Right Now

8. Let me touch you where your heart is

"Emma?" Harry said again. "Is everything all right?"

Actually, no it wasn't. The problem was trust. And it was my problem, not his.

My friend Abby had a theory about me, which she had shared on a visit home from uni a few months earlier. We were at a party and a guy called Mitchell had made several attempts to hit on me. I'd rebuffed him every time.

"What's wrong with you?" Abby said, after she'd dragged me into the kitchen. "He's gorgeous."

"Yeah, and he's also a player," I said. "I'm not going there."

"OK, well maybe best to steer clear in this case, but Ems, you need to get over your trust issues with men - and don't tell me you don't have any, because you do. Just hear me out. Look at it this way - all your life, men have hurt you. Don't pull a face at me, you know I'm right.

"Your dad ran off with another woman, your first love cheated on you, you had a one-night stand with a guy who turned out to be a giant prick. No wonder you keep rebuffing every poor bloke who comes within 10ft of you - you are scared they will do the dirty on you, and lie to you in the process. But not all blokes are cheating scumbags, not all of them lie Ems - there are some good ones out there."

"That's easy for you to say, you've got Ewan," I said. The Scottish guy she'd started dating shortly after moving to Edinburgh was a real sweetheart. I had to admit it, I was jealous.

"And you will find someone like him if you stop putting up this big wall around yourself. Unless you want to be a sad and lonely spinster, you are going to need to start trusting guys."

Her words came flooding back as I looked at Harry. I wanted to trust him. I didn't know for sure that he'd only got me along this weekend to get me to sign a non-disclosure agreement, it was just a stupid theory that had only just occurred to me. I wanted to believe that I was here because he wanted to spend time getting to know me, like he'd said.

"Emma? Hello?" Harry looked concerned.

"Uh, sorry," I told him. "I'm just, uh, distracted. I'm OK."

"Good," he said. His phone chirped again; he looked at it, smiled and then leaned forward to put it on the coffee table. .

"Sorry about that," he said. "My mother is getting her knickers in a knot because the whole family, including my cousins, are going to see me when I'm next in Los Angeles and she's trying to work out where everyone is going to stay. I keep having to tell her not to stress about it, it's ages away."

Oh, he'd been texting his mum. It was nothing to do with me signing the NDA. I was jumping to conclusions again.

God Emma, get a grip. Abby was right. I needed to get over my trust issues.

"So you're going to be in LA?" It was a pretty inane thing to say since he seemed to spend a large chunk of his time there when he wasn't touring, but I couldn't think of anything else.

"Yeah, I'll be there for a while before we kick off the US leg of the tour. I've got a house there," he said.

That's right, he was a multi-millionaire. It was easy to forget that.

"So when do you go?" I asked. As soon as the words were out I wondered if it sounded like I was being nosy.

"Not for another couple of months," he replied, running his hand over his chin as he spoke. "We've got the European leg of the tour to do first."

"Right, of course."

OK, why did this feel so awkward?

And it wasn't just me, Harry didn't look too happy. There was a moment's silence as he squirmed and tugged on his lip again.