Chapter Twenty-Seven
Alex
Of all the things I’d expected to happen after leaving Henry on the beach, him bursting into Novel Tea barefoot and declaring his love for me in the middle of a packed lunch service didn’t even make the top ten.
I’d hoped he’d think about it and come round, maybe even consider something long distance, but that had been a hope rather than a certainty.
I definitely hadn’t thought it’d only take him a couple of hours.
Much as I loved him, Henry seemed like the sort of person who’d have a proper woe-is-me period and need a good kick up the ass from someone before he’d get his act together.
“Cute as this is, like A-plus adorable,” Cleo said, startling me and making me release the front of Henry’s T-shirt. “We’ve got a lot of people to serve, so move it. Also, there’s a ton of people taking pictures…”
“Fuck,” I muttered. That moment was going to end up all over the internet within the hour if it hadn’t already.
I was pretty sure at least one person would’ve streamed the whole thing live, although I clung onto the vague hope that half the people in here didn’t even know what Instagram and TikTok were, let alone how to stream live video.
“I’ve got this,” Henry said, giving me a soft kiss before turning to the room. Everyone was staring at him. “Hey everyone, thanks for your patience and apologies for disturbing your afternoon.” He smiled charmingly at them with an expression that suggested they were all old friends.
“I realise that this is an unusual situation, and I’m sure several of you have captured the moment spectacularly.
However, I’d please ask you to refrain from sharing any photos or videos with anyone.
I realise that sharing such a personal moment so publicly means I have very little right to ask you to keep it to yourselves, but if you haven’t already hit send or post, I’d ask you not to.
In return, I’d like to buy everyone a drink—although please don’t all rush to the counter—and I’ll happily take a picture or selfie with everyone and sign something too. ”
A hubbub broke out amongst everyone as Henry turned and looked at me. “Is that okay? It’s about all I can do. I doubt it’ll do much, but I wanted to at least try. I’ll need to call Celeste and Jenny, though, and we should probably get Cas down here too.”
“Don’t worry,” said Theo, popping up behind Henry and looking startlingly sinister in a black suit. “Laurie and I will guard the door, and I’ll have a polite word with everyone as they leave.”
“Theo,” said Laurie. “You can’t threaten people.”
“I’m not going to threaten anyone,” he said with a disarmingly sweet smile, his blue eyes glittering with malice.
“I’m going to politely remind them what Henry asked and make sure they delete anything they captured beyond official selfies.
Also, I know a surprising amount of family secrets.
It’s amazing what people will confess to a dead body when they think nobody is listening. ”
We all stared at him and Theo shrugged. “What? Everyone always forgets we have cameras in that room and that I’m usually working on the other side of the door in case they need something.
I’m not invading their privacy, I’m just doing my job, and if they didn’t want me to know their secrets, then they shouldn’t spill them. ”
“We’re going to talk about this when we get back,” Laurie said firmly.
Theo looked utterly unconcerned and the pair of them strolled casually towards the door as Henry turned to deal with the crowd of people who’d all formed a fucking queue around the shop. Because of course they fucking had.
It took an hour to serve everyone their extra drinks, and Henry happily added the lunches of the people who’d already been in the queue to his bill.
He’d managed to get a message to Cas before he started, and his bodyguard showed up about fifteen minutes in looking pissed to hell and terrifying as fuck.
I thought the only reason he didn’t verbally shred Henry was because they were in public. As soon as we were done, he whisked the pair of us out of the shop and into the back of a blacked-out Mercedes that I’d never seen before.
“This is nice,” Henry said as we climbed into the back seat. “Where did you get it?”
“Borrowed it,” Cas said but refused to tell us from who. “I’m assuming that stunt was your bright idea?”
“Mine? Of course. And no, I didn’t think of the consequences. I had bigger things on my mind, like potentially losing the love of my life through my own bloody stupidity.”
I grinned and reached across the seat to grasp his hand, squeezing his fingers tightly. “I’m glad you did it.”
“Me too. Although I’m sorry because that footage could make life a lot more difficult for you, and I doubt we’ll be able to avoid it getting out.
” He sighed and scrubbed his face with his other hand.
“Ugh, Celeste is going to kill me and that’s if Jenny doesn’t first. Can we just go back to the cottage, please, Cas?
I don’t really feel like dealing with anyone else. ”
“No,” Cas said as he drove towards the castle. “You were supposed to be on set an hour ago.”
“Bugger. I don’t suppose they’d let me off this once? I’d quite like to spend time with my boyfriend. We have a lot to talk about.”
“No. You should’ve thought about that before you decided to make a grand gesture. Or fuck up in the first place.”
“Bloody story of my life, that is,” Henry huffed and I squeezed his hand tighter. He looked over at me sadly. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t quite what I had planned and now you have to spend the rest of the afternoon on set dealing with everything.”
“It’s fine,” I said, and I meant it. Much as I wanted to head back to Henry’s or mine and spend the rest of the afternoon alone, I didn’t mind if I had to wait a few hours first. “I don’t mind, as long as I’m with you. God, that sounds so fucking sappy. Ignore me.”
“Definitely not.” Henry grinned and leant across the car to kiss me. “I’m going to remember that. Spending time with me makes you happy.”
“Obviously it does, dickhead. Otherwise I wouldn’t have wanted you to stay fucking here.”
“Aww, a dickhead said with love.”
“God, you’re annoying.”
“I know, but you love me and I’m moving here, so you’re stuck with me now.”
I laughed, my heart feeling like it might explode at any fucking moment. Was that what real happiness felt like? “Is it too late to change my mind?”
“No, the whole world just saw me confess my love to you in the middle of Novel Tea while holding a pair of trainers.” He gestured to the shoes on the floor of the car.
