Anyone But You: A BRAND NEW feel-good celebrity, second chance romance (Love is in the Air Book 2)

Chapter Fourteen

Dylan woke up in the early hours, shivering, his back and his legs numb with cold. The blankets he’d shared with Scarlett had slipped off him and into a heap on top of her.

After pulling his shirt on, he retrieved a share of the blankets and checked on Scarlett. She was fast asleep, her breath steady and regular. He touched her cold cheek, tenderness replacing desire as he coiled his body around hers for warmth. The summer was ending and a faint breath of autumn was just around the corner. The wind snuck into every uncovered part of his skin, biting and raw, and he knew the blankets wouldn’t be enough to keep them both warm until the morning.

They needed to move.

‘Scarlett, come on, wake up. We need to go inside, or else we’ll freeze.’

She muttered something indecipherable, tucking the blanket under her chin, and snuggled down.

‘Scarlett, wake up.’ He shook her arm and tried to lift her up to a sitting position.

‘No. Leave me alone. Oh.’ She sat up, blinking as she took in her surroundings. ‘Christ, it’s cold.’ She pulled a blanket around her shoulders and snuggled back down into the sofa once more.

‘We need to get inside, come on.’ He rubbed at her arm.

She sat up again with a groan and grabbed her shirt with her free hand. Pulling the blanket with her, she trailed it along the floor as Dylan frog-marched her zombie-like form down the stairs and through the house until he reached his old room. He took in the single bed, wondering if he should sleep in Rob’s room as a single bed wasn’t ideal, but quickly decided against it. He wanted to spend the night with Scarlett.

After manoeuvring her into the wall side of the bed, he slipped in next to her, pulling her soft body into his. He breathed in the smell of her, brushed his cheek against her hair, and tried to damp down his threatening erection.

‘This is a cool room,’ Scarlett mumbled into the fading Superman wallpaper. Turning into him, she snuggled into his neck, asleep again in seconds.

He stroked her hair gently. It felt so right that she was next to him. Dylan didn’t think he’d ever felt so content. He hoped she knew, too, how great they were together. Because they were. He’d just known they would be.

He wished she would wake up so they could start their day already, but she was deeply asleep so he just sighed and dozed on and off as he held her tight, watching the flicker of dawn turn to daylight through the blinds.

As the sun pushed through the window and onto his eyelids, he finally crept out of bed.

Spaced out from lack of sleep, he was desperate for coffee, but unsure whether to leave Scarlett on her own to wake up in a strange bed. She was still out for the count, though, so he snuck out after giving her one last, lingering look.

He headed for the bathroom first and took a reviving shower, before throwing on a clean set of clothes, then feeding the coffee machine the little silver capsules. Waiting for the hit of caffeine only good coffee could offer, he realised how much he’d missed it since moving to his seedy house.

A discreet cough behind him made him whirl around. Scarlett.

Smudges of make-up under her eyes made her look fragile, a stark contrast to her sexiness from the night before, but she was still the best sight in the world. She looked waif-like in his oversized shirt, her bare legs sending a frisson of longing through him.

‘Thank God it’s you. I thought, for a minute, that Mum had come back.’ He took a step towards her intending to take her in his arms, his smile wide as the ocean, he couldn’t help it. It quickly faded though and he suddenly felt strangely awkward in the starkness of the morning light. Plus she didn’t seem as loved-up or affectionate towards him as he’d expected.

Her mobile rang, and she frowned down at it, before looking brightly up at Dylan. ‘Yes, that would have been interesting.’ Her light reply only highlighted the fact that she pointedly ignored whoever was phoning her, and Dylan knew her real smile well enough to know the one she threw him was her fake, air stewardess smile.

‘Aren’t you going to deal with that?’ he asked, when her phone beeped for a second time.

It had vibrated in her bag at least eight times since he’d woken up, and he’d steadfastly resisted the compulsion to see who it was.

She didn’t answer — him, or the phone.

He took a step forward, deciding to ignore his feelings of awkwardness, his arms open to embrace her. ‘Hi. Again.’ He couldn’t keep the grin from his face.

When she took a step backwards, his smile wavered.

Her mobile rang again. She declined the call without looking at it. ‘Would you like some breakfast?’ he asked.

She shook her head.

‘Okay.’ He groaned on theinside.Please don’t let this be as awkward as it’s shaping up to be. ‘Would you like a shower, maybe?’ Christ, he sounded like her butler. He could see why people legged it after a one-night stand. Their exchange was becoming excruciating — how could she behave like a stranger after the intimacy of last night?

‘Yes, please, that would be great. I’ll just follow the wet footprints, shall I?’ Her smile was small and lost, and it hurt Dylan to see it. She hadn’t wanted to wake up with him, at his home, it was clear.

