Star Struck (29 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

When I woke up, I thought I'd gone back in time. Above my head arched a drip unit, the bag swelling down into a tube I could feel somewhere in the back of my hand. Underneath me was a hard bed, my head and chest hurt and I could feel the various stings and weights of needles and bandages around my body.

When I turned my head, Felix was sitting in a chair beside me, feet up on the bed, doing a crossword. He was shirtless, wearing a neck-brace and one arm in a removable plastic cast. When I said ‘hi,' he jumped, whipped his feet off the bed, winced, and dropped the pen.

‘Fuck, you scared me!'

Despite the various medical interventions surrounding him, he looked good, although, to be fair, he would have had to go some to have looked worse than the last time I saw him. His hair was spiked, he was clean-shaven, and he smelled of some delicious cologne. Although there were bruises along his side, they were losing their immediate puffiness and flaring into black and red.

‘How long have I been here?'

‘Look, I'm just sitting duty. Jack's the guy you need to talk to, hang on a sec.' Fumbling one-handed, Felix drew a mobile phone out of his grey joggers pocket and pushed a single button. It seemed to be answered almost immediately. ‘Hey. She's awake.' He listened for a minute. ‘No. Nothing. That's your job, Whitaker. Two minutes.' He hung up.

‘That's not your phone.' My voice sounded hoarse, crackly with disuse. My throat was dry and ached slightly and my mouth was all sticky.

‘No.' Felix leaned forward as close as he could get with the brace and the cast. ‘It's Jared's.'

I blinked. ‘We're still in America?'

‘Well, darling, this sure as hell isn't the NHS, is it?' Felix waved a hand to indicate the gleaming room with the impeccably tasteful wall art and the enormous plasma-screen TV in the corner. He flipped open the phone again. ‘Not unless you've been unconscious through several changes of government. Although I do think you should congratulate me for my farsightedness in taking out the medical insurance – have to admit I thought it might be
me
having to use it, but, hey, there you go.' He waggled his eyebrows.

‘I didn't think you were allowed to phone in hospitals,' I croaked.

‘Yeah, 'cos it's going to interfere with your pacemaker,' Felix said, dialling.

‘I've got a
pacemaker
!' The croak changed to squeak and my voice broke like a fourteen- year-old boy's.

‘Joke. Now, shut up, this is serious. Hey, Jared. It's me. She's awake, I'm free. Come pick me up?' He flipped the phone shut and got to his feet. ‘Right. Catch you later, lover.'

‘Fe.' I managed to motion with one hand to stop him leaving. ‘How's Gethryn?'

He avoided my eye. ‘Jack's on his way over. You need to talk to him.'

‘I need to talk to
you
.'

Felix looked at me sideways. ‘It was true, you know. Everything I said about Mike and Faith. They were laughing at you.' He sighed and his mouth twisted. ‘I hardly knew my own sister sometimes,' he whispered. ‘So determined to hurt, to get what she wanted.' A sudden smile and a lightening in his eyes. ‘But I guess that's actors for you, isn't it?'

‘From what you said I deserved it. No excuses, and it's too late now to be sorry. If I was one tenth as bad as you said I'm not surprised that they got together; the only thing I'm surprised about is that you and Faith ever wanted to know me.'

‘Yeah, well.' Felix shuffled his feet. ‘It wasn't really your fault, Skye. Your parents weren't … even when I first knew you they never really cared much about you. We always wondered about your dad, I mean he had one heck of a temper but … you never said anything. They were another one of those things that you made up stories about – they doted on you, adored you, brought you flash presents – we never saw the evidence, of course. And maybe there was some kind of other reason that your grandma left you the house? And then they flew over to see you in hospital, what? Once? You nearly
died
and they didn't even stay long enough to drive you home. You'd had to make yourself into someone that could cope with that kind of neglect.'

I looked up at the metal ceiling grill where the recessed lights reminded me of Gethryn's eyes, fixing me, holding me tight as we plunged towards the ground. I gave a little shake to stop myself thinking about the landing and felt a few, weak tears spill towards the bedcover. ‘It was never that bad,' my voice sounded weak. ‘They loved me in their own way, as best they could, they were just wrapped up in each other. I … I wanted it to be different, and I thought if I wanted it hard enough, then maybe …'

Felix steepled his fingers underneath his chin and gave me a level look. ‘I'm sorry for what I said, Skye. I mean, yes, you were pretty horrible but … you could be very sweet, too. You and I always got on, well, yeah, you could tell some pretty tall tales sometimes but I took them for what they were – a scared little girl trying to make herself look bigger so that no-one would realise how frightened you were inside. And I didn't just bring you over here to get you to win the part for me. Okay, maybe that was a part of it, in the back of my mind but … only in the
very
back, where I keep all those other things I'm ashamed of.'

‘Like your Mamma Mia CD and your David Tennant life-sized cut-out?'

A grin. ‘Hush. I'm not ashamed of those. Just
reticent
about them.' He took a sudden step closer to the bed and I could see the twinkle back in those hazel eyes again. ‘And, while we're here –' his voice dropped – ‘the accident … it wasn't entirely your fault. Oh yes, you fought, Skye, punched me
right
in the gonads that night but … Mike was driving like a lunatic, and, come on … letting Faith, well,
handle
him while he was driving? But Mike always thought he was in control of everything – there you were, fighting and trying to get to him; he should have stopped, pulled over, but he was too arrogant. Girl in the back raising hell? Girlfriend dealing out the hand jobs? Nah, Mike thought he could do sixty through all of that. And
that
was what killed them.' Felix leaned in closer. ‘I much prefer the new, improved Skye and her new taste in men. You can never accuse Jack of arrogance, can you? I mean, the guy doesn't have
any idea
just how tasty he is … oh, how I hope you're going to put him right on that score. For the good of all of us, I mean.'

