The Road to Her (24 page)

“Wow.” Elise stood on the stage, one hand clasped to her chest, the other clutching the award, which had just been passed to her. “I don’t really know what to say.”

A small ripple of laughter echoed round the arena.

“No, seriously.” Elise looked around her. “I really don’t know what to say.”

Another ripple.

She looked at her award. “This is awesome,” she finally said. “And totally unexpected.”

“They all say that.” Bella leant over two chairs towards me, nearly losing her balance, and whispered in my ear.

“I have so many people I need to thank for allowing me to win this award,” Elise said, gazing down at it. “The writers, of course, for coming up with the Jasey storyline in the first place.” She paused, grinning, as a whoop went up from around the arena. “Because without them, there wouldn’t be a Jasmine and Casey.” She looked at her award again, deep in thought. “The producers and directors, my other cast members, the make-up team for always making me look like I haven’t just got out of bed…” Another loud cheer went up, allowing Elise the time to finally make eye contact with me.

My breath caught in my throat at just how gorgeous she looked. She was radiant, confident, and funny, loving every second of being up there on the stage. This was everything she wanted to be: famous and loved by her fans. And as I looked around me, I knew from the reaction she was getting that the crowd in the arena really did love her, just as much, if not more, than they loved Casey.

When I looked back, as the cheering subsided, she was still looking at me.

“
Portobello Road
has changed my life,” she said. “In more ways than anyone in this room will ever understand. Everyone except one person, that is.” She carried on looking at me. “Holly Croft.” She opened her mouth to continue, but stopped as another loud cheer went up, one that seemed to go on forever. I turned and smiled at Bella as she leant over again and patted my leg, giving me a reassuring wink.

“Without Holly Croft,” Elise said as the noise in the arena died down, “there would be no Casey and no Jasey—or at least not as we all know and love them.” She looked directly at me. “And that’s all down to you, Hol.” I caught her gaze and held it, hearing the cheers ring out around me again. It was like the room receded at that moment, and it was just me and her. No one else mattered. She was talking to me directly. No one but me.

“I love working with you,” she said. “Every day on set with you is a blast, and I can’t imagine not sharing it all with you.” She looked down at me. “You’re funny, smart, fiery, and you’re a damn good actress as well, which makes working with you so much easier.”

There were a few small laughs from around us.

“I can’t imagine not being with you every day,” she said. “And if it wasn’t for you, then I wouldn’t be standing here with this award right now.” She lifted the award up higher. “So this is for you, too, Hol. Jasey forever.”

The room erupted in deafening cheers as Elise walked away from the stage and made her way carefully back down the steps to the side of it, her award clutched safely in her hand.

It had been an awesome speech and I’d totally read the subliminal message behind what she was saying, even if it had been agony having to sit, totally poker-faced but with just the hint of an enigmatic smile on my face, knowing that the cameras would be fixed well and truly on me. All I’d wanted to do while she was talking was to go up on that stage with her and shout out to everyone in that packed arena just what a wonderful person Elise was, and how much I loved her, and—

How much I loved her?

My heart pounded.

I did. I loved her.

Watching her as she made her way down the aisle back to her seat, I knew that I really did love her, and that I didn’t know what I’d do if she wasn’t in my life. She had become my life, and hearing her tell an audience of hundreds, in her own way, how much I meant to her, too, just made my heart swell with so much love and pride, I thought I could have burst into tears right there and then.

Chapter Twenty-three

Her speech over, Elise returned to sit with me once more, still holding her silver award—a twisted piece of metal which looked a bit like an ice cream in a cornet—but we both tried to ignore that.

“You were awesome,” I whispered in her ear once she’d sat down next to me. “And I’m so happy for you.”

“I meant every word.” Elise raised her voice slightly as a swell of applause for the next award rose up. “This is just as much for you as it is for me.”

