Chapter 2
2
OLLIE CHILES
Ollie stepped out of the shower to grab the phone that was ringing on the stone top of his vanity area. Calacatta Gold Marble. Just one of the ludicrously expensive stone accents in his townhouse in the beautiful Park Circus area of Glasgow. If the kid that had grown up just a few miles away from here on the South Side, in a tiny, terraced council house with one bathroom between four of them, could see him now, he’d punch the fricking air and then nip down to the corner shop and blow his entire pound pocket money on a can of Irn-Bru and a packet of football cards.
And yet… Weirdly, he still felt more at home back then in that terrace than he did here, in his seven-figure, majestic Georgian townhouse. Although, that was probably because he’d spent a grand total of about twelve nights here in the year since he’d bought it and had it decorated by one of the hot new interior designers in the city. The concept of getting other people to carry out his wishes was still so new to him. Little more than six years ago, he’d been a jobbing actor, mostly in theatre, and he was staying in a cupboard-size studio in New York, because the London play he’d worked on for six months had moved stateside and taken most of the cast with it. When the run came to an end, he still had a few months on his work visa, so he’d landed the part of a chorus member and understudy to the leading man in a short-lived but weighty Broadway play, starring Sienna Montgomery, former Disney teen star turned serious theatre actor. He’d respectfully punched the air when the show’s leading man went down with appendicitis and Ollie had stepped into the role, garnering praise and attention from both the critics and Sienna. They’d married three months later, after a whirlwind romance, with his best mate, Kara, by his side, four weeks before his visa was about to expire.
That had been just the start of his meteoric life transformation. A few weeks later, he’d got a call to replace an A-lister who’d pulled out of a new TV show, the first series of The Clansman . It was a TV spin off-of a major Hollywood movie franchise about sixteenth-century Scottish warriors, written and directed by Hollywood royalty, Mirren McLean. To his eternal gratitude, Mirren had remembered him because years before, when he was just starting out, he’d had a small part in the eighth movie in The Clansman film series, and she’d decided he’d be the perfect person to replace the big-shot dropout on the new show. Before he could catch a breath, he was on a plane, meeting Mirren again, and signing contracts. He’d shot the eight episodes in just over three months in various locations including LA, Vancouver and Croatia, where, by the miracles of television, some of the exterior scenes mimicking sixteenth-century Scotland were filmed. It was the kind of big-budget global TV show that every actor dreamed of working on. It became an international sensation, catapulting him to a level of fame that would see him mobbed in ALDI. That year, he did what felt like a million online interviews, racked up a gazillion fans and was soon on a plane back to LA to shoot the next series. First class. And he tried not to be starstruck that Harry Styles was in the seat behind him.
Five seasons later, he got recognised in every country he travelled to, was being offered serious movie roles, was rumoured to be the next Bond, earned millions per series, and had been voted Hottest Hollywood Male three years in a row. He was also overworked, exhausted and lived between so many time zones, he rarely remembered what day of the week it was. Just in the last fortnight, he’d done about twenty-five thousand airmiles and he’d only managed to spend Christmas with Sienna because he’d flown from LA to New York to meet her there. He’d spent a couple of nights in the apartment she was renting while she was working on a mediocre off-Broadway show that met its unexpected demise on Christmas Eve. He’d consoled his wife as much as he could, before he’d had to hop on a flight to Croatia, to shoot some extra scenes. One week there, including New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, and then yesterday, he’d flown into Glasgow for a whistlestop overnight stay that would allow him to pick up fresh clothes and re-pack his case, before heading to Hawaii later today for Kara’s wedding. The one that was apparently now cancelled. And he already knew that the person whose name was currently flashing on his phone probably wasn’t mustering up much sympathy for his friend’s heartbreak.
Sienna.
‘Hey, babe, I was just thinking about you,’ he opened the FaceTime call. ‘I miss you.’ He tried to pull out his best smile and sound as sexy as possible, in the ever-present hope that it would remind her why she fell in love with him. Tomorrow would be their sixth wedding anniversary, and that all-consuming joy and the bliss of their first couple of years was a dim and distant memory for them both. Not that he blamed her after the latest knock to her career. When they met, she’d been the more successful one, the star who was rumoured to be under consideration for a Tony nomination. But that was then. There had been a slump in the parts she’d been offered after that, and the last two or three years had been tough for her, culminating in the premature closure of her latest show. Now that the run had jack-knifed, she was benching her love of the theatre and heading back to LA for the TV pilot season auditions that came around at the beginning of every year, and was clearly not thrilled about it.
‘Back at you,’ she said, with an unmistakable edge of weariness that made it depressingly clear that she didn’t.