I didn’t know why he hadn’t put them on, but when I’d asked he’d muttered something about sandy feet and that was all I’d had a chance to get out of him before he’d been dragged back into taking selfies.
“Guess I’m fucked then,” I said.
Henry smirked. “If you want to be.”
“Oi,” Cas said. “Keep your hands to your bloody selves until you get home.”
I sat back in my seat and laughed, still holding tight to Henry’s hand.
The rest of the afternoon wasn’t as painful as I’d imagined.
Jenny and Alice had been waiting for us to arrive and while Henry got dragged off to Wardrobe, Jenny had offered me a cup of tea.
It was strange to sit down with her, and I’d steeled myself for some serious-as-fuck talk about my relationship, but she’d said we’d deal with that later and instead we’d just talked about TV and movies and Novel Tea before she took me down to the set.
She’d asked Alice to find me a chair and I’d been able to sit and watch them filming.
I’d never seen Henry working before but he was bloody brilliant, and it gave me a new appreciation for just how fucking talented he was.
The serious stuff had come afterwards, when Jenny, the show’s three directors, Cas, Henry, and I had sat down for a video call in one of the castle’s dining rooms with both Celeste, Henry’s agent, and someone from the London branch of the fancy PR company who’d been handling our relationship and talked about everything.
Luckily, I hadn’t had to say much and Henry had been belligerent as fuck in defending what he’d done and challenged anyone who attempted to say otherwise.
Nobody had exactly prepared for Henry making a fucking grand gesture in public but, after some discussion, the general consensus was that it had been sweet and wasn’t the worst thing he could have done by miles.
The PR person had seemed fucking gleeful at the prospect of spinning this as some fairy-tale happily ever after.
Apparently, they’d already spoken to someone at Henry’s superhero studio, and they were already preparing their own sickeningly supportive message about their star finding true love.
One thing that struck me was just how protective Henry was of me. It made my insides twist and bubble because watching Henry argue for me was strangely hot. I knew I was a possessive bastard and that it turned Henry on, but I hadn’t expected to find Henry being possessive so fucking attractive.
I’d have bent over the table then and there if nobody else had been watching.
From his smirk, I guessed Henry knew exactly how I felt, beautiful bastard that he was.
“If you want me to post something on Instagram, I can do that,” Henry said. “I bet I can get a copy of the footage. Babe, do you think Theo will have it? I bet he does. If not, I can just post some selfies.”
“Er, probably,” I said, still absolutely fucking stunned by Henry calling me babe.
It was so bloody casual, like he’d done it a million times, but it sent my heart reeling out the window in shock.
It took me a minute to catch my breath, and by the time I had, Henry had already moved on and was tapping away on his phone while Celeste talked about the premiere.
Ah fuck, I’d forgotten about that. I’d promised to go and I didn’t want to let Henry down, so I’d have to suck it up and deal with it. At least I had some time to get my head around that before it needed to happen.
The meeting wrapped up shortly after that, but as we were leaving, Henry pulled me to the side and said, “I know you’ll think I’m making a fuss, but Cas is going to come to Novel Tea for the next couple of days to keep an eye on things.
There’ll be an influx of media snooping around and I don’t want you or anyone else getting cornered, so Cas is going to come and sit near the counter. ”
“Are you sure?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at Cas, who was hovering behind us and pretending he wasn’t listening.
“I’m sure,” he said. “I wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise. And if it gets bad, then Cas will call in the cavalry.”
“Okay,” I said. It wasn’t like I had a choice in the matter, and I was glad Henry had thought about the safety of Spencer and the rest. Ah fuck, Spencer. I needed to tell everyone what was about to happen before it caught them all by surprise.
That was if Theo and Laurie hadn’t told them already. I loved Theo but I didn’t know if he’d be able to keep his mouth shut.
I pulled out my phone as we walked towards the front of the house, the evening sunshine streaming in through the windows leaving puddles of gold on the floor.
Alex
Bit of news. Henry’s going to look at staying here after filming wraps up. Spencer, Cas is coming to the shop tomorrow as security cos Henry thinks we’ll need it after what happened today. Make sure he gets whatever table he wants and food/drinks throughout the day.
Theo
That is like THE WORST way of phrasing that ever!! And you’re leaving out the best part. Henry confessed his love for you in front of the entirety of Novel Tea! It was so freaking romantic I thought I was gonna die <3
Lane
WTF? He did what?
Oliver
Seriously? Is that what you meant by what happened today?
Spencer
It was fucking epic! There’s probably a video of it somewhere, loads of people were recording!
Theo
I’ve got some! Henry already asked me for it. Is he going to post it?!
Laurie
Weren’t you supposed to delete that?
Theo
I was keeping it just in case.
Noah
You really weren’t going to tell us, were you?
Will
Seems like something you probably should’ve mentioned. Nice that he’s staying though.
Anders
Agreed. He seems like a nice bloke.
Jamie
We definitely need to celebrate! Party?
Theo
A party is an excellent idea! Laurie can do drinks again.
Bastian
Fuck no! Sorry Laurie but your drinks are fucking lethal.
Laurie
No offence taken. Looks like Jamie’s already volunteered himself anyway.
Jamie
That’s fine with me. But we definitely haven’t finished talking about Alex not telling us about his superstar boyfriend’s declaration of love.
Spencer
I’ve gotta find you all a video. I bet there’s one on TikTok.
Theo
There better bloody not be! I’ll share mine instead.
I chuckled and typed out a final message, leaving them to argue. I had better plans for my evening than listening to that lot. Namely, taking Henry home and showing him how much I loved him and how fucking happy I was he was staying.
Alex
Thanks assholes, love you too xx