Remember My Name. Havana Adams

The last words came out of Nina’s mouth in a squeal of drama and excitement and even though a wash of dismay filled her, Talia took her cue.

      “Congratulations! Honey, congratulations.” She rushed around the kitchen table to press a hug on Nina. “Wow, that’s amazing.”

      “Isn’t it?” Nina murmured wrapped in a cocoon of happiness. Now Nina held her hand with a nod of understanding in her eyes and Talia knew what was coming, what always followed. Dammit, she’d actually believed all of Nina’s “I’m supposed to be single, I can’t do monogamy” rubbish.

      “The thing is, Tal, you know how much I love living with you it’s just that Javier and I, we’ve decided to move to Cuba.” For a moment Talia felt a surge of hope, perhaps she might stay in the flat and wouldn’t once again, for the fourth time in as many years, be required to pack her bags. “So I’ve decided to sell the flat.” The bubble of hope deflated quickly and Talia nodded what she hoped was a supportive nod. “I know you’ll find somewhere that’s just perfect for you.” Now Nina looked down, her long lashes resting on her cheekbones. “You’re not cross with me are you?”

      She’s playing me, Talia thought with a flash of irritation. She’d seen Nina use that same look many times with men. “Don’t be silly. I’m just so happy for you.” At this her roommate breathed a sigh of relief.

      “Great.” Then she looked seriously again at Talia. Now she wore her sincere expression, the one she used when talking about designer shoes. “Honey, I know you don’t like to talk about these things, but you’ll find your own prince… How’s Steven?” Talia’s smile had started to feel strained and at this mention of Steven whom she’d disastrously dated for five long months after meeting him on the dating site everafter.com. Talia felt the start of a headache. She hated when her newly engaged friends started to hand out relationship advice, like newly converted Christians determined to bring everyone else into the fold.

      “Thanks, hon,” Talia murmured with false sincerity and her eyes darted again to her watch. “Listen, I’ve got to run to catch the train. But cocktails later to celebrate?”

      “Yay,” Nina smiled. “Isn’t it your big appraisal today?” Talia started in surprise; Nina really was making an effort, she was rarely interested in anything that wasn’t about her.

      “Yes, gotta run.” As she moved quickly towards the front door, her hardly-worn Mary Jane shoes clicking on the wood floors, Talia fought to get her mind back on work and away from Nina’s bombshell.

      “Good luck,” she heard Nina call out as she slammed the front door shut.

      By the time she sat down in the carriage having just, by the skin of her teeth, caught the train, Talia had already started to get her perspective back. Good for Nina. Who knew that the high priestess of sex, booze and food could fall in love? Get married no less. She squashed down the uncharitable thought that she’d had tubes of toothpaste for longer than Nina had known her intended. She hoped it would work out for them. As for her fears about moving again, perhaps it was the perfect time for her to look into getting her own place. With the promotion to the writing team, she’d get a raise and surely that would be enough to fund renting alone whilst she built up a deposit to buy her own flat. As the train headed northwards to the outskirts of London where the Encounters studio was located, Talia felt happier. Her life was finally starting, everything she’d worked for was coming together; it was only right that she moved on from Nina’s flat. Across the aisle from her, a fellow commuter reached into her bag and dug out a copy of Soap Lives magazine. Talia smiled and felt a moment of pride as she spotted the cover of the magazine. Two of the characters from Encounters stared back at her, the stars of a storyline that she’d created. Finally, Talia allowed herself to relax; everything she’d worked for was within her grasp.

       CHAPTER 3

      Tamara Fearson was coming down from a blissful orgasm.

      An all-consuming, earth shattering, lose all sense of time and place kind of orgasm; the kind she’d never been able to reach with any man. Once, there’d been a man who’d been able to push her buttons, push her close to the edge, almost make her forget who she was, but that was a long time ago and the less Tamara thought about him, the better. Men made women weak, she thought, and she could not afford to be weak. Slowly, she allowed her boneless, enervated body to sink deeper into her silk sheets and chuckled quietly to herself. The triumph of the night before was still in her blood. She lifted a limp arm to wipe at the sheen of perspiration on her forehead and then, she rolled over onto her side, feeling her heartbeat finally start to slow down. With a languorous move, Tamara kicked the thin sheet to the end of the bed, exposing her nude body to the coolness of her bedroom.

      Hazy sunlight flickered through gauzy curtains, which hung in the window of her Primrose Hill mews house. Across from the bed was a floor-to-ceiling mirror and Tamara lay perfectly still, luxuriating in the reflection of herself that greeted her. She stared at herself critically but with a measure of pride. At thirty-six, she looked better now than she had at sixteen, when she’d first boarded a plane out of the small Australian town where she was born. By twenty-one she’d been modelling in Sydney before she’d landed in an Aussie soap that was watched all over the world.

      Tamara rose slowly from the bed with unhurried movements, uncaring that her driver would soon arrive to ferry her to set. Tamara always slept in the nude, so that every morning she was greeted by this full-length reflection of her body – no wrinkle, no unsightly extra inch, no blemish would be missed. Ruthlessly she hunted down, dissected and where necessary rectified her own faults before anyone else could take her to task about them.

      Standing directly in front of the vanity mirror, Tamara stared at herself, taking a deep breath. Her natural golden blonde hair was a silken wave down her back. Her eyebrows, just a shade darker than her hair, were thick, fashionably so for this season. Her eyes, a unique shade of green-blue, were the same aquamarine of the sea, where she’d been born. Her frame was small but her breasts, pert with dark raspberry nipples, were a touch larger than one would expect on her frame. And at 5’9”, Tamara was tall. Men often said that it was a toss-up with Tamara Fearson, legs or breasts, for she had both in abundance; the siren who could lure both breast and leg men. Her look was that of the angelic blonde, a princess, and yet, as her success on Encounters showed, her public loved her best when she was playing a bitch from hell. Tamara stretched her arms high above her head, luxuriating in the feeling of her body being stretched almost to the edge of pain. With a series of deep yogic breaths, she slowly lowered her arms. Right on cue there was a knock on her door and Casey walked in, carrying her daily dose of vitamins and a health shake that had been specially concocted for her by her personal nutritionist.

      “Morning, Tamara,” Casey smiled, placing the tray down on a table before laying down a stack of magazines and the day’s papers. Barely sparing a glance for her young assistant, Tamara moved towards the table and one after the other popped the large vitamin pills into her mouth before washing them down with the rather odious-looking green drink. Her assistant didn’t bat an eye at her nudity, having long since grown used to her tendency to walk around the house naked.

      Tamara watched as Casey busied herself picking up the clothes that she’d dropped on the floor when she arrived home the night before. The dress was a green whisper of the finest silk, a vintage Tom Ford for Gucci original that would have to be sent to a specialist cleaner. The shoes – a staggeringly high pair of Christian Louboutins with the distinctive red sole, Casey tidied into Tamara’s shoe closet, alongside the hundred or so pairs of stilettos that were her trademark.

      “Papers!” Tamara’s demand shot across the room and Casey immediately returned to read the morning’s headlines to her boss. Tamara watched as Casey nervously shuffled the mix of papers, magazines and the scurrilous weeklies, whose avowed mission seemed to be to shame TV stars by publishing unflattering photographs of them.

      “‘Tamara Fearson dazzles in Dior.’” Tamara smiled as Casey showed her the photograph on the