Chapter 17 Megan
MEGAN
“Nikki? What are you doing here?”
I stand in the doorway of the cabin, trying to get my best friend into context with a backdrop of verdant mountains, cable cars, and Gio’s security team backing away now that I’ve confirmed my guest’s name.
“Auntie Nikki!” Amber comes up behind me and wraps her arms and legs around my best friend. “Are you on vacation too?”
“Well, I will be if your sister ever lets me in.” Nikki grins at me.
“Oh my God. I can’t believe you’re here.” I stand back and hold the door wide open.
Nikki walks in, Amber still clinging to her like a koala bear. She shrugs a small pink carryall over her shoulder and onto the floor and turns three-sixty while she inspects the cabin. She lets out a low whistle. “So, this is how the other half lives, eh?”
I laugh. “Are you going to tell me why you’re here?”
“Are you going to offer me a cup of real coffee and a cake?”
“How do you know I’ve been baking?”
This feels so surreal. I can’t believe we’re standing in a cabin in Stowe, which is quite possibly one of the most beautiful places in the world, discussing cakes.
“Um, this place reeks of sugar?” Nikki arches an eyebrow. “It’s a dead giveaway.”
Amber climbs off my friend and runs to the kitchen where she grabs a basket filled with confectionery. “We made chocolate slabs and brownies,” she announces with a proud smile.
“Well, hit me up with one of each.” Nikki follows her into the kitchen, pulls out a seat, and sits down, making herself at home.
“I could murder a coffee, Meg. Do you have any idea how exhausting it is traveling by private jet?” She fans herself with her hand and adopts a plummy spoon-in-her-mouth British accent.
I follow them and switch on the coffee machine.
As if by magic, Ric appears. “Did someone mention coffee?”
Nikki eyes him suspiciously, sitting forward and instinctively moving closer to Amber.
“Nikki, this is Ric, Gio’s bodyguard. Ric, this is Nikki, my best friend, who still hasn’t explained why she’s here.”
They shake hands formally. “How long will you be staying?” Ric asks.
“As long as she’ll have me.” Nikki hooks a thumb in my direction. “Although the room service is shocking. I’ve traveled all the way from LA, and I still haven’t been offered any refreshments.”
“Okay, okay.” I can’t help giggling like a schoolgirl. “The coffee is coming.”
I glance up at the security camera set in the corner of the room and smile. Gio is behind Nikki’s unexpected arrival, and I want him to know that I’m grateful.
I hardly spent any time with her in LA before Gio whisked us away to New York, but now that she’s here, we can have some quality time together, catch up on all the gossip, and maybe even do some sightseeing.
For a few brief, giddy moments, I almost forget the reason why we’re here in the first place with a whole team of bodyguards and cameras following our every move.
I shrug off my resignation and fill three cups with steaming coffee.
I don’t realize how much I’ve missed Nikki until she’s here with me.
The three of us: me, Nikki, and Amber, share the king-size bed in the main bedroom, Amber in the middle, snoring softly, bottom lip slack while we whisper late into the night over mugs of creamy hot chocolate.
I tell her about the escape from New York, and she listens intently like this is a true-crime podcast, and she’s trying to figure out the perpetrator.
When I’m done, she says, “Do you wish you’d never come to America?”
“No.” My head sinks back into the squashy pillows. “I wouldn’t have met Gio.”
“Okay.” Nikki leans on one elbow and peers at me over the top of Amber. “Please explain why you didn’t accept his marriage proposal.”
I suck in a deep breath, puff out my cheeks, and release it slowly. “Long story.”
“That’s what he said.” She checks the imaginary watch on her wrist. “I’ve got all night, and I’m not getting out of this bed until I understand exactly what’s going on.”
I smile. “I’d forgotten how bossy you can be.”
It feels wrong to talk about Gio when Ric is somewhere in the cabin and there are cameras everywhere. I haven’t located the camera in the bedroom, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Or a microphone.
So, I change the subject. “Anyway, you still haven’t told me who you’ve been seeing.”
A smile stretches the corners of her lips upward, and she launches herself back into the pillows, bouncing her legs off the mattress excitedly. If Amber wasn’t sleeping, I know the room would’ve been filled with the sound of her squeals.
“He’s so drop-dead-gorgeous, Meg. I have to keep pinching myself to make it feel real.”
“Name?” I can be bossy too.
She rolls her head sideways to face me. “I can’t tell you. Not yet.”
