The Road to Her (18 page)

“But you’re not sure?” I asked. “I can see it in your eyes that you’re not sure.”

“I think about you a lot,” Elise continued, “and I know I’m happy when I know I’m going to see you. And I know I miss you dreadfully when you’re not around. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” I said, twinges of nerves fluttering inside me. “Because it’s how I feel about you.”

“And I’ve never felt like this about anyone else.” Elise held my gaze. “I never felt this way when I was with Stig or anyone else I’ve ever dated before.” She exhaled slowly. “I think I do feel something for you, Hol,” she said. “But I’m…I just can’t act on those feelings.”

“At least you’ve finally admitted that you do like me,” I said. “That I’ve not been imagining it all.” I maintained eye contact. “That’s something, at least.”

In that moment I knew that something and everything had changed between us. There was a new understanding and a mutual attraction. Anything she’d said to me up until that point was now immaterial, forgotten with the one adorable look she gave me that told me everything I’d been dying to hear.

“I love working with you—working here. I love Jasmine and Casey, and that’s all down to you,” she said. “If you weren’t here, then I know that I wouldn’t want to be, either.”

“I’m sensing a
but
coming up,” I said quietly.

“But it’d be career suicide—for both of us—if we got involved with one another,” Elise said simply. “Our careers that we’ve both worked so hard for would be dead in the water before they’ve really even had a chance to start. So you and I can’t happen. It’s as simple as that.”

“It’s all about the career for you, isn’t it?” I said. “Rather than feelings.”

“Isn’t it for you?” Elise asked. “Isn’t this why we do what we do? For ourselves?”

“And you’d sacrifice being with someone just because of that?” I asked.

Elise nodded. “I’ve sacrificed a lot to get where I am in this life,” she said.

“Wow.” I sat up straighter, leaning my elbows on my knees. I stared down at the floor. “Even though you know your feelings for me are reciprocated?”

“I’m scared,” Elise said. “Scared that I
do
have these feelings for you, scared it’ll get out, and shit-scared that it’ll mean the end of my career if it
does
get out.”

“That’s a lot of scareds for what should really be something that makes you happy,” I said weakly.

“It’s the way I’ve always been.” Elise shrugged. “Career comes first with me. Always has. I don’t want to be like that, but I can’t help it.”

“So where does this leave us?” I asked. “I can’t ignore how I feel about you like you seem to be able to with me.”

“We carry on as before,” Elise said matter-of-factly. “Jasmine and Casey carry on as before. Nothing has to change.”

“But everything’s changed, Elise,” I said, exasperated. “How can I work with you every day knowing that I want you and you don’t want me?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want you,” Elise said quietly. “I just said I couldn’t be with you because it would be way too complicated.” She breathed out slowly. “Can’t you understand that?”

“I’m finding it hard to understand any of this,” I said, standing up.

“I can’t be with you,” Elise repeated. “We have to be professional over this, Hol.” She looked over to me, her face impassive. “And that means we just stay as friends. For both our sakes, I’d be grateful if you’d respect that.”

Chapter Sixteen

“Girls, focus.” Stuart pushed his glasses up onto the top of his head. “Nine retakes in a row does not make me a happy director.”

It was the next morning. We were out on location in Hyde Park filming wedding scenes, normally a favourite thing for me to do on
PR
because it meant leaving the confines of the studio to go on location, which always felt something like going on a school trip.

“My bad, Stu.” Elise held her hand up. “I came off my marker and it threw me.” She glanced at me and mouthed, “Sorry.”

I hadn’t seen or heard from Elise since our heart-to-heart the previous day. She looked tired, I thought. Tired and defeated, as if every look we exchanged was agony to her.

“Shall we go from my last line?” I said, avoiding eye contact with her.

“From
I wish it could be like this forever
?” Elise walked back onto her marker, her back to me.

I stepped beside her.

“I don’t want there to be any awkwardness between us, Elise,” I said, glancing back over my shoulder towards Stuart and Laura, our make-up girl, who were standing talking next to the camera. “I still don’t understand this decision that you’ve come to for yourself, but I can work through it,” I said. “You said yesterday you wanted us to be professional. I can do professional.”

“We both can.” Elise wrapped her arms around herself. “When we have to.”

