Chapter Twenty-Six
Henry
I sat on the rocks for a long time after Alex walked away, staring at the spot where he’d been sitting. He’d been so close to me, but he’d still slipped through my fingers and I had no one to blame but myself.
Jason had told me to be honest with Alex, and I had been, but I’d been selfish too. Neither Jason nor Alex had suggested that Alex leave Heather Bay, but it had been the only option to come out my mouth.
I didn’t even know why I’d suggested it.
I turned my shoes over in the sand, noticing the fragments of shells. My heart felt like one of them. Behind me, I heard the tide washing against the shore and idly wondered if I could sit here until the water came in. I had no idea how long it would be, but at least I’d know time had passed.
A few gulls shrieked overhead and I heard children laughing and the barking of a dog.
I turned to watch a fluffy black spaniel charging in and out of the waves as it chased a ball, shaking out a shower of water every time it emerged and running up and down the sand with its tail wagging so hard it was almost a blur.
I’d never had a dog before, but I’d always wanted one.
It just hadn’t seemed fair to get a dog when I spent my life jetting from place to place, because it would spend more time with trainers and dogsitters than me.
I chuckled darkly as I realised my reasons for not getting a dog were the same reasons Alex had given me for not wanting to leave. That was a new level of fuckery from me and I didn’t even know how to start unpacking that.
Sighing, I looked down into one of the rock pools, swirling my finger in the water as I looked at the anemones, sea snails, seaweed, and the tiny starfish hiding at the bottom. Maybe one of the reasons I’d wanted Alex to come with me was because I was so damn lonely.
Everyone imagined my life to be glamorous, an endless round of parties and premieres and spending my millions on whatever took my fancy before jetting off to film yet another ridiculous blockbuster where all I had to do was look pretty and pretend I cared. But in truth, it was far from fun.
Yes, I had millions—I couldn’t argue with that or that the money made my life considerably easier—but having money was boring when I had nobody to spend it on or with. There were only so many things I could buy for myself before it lost its appeal.
And while I loved premieres and press tours and fed off the attention, they were also exhausting.
Answering the same question a thousand times was no fun when I had nobody to share the ridiculousness with.
Luckily I tended to put an embargo on questions about my dating life because repeatedly telling people I was single wasn’t going to get me anything but pity and my friends trying to set me up with people they knew.
I’d have to tell my friends that Alex and I had broken up sooner or later and just pray they decided not to do another round of blind date shenanigans.
Although Kayden and Nate were having a baby soon, so hopefully parenthood would make them too tired to interfere, and Ros was still in New York.
According to her last few messages, she was planning on staying there for the summer because I’d been right that she’d met someone and now she’d decided to stay while on break between projects.
Jason would kill me when I told him what happened, but I’d put that off for as long as possible. I didn’t fancy a lecture about my fuck-ups and I didn’t want to disturb his plans with Lewis, since they had a few uninterrupted weeks together for the first time in months.
My butt was starting to go numb from sitting on the rocks, so I stood up and stretched before starting to wander down towards the waves.
I reached down and slipped my shoes and socks off, stuffing the socks into the toes of my trainers and rolling up the bottoms of my jeans before picking up my shoes in one hand.
My toes sank into the sun-warmed golden sand and grounded me as I took a deep breath, letting the salty tang of the sea air fill my senses.
I walked down to the shoreline and gasped as the foaming edge of the water lapped against my skin.
“Fuck, that’s cold!” I winced as I paddled into the sea, letting the waves wash over the tops of my feet.
It was freezing at first but I soon got used to it, and by the time I was halfway down the beach, I’d stopped noticing the cold.
The spaniel was still bouncing around and chasing a tennis ball, racing up and down the sand and barking, making me smile with its endless enthusiasm.
It must have noticed me because it bounded over and dropped the ball at my feet, sitting in front of me and waiting with an open-mouthed smile and bright, eager eyes.
I bent down and picked the soggy, slightly mangled ball up and the dog wiggled.
