Chapter 45
Elle
The fallout from Gordon Kay is a fucking shit-show.
Mara was right. I gave the world’s press a wet dream of a headline.
I WOULDN’T GIVE JOSH LANDER A HAPPY ENDING IF HE WAS THE LAST MAN ON EARTH.
It’s on every news site. It’s above the fold on every single Sunday paper after the show aired last night. And it’s blown Twitter up.
I can’t believe I forgot to tell Josh. I suppose being ambulanced to hospital will do that for you. But it felt like we’d come so far together on Friday, and he’d finally laid himself bare to me, and he’d told me he loved me, for God’s sake—had always loved me.
So, when I had to come clean to him, there in the bath, the hurt in his eyes killed me.
‘It’s okay,’ he told me as he turned me back around and cradled me against him in his arms. ‘I get it. Seriously, baby.’
‘It’s not okay. But I’d got myself into a real state that morning, and I was so pissed off with you—and with myself—for letting myself get close to you again.
And also, he took me by surprise. He was under orders from Mara not to ask me about you.
So I let rip with this smart comment that was a mix of spite and deflection, I suppose. And all at your expense.’
‘It doesn’t matter what people think about us. It only matters how we feel about each other.’
But that’s a hopelessly na?ve comment, coming from a guy who’s been a cog in this machine for half his life. Because what the world thinks of us matters far, far more than we’d like it to.
Mara’s been working hard since she dropped me at home after Gordon Kay, but there’s not much she can do to contain the story.
She got in touch with Josh’s publicist, Mike, and gave him the heads-up.
Josh has had Mike prepare some bland statement saying he’s enjoying collaborating with me on Grosvenor and wishes me nothing but well.
And Josh left my place at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning, which felt really shitty, given how amazing he’d been to me the previous twenty-four hours, but was strictly necessary. I hated how much of a wrench it felt, having him leave my bed after holding me all night.
‘You need to stay the hell away from him,’ Mara told me. ‘Until you go back to work, you cannot let anyone think there is a flicker of a personal relationship between you two. You know, the press will use this to re-anoint you as a feminist icon.’
I didn’t see that coming, but she’s right.
The Sunday supplements are full of op-eds on how this is my moment, on how far the tables have turned on ‘predatory’ Hollywood players, on the increase in currency of strong female actors such as me, whose commercial success is eclipsing that of the men who prey on them.
I find their language terrifying. #MeToo didn’t become a thing until the year after Josh and I dated and blew up, so while the press shamed him at the time for using his fame to chew me up and spit me out, they also shamed me for being na?ve enough to trust that he was in it for anything other than a quick fuck and a bonus boost to his career.
And of course, some of them also shamed me for using him as a quick fuck and a boost to my fledgling career.
Now, with the #MeToo movement having gained such massive momentum in the intervening years, my participation is being reframed.
According to many of the op-eds on both sides of the Atlantic, I’m the phoenix who brushed off the ashes of a disastrous romantic run-in with a huge Hollywood power player and emerged, not just intact, but positively triumphant.
It seems the press is loving that camera still of me, poised and dressed up to the nines on Gordon Kay’s sofa, a bona fide star at the top of my game, being in a position to laughingly shrug off my former lover as a total joke. I’m their new, involuntary poster child for female empowerment.
And given this is really the first time I’ve referred directly to my prior relationship with Josh, some reporters are speculating whether I felt too intimidated to speak out before: silenced by my terror that doors might close to me if I did.
There’s also renewed, more fevered speculation about how the hell Josh and I ended up starring opposite each other in Grosvenor and whether Azure is doing enough to ensure I feel comfortable with this situation.
Much as I count myself a staunch feminist, I’m horrified.
Because even if I hadn’t had Josh pouring out his heart to me, telling me he’s always loved me and sharing his scrapbooks (which were the nerdiest things I’d ever seen and made me fall into a whole other level of love with him), I wouldn’t have considered Josh and my fling to be a #MeToo situation.
It was born of intense attraction on both sides, and however unfathomable and unforgivable I found his behaviour when he ended it, it never felt like an abuse of power on his part.
Because I would have put money on him being as smitten as me.
And while I seriously resented the relentlessness with which the press stuck to their obsession with my having been dumped, our relationship didn’t do anything to damage my career, in the end.
I get the all-clear from my doctor, and go back to work on Wednesday.
The team has done an incredible job of shifting the shooting schedule around, so my absence doesn’t cause too much of a delay, but I need to play catch-up.
Josh has been back since Monday, and though we’ve spoken and WhatsApped a fair amount, I know he’s giving me space.
And it hurts like hell.
It’s a relief, being back in Georgiana’s shoes after what felt like a weird time vortex of being ill.
Everyone’s being so sweet and attentive to me, treating me like I’m made of glass.
Parka Pete has fresh camomile tea for me at every opportunity.
Alyssa gives me a stern talk about communicating with her when I feel any inflammatory symptoms come on, so we can head off any issues before I have a full flare-up.
