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the people who could afford it liked this type of faded English splendour.
    As she arrived at room 802, she knocked on the door and pasted on her brightest smile, despite the fact that she was now having to hop up and down on the spot to distract herself from her
insistent bladder.
    Then the door swung open and to Martha’s intense shock, there stood Charlie Simmons himself. She had been expecting Charlie’s PR, who had booked her. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed,
her heart hammering at the sight of him and her desperation to use the loo momentarily forgotten. Martha was used to meeting handsome film stars and she rarely found them attractive, but Charlie
Simmons really was breathtaking in the flesh. He was well over six foot, with unruly dark curls that framed his slightly stubbled square jaw and eyes that seemed to her like deep pools of dark
chocolate.
    ‘Hello! I was, er, expecting Louisa . . .?’ she tailed off, feeling herself redden as the desperate urge to use the loo returned.
    ‘Louisa’s sick,’ Charlie said, proffering his hand, which Martha took and shook as firmly as she could, to compensate for what she knew would be horribly sweaty palms.
‘So I’m afraid you’ve just got me.’
    Martha blanched slightly at his tone. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered, ‘I should have introduced myself. I’m Martha . . .’
    ‘. . . Lamont,’ he finished the sentence for her, standing aside to allow her into the room. ‘Great name,’ he added. ‘Sounds like you should be an actress
yourself.’
    Martha beamed despite herself. She had always loved her name and hadn’t changed it when she got married, protesting that Jamie’s surname, Smith, was far too boring. Their children
had subsequently taken both names in what her mother always referred to witheringly as a ‘trendy double-barrelled surname’.
    Charlie closed the door behind him and followed Martha into the suite, which was as big as Martha’s entire house. In the reception room there were several pale blue over-stuffed sofas
arranged around a heavy stone coffee table. On the table sat two silver pots, some china cups and a plate of freshly baked croissants. The smell of the fresh flowers that were stuffed artfully into
over-sized vases on every spare surface combined with the aroma of coffee to make Martha feel light-headed.
    She turned to face Charlie. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she began, feeling herself turn a deeper shade of red as she looked up at him with what she knew must be a pleading expression,
‘but can I use your loo before we start?’
    ‘Er, I guess so,’ he said, his eyes moving down her body and settling somewhere around her midriff.
    Oh shit,
thought Martha, realising with a dull horror that Charlie now suspected her of being a cokehead. He couldn’t even meet her eye. ‘It’s not to go and snort
coke!’ she blurted, acutely aware that her sweaty appearance and red-faced breathlessness must look like she was about to do
exactly
that.
    Charlie bit his lip, as if he was making an effort not to laugh. His gaze was still fixed on her stomach for some reason. ‘I should hope not,’ he murmured in his deep, velvety voice
that contained the merest hint of a Welsh accent. ‘It’s the second door on the left.’
    Martha frowned, then dashed gratefully towards the door, suddenly concerned she might not make it. She slammed the door shut behind her and sank down onto the seat, exhaling with relief as she
was finally able to let go.
    Standing up to wash her hands afterwards, she gazed at her reflection in the mirror. She looked flushed and there was a faint sheen of sweat on her face. She splashed cold water over her cheeks
and patted them dry before running her fingers through her hair to straighten it out. As she did so, her dress rode up slightly and she could finally see why Charlie had been staring at her midriff
and why she had been getting so many ‘admiring’ glances all morning. There, outlined in glorious burnt technicolour