“Is this what you want?” I asked, a tiny smile crossing my lips.
The dog whined. “Go on then.” I threw the ball as hard as I could along the beach, watching as it bounced along the sand some distance away.
The dog was off like a shot, racing away from me to find its prize.
“Sorry,” said a voice from behind me and I turned to see a young man with reddish-blond hair and soft freckles across his nose. “She’s such a menace sometimes. I’m sorry she bothered you.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “She’s really cute. What’s her name?”
“Dolly,” the young man said. “She’s only eighteen months old and she doesn’t always pay attention, especially not when there’s a ball involved.”
I chuckled softly as Dolly bounced back to us, circling the other man and dropping the ball at his feet, her whole body wiggling as she did so.
“Well done,” he said. “You got the right person that time.” He grinned and scooped the ball up.
“Come on, that way. You can’t be bothering people like that.
” He threw it hard in the other direction, giving me a smile as he followed her.
If he’d known who I was, it didn’t seem to have fazed him.
Most of Heather Bay had stopped caring about a week after the news had been released that Alex and I were a couple. It was refreshing to be surrounded by indifference.
I stood in the water and watched Dolly and the young man for a minute, wondering what it would be like to walk a dog on the beach every day, paddling in the summer when it was sweltering hot by seven and bundled up in layers in the winter as rain and wind lashed at me.
Would every dog want walking in weather like that or only some?
My eyes roamed across the water, watching a fishing boat in the distance as a few wisps of cloud floated lazily across the bright sky. I could see why Alex loved it here.
If I didn’t have to leave, I wouldn’t.
So why did I?
Yes, I’d have to leave to film my other projects and to participate in the media circus surrounding every new release, but between all of that in the downtime I’d come to dread, why couldn’t I come here?
Everyone I knew was starting to build a life with someone, but that didn’t always mean being in Beverly Hills.
Jason had started a life with Lewis in Lincoln, and Ros was hiding out in New York.
Richard Pike, the legendary British star of stage and screen, lived in Cornwall in a cottage by the sea that nobody knew about unless he told you.
Austin and Kane were talking about buying a house in a small borough of London outside the hustle and bustle of the city, while Tamsin still lived with her family in Oxford.
Gemma and her husband split their time between London and LA, but I knew she had friends and family in both places, and she’d shown me pictures of a barbecue she’d had last summer with her husband’s cousins on a beach in California.
Fuck, why hadn’t I even considered asking Gemma how she balanced it?
I had all these people to talk to, and I’d never even asked!
I couldn’t have been any more self-centred if I’d tried.
I’d been so focused on myself that it had never crossed my mind to reach out and ask people how they made it work.
I wanted to pretend it was because I was afraid of what they’d say, but the truth was I’d never dreamt anyone would understand how I felt.
Alex would laugh when I told him, because if I was ever the epitome of the egotistical, nobody-understands-me Hollywood superstar, then this was it.
Alex.
Fuck, Alex.
I had to talk to him. I had to tell him that I wanted to stay, that I needed to be here with him and that nothing else in the world mattered as long as we were together.
It wouldn’t be easy for either of us, and there’d be challenges ahead neither of us had thought of, but we’d get through them together, hand in hand and side by side.
And we’d build a life here in this beautiful town surrounded by heather and crashing waves and make it a place we could call home.
I started walking again, faster this time, splashing through the water until my jeans were soaked. I stepped onto the dry sand and made a beeline for the steps at the end, the opposite set to the ones we’d come down.
I broke into a jog and then a run, tearing across the beach as fast as I could manage, still holding my trainers in one hand. I knew I should stop and put them on, but there was no time and frankly I preferred to go barefoot than walk around with sand-filled shoes for the rest of the day.
My chest heaved as I took the stairs two at a time, darting around two women with buggies on the front with a hasty apology as I set off towards Novel Tea.
The pavement was warm under my feet, and I tried my best to look where I was going so I didn’t end up stepping on a fragment of glass or in a stray bit of seagull poop.