She placed the award in my lap, and I stared down at it with her, running my fingers over the
TV Today–Best Female Newcomer
words etched into its base. I looked at her and filled with pride. It had taken every ounce of restraint not to kiss her when she had come back to her seat after accepting it, and it was taking every ounce again now. She looked so happy, so proud, and so fulfilled, and I was overwhelmed with happiness to see her like that.

The ceremony ended soon after Elise’s award. Photos were taken, interviews were conducted, and Elise was—quite rightly—the centre of attention. Everyone was desperate for a piece of her.

“I’ve just done an interview with
Just So
magazine, a quick TV interview for tomorrow’s
Good Morning
programme
,
and about five hundred photos for the morning’s papers,” she said breathlessly, looking round the bar to which the entire
PR
cast had decamped and where they were now taking advantage of the free champagne.

Despite all the champagne and exhilaration of the evening, and how long all the after-ceremony media was now taking, she still looked totally amazing. I glanced at her as she grabbed a drink from a passing waiter and drank it back, her eyes still glinting with happiness. She looked alive and glowing and, to me, just so sweet and lovable I could have happily grabbed her hand there and then and led her straight back to my apartment. But I couldn’t. Tonight, Elise belonged to everyone else but me, so I had to be patient and contain my longing for her just that little bit longer. I knew I needed to be content to just watch her network, and that I had to leave her in peace to lap up the attention and focus on the very aspect of her life that she was always telling me was everything to her: her popularity.

“I’ve still got to do a group shot with all the other winners and get some done with Danny Byers,” Elise now said eagerly, putting her drink down on the bar and heading over to the other side of the room. Danny had won Best Male Newcomer.

Her photo call with Danny took place just to the side of where we were drinking, so I could see it all unfold in front of me. She worked the camera well and, to his credit, so did he.

I watched her with a swell of admiration. She was doing the thing she loved to do best in the world and was doing it well. She turned her head this way and that, instinctively knowing which way to stand in order for the photographer to get the best shot. They called out to her, asking for a certain look, thanking her when she obliged. They knew, she knew, and I knew that the photos that would come out of this brief shoot would be out of this world.

My admiration for her was coupled with love, too. I loved her not only for the way she was working the camera to her advantage, but also for the way she knew I was watching and would occasionally glance my way with a reassuring look that said,
I’ll be done here soon and then I’m all yours.

“She’s good, yes?” Bella’s voice sounded beside me. I’d been so transfixed by watching Elise that I hadn’t noticed her come and stand next to me.

“She has something, doesn’t she?” I said, my voice thick with pride. “Something special.”

“She does.” Bella followed my gaze to Elise. “I tell you what, they never photographed me like that when I was her age.” She sipped from her champagne flute. “Fat chance they’re ever going to now, either.” She gave a slightly drunken snort, then put her arm round my shoulders, nearly pulling me off my feet. “You look glowing tonight, by the way,” she said. “You both do. I’m very proud of the pair of you.”

“Mother Bella.” I put my head in the crook of her neck.

“Always,” Bella said.

“I just wish…” I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“You’re smitten, aren’t you?” Bella said. “I looked at you when she was accepting the award and I thought to myself, there’s a girl who’s so in love, I can see it in her face.”

“You don’t care that I’m in love with another girl, do you?” I asked.

“You know I don’t!” Bella looked aghast. “I told you before, love is love. Take it when you can.”

“I just wish my love didn’t feel so tainted,” I said, taking a small sip from my glass.

“Tainted?” Bella asked.

“She makes it feel like that sometimes,” I replied, stung with guilt for even having uttered the words, but lighter for it somehow, too. “I just wish she wasn’t so furtive about us all the time.” I looked over to Elise. “She thinks the world will stop turning if anyone ever found out about us,” I said. “Or, rather, she thinks
her
world will stop turning.”

“It sounds as though Elise’s world is very important to her,” Bella said. “Just be patient with her. That sounds like all she needs from you right now. Patience and understanding.” She raised her arm in greeting as she spied someone else she knew across the other side of the room, spilling half her champagne as she did so. “Shit!” She put the glass in her other hand, shaking the hand that had just been soaked. “That’s going to need a refill, isn’t it? Back in a mo’,” she said, wandering off in the direction of the bar.