He’d imagined spending their day laughing and teasing each other, snatching kisses and wandering down to the beach café to read the newspaper and enjoy the fresh air but something had gone very wrong since he’d conjured up those thoughts. Her problem, the reason she had run, clearly needed sorting out sooner rather than later. He ran his fingers through his hair, agitated and helpless. It was time to talk.

Scarlett moved to the bathroom without speaking, and Dylan sat on the kitchen stool and stared out of the window. The ancient plum tree in the garden was laden with almost-ripe plums and Dylan wondered idly what outrageous recipes his mother would conjure up for the year’s haul to make sure they weren’t wasted.

His old swing, tied to the top branch, lifted in the breeze, as if a younger Dylan still sat on it. Up on the shed roof, the deflated football his brother had kicked up there one summer was still there, fading and shrinking as each season passed.

He glanced over at the stairs, waiting for Scarlett to appear once more, feeling as if he was waiting for a guilty or innocent verdict. Despite being in his own home, he felt lost, and completely baffled as to what had caused the change in Scarlett since she’d woken up. Was it real life intruding? All her woes? That constant buzz of her mobile? Or was it him? He just didn’t know. For goodness’ sake, he told himself, she might simply just not be a morning person!

He padded through to the music room and picked up one of his guitars, tuning it and smoothing away a light smattering of dust with his arm. As he tested out a song he’d recently written, he considered whether it was polished enough to play at the pub later. He pulled off a capo from one of the other guitars and tried the tune in a different pitch, then picked up the bass guitar and tried it out in a blues and jazzy rhythm.

Better. Not what he’d had in mind when he’d written it, but it was good.

As he lifted his head, he caught sight of Scarlett leaning against the doorframe, looking more like the distant and haughty air stewardess she could be, and much less like the girlfriend Dylan would love her to be. He stopped playing, his mouth drying up as he watched her watching him, her eyes large, and her sensational mouth glossy and dewy.

‘Don’t stop, it’s lovely. I haven’t heard you play for a while.’

‘I’m pleased with it.’ He gave her a small grin and placed the guitar back on the stand, before following her out to the kitchen.

‘So, Lara Croft duvet cover, eh? Do you want to talk about it?’ she asked, her expression deadpan as she filled the kettle and switched it on.

Catching the corner of her mouth lifting, Dylan grinned, thanking God they were back to being able to tease each other. ‘It was just a phase. I went off her when she didn’t reply to the fan letter I sent her.’

‘Even though she’s a fictitious person? Seems a bit unfair.’ She smiled to show she was joking.

‘Mere detail.’ He waved a hand airily.

‘It’s one up from my Britney Spears lamp and lightshade set, I guess,’ Scarlett said. ‘That was my pop phase.’ She fiddled with her hair, twisting it up into a loose chignon.

‘Why don’t we carry on this conversation as we take a stroll to the pier? I didn’t get a chance to introduce you to its delights last night.’

Scarlett smiled tightly. ‘I’m not sure. I think I should make my way back to London after I’ve had a cup of tea.’

Dylan swallowed. ‘Was last night so—’

Her phone beeped again. She ignored it.

‘Scarlett, why don’t you just speak to them, whoever they are?’

‘I don’t want to.’ She sighed. ‘But I think I might have to. That’s why I need to go back to London.’

‘Of course you do.’ Deflated, he turned off the coffee machine, put a tea bag in a mug, and faced her. ‘Last night, I said you could trust me. That still stands, you know. Let me help you,’ he pleaded.

He could see the indecision in her face. Maybe he’d go softly on her for a while, give her time for the idea to sink in.

He watched her face harden with resolve and metaphorically slumped. ‘It’s okay.’ He said softly as he poured boiling water into a mug.

‘It is?’

‘I know you don’t want to stay. You have your reasons, so that’s cool.’

‘Dylan, it’s not cool, nothing about my situation is cool. And I do want to stay. It’s just that something needs sorting out, back home.’ She frowned again as she peered down at her phone, letting it ring out once more.

‘Stay to meet my old band mates at least, and then I can drive you back?’ It sounded lame to his ears. What he really wanted was to ask who the bloody hell kept calling her, and why didn’t she want to speak to him — assuming it wasa him.

She looked dubious. Her mobile rang again. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’ She pressed the off button and slammed the phone on the table. ‘Can you get out to the garden from here?’

‘Yes, through there.’ He nodded to the back door and walked over to unlock it.

He thought she was finally going to take the phone call and wanted the privacy of the garden but she resolutely placed her phone on the kitchen worktop, picked up a pair of his brother’s boots by the door and pushed her feet into them. After grabbing her mug, she shuffled down the path in the too-big boots and disappeared from view.