‘We've got so much to talk about now, haven't we? Now you've started telling me the truth.'

Felix grinned. ‘Maybe you're ready to hear it now. This last year-and-a-half it's been like you were turning Mike into some kind of saint, some kind of perfect boyfriend, and I had to bite my tongue to stop blurting out the truth. He led you along, Skye. He could have told you it was over, but he kept picking you up and putting you down, messing with your head and all the while he was sleeping with your best friend, but since the accident you wanted … no, sorry, you
needed
to think of him as having been the love of your life. So I let you. And I'm sorry about that, really I am but …'

A shrug and he started to stare at the floor with a pink tinge rising up his neck to engulf his cheeks. A silent hand raised and squeezed mine which made both of us wince. ‘Ow. And then you saved my life. I'd just destroyed yours and you saved mine.' A sound outside and his head whipped up to stare thankfully at the door. ‘Right then, lover, better be off. Despite these –' he indicated the brace and the cast – ‘my darling Jared is raring to go.' With a blown kiss he walked out of the room, limping slightly and giving me a full view of his back, which was covered in newer bruises than the ones on his side. He looked like he'd been beaten, and not in a pervy-sexy-game way.

As soon as he'd gone out, Jack came in. He was pale, there were shadows under his eyes and he had, if it were possible, lost weight. He looked like a gauntly beautiful zombie. He walked into the room, closed the door carefully behind him and held onto it, as though he needed its support. ‘Hey.' Then he shut his eyes and breathed a long breath in and out.

My heart hurt. ‘Hey, Jack.' I tried to move but was held in place by the needle in the back of my hand. ‘What happened? How's Gethryn?'

The eyes stayed shut. ‘He tried to kill you.'

‘I know. I was there.'

Now the eyes snapped open. There was something hellish in them and his voice was savage. ‘He's recovering, Skye. He could have been killed falling off that roof, but he wasn't. I wish he had been. He tried to kill you,' he repeated, as though I might be in some doubt.

‘He's okay?' The gorgeous, ruined Gethryn Tudor-Morgan. But … ‘What happened? How come we survived?' I wouldn't think about the falling, wouldn't think about that fantastic tawny body, those greenish amber eyes staring into mine, falling … falling …

Jack took a deep breath in again. ‘In a huge twist of ironic fate, you landed on Felix.' His mouth creased. ‘He'd just got out of the hospital, got dropped off by taxi round the back of the motel, therefore neatly missing all the Security teams I had lined up at the front, and came to find out what was going on on the roof.'

‘Is that why …?'

‘You dislocated his neck, broke two bones in his arm and rebroke his ribs for him. You, incidentally, got away with a broken ankle and concussion. I think Felix has a massive complex about that.'

‘Why the drip?'

‘It's just to rehydrate you. You'd been wandering in the desert for quite a while before I found you, and then, with the accident … they had to put you out to set your ankle.'

‘But what about Gethryn?'

‘Two broken legs, broken pelvis, spinal trauma, and I hope it drove his cock out through his eye-sockets.' Now he let go of the door and came over to the bed. He was wearing his white shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and his tight black jeans, but his feet were bare again. ‘But he's going to be all right. Eventually. He's going to get a lot of treatment, but it's all for the best, because the public loves a tortured star. He's even got bloody
Lissa
sitting at his bedside. By the time he's recovered he'll probably be a national fucking hero, everything will be forgiven. But not by me, Skye. He tried to kill you. Because of me, because he knew … he wanted to take you.' He put his head in his hands with his voice cracking. ‘You could have died, because of me.'

‘Jack …'

‘I
told
you, I told all of them, I'm useless. I can't love, I can't
feel
, I cause more pain just by existing than anyone should have a right to, every single thing I touch turns to shit and ashes!'

I wriggled up the bed. The needle dragged at my skin. It hurt. Everything hurt. ‘That's not true, though, is it? Look at
Two Turns North
for example – classic sci-fi TV. People will still be watching that in fifty years and enjoying it.'

‘
North
wasn't mine, though. I was just one of the team.'

‘And doesn't that tell you something?'

He raised his head slowly and stared at me. ‘Is it meant to?'

His skin was paler than I'd ever seen a human look. Like paper, with his eyes drawn in pain over the top. ‘Sometimes you need other people to make things truly work,' I whispered. ‘And, look at it this way, if bad things come in threes, well, I ought to be immune for … oooh, the next fifty years or so.'

The bedside chair rasped against the floor as he dropped into it and slumped forward as though even his bones were tired. ‘I told you I was no good for you.' Jack's voice was muffled. ‘I
told
you.' And when he dragged his head up to look at me, his eyes were wet and clouded. ‘I should have told you why …' He looked quickly at me, then away. ‘I shouldn't have sent you up there; I shouldn't have let you get within a mile of Gethryn when he was in that state. I'm no good for anyone, that's what it comes down to.'

‘You've been good for me.'

He stared at me then, with a kind of disbelief. ‘What? How have I been “good for you”? Have you looked at yourself lately?'

I held his stare. ‘Yes, I have, actually. And compared to the Skye that flew over here only a few days ago, I think I'm pretty much of an improvement.'

‘Maybe I shouldn't have … I should have kept my distance.'

‘You can't keep your distance forever, Jack.' If I really strained the drip line I could just touch him. Should I? Those eyes …

‘But if I hadn't got involved, you wouldn't be lying here, all bruised and …' He tailed off.

‘Yeah, and if you hadn't got involved, you would never have followed me after the explosion. None of that would have happened.'

‘You'd have been fine. Someone would have found you, or you'd have made your way back to the motel.'