Chapter 12 #2
I rip my phone from inside my jacket. I know where to look first—The Sun.
And there it is. Fucking Damien Hollis strikes again.
This time it’s a rehash of a piece he wrote six months ago about me and some bloody model.
A friend of Briar’s. We had a drink. One drink.
But apparently that counts as a sordid fling worth reprinting.
Christ. The man must be desperate, clinging to his job.
Lazy bastard can’t be bothered to find a fresh victim, so he drags my past out again, just when I’m trying to prove I’m not that guy anymore.
Rachel leans closer, peering at the screen. “Nice headline.” She reads it out, amused: Runway to Riot: Teddy’s Catwalk Crush. A grin tugs at her mouth. “Better than Love Rat Riot, don’t you think?”
She says it lightly, teasing, like it’s all a joke.
But it isn’t a joke to me. Not when the papers seem determined to freeze me in place as the playboy I’m trying so hard to leave behind.
The truth is I haven’t touched anyone in months.
I want to tell her that, make her see I mean it.
But all I manage is a shrug that feels as fake as the story splashed across the screen.
Rachel lifts a brow. “Thought you’d want to know. If you ever get sick of Hollis, I’ve got a friend who does defamation cases.”
The offer sounds offhand, tossed out like she’s talking about fixing a parking ticket. It hits a nerve. Part of me wants to take her up on it, to burn Hollis to the ground. Instead, I force a laugh and shake my head.
“Nah. Let him write what he wants,” I mutter, shoving the phone away, though my chest is burning.
I gather up Bodie’s reins and turn her from the grass, pushing her into a reluctant walk.
Anything to end this humiliating moment.
I need a way to prove—to Rachel, and maybe to myself—that I’m not the bloke in that headline anymore.
Garrett told me, one day at a time. Fine.
I’ll keep showing up, every bloody day, until she realises I’m more than the mess splashed across the papers.
Breakfast is a full British fry-up. Exactly what I need to take the edge off after Rachel catching me in my latest tabloid fiasco.
Everyone else looks like they need it too after last night’s piss-up.
I’m easily the least affected; after leaving Rachel, I was too wound up to join them chugging cocktails.
I still scoff my food. Rachel doesn’t look like she’s any worse for wear either, sitting at my elbow, loading more bacon onto her plate.
“Oh, this is so fucking good,” she moans, eyes closed. “I think I’m taking Tommy home with me as my personal chef.”
The man really is a wonder. He doesn’t do it quite on his own; I’ve spotted a couple of staff in the kitchen, but Tommy seems to run it like a kinder version of a Gordon Ramsey restaurant, turning out incredible meals for the ten of us and watching us dispose of them with a toothy grin of pride.
“You might have to help me into my dress come Saturday,” Rachel says to Sam while stabbing at a piece of black pudding. “There’s no way thoughts of fitting a bridesmaid dress will make me pull back from this.”
I love a woman with an appetite. I’ve sat across from too many girls terrified of food, watching them chase lettuce around a plate with a wary eye, as if calories could navigate the air between food and their mouths.
My sister, Briar, has fought hard against being one of them, but it’s not easy.
You can’t be a star of the West End and not have some fuckwit journalist think they’re entitled to comment on things they have no right to.
Once the media fixes its eye on you, everything—your body, your family, your life—is always the subject of their speculation.
Another hurdle I’ll have to cross with Rachel.
I want her in my life beyond this week; but that would mean throwing her straight into the world Briar and I already live in.
One public appearance together and it would be all on—the cameras, the headlines, the speculation.
Would she meet it with the same ‘don’t give a fuck’ attitude she’s showing now?
Or would the glare chip away until the confident woman I see in front of me was just a shadow?
I don’t think I could live with being the reason she broke.
It’s selfish to want her anyway—selfish to ask her to sign up for that life just so I can keep her in mine.
The press has crushed tougher people than Rachel MacDonald.
But maybe Hollis has done me a favour. His latest shitty stories have already slapped my past in front of her.
She’s not na?ve; she knows if she were with me, it would be her face in the photos, her name in the headlines.
I need to trust her intelligence. If Rachel dives into the deep end with me, she’ll do it knowing exactly what sharks are lurking in the water.
“Best we all eat up.” Sam seems surprisingly perky, spearing a little sausage off Ollie’s plate. “Big day today, according to Haley. Best challenge yet she says.”
Around us, cutlery clinks and chairs scrape. Loreena sloshes juice in a glass; Liv slides a stack of buttered toast over to Garrett. But Sam’s confidence cuts over the noise. I decide to bite.
“Probably not one you’re going to win, Sam. Not with him.” I nod at Ollie, who sits next to her with elbows on the table, hands over his face. He looks like he’s got the headache he deserved for being the life of the party.