And Kate’s so overwhelmed by the furore over the headlines and the slurs towards Azure, with none of the benefit of knowing how close Josh and I have grown, that her processes and preambles ahead of any intimate scenes between Dominic and Georgiana are growing longer and longer.
And Josh is… amazing. He’s getting hit with all the bad press and he won’t listen to a single word of apology or frustration from me.
‘I deserve every single word of it,’ he tells me in my trailer when we’re supposed to be running lines.
‘You don’t! It’s all utter bullshit. They’re making up this ridiculous narrative when there’s no story there to tell.’
‘Hey.’ He pulls me close to him, and I turn my head to rest on his coat lapel so I don’t get Georgiana’s rouge all over his shirt. ‘It’s very sweet of you to say so, but we both know I deserve it, even if it’s Old Josh that was the total douche, not New Josh.’
‘New Josh is doing a pretty amazing job.’ I slide my hands under his coat and grip him tightly around his waist.
‘Thanks baby. But consider it delayed penance for shitty behaviour. I do.’
We’re at an impasse, and it’s made even more impassable when Mara comes to visit us on set one afternoon.
Mike and Grosvenor’s publicist, Donna, have been working their arses off on damage limitation for Josh, because the last thing Azure needs is any negative publicity around their working practices.
We’re sitting down with Donna shortly, but given no one on the Grosvenor production team has any idea Josh and I are romantically involved, it makes sense to have a chat with Mara and Mike first.
Mara dials Mike in and they read us the riot act. I feel completely responsible for this whole situation with my stupid throwaway remarks on Gordon Kay, and Josh feels responsible because he behaved like a jackass five years ago (no argument here) and it’s coming back to bite him.
‘Mike and I have discussed this ad nauseam with Donna.’ Mara taps her pen on the table. ‘There is only one way out of this. That is that there’s no story. You two are colleagues. Nothing else. You’re getting along fine professionally, and you have no relationship off camera. Zero.’
‘That’s the only way this goes away,’ Mike chimes in. ‘I don’t know how strongly you guys feel about each other—I don’t wanna know. But given the way the press has come down as Team Elle this week, you wanna stay away from her, Josh.’
‘If anyone got a whiff of suspicion that you two are involved, the press would come down like a tonne of bricks on both of you.’ Mara’s now brandishing her pen at us like a weapon. ‘Elle, I know how unbearable things were for you first time around.’
She shoots Josh a look of utter disgust (Mara is not Team Josh).
‘I won’t have you go through that again on my watch—not if I can help it.
Right now, the press is firmly on your side.
And you know how mercurial they are. You’re a success story.
You’re a feminist queen. And you’re an inspiration. You’re karma in action.
‘Nobody would understand if you took Josh back. Not the press. Not your fans. Not the millions of young women who see you as a role model. Your only option is to distance yourself as much as possible from him, except as colleagues. I’m sorry, but there it is.’
She throws her pen on the table.
I stare at her in horror.
‘So I’m supposed to just sit there and take it? Let everyone else decide what I want?’
‘She’s right, baby.’ Josh grabs my hand, and I don’t miss Mara’s look of disgust at the gesture and his endearment. ‘They will fucking crucify you if they think you’ve taken me back—they’ll say you’re weak and pathetic. Believe me.’
‘What if I speak up? Tell my side of the story?’
I’m desperate now.
This man has just shown me who he truly is.
I’ve made peace with our past.
With his sins.
I’m not about to hang him out to dry.
And I’m not about to try to live without him when we have this second chance.
‘No, Elle.’ It’s Mike again. ‘Honestly. It won’t just damage you; it’ll damage Josh. He’ll be painted as predatory again. Doesn’t take no for an answer. The press has decided “guys like him”’—he uses his fingers to make quote marks—‘don’t deserve a second shot. He needs to lie low, and so do you.’
‘I’ve served all the hospital staff who saw Josh with NDAs,’ Mara says.
‘Obviously, the whole crew here has signed them. I’m working on The Grove staff.
But I mean it. Stay away from each other.
No trailer trysts. You run lines, you do it in public.
And don’t even think about going into each other’s rooms at The Grove.
There are security cameras in the corridors.
There are maids. Room service. Remember what happened to Jackson? ’
Mara’s scarred because Jackson James and his co-star got outed by a server from Chateau Marmont who’d delivered room service, found them together in bed, and sold her story. He was still married to Honor at the time.
I nod soberly. She keeps talking. ‘Azure is doing its own thing—Donna will speak to you shortly. We’re thinking a BTS shot with Kate on Insta, mentioning in the comments how great she is as an intimacy coordinator.
Maybe a couple of selfies of you and Thor.
We might even arrange drinks for the two of you. Throw them off the scent.’
Josh looks as furious as I feel. Thor asked me out last week. No way is he my type. I reckon he spends longer grooming his eyebrows than I do on my entire skincare regime.
‘Listen to me.’ Mara leans forward. She’s really scary when she’s in full-on damage-control mode. ‘The only story is no story. Unless you want them to paint you as a spineless pussy who rolls over and spreads her legs when Josh Lander smiles at her, stay. The fuck. Away from him.’