‘Holy crap, I didn’t see that coming,’ Nelly said. ‘Well, that’s too weird. If you married Edgar and he married Isabella, you two would be in-laws as well as step-siblings. Weird.’
I shook my head. ‘That will never happen.’
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘It could you know.’
I shook my head again. ‘I know Heath, he’s just doing this for effect. He couldn’t stand someone as vacuous and party-focused as Isabella!’ I continued, ‘I know this was my doing, my fault, but I tried to right the situation and he didn’t have one ounce of forgiveness in him.’
She gave me a sympathetic look but she loved Heath too. ‘He was devastated, Cathy. It might take him a while to come around.’
I shrugged. ‘People feel with their hearts, Nelly, and since he has destroyed mine, I don’t feel for him at all.’
I can’t believe I was saying that crap, who was I kidding?
She exhaled. ‘Yeah, well I’d like to believe that but I think whether you want to or not, you still do feel very deeply for him. I think you always will.’
I looked away, getting my emotions in order.
‘I know you’ve thought about this,’ she said, hesitantly, ‘but Heath’s got no one but you in the world. You said he was adopted by your father, so I’m guessing he was abandoned as a child? He’s probably got a few issues in that department and your leaving has probably brought all that to the surface.’
I nodded. I had thought about that, a lot. ‘It was in my thoughts,’ I said.
‘To hell with the glasses, I think we need a bottle and something to eat.’ She grabbed the menu and we ordered.
We observed the comings and goings in the courtyard of ‘our’ pub on Paradise Row and twenty minutes later and halfway through our shared cheese platter, Nelly declared, ‘I’m in love’ as though it was so not a big deal.
I looked at our cheese platter and shrugged.
‘It’s good, but the one we had last week in Hackney Road was better.’
Nelly looked confused and then laughed.
‘Not with the cheese, you dill, with Travis Taylor,’ she moaned, thinking about the lead in our film. ‘He’s so down to earth and gorgeous.’
‘Yeah, glad you’ve set a realistic target,’ I said. ‘Not that you couldn’t snare Travis, I’d go for you if I were him, but you’ve got a bit of competition – pretty much every female on set.’
‘I couldn’t bear to be his girlfriend. I’d be perpetually jealous,’ Nelly said. She changed the subject for the worse. ‘Edgar’s back tomorrow,’ she said, dropping a quiet bomb if there were any such thing. ‘I heard Tamara telling the assistant director.’
‘That so?’ I played nonchalant as I smeared camembert on a cracker. I did know; the assistant director mentioned it on set.
‘Have you heard from him?’
‘Not since the text to say he had to go away to direct a couple of on-location scenes so he’d have to postpone our dinner,’ I said, with a casual shrug. But truth be told, I was keen on him coming back. I needed the distraction and excitement of a date with Edgar Linton and I didn’t care if everyone in the cast knew about it. My minor parts directed by his assistant were almost done. Next week were my big scenes which Edgar would be on set to direct, so who knows what might happen after that.
‘Are you following him online?’ she asked.
I wrinkled my nose. ‘No way, I don’t want to look like a fangirl. But I’m checking him out on the quiet.’
Nelly laughed. ‘Yeah well, don’t panic if you see women draped over him, his publicist runs the account, not him.’
‘No way.’
‘Way,’ Nelly said, finishing off her glass of sparkling wine. We heard our names being called and looked up to see some of the guys from the cast heading toward us. Looks like it wasn’t going to be an early night after all. Thank God. Every hour I’m distracted was an hour I’m not in my head. If I can go to bed completely wiped out, I might just sleep. I’ve banned listening to music – every single sad song was written for me.
Then my phone rang. Speak of the shiny devil, it was Edgar Linton.
Chapter 14– Heath takes revenge
‘You have to try this mushroom,’ I said, offering Edgar a dainty piece of mushroom in the exquisite sauce.