“We’ll see about that,” Sam says, giving him a nudge. “Nothing that breakfast and a bit of fresh air won’t fix, eh, Ollie?”
“What?” he moans softly. Our lively frontman is nowhere to be seen, just this pathetic hungover bastard slumped opposite me.
“She said, ‘nothing that band practice won’t fix’, mate. A bit of noise to clear the fog.” I pound out a rhythm on the table, and Ollie parts his fingers to glare at me with one eye. Garrett snorts into his coffee, earning himself a muttered curse from Ollie. I smirk back.
“Fuck off, Teddy,” he snaps.
“Definitely not our usual friendly leader this morning,” I say, and stop the drumming. The guy could probably use a break when he’s going to have Sam whipping him along for the next few hours.
“The challenge isn’t going to be outside,” Rachel says. “So maybe he can sneak upstairs for a nap.”
“How do you know?” Sam’s eyes narrow, her voice thick with suspicion. I think this girl likes to win too. I imagine, although they’re friends, she and Rachel probably spar with each other the same way Sam and Ollie do.
“Saw some activity in the ballroom on my way here for breakfast,” Rachel says, keeping her voice low like it’s a secret she’s generously sharing. “Raymond, directing some of his staff with boxes. Then, when I nipped off to the loo earlier, the door was locked.”
“Spy mission thwarted,” Sam says with a chuckle. “Just as well. We don’t need you with an advantage.”
“We don’t need me with an advantage either,” Rachel grins. “They can throw what they like at us, but we’ll win.”
“Last night says otherwise,” Sam retorts, with a smug expression.
Rachel shakes her head, not the slightest waver in her confidence. “Get real, Sam. They can’t have this competition and not let the bride and groom win at least one challenge. Haley and Christian had their night. From here on, it’s going to be a clean sweep for us.”
Christian mutters something under his breath that makes Liv laugh, but Rachel keeps her gaze locked on Sam, unshaken.
“Tough talk there, Barbie,” Sam says, sliding from her seat and heading for the sideboard where there’s tea and copious supplies of medicinal coffee.
“Bring it on, Ninja Nurse,” Rachel calls after her.
“Barbie, huh?” I say. I can’t stop the grin sliding across my face. “Good movie, by the way. Saw it with Elodie—she made me sit through it twice.”
She shoots me a warning look. All it does is fire my need to wind her up some more.
“So, which one are you? Legally Blonde Barbie?” I raise my palms at her glare. “Thank my sisters. They love that movie.”
“At least I don’t need a Ken like you to pay my mortgage,” she shoots back.
“Scottish Barbie? May contain sarcasm and traces of single malt,” I choke out between laughs, surprising even myself with my creativity this early in the day.
“Oh, aye. Ye’re spot-on, laddie—best mind it.” She’s laid on the Scots so thick it’s halfway between a piss-take and a dare. I can’t resist.
“Whisky Barbie? Aged to perfection.”
“Now you’re on fucking dangerous ground.”
She stabs a pointy nail at my chest, and my breath hitches at the thought it might leave a mark.
She’s close enough now I can catch the scent of her hair, like flowers and coconut.
The image of bunching it in my hands and yanking her lips to meet mine makes my pulse kick up a notch. Her eyes glow with mock outrage.
“Really. Fucking. Dangerous,” she threatens, fisting my shirt so it tightens around my throat. My heart thumps at the thrill of her grip.
A cough comes from down the table, but I don’t turn. The whole bloody room could be watching, and I wouldn’t care.
But I can see the twitch at the corner of her mouth. She’s older than me and she owns every bit of it—doesn’t flinch, doesn’t deflect, just leans into the joke like it’s armour. So fucking Rachel.
“Dangerous is my middle name, my lovely.” I don’t usually haul out the Cornish lilt—it feels like a throwback to a kid I’ve mostly outgrown. But she’s gone broad Scots, so I give mine a little flex. The way her eyes flare—maybe I should do it more often.
She’s enjoying this as much as I am, and Christ, when’s the last time I’ve had this much fun just talking to a woman?
Most would have either thrown something at me by now or ignored it while batting their eyelashes, still trying to get into my bed.
Rachel’s doing neither. She’s giving as good as she gets, and it’s bloody intoxicating. “And yours is Trouble.”
“You better believe it, buddy,” she says.
I take that as final permission to use the name I’ve already placed on my phone.
I don’t get the chance to whip it out and watch her reaction seeing it next to her number, because at that moment, Loreena stands at the head of the table, banging a juice glass with a spoon.
“Ballroom, please, people. We start in ten minutes.”
“Told ya.” Rachel fixes Sam with a triumphant smile. God, this woman loves being right. As we head for the ballroom, I tuck that away for future reference.