Chapter 6 Josh
Josh
‘Ihope I didn’t give you the wrong impression this morning.’
Elle’s smile quivers. Oh, shit. I don’t want her to think I regret the kiss, or that it meant nothing.
‘Not the kiss. That was fucking amazing.’
Her smile widens again, and she sits up straight. God, she’s so freaking adorable in that virginal white dress.
‘Really?’
‘Sure.’ I hesitate. ‘Why? Was it not good for you?’
I mean, she seemed into it, and all, but you never know. Maybe I’ve become one of those entitled douches who’s stopped noticing when the woman’s not as into it as I am.
But she leans over and covers the hand clutching my glass of rosé.
‘Josh. Relax. It was amazing for me too.’
‘Okay, then. Phew.’ I grin at her. ‘No, I was thinking about it in the shower when I got back, and—’
‘Thinking about me in the shower, were you? Interesting.’
I lower my voice. ‘I jerked off in the shower, thinking about you.’
Her reaction is fan-fucking-tastic. Her head jerks around as if she’s terrified we’ll be overheard, before her gaze slides back to me and she bites her lip. She’s blushing. Fucking adorable, as I said.
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah. Oh. I needed to, after spending the morning with you and that little bikini of yours. My point is, I feel like I made out that I was only into you because of your movie—like, I was turned on by your character. Gracie. I should have made it clearer. It’s not Gracie I want to get to know better. It’s Elle Hart.’
I pause to make sure the words sink in. After an awesome walk around the cape in the early morning sunlight, we drove back to the Martinez and went our separate ways: Elle to her interviews, and me to the Nikki Beach pop-up for lunch with the guys.
But now I’ve got her to myself again. We’re in a distinctly low-key restaurant in Le Suquet, which is Cannes’ Old Town.
Matthieu dropped us at the bottom of the steep, winding cobbled street and we strolled up in search of some dinner, my arm draped loosely around her.
The paps will catch up with us at some point, but I have no problems being snapped with Elle Hart.
In fact, I’ll be fucking thrilled.
This street is super-narrow and lined with the sweetest old-world restaurants. Most of them take walk-ins and have little terraces on the street, but we’ve gone for a dark corner in an old stone building. I want Elle to myself as long as I can get her.
I’m probably being a superior pain in the ass, but I feel protective of her.
Despite her insane talent, she’s so clearly not part of my world yet, in the best possible way.
She’s refreshing, and youthful, and she seems so innocent and so dazzled by the craziness of Cannes (and especially by the industry’s reaction to her and her beautiful movie).
I wanna keep her like this, stop the inevitable jaded cynicism that will kick in.
I should know. I’m only seven years older than her, but I’ve been in the movie business since I was a kid, and it gets old. So fucking old, you need a constant carousel of liquor and drugs and women just to keep you awake.
But I don’t feel that way with Elle.
I haven’t even felt the need to do a line or down a shot.
I just want to drink her in.
She’s looking at me now as if she doesn’t know whether to believe me.
She’s magnificent. Her white dress exposes her creamy shoulders, and I want nothing more than to lean over and bite down on that ripe flesh.
That face will launch so many crushes and obsessions, and selfishly, I wish I could keep it all for myself.
I have a hunch that the more I get of Elle Hart, the more I’ll want.
And it doesn’t even freak me out. The opposite.
‘I mean it,’ I tell her now. ‘I wanna get to know you. Tell me about yourself. I find you fascinating.’
‘Why?’ She sips her wine, but her eyes don’t leave mine. ‘I’m not terribly interesting. I suspect I’m quite basic, actually.’
I smile at that. ‘You are anything but basic. You went to Cambridge, didn’t you? Don’t sell yourself short.’
We both sit back in our seats as a grumpy server brings our appetiser: soupe de poisson, or fish soup, a local dish that smells fucking amazing.
‘How did you know that?’ She shoots me a suspicious smile.
I’m shameless. ‘Googled you.’
‘Stalker. Yes, I did go to Cambridge.’
‘And… What did you major in?’
‘We don’t really major in the UK—that is, we choose our degree at the outset. Single or Joint Honours. I read English.’
‘Is that not hard? Having to commit so early?’
She considers. ‘Well, A Levels—those are the exams we do in our final two years of secondary school—are really, really intense. People tend to do three, or maximum four A Levels, and you go into great depth on your subjects, so by the time you’ve finished those, you have a fairly good idea of what you want to do at uni. ’
‘I see. And how many A Levels did Ellery Hart do?’
She looks down at her bowl of soup. ‘Five.’
’Nerd.’