“Ready to go again?” Stuart called across, not waiting for our answer. He called the take, pointing his pen at me and nodding me into my cue.

I took Elise’s hand and walked with her up a short hill towards a tree in the distance.

“Are you happy, Jasmine?” Elise said her lines slowly.

“Very.” I squinted up into the sun. “Are you?”

“How could I not be?” Elise squeezed my hand. “I’m with you, aren’t I?”

“And you’re not scared anymore?” I asked, aware of the camera moving quietly behind us. “Especially after what Tim said when he saw us?”

“Tim’s an idiot,” Elise said. “So in answer to your question, no. I’m not scared anymore. I have you, and that’s all that matters now.”

We stood and held one another’s gaze while I did a mental countdown until I heard Stuart call “Cut!” and I knew I could move away from her again.

“Perfect!” Stuart called up the hill to us. “That’s in the can.”

“See?” Elise smiled weakly. “Professional.”

“Do you want to sit over there until the next scene?” I pointed to an unoccupied bench in the sunshine.

“Sure.” Elise started walking over to it, not waiting for me.

We sat down, the sun in our faces as we watched runners and make-up girls scurry around a little further down the hill. It was a typical early summer’s day, warm and cloudless. Elise and I were both dressed in our smart wedding clothes, having changed in the trailer on arrival. Elise was wearing a stunning summer dress, which showed her long legs off to perfection, and I was in a slightly longer, more flowing one. I had my hair up for these scenes, piled up on my head, with just a few wisps hanging about my neck, while Elise’s soft, cropped cut, with her fringe hanging sexily over her perfectly darkened eyes, made her look as gorgeous as she always did.

“Your dress suits you.” Elise nodded down towards my legs. “I thought earlier, when we were shooting…”

“Yours, too.” I cleared my throat self-consciously. “The blue really brings out the colour of your eyes.”

“Thank you.” Elise paused. “Holly?”

“Mm?” I squinted against the sun to her.

“There’s so much I want to say to you,” Elise said, “but can’t.” She looked down at the grass by her feet. “Thanks for respecting my wishes. You know—about stuff.”

“Stuff?” I repeated. “Okay.”

“It’s hard for me,” she said. “I hope you understand that.”

“It’s only as hard as you want to make it, Elise,” I said, instinctively moving away from her on the bench as Laura came over to us.

“See, this is what happens when you sit in the sun between takes!” She fished in a small bag clipped around her middle and pulled out some foundation and a brush, fussing about me, muttering kindly about “reddening skin being a sod to work with.” I was aware that Elise had got up from where we’d been sitting, and from the corner of my eye I could see that she’d headed back down the hill to talk and was now chatting with one of the runners, a skinny young guy called Josh. As I turned my head to look at her, I noticed she was looking at me over Josh’s shoulder while they were talking, making me immediately turn away and stare right ahead again.

While Laura continued to fuss around me, adding more layers of foundation, instructing me to pout for her while she applied more lip gloss, I peered through the corner of my eye back towards Elise. She was still talking to Josh. As I watched, a gnawing jealousy ate away at me with every laugh and look exchanged between them, however innocent they were. I hated it. I turned my head away quickly as Elise suddenly looked at me over Josh’s shoulder again, making Laura frown at me.

“Sorry,” I said sheepishly.

“You’re good to go.” Laura peered at me and nodded, putting her brushes away back in her bag.

As she walked away from me, I slid my eyes back in Elise’s direction, but she’d moved away and was now walking towards Stuart.

Seeing Stuart motion for me to come over and join them in the small, tree-lined part of the park that had been cordoned off for filming, ready for our first take of the kissing scene—
oh, great!
—I composed myself, breathing out slowly and trying desperately to gather my thoughts once more.

This would be mine and Elise’s first kiss that we’d filmed for a while. It would be uncomfortable, I just knew it. We both knew it. I stood, not too close to Elise, but not too far from her either, listening as Stuart’s voice drifted in and out of my earshot.

“So, in the scenes we just shot, Jasey have just left Thomas and Emily’s wedding, okay?” Stuart said, reading from a printed sheet. “Off camera, they’ve wandered further away from the wedding party to be on their own, having talked about Tim, who’s just found out that they’re seeing each other. Everything’s good with them now, and they’re both even more loved-up than before, especially having just seen their friends get married, yes?”

