Miranda's Big Mistake - Jill Mansell [17]
Except me, thought Miranda, all the times I shared my lunch with you when I could have eaten the whole lot myself.
Depriving oneself of chocolate wasn't the easiest thing to do. Heavens, it was practically an unnatural act.
Miranda sighed, silently mourning the loss of all those Mars bars.
`So how long d'you have to keep this up?' Curiosity finally overcame belligerence. `Seems like a lot of work for one article.'
`I've finished. Friday was my last day.' His dark eyes registered amusement. `You can have your scarf back as well, if you like.'
Their first course arrived. Miranda dived greedily into her scallops.
`Bet you were glad to be able to wash your hair.'
`I washed it every night,' said Daniel Delancey. With a shrug he added, `And rubbed Mazola into it every morning.'
Ugh, imagine.
`Still seems like a lot of work for one magazine article.' He laid down his fork and smiled slightly at Miranda.
`What?' She wondered why he was looking at her like that. `Do I have cream on my chin?'
`No. This wasn't for a magazine article. It's for TV.' `Don't be daft,' Miranda scoffed, `you need cameras for TV. You need lights, and those clapperboard things, and directors with megaphones shouting Action.'
`For Lethal Weapon, maybe,' said Daniel Delancey, `but not for a documentary. Not this kind, anyway.'
`You still need a camera.'
He nodded.
'Iknow that.'
`And you definitely didn't have one.'
`Actually, we did. In the shoe shop.'
Oh, good grief. Miranda almost choked on a scallop. If the camera had been strategically positioned behind him, that meant…
`Are you telling me I'm going to be in this documentary?'
`Oh yes. The producer's crazy about you. If he has his way,' Daniel Delancey looked as if he were enjoying himself, `you'll end up a star.'
Miranda was appalled. Terrible mental images spiralled through her brain, of all the times she had raced up the road to see him in her scruffy black jacket with the wind and the rain splattering her hair in all directions. And in next to no make-up.
Oh God, and when it was cold her nose always went bright red, like a Comic Relief one.
`That is so unfair,' she blurted out, loudly enough to startle the couple at the next table. `Why couldn't you have warned me? What am I going to look like?'
Amused, Daniel Delancey said, `According to Tony, everyone's going to fall in love with you.'
`Oh yes, and by this time next year I'll be a supermodel, all five foot two of me.' It wasn't funny. Miranda quailed, imagining the hideous footage they must have of her on their beastly hidden camera. `Couldn't you just do some of the filming again?' she pleaded desperately. `Give me a chance to comb my hair and put on a bit of make-up?'
Not to mention a Wonderbra.
`You shared your lunch with me. How you look isn't important.'
Ha, thought Miranda, only a total man could think that.
`You could blur me out,' she had a brainwave, `have one of those splodgy things covering my face, like they do with criminals who aren't allowed to be identified.'
`Look, if you're really against this,' said Daniel Delancey, `you can always say no.'
She gazed at him, startled.
`I can?'
`Obviously we need your permission to use you. If it bothers you that much,' he said simply, `refuse to give it.' `Oh!'
Miranda was taken aback. She hadn't expected him to say this.
She wasn't completely anti the thought of being on television. In fact, secretly, she was quite taken with the idea.
If only she could appear on it looking… well, a bit better.
More of a human being, basically. And less of a dog. Yuck, dilemma.
Daniel Delancey had finished his first course. `You'redithering. Maybe you should just say no.' Nodding at her plate, he added, `I won't get stroppy and march you