrong?"

"Have you seen the news?"

"Seen the news? I've only just woken up, what's—"

"You're on the front cover of today's newspaper. You and Delilah."

I jolt out of bed at that.

"The front page?" I repeat, hearing the sheer disbelief tinge my tone.

"Yep."

I scour the room for a spare pair of tracksuit bottoms to put on. "How did you find out?"

"It popped up on the newsfeed on my phone then Mum rang me. She's probably rung you too, but you were obviously asleep."

"I need a copy," I say, putting Blake on speakerphone while I shove my head through the neckline of a random t-shirt I find. "I need to see how bad it is… fuck. I need to speak to Delilah. What time is it?"

Blake rattles of the time. It's mid-morning, much later than I usually sleep in. Delilah's meeting was early, surely, she should be out of the office by now and on her way back to the apartment. Unless…

She's already seen it.

Fuck.

She's probably freaking out right about now. This is everything she worried would happen, everything she was afraid of.

"Blake. I need to go."

"Do you want me to come over?"

"No, I'm—" I slip my feet into last night's dress shoes, grab the spare key and sprint down Delilah's apartment stairs. "No, I'm not even at mine, I stayed at Delilah's last night. I'm going to get a paper right now and I'll—"

"Just call me back when you can, no rush."

"Is it bad?" I ask him, needing to the know the answer immediately. "Did they write anything bad?"

"They—"

"This is everything Delilah didn't want, everything she feared when we got back together. She worried they'd tear her apart and I'd let them and—"

"Grey, you need to calm down. Ring Delilah. Talk to her. Then you need to get in touch with the press and release a statement."

"Okay, okay, I can do that. Talk to you later."

Blake mutters a goodbye, but I'm hardly listening. Instead, running through the front door of the first corner shop I come across, special offers plastered all over its front window. I ignore those in favour of the newspaper stand, plucking the first one from the top when I see a grainy photograph of Delilah and I printed across the left-hand side of the front cover.

"Just this please, mate."

I pay for the paper with an unsteady tap of my phone, snatching it up and running back to Delilah's apartment so I can read exactly what has been printed.

I'm hitting Delilah's contact name with the pad of my thumb while I stand in her kitchen, flicking to the correct page in the newspaper, ink staining my fingertips.

The line rings and rings and rings, continuously.

But she doesn't answer.

I type out a message with shaky hands.

Me: Please call me back when you get this x

And then I bury myself into the article written about the two of us.

‘ British Swimming Athlete Grey Millen, 29, has been spotted a numerous number of times this year with a mysterious brunette, here, pictured above. Now finally, after weeks of digging, we can put a name to the woman in the question. Delilah Clark, 24, is a book editor at one of Notting Hill's most prestigious editing houses. Not exactly the kind of place we would expect the ex-athlete to be swimming around, but they do say opposites attract, so who are we to judge?

So, how did these two lovebirds meet?

Photo One, see below, was captured all the way back in the beginning of summer, by an innocent bystander. Here, in the background, you can Clark and Millen getting rather cosy beneath the low lighting of Soho's most popular, and upcoming, 1920's inspired speakeasy bar.

After that night, in which we can only speculate on the events which took place after this photograph was uploaded to a popular social media sight we cannot name for legal reasons, these two lovebirds seem unable to stay away from each other… and keep their hands to themselves.

Photos Two through Four reveal Clark and Millen galivanting around the historical Victoria and Albert Museum, also most commonly known as the V and A to most Londoners.

Public displays of affections were very much on the cards for these two, before the trail, curiously, went cold.

Perhaps it has something to do with Photo Five, in which Grey Millen is snuggled up beside another young woman, who looks nothing like Delilah Clark. He is seen here, smiling at the camera, looking extremely comfortable even by our standards. Did this unnamed young woman have something to do with sudden disappearance of Miss Clark? Was Mr Millen dating both women at once? Playing them off each other?

Either way, Millen seems to have made his choice, see photo six through nine, in which Clark pops up again, this time in a corner pub on Silchester Road, West London.