Elise and I nodded.

“And in this scene now, they’re going to be by that tree there”—Stuart turned and pointed—“and kiss. They talk about how much they love one another, and how they want to be together forever, and then kiss. These scenes have totally got to be all about the intensity of the moment, the love they have for each other, okay?”

I swallowed hard, fighting the swell of panic at having to kiss Elise again, knowing what we both now knew.

“So I need you both standing by this tree,” Stuart called out to us, motioning for us to follow him.

We followed him and took up our positions not far from the tree as instructed, looking at one another uncertainly as Laura flicked a foundation brush over first my face, yet again, then Elise’s, finally muttering, “Ready for the take,” then stepping back away from us.

“So you’ve hidden yourselves away from the other people in the wedding party,” Stuart said, walking back over to the camera, “And you’re telling one another just how much in love you both are.”

I had to stand now and tell her, as Casey, how much I loved her, knowing how much I liked Elise in real life and with the added knowledge that she liked me, too. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on either of us, I knew, as I looked at Elise’s face, etched with tension. All I had to do, I kept telling myself, was look into her eyes and speak Jasmine’s lines. Professional to the end. It would be embarrassing, yes, and more than awkward, but easy enough to do, I was sure of that.

“Okay, and cue Casey,” Stuart’s voice rang out near us. “Action.”

On her cue, Elise took my hand, threading her fingers through mine. “Today’s been perfect, Jas.” She spoke her lines. “Being with you, like this, has made me realise just how much you mean to me.”

We walked closer to the tree, still holding hands, and leant against it. I looked at her hand, so perfect in mine.

“It could be like this every day,” I said. “You know that, don’t you?”

“I really want that.” Elise gazed down at me. “You know how much I want that—and want you.”

“I’ve fallen for you in a big way, Casey.” I turned her hand over in mine, not daring to meet her eyes. “You’re all I think about, from the minute I wake up until the minute I go to sleep. All that stuff with Tim finding out about us really freaked me, but you know what?”

Finally I looked up to meet her eyes, still gazing down at me. She watched me as I spoke to her, looking so lovely that I was practically dissolving inside at the sight of her. “I don’t care. In fact, I’m glad he knows because at least it means I don’t have to pretend anymore.” I brought her hands to my lips, kissing them. “So, yes,” I said, “I want it to be like this every day. I want to be with
you
every day.”

I was fluid, delivering my lines without missing a beat. I meant every word I said to her; it was almost as if the lines had been written for me, Holly, and I said them perfectly, putting my all into them.

“When I first met you,” Elise said, “I knew there was something different about you. You had a spark in you that I’d never seen with anyone else I’d ever been with.” She spoke her lines back to me, dropping her eyes to my lips then back to my eyes again. “You got me, you know? Understood me. It was almost as if I’d waited my whole life to find you.”

“We don’t have to worry what Tim or anyone else thinks, Casey.” I brushed her hair from her eyes. “Nothing matters now, except you and me.”

“Okay, cut!” Stuart’s voice rang out across the park to us, making Elise and me subconsciously step away from each other. “Perfect. Beautiful!”

Stuart spoke to the sound guy while Laura scurried up to us and adjusted Elise’s hair for about the thousandth time, teasing and brushing it just so across her perfect face.

“Scene two, take one!” A voice sounded from somewhere behind Laura as she took one final look at the pair of us and retreated once again.

“Back to your markers, please,” Stuart called to us, without looking up from his script.

The next scene was our kissing scene. With a quick glance at Elise to try to gauge her emotions, I stepped back onto my marker opposite her and waited for my cue.

“So Casey’s just told Jasmine she’s everything to her,” Stuart said, “and now she’s going to kiss her to show her how much she means to her. You both know what to do.” He pushed his glasses back up on his nose and gave a curt nod to the cameraman. “Action.”

With the sound of blood rushing in my ears, I looked up at Elise, her eyes fixed on mine. A myriad of emotions hit me as I leant in and buried my face in her neck, breathing in the sweet, lemony scent of Elise’s perfume. I kissed the soft skin of her neck, sensing Elise swallow as I did so, hearing her breathing getting more ragged with every brush of my lips against her.