Chapter 20
When Ellie awoke the next morning, she thought of Estella almost before her eyes had even opened.
There was an aching throb in her body that couldn’t be relieved, as she remembered the press of Estella’s body against hers, the tease of her gaze, the heat of her touch in the club, the tension between them in Ellie’s living room holding them at knifepoint.
It felt like capitulation as she reached between her thighs, letting the full fantasy of the night before overtake her: Estella in her bed, the hunger and fury and delicate vulnerability of Estella Grant coming…
Ellie panted, wide-eyed in her bed as the ferocious pleasure of even the idea took over her.
It was a release, she told herself. An escape valve for the building tension.
She would let it out, then never look back, mark it down to the eroticism of getting inside Estella’s skin.
Move right along, Ellie, she told herself.
Thank god this is a short-lived experiment.
God, how you’ll look back one day at this and laugh.
The following week, absurdly, was Christmas.
Where had the year gone? Zara was rostered to work the evening shift on the ward on Christmas Day, so Ellie came over on Christmas Eve to make sure they all woke up together.
She’d been the one who’d started the tradition of buying matching Christmas pyjamas for the three of them, a difficult feat when you lived in the southern hemisphere and it was too baking hot to wear flannel.
Which was why this year all three of them were in a rather pretty pink and red set featuring Minnie Mouse and wreathes of holly.
“Stunning,” said Arthur, as he’d unwrapped his before bed, and he and Ellie had led a fashion parade through the house, while Zara laughed at them from the sofa.
He’d turned fourteen the week before and had gotten the gift he’d begged for: both his ears pierced, like his favourite rapper.
He looked, quite suddenly, absurdly grownup with his eyebrows thickening and his height rapidly catching up on his mum’s.
Ellie watched them both on Christmas morning, mouths full of fancy croissants, arguing over the playlist and her heart seized with joy.
She couldn’t imagine wanting anything more for Christmas.
She wondered — a little too frequently — about Estella. What the hell did a Grant family Christmas look like? Was she piled under nieces and nephews? Doted on by older relatives? Did she host? Ellie couldn’t picture it.
On New Year’s Eve, she and Zara toasted each other with cheap champagne on the front doorstep, Arthur strung out on staying up until midnight after they’d all tried and failed to catch glimpses of the fireworks display above the city by standing on their tiptoes in the middle of the street.
“Here’s to the biggest year of your life, Eloise Silver.
” Her sister chinked her glass to hers. “The year you become a star.” She’d said something along those lines every year since Ellie had graduated NIDA.
But this time, it was different. “Thank you, Estella Grant,” Zara concluded with a wicked grin.
Ellie had grinned back as their glasses pinged, but her stomach had gotten noticeably tight.
This role was taking over life, in more ways than one.
She’d sent a text to the last number Estella had used to contact her on, wishing her — lamely — a happy Christmas, then asking if she was free to meet again.
She tried — and failed — not to feel like she was asking for something she shