Falling Stars (Love in London #3)

Chapter 1

Elle

I’ve been careful, until now, not to get sucked into the crazy machine that is the film industry. Admittedly, my acting career to date is a grand total of one bit part and one lead role. But still. It’s important to keep some perspective.

And I’ve always been a good girl. Head down. Work hard. Be ladylike. Unless there’s a dance floor present (I may or may not have been known as the Dance Floor Whore at university).

So, when I find myself at the Cannes Film Festival, going straight from the premiere of the film Gracie, in which I play the lead, to the Vanity Fair party, and there’s a dance floor beside the pool of whatever outrageous villa we’re at, I know I’m getting sucked in.

Big time.

I’m screwed.

But this is my night, and I’m damned if I won’t allow myself to succumb to whatever magic is in the air. My imposter syndrome is sky high. Any moment, one of those burly, ear-piece-wearing guys doing the rounds will chuck me over the bougainvillea-clad walls and out into the street.

And yet, A-listers I’ve watched on screen since I was a child are seeking me out.

Shaking my hand. Air kissing me. And telling me I’m their bet for the Best Actress award at the Closing Ceremony next Saturday.

Kirsten Dunst even hugged me in the loos and told me Gracie made her cry so hard, she had to have her makeup completely redone for the party.

It’s too much.

I’m at the poolside bar with my publicist, Mara, Gracie’s director, Tina, and a few other cast members.

Mara’s as cool as a cucumber, even though she’s only been doing this a couple of years, but Tina’s almost as flustered as I am.

She’s a cerebral art-house film maker from Chiswick, and she’s far more at home intellectualising in West London than she is hanging out in this kind of scene.

We started playing the how many people can we recognise game—well, Tina and I did while Mara surveyed the scene with a slightly bored air—but we gave up after thirty-three. It’s far more of a challenge to find people we don’t recognise, servers and security aside.

Although there are stars everywhere I turn, my number one eye-treat this evening so far has been the dreamy A-list trio at the bar earlier: Brad Burton.

Davide de Luca. And Josh Lander. Yes. The Holy Trinity of all that is gorgeous and golden and Hollywood.

My inner schoolgirl fanned herself, my ovaries did the Can-Can, and I had to use every ounce of strength I had not to pull out my phone and try for a surreptitious shot.

Because that would be the least cool thing I could ever, ever do.

Despite my best intentions, I’m getting sucked into the surrounding carnival faster than an earring up a vacuum-cleaner.

The whole spectacle is so chic I’m dying.

We’re perched high on a hill above the Bay of Cannes, super-yachts twinkling on an inky Med.

Around me, clusters of household names laugh and flirt and do deals and catch up.

There are fire eaters and go-go dancers and saxophonists on roller blades. No one is eating the canapes.

It’s completely over the top and absolutely wonderful.

Our little group is very much on the periphery as we people-watch.

But then the DJ plays Cheap Thrills, and I know it’s time to stop being a wallflower.

I graced the big screen at the Grand Lumière tonight, and whatever my inner judge is telling me, I deserve to be here as much as anyone.

More importantly, Gracie may bomb commercially, and I may never get another part. I owe it to myself to make the most of this crazy ride while it lasts.

‘Come on.’ I deposit my fancy cocktail—name, ingredients and potency level unknown—on the glass bar and give Mara and Tina a little shimmy. ‘Let’s show these guys how the Brits rock.’

Tina sniggers nervously, admiring my chutzpah even while recognising that I’m talking utter rubbish, and Mara rolls her eyes, tosses her cigarette and stubs it out with her Rock Stud stilettos.

‘Sure. Let’s do it.’

‘You really should be French,’ I tell her as we walk in the direction of the chequerboard marble dance floor. ‘You’re so cool. And so nonchalant. Please show me how to be like you.’

She brushes my shoulder in a move that’s almost affectionate. ‘Elle. You’ll never be cool. Or nonchalant. Just be you.’

‘Right,’ I mutter, feeling like a schoolgirl in her achingly cool wake. ‘Excellent. Really helpful, thank you.’

Maybe it’s the pulse of the music, or the scent of French cigarettes and flowers in the air, or the heady vibe of power and success all around me.

