Crystal Read Online Free PDF

of desire at his touch. ‘I don’t know what Belle got up to with Dallas, probably nothing, but I’m doing this for Lost Angels
.
If I don’t, you’ll be screwed, the public will hate you and I want you to do well. But I’m doing it for me as well. I’ve got a proposition – I’d like to manage the group. I’ve got some great contacts. You’re the really talented one, Crystal, and I think we’d make a good team. If you go with Dallas you know he’ll end up ripping you off; his kind always do. And just how long do you think he’ll be interested in you? It’ll last a few months, you’ll churn out the album and then he’ll forget all about you and be on to the next reality show winner. Whereas I would be with you one hundred per cent. What do you think?’
    For a moment Crystal was lost for words, trying to figure out her feelings – was Max interested in
her
or just the group, and did he have true feelings for Belle? Then she spoke. ‘It’s an interesting thought, Max. I’d need to talk to the others and I’d need to know what you could offer us.’
    ‘I think I could take you all the way, Crystal,’ Max replied, staring into her eyes, and Crystal found herself thinking
Godyes.
Then Belle called him and the spell was broken. ‘Just think about it,’ he said to her as he turned to go.
    The story about Dallas’s alleged special relationship with Belle came out the next day and was front-page news in one of the more downmarket tabloids. Crystal had got up at six, dressed in her gym kit and run to the newsagents in the nearby village to buy the paper – she’d hardly slept the night before worrying about what it was going to say. The article was short on facts and big on rumour; its only source an anonymous contestant who claimed that Dallas and Belle had been spending a lot of time together
alone
, and that Dallas was therefore bound to favour Lost Angels. The paper had used one of the girls’ early publicity shots and Crystal felt horribly pessimistic as she looked at their smiling, hopeful faces. Was this going to be the end of them? Before they’d even had a chance to prove themselves? But by the time she had walked back to the mansion, anger and determination had taken over. She was not going to let this defeat her.
    Belle went mad when Crystal showed her the paper, throwing it across the room and shouting that it was all ‘bollocks’. But just as Crystal couldn’t read Dallas, so she couldn’t tell if Belle was lying or not. However, she knew that worrying about it would get them nowhere. So after letting Belle moan about the unfairness of it all for half an hour and listening to Tahlia worry, Crystal insisted that they put it behind them and get back to rehearsing. And for the next two days she was the one who held them together, made them continue rehearsing long into the night when they were all knackered, and told them to ignore the other acts who continued to give them the cold shoulder. It was so ironic, she thought, that the song which Dallas had given them to perform was Destiny’s Child’s ‘Survivor’.
    ‘We’ve got to be perfect,’ she insisted when Belle complained. ‘Anything less and we just won’t get through, you heard what Dallas said.’
    Crystal woke at six on Friday and couldn’t get back tosleep. Today would decide their whole future. She lay in bed willing herself to be strong, trying to push everything out of her head except the performance later that day. Max had texted her the night before, wishing her luck and suggesting they meet the following week to discuss his proposal. As usual the prospect of meeting him sent her emotions into free fall. At eight all the contestants had to assemble in the dining room where they would be given the instructions for the day. They were expecting to perform in one of the mansion’s vast rooms but Dallas, being Dallas, had a little surprise for them. ‘In half an hour you’ll be getting on a coach to London. You’re