Now, it’s my turn to lean on one elbow. “Why not? We’re a million miles away from LA, and he’ll never know that you told me.”
“I promised I wouldn’t say anything. Even to you.” She chews her bottom lip. “Especially to you.”
“Nik are you sure he isn’t married?” It sounds mighty suspicious to me; it’s the number one reason why a man would want to keep a relationship a secret.
“I swear he isn’t.” She doesn’t sound convinced though. “I know how it sounds, but there’s a perfectly feasible explanation.”
“Which is?”
I’ve never heard Nikki be so vague about anything before, even when she first heard about the role that would bring her to LA.
She’s always been superstitious about her roles, firmly believing that if she spoke about them before she signed on the dotted line, she would jinx them into non-existence. But this is secrecy on another level.
She cringes. “He’s ostensibly in a relationship with an actress.
” At my sharp intake of breath, she plunges on.
“It’s for a movie they’re due to make together; their agents are using it as a marketing angle.
Once filming is over, they’ll publicly announce their separation, and then we can all get on with our lives. ”
I can tell how desperately she wants to believe this.
She’s got it bad. In fact, I’ve never seen her so excited about a guy before.
But I’m worried that she’s going to get hurt.
He and his actress ‘girlfriend’ will make that movie, then there will be the premieres, the red-carpet events, the promotion, and before they can go their separate ways, a year will have passed by.
Then there’ll be another movie. Another reason to stay together.
And where does that leave Nikki?
But how can I burst her bubble when I don’t even know his name?
“Are you happy, Nik?”
“Yes.” She sinks into the pillows, her eyes drifting shut.
The following morning, complete with the security team wearing sunglasses to disguise the fact that they’re eyeballing us from all directions, we head into Stowe.
Amber and I have already gotten used to their presence, but Nikki keeps glancing over her shoulder and checking out their reflections in store windows. “Do they follow you into the restrooms as well?” she mutters under her breath.
“Only in crowded places.” I try to make light of the situation.
I don’t know how much time we have together before she needs to get back to LA—she told me that Gio helped her get the audition for a second movie—and I want it to be as normal as possible.
The Mercantile Store is a pretty pink building straight out of a Hallmark Christmas movie.
We buy sweets from large glass jars, hazelnut-flavored coffee in regal-looking packets, blue-and-gold mugs with our initials on them, and a teddy on skis complete with thermal jacket and holographic wraparounds for Amber.
Ric pays for everything.
There are some tourists in the town although it is out of season.
No one pays us any attention, and we soon settle into our old friendship, window-shopping, grabbing large doughy pretzels to eat out of paper bags, and stopping to chat to anyone walking a dog.
Amber talks relentlessly about Bella, and I pointedly ignore Nikki’s glances.
I know what she’s thinking. Who will look after the dog while we’re here and Gio is busy being a workaholic in New York? Does the dog mean that I’m going to accept his proposal? What if I say no? Will we take it back to London with us?
So, when Amber points out the cable cars like red ladybugs carrying tourists up and down the mountain, I ask Ric if we can ride it. And he agrees.
Getting him to ride in the car behind us is a little trickier. But eventually, he clears the SkyRide of other passengers by booking up all the slots around our ride time. His team splits into pairs and boards the other cars before and behind the one Amber, Nikki and I climb into.
Amber presses her hands against the glass, and stares at the mountain as we begin the ascent, skimming the tops of giant fir trees.
“Come on, spill the beans.” Nikki speaks in hushed tones even though this is probably the only chance we’ll have to be alone. “What’s going on with you and Gio?”
Deep breath. I tell her about Lucia. She listens, without interrupting, to Gio’s claims that the engagement was nothing more than a contract between families, while Amber provides the soundtrack to our conversation.
“Look, Meggie! There’s snow at the top of the mountain.”
“We nearly hit those trees.”
“Why are the other cars empty?”
“What will we do when we reach the top?”
I half-expect Nikki to respond with an emphatic “Dump him!” when I’m finished.
But instead, she peers out at the mountains with their lush vegetation and their snowy peaks, and says, “I think you should give him the benefit of the doubt, Meg. He got you out of New York, didn’t he?
He’s letting you stay in that beautiful cabin.
You’ve got enough bodyguards to fill a waxworks museum. ”
“A waxworks museum?” My heart is fluttering like crazy.
I don’t know what I’d have done if she had told me to dump him. Ignored her, maybe? But now that I know I have her approval, it’s like she has given me the green light to go running back to him and beg him to elope with me.