He heard the bing-bong of an announcement in the background noise. ‘You still at the airport? I thought you’d have been halfway to LA by now.’ He did a quick calculation of the time – 3a.m. in New York. Her red-eye flight should have left a few minutes before midnight.
‘Me too, but the flight was delayed because of the snow. I’ve been in the airline lounge for the last four hours, but they’re just about to start boarding now.’
Ah, that made sense – there was a slight slur to her words that definitely said four or five vodka martinis.
‘Nightmare. I’m sorry, babe.’
She shrugged. ‘The joys of flying commercial. What about you? Did you speak to Kara?’ His wife was a wonderful actress, but she couldn’t mask her disdain when she said his friend’s name. It was nothing new, so he rolled right over it.
‘I haven’t been able to get hold of her yet, so we haven’t spoken since the text.’
It had come in the early hours of the morning two days ago.
Wedding off. My choice. Still going to Hawaii or Drea will never forgive me. Best man no longer needed but please still come and be my emotional support human.
He’d picked the message up ten hours later, when he’d woken from a jet-lagged deep sleep, and immediately tried to call her. No answer. He’d sent a text.
Shit! You okay? What can I do?
A few hours later, the reply came back.
Nothing. Licking my wounds. Long story. See you at Glasgow Airport day after tomorrow, same plans as before. Will explain everything then. Now only love you, Drea, Stevie Nicks and Lenny Kravitz. xx
That was it. There had been several missed calls and a couple of texts back and forth since then, but he still had no clue what had happened. All he knew was that it must be bad, because Kara wasn’t one for unnecessary drama. Speaking of which… Sienna had now pulled off a huge pair of sunglasses (yep, even in New York in January in the middle of the night), and she looked stunning as always, even with no make-up and a baseball cap pulled low down on her forehead. Although, she must need her Botox topped up because for the first time in years he could see the grooves of a frown between her eyes.
‘But you’re still going to Hawaii? And you’ll be there on our wedding anniversary. Have you even considered cancelling and coming back to LA instead? With the time difference, you could be there tonight and we could do dinner at the Sunset Tower.’ It was one of his favourite restaurants, but the last thing he felt like right now was getting dressed up for a night on the town. ‘I thought we were going to try to make this work, Ollie?’
Ah, there was the guilt trip, right on time.
A couple of months ago, they’d squeezed in a couple of sessions with Sienna’s therapist to discuss their marriage. Years of working in different time zones, on schedules that rarely matched up, had caused a drift that they could no longer ignore. After talking it through, they’d both agreed that they’d stopped prioritising each other and committed to making an effort to breathe new life into their relationship. If he were honest, it was still dangerously close to flatlining, but he wasn’t prepared to give up yet. As soon as he got back from Hawaii, he was going to spend a month in LA and they’d both promised to try to rekindle what they’d once had.
When he’d got the text to say the wedding was cancelled, he had thought about skipping Hawaii, but only for a split second. Kara never asked him for anything, and she was clearly going through it, so he couldn’t bring himself to desert her. Not now.
‘Babe, I’ll only be there for two days and then I’ll be home. Or you could change your mind and come to the wedding. My mum will be there too and?—’
‘How can you ask me to do that? Ollie, my career is in crisis! I’m not doing a fucking hula dance when I should be back in LA, talking to my agent, setting up meetings and auditions. I don’t have time to go swanning off with your friend who isn’t even getting fricking married now…’
There were so many things about that outburst that pissed him off, he didn’t know where to start. Kara was so much more than a friend, she was family. As were Drea and their mum, Jacinta. His dad had been a passing ship, a fleeting holiday romance that was over the moment his mum and Jacinta had got on the plane back from Tenerife. Three months later, his mum had found out she was pregnant. Nine and a half months later, he was born into a world that consisted of his mum, his lovely grandparents, Jacinta, Drea, Kara and him. It had stayed that way until his lovely mum, a well-known pub and club singer who had been known to claim that she possessed ‘the mightiest set of pipes in Glasgow’, landed a gig as a cabaret singer on cruise ships and sailed off when he was sixteen. Not for one second had he felt abandoned or neglected though. She’d done it to support him while he was studying and trying to break into acting, and when it came to day-to-day mothering, Jacinta had stepped right into the void that his mum had left. The two lifelong friends were like a tag team, but without the wrestling ring and the overblown dramatics. Actually… maybe just without the wrestling ring.
‘Sienna, I’m not doing this. You make it sound like Kara is just some random mate, but come on, you know she’s like a sister to me…’
He was about to launch into his usual defence, but she cut him off as she slipped her shades back onto her face. Even the sight of his naked six-pack wasn’t softening her attitude. ‘Oh, spare me, Ollie. I’ve been hearing it for years, and I’m over it. The only reason we’re not celebrating our anniversary today, on the day we were supposed to get married, is because of your oldest fricking friend.’ The disdain had ramped up now to ‘very obviously pissed off.’