A serious conversation looks like it took place, perhaps Delilah Clark was annoyed at Grey for the love triangle she suddenly found herself in, but either way, it's obvious to see these two make up with even more PDA on the cards.

Our most recent photographs, see photos ten, eleven and twelve, were snapped only last night at what appears to be a publishing event. In the depths of a very swanky looking party, Clark and Millen were photographed cuddling on the stairs, holding hands, dancing, drinking, laughing and, see photo thirteen, kissing.

All of this evidence, and yet, we still hardly knew a thing about the woman, Miss Delilah Clark, who took to the stage last night to commend her publishing team for all of its hard work in the most recent months.

We knew she was a hard-working woman, that is obvious to see from last night's function, and maybe that is what drew Millen to the brunette in the first place.

But what happens if it was something else? Something a little more… interesting.

Inside sources reveal this isn't Clark's first relationship with somebody in the public eye.

Back in her youth, Clark dated fellow classmate, Daniel Morrow.

Morrow rose to fame when he was just a teenager, quickly showing signs of being an athlete on and off the rugby pitch. Clark, who was his girlfriend at the time, was named a few times in his public statements, but things between the two of them quickly turned sour when Morrow was spotted with a number of women on his lap at a nightclub.

None of which were Clark.

Things only seemed to go from bad to worse when photos of Clark emerged, looking haggard, face puffy and eyes red, perhaps from crying over her broken heart as she appeared angry at the reporters following her.

Morrow and Clark split only a couple of years ago, with Morrow going on to become one of England's best rugby players and is now currently engaged to a Swedish supermodel. An upgrade, perhaps?

Clark seemed to disappear from the books, dipping out of Morrow's life and social media accounts. Only to pop back up now with Grey Millen, ex-swimmer extraordinaire, who was well on his way to the Olympics before a disastrous collision with a faulty ski lift in France set him, and his career, floating off course.

We reached out to Daniel Morrow and his management for a statement, but he declined.

So, did Millen know about Clark's famous ex-lover?

Or is she in it for the fame? With now not one, but two, famous athletes under her belt.

Only time will tell.'

I'm fucking frothing at the mouth by the time I get to the end of the article, my hand digging into the paper until it crinkles beneath the pressure.

I want to rip the fucking thing up. Burn it.

But that won't help my situation. It won't even make me feel better, because me ripping one copy up won't get rid of all the hundreds of thousands of other copies around the UK.

People will have read this over their morning coffee today, they'll have read it on their phone while flicking between social media sights, still lying in bed, deathly hungover from the night before.

People will have read this and believe every single piece of junk evidence inside it.

They'll be tearing Delilah apart, not me, because I was hardly tarred with a brush at all within the article. No, they targeted Delilah, over and over and over again. For no fucking reason, other than they thought she'd be an easy target and she's already got a famous ex.

"So, fucking what?" I think to myself.

What on earth that has that got to do with our relationship?

How on earth have the press managed to snap all of these pictures of us, and make up a story, using only the tiniest bit of truth to back up their statements. The rest of it is pure bullshit.

"Fuck!"

And that photo. Photo what-ever-the-fuck number. I told her, I told that fan , I didn't want the photo published anywhere because look what happens. Look what it does to my personal life.

A hot prick of tears burst behind my eyes; a mixture of sheer hurt and anger all rolled into one fucked up ball.

This is wrong. All of it. And I'm not just going to stand by and let it unfold.

I'm not going to let Delilah's worst fears spiral any further. I can't go back in time and make the journalist not hit publish on the article, I can't make them unsnap the picture evidence of our relationship.

But I can vehemently disagree with everything printed about us.

Keying in the code to my phone, I double check to see if Delilah has returned my text message, my heart sinking when I see she hasn't even looked at it.

Even though it kills me to think it, I'll have to deal with that later. For now, I pull up my old managers contact number, listening to the monotone dial tone before he picks up.

"Grey. I thought I'd be hearing from you sometime today."

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