I carried on watching as Elise posed for her final photograph, then stood to one side to allow yet another interviewer to corner her for some quotes for the morning papers. Her eyes drifted to mine and held them briefly as she spoke, then drifted back to the interviewer, her attention focused on him, once more.

Finally, she was finished. She walked quickly over to where I was standing in the shadows, empty champagne glass still in my hand.

“Hey.” She ran her hand down the length of my arm, letting her fingers rest on mine, before letting my hand slowly drop.

“Hey.” I looked into her darkened eyes and another swell of love for her engulfed me.

“I’m done,” she said, puffing out her cheeks “Finally!”

“You’ve been awesome this evening,” I said. “I haven’t been able to take my eyes off you all night.”

“Nor me, you.” Her eyes slowly drifted down the length of my body and back up again. “Hol?”

“Elise?”

She leant forwards, her hair tickling my face. “Take me home,” she whispered into my ear. “I think I’ll go mad if I can’t have you tonight.”

Chapter Twenty-four

We did manage to leave the party soon after that, hailing a cab from just outside the arena and ducking into it, away from the eagle eyes of the photographers still hanging around outside. The cab drove quickly through the streets of London, me and Elise sitting in silence in the back of it, occasionally looking across to one another and linking hands in the darkness of the back seat, then turning to stare, unseeing, out our respective windows at the streets rushing past.

We arrived back at my apartment shortly after two a.m., sharing the quickest of kisses in the privacy of the lift for the few moments it took it to get up to my floor. I was barely able to keep my hands off her but knew I had to wait until we were safely inside my apartment, away from anyone seeing us. Somehow, that made it hotter, knowing that I couldn’t touch her but desperately wanting to, and that soon I’d have her all to myself again.

Once inside my apartment, Elise closed the door and locked it. Flicking the dimmer-switch on, she turned the lights down low and, with one hand, pushed me up against the closed door, all the while never taking her eyes off mine. I pressed myself back against the door, linking my arms up and around her neck.

“Remember earlier you said I could spend the evening thinking about how much fun I was going to have kissing all your lip gloss off?” Elise murmured, looking down at my lips.

“Mm?”

“Well, I thought about it, like,
all
evening,” she said, bending her head and kissing her way across my neck and up to my cheek.

“Even when you were with Danny?” I mocked.

“Yuh-huh,” Elise mumbled.

She brushed her lips over my cheek, over my eyes, my forehead, before lightly kissing my lips, pressing hers softly to mine. Still kissing me, she took my hand and pulled me away from the door to the lounge, leading me over to the sofa. She pushed me gently down and laid me back onto the sofa, putting both her hands either side of my head and leaning over me, her hair falling softly onto my face.

“This was all I could think about while I was there tonight,” she said quietly. “All the time I was standing there having photo after photo taken, all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there and get you back here alone.”

“Really?” I looked up at her.

“Really.” She pulled herself off me and, kicking her heels off, wandered to the kitchen. “Do you have any champagne? I think it’s time just you and I celebrated, don’t you?”

“Fridge,” I called from the sofa. “Already opened. Probably flat by now.”

She returned a few seconds later with a bottle and glasses. “Who cares?” She grinned, sitting on the sofa next to me.

She pulled the stopper from the champagne, nodding approvingly as she heard a satisfying enough pop, then quickly poured out two glasses.

“To you!” I said, taking the glass that was offered to me. “And your award. You deserve it.”

“Maybe,” she said, “but without you, I wouldn’t have got it, would I?”

I thought for a moment. “True.” I grinned. “To us, then!”

I linked my right arm around her right arm and looked at her as we both awkwardly took a sip from our glasses, Elise giggling as some champagne dribbled down her chin, while I enjoyed the sensation of the bubbles pricking like small needles inside my mouth.

I swallowed the ice-cold champagne. “Elise?” A wave of doubt washed over me.