He simply nodded as he watched her go. As far as he knew she lived on her own and worked on her small aircraft on her own. She was possibly slightly overwhelmed by having him in her periphery all the time. He would give her a few minutes.

As he stood there mug in hand, her phone vibrated once more. Dylan glared at it, hesitated, but only for a moment, before picking it up. A whole raft of texts from various numbers were cascading on her phone. His eyes grew wide. What the hell had she got herself into? The phone rang as he held it and he glanced out of the window guiltily before deciding to answer the call.

‘John Small, Daily Mercury. Come on, Scarlett, just a one-line quote about you and Axel will do.’

Dylan immediately ended the call and dropped the phone back to the worktop like it was on fire.Who the hell was John Small? And who the hell was Axel when he was at home?

Quickly he googled the name Axel on his phone, not for one second expecting to find anything, even though it was an unusual name. He smiled as two singers, the Angel Brothers, popped up on his screen. Axel and Sky Angel, with, if he remembered rightly, a tragic history behind them. He smiled. Yeah right. As if Scarlett would know them personally. But who could it be that was causing her trouble?

He thrust his feet into sliders and headed out to the garden, his mind racing.

Scarlett was pushing herself through the air on his old swing, her hair flying behind her looking as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Dylan knew better. Rob’s boots were half way across the garden and he smiled. They must have come flying off her feet when she pushed herself up in the air.

Before he had a chance to talk to her, his own phone rang and he turned it on to speaker, deliberating on how to confess to Scarlett that he’d answered her phone and knew a journalist wanted to speak to her. Hopefully it would give him the opportunity to open up the whole conversation. The thought that she might be in some kind of trouble made his blood run cold. He was now scared for her and even more determined to help.

He spoke into his phone. ‘Hey, Curly. Yeah, I’m good. I’ll let you know in a few minutes. Something’s come up,’ he said, his mind only on the matter in hand. He shoved his phone into his back pocket, took a steadying breath and crossed to the swing. Grabbing the ropes, he held them, steadying Scarlett as he brought her to a standstill. ‘Scarlett, I’ve said we’ll go to the pub to see the lads and I can have a bit of a jam session, if you’re up for that, but if you’d rather go back to London I’ll come with you. On the other hand, if you want this to be goodbye, can you tell me now, please? I’m a big boy, I can handle it.’ He swallowed hard. That lie came easily to him but losing her would not be so easy.

She blinked. ‘Sorry? I’m coming to hear your band, aren’t I?’

He nodded, but raked his fingers over his face. ‘Look, I hate to do a heavy scene here, and I’m aware how uncool it is, but I am strictly a one-woman man . . .’ He pushed his curls away from his forehead. ‘Fuck, I’m so rubbish with this whole dating thing.’

‘Dylan, it’s okay.’ Her smile was gentle as she took his hand, folding her fingers around his. Her eyes levelled with his. ‘Really. I need to speak with someone, but it can wait, I guess. I’ve realised I want to stay here. It’s soothing my soul.’

Dylan wished he could say the same. He watched her silently, as she bit her lip and slid her gaze away from his, noting how even she didn’t look convinced by her own words. If you say so, he thought. For a moment then, he was positive she would open up to him, but he let it drop. She was staying. For now, anyway — and that had to be enough.

‘Push me on the swing, please. I haven’t done this in, like, forever.’ She pushed her legs out straight and up high, and threw her head back, like an excited little girl.

‘You win — again,’ he muttered. As he positioned himself behind the swing, his thoughts focused on what the phone call he’d intercepted could mean. She was an air stewardess — so, what kind of information would she have to cause such a furore, and for a national newspaper to pester her?

He tried to push the negative thoughts away as he watched her swing her legs back and forth like a child, his heart melting.

He should try to be laid back, like the dude he was supposed to be, but he just wished she would trust him enough to confide in him.

Snagging Scarlett around the waist, he stopped the swing once more. ‘Come on, let’s go up to the roof and take a coffee with us. We can get ready for the pub in a little while and you can watch me make a fool of myself.’ His smile was wan and his enthusiasm for the day which he had begun like he was a bounding puppy chasing the Andrex loo roll, had all but disappeared. He needed to thrash some chords and get outside his own head for a while, or else he’d drive himself nuts.

Scarlett bounced off the swing and landed on the grass, her eyes sparkling. She laughed up at Dylan and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him hard. ‘That was fun. Cheer up.’ She grabbed his hand. ‘Let’s go.’

He nodded from within his cloud of confusion. She was killing him with her mysteries and mood changes.