‘Come on, that wasn’t her fault…’
‘No, it was yours. You were so desperate to marry me, you put it off for twenty-four hours until she could get to us. My mother has still never forgiven you.’
He had no defence to that one. Six years ago, he’d been madly in love with this beautiful star he’d been seeing for three months, and feeling like the luckiest guy in the world because he’d blurted out a proposal on Christmas Day and she’d stunned him by saying yes. Caught up in the moment, they’d decided to have a tiny wedding as soon as they could get the paperwork sorted out. That’s why, a week and a half later, he was waiting for Kara to fly in to be his Best Person at a City Hall wedding that consisted of his bride, her parents, and… Actually, that was it. His mum was in the middle of an ocean and couldn’t leave the ship for three more months, so they’d zoomed her in. His grandparents had long passed by that time. And Jacinta and Drea couldn’t make it at such short notice because they both had commitments they couldn’t change. When Kara’s flight had been delayed for a full twenty-four hours, he’d implored Sienna to postpone the ceremony for a day and back then she’d been so in love with him that she’d willingly agreed.
He wasn’t sure she’d make the same decision now.
‘So you’re not changing your plans, even though I’m asking you to do that for me,’ she demanded, and Ollie watched as her chin jutted forward, a challenge from someone who had got her own way her whole life.
‘Babe, I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. Which I do!’ White lie. He was getting desperate not to come off as an asshole and trying to make her feel better. ‘Calvin is picking me up in half an hour because I’ve got a few promos to shoot here for the show.’ That wasn’t strictly true, and he hated to fudge the truth with her, but he wasn’t ready to tell her what was really going on.
Calvin Fraser had been his first ever manager, back in his early acting days in Scotland, before Ollie had headed off to pastures new across the pond. He’d semi-retired now that the biggest star on his roster, soap queen Odette Devine, had hung up her crown, but they still caught up whenever Ollie was in town and Calvin occasionally brokered endorsement deals with Scottish brands. Ollie felt his face flush at the knowledge he was lying by omission, but he just hoped Sienna was too distracted by her anger to notice. Calvin was joining him today for something far more important than a promo shoot, but sharing that information could wait until later. Right now, he still had a situation to defuse.
‘Look, I’ll make all this up to you, I promise.’
‘I remember you saying that six years ago.’
Situation escalated. Shots fired. Right in the jugular. Man down. He’d seen this play out too many times. The only smart move was an emergency evacuation. Thankfully, American Airlines intervened to facilitate that.
Another bing-bong in the background. A call for the last remaining passengers for the flight to LA.
‘I need to go. Talk later. If you can fit me in.’ And with that, she pouted the lips that were injected at a shockingly expensive Beverly Hills clinic every six months, and hung up.
How was this his life? Knackered, wet, naked, standing in a cold bathroom in Glasgow, getting bollocked by his wife. Not exactly the high life. And now the doorbell was ringing. He pulled a towel around his waist and made his way down to the ground floor, where he checked the security monitor at the front door. One of his favourite faces filled the screen, so he immediately opened the door, but stood behind it just in case there were any paps out in the wild. The last thing he needed was a half-naked pic of him opening the door. It would be all over the internet before he’d had a chance to get his jeans on.
Only when Calvin had cleared the doorway did Ollie close the door and reveal himself.
‘Hang on, hang on!’ Calvin ordered, taking in the sight in front of him. ‘I just need to take a minute to remind myself that political correctness is a thing, and I’m no longer allowed to comment on the fact that you’ve got abs that resemble the peaks of the Andes. What was left of my self-esteem has just been crushed to dust.’
Ollie laughed. ‘Good to see you, pal. Two minutes, I’ll be right back. You know where the coffee is.’
He took the stairs two at a time to his bedroom, where he threw on a pair of jeans, a chunky black jumper and ran some styling powder through his hair. Shaving could wait until later. Maybe tomorrow.
He was back down in the kitchen in less than ten minutes. This time, he gave Calvin a proper hug and was rewarded with a black coffee in a travel mug.
Calvin gestured to the door. ‘Ready to go, my friend? We’re seeing it at 11a.m. but we’re stopping for breakfast in a little spot nearby.’
‘So it’s still available?’ A property. The kind of place he’d dreamt about his whole life. One that Calvin had been talking to him about for the last month. One that could change so many things in his world.
‘It is.’
Ollie stood back to let the older man go first. He’d have to tell Sienna about this viewing, but not yet – she was furious enough without sending her into orbit.
Lately he’d been feeling that their marriage had been a contractual obligation and neither he nor Sienna had been living up to their ends of the bargain. And he had a sinking feeling that today was the day he might be about to throw in a deal-breaker.