‘Totally. Full disclosure. I am a complete geek, just in case you had any doubts.’
‘No doubts whatsoever.’
‘But they were all Arts subjects. I was crap at STEM stuff, always have been. And I always wanted to do English at uni.’
‘How did you get into acting?’
‘I was really into it at school. And then in my first year at Cambridge, I got invited into the Footlights.’
‘Sure.’ Even I’ve heard of the Footlights. ‘Emma Thompson was in them, right?’
‘Yes. She was their first female member! Incredible. So I did the Footlights, and did the Fringe at the Edinburgh Festival, and just kind of got into it that way. And then, in my final year, the Footlights’ president introduced me to my agent, Richard, and he changed everything.
He got me a small part in a movie Tina was making, and then Tina asked me to try for the role of Gracie.
She took a massive, massive chance on me. And I’ll never be able to repay her.’
I smile. She has no fucking clue. ‘Tina sounds like a smart woman. And believe me, baby, you’ll repay her a million times over. You owned that movie. It was all you.’
‘That’s kind of you to say.’ She takes a dainty sip of her soup. ‘Gosh, this is good. And you, child star genius? What should I know about you, that I might not already?’
I’d much rather talk about her. I could watch her and listen to her all night, in that posh British accent with that self-deprecating manner. Unlike everyone else I hang out with, she doesn’t suffer from the affliction of being high on her own publicity.
‘I dunno.’ I shrug. ‘I did my first movie when I was eight; missed a lot of high school, but I got through it somehow, I guess, with tutors and stuff.’
‘That must have been disruptive. Did you go to university?’
‘Duke.’ I grin. ‘Best years of my life. Majored in Visual and Performing Arts. Got some great buddies out of it. But then right after, my mom—she’s my manager—’
‘Hang on. Your mum’s your manager?’
‘Yeah.’ Here we go.
She slaps the table. ‘You are kidding me. How did I not know this? So she’s, like, your momager? I’m imagining Kris Jenner now. Does she look like Kris? Are you secretly a Kardashian?’
She looks thrilled with herself.
‘Fuck you,’ I say. ‘She’s definitely not Kris Jenner. She’s a lot more WASPy. And she’s even scarier than Kris.’
‘God. She must be terrifying.’
‘She really is.’ She has no idea.
‘Is she here with you, then? In Cannes?’
‘She is, but I’ve made it very clear to her that we’re here on separate trips. Mom’s not a party girl. She’s staying at the Carlton. She’s here solely to schmooze.’
‘And what are you here to do?’
I lean forward and give her my most genuine smile, because I mean every fucking word. ‘I’m here to find the most beautiful, talented, mesmerising woman in this whole damn circus and get as much of her as she’ll possibly give me.’
She looks at me through her dark eyelashes. ‘And how is that going for you?’ she asks quietly.
‘Well, I’ve found her. Now I just need to get as much of her as she’ll give me.
And yes, I mean that exactly how it sounds.
I wanna spend the night with you, baby. I wanna get you naked and kiss every fucking inch of you, and I wanna see how you look and sound when you’re actually enjoying yourself in bed.
And then I wanna wrap my arms around you and fall asleep with my nose buried in your neck, and wake up tangled in the sheets with you.
‘And ideally, do the exact same every night we’re here. And based on how I’m feeling right now having you across from me, and how fucking amazing it was kissing you earlier, I wanna see you again, somehow, after Cannes. Cards on the table, Elle. That’s what I want.’
She’s looking at me, eyes lidded and heavy with desire, that tongue I tasted earlier licking her lower lip. I nod encouragingly.
‘And now comes the part where you tell me what you want, baby.’
‘I want that too.’ She whispers it. ‘I want—I want everything you just said. I just—it’s quite quick, that’s all, and I don’t want to be made a fool of.
I don’t want to be another notch on Josh Lander’s bedpost during an ill-advised few days in the South of France.
’ She looks down at her bowl again. ‘Even if I want to be in bed with you really, really badly.’
I’m not gonna lie; it’s a sucker punch to the gut to hear her talk like that about my bedpost, but there’s not much about my past behaviour that could reassure her. All I can give her is my word.
I reach over and take her hand. ‘Hey. Look at me. I get it. A lot of what you’ve read about me is total trash, but a lot of it’s true, too.
I like to party. I like women. But you are not the kind of girl any guy should get to mistreat.
You’re not a conquest. You are… fucking amazing, and I’m so lucky to even have a chance with you.
‘I will not screw you over, baby. I’m already dreading getting on that plane next weekend, and we haven’t even fucked yet. I promise you, I will not make a fool of you.’