Maybe it’s the fabulous Paco Rabanne mini-dress I changed into for the party, which is little more than some huge silver paillettes—think giant sequins—on mesh, held up by fine chain-mail straps.

Whatever it is, as we join the throng of lithe, glossy, immaculately dressed bodies on the dance floor, I find the music and I lose my inhibitions.

I lose myself.

Mara has a dancing rhythm of her own—a sultry sway that does little to accommodate the actual beat of the music but is very sexy.

Tina’s bopping like someone’s let her out of Book Club for the night.

And I absolutely go for it.

I gyrate my hips, throw my head back, brush my thick fringe off my forehead, and let my arms float in the air. I grind, I thrust, I squat. Again and again. My skin slicks with a fine mist of sweat. I feel limber and weightless and energised. I could dance like this all night.

And as I revel in that unmatchable feeling of being one with the rhythm of the music, I gradually clock that Mara and Tina are moving away from me.

And looking at me oddly.

And that Marion Cotillard has just shot me an approving smile and a thumbs-up from the left.

And that there’s heat building right behind my body.

Human heat.

I glance behind me and do what must be a comedic double take, because, inches from me, is Josh Lander, and the guy is moving. In. On. Me.

Oh, holy cow. Oh, my goodness. Josh Lander is mirroring my moves, and he’s now actually touching me. I can feel his knees right behind my knees. That means that right behind my bum is his… Jesus. Don’t dare think about Josh Lander’s penis.

My quick peek at him has confirmed that not only is he hotter than any actual human has a right to be, but that he’s in a white shirt, a few buttons undone at the neck.

Sleeves rolled up. I have no idea what he’s wearing on his bottom half because craning my neck to look down at Josh Lander’s crotch seems ill-advised, even through my mystery-cocktail haze.

But instead of freaking out, like I would have put serious money on my doing, I embrace this madness. Having such a huge, hot Hollywood star gyrating inches from me gives me the most enormous surge of adrenalin and, to be honest, power.

I double down.

Hell, I may never again get to dance with someone this gorgeous and this famous. (To be more explicitly frank, I may never again get to dance with someone whose face graced my teenage self’s bedroom wall.)

I may as well just go for it.

The track changes to Rihanna’s Work, but she may as well be singing twerk because that’s basically what I do.

I grind. I twerk. I thrust. And I squat and rise.

And squat. And rise. I throw my head back and toss my hair (which is very Bardot-esque tonight) in Josh Lander’s face and throw my arms around.

My dress acts like a disco ball, its silver paillettes reflecting all the lights of the dance floor back in every direction.

And right behind me, because I can feel him, Josh Lander matches me beat for beat.

The music pulses through our veins in tandem.

Then the light but delicious pressure of a hand on my waist. He’s guiding me. Pulling me in closer to him.

Oh my gosh, I’m gyrating against Josh Lander’s crotch.

Around us, people are clapping and whistling and clearing a larger space for us. Oh, dear Lord. I’m hazily conscious of a lot of phones aiming in our direction.

I want to turn around so badly, to slide down Josh Lander’s rock-hard body and possibly graze his arm or his stomach through his shirt with my fingers. But I won’t. I’m not brave enough, and I don’t know him. I mean, I know him, obviously, but I don’t actually know him.

Everyone’s eyes are on us, and I’m struck by a possibly childish desire to be the one to end this little dance floor flirtation (if simulating sex, while fully clothed and upright, with an A-list celebrity, in the presence of many other A-list celebrities does indeed pass as a flirtation).

And so, as the song comes to its conclusion, I brave another backwards glance.

I look him in the eye, and dearest Lord, if his heavenly face isn’t radiating amusement and intensity and a teeny bit of lust. The jut of that famous, stubbled jaw is tense.

He licks his bottom lip, and my gaze is there for it.

He’s catching his breath (gratifyingly, he looks more out of breath than I feel) and his chest, so close to my shoulder, is heaving.

I give him a coquettish grin. Casual, just a twist of my mouth. Like we’re partners in crime and I’m not some total random.

‘See you,’ I say.

And off I sashay without a backwards glance.

Leaving Josh Lander on the dance floor.

Working that mini-dress.

And resisting the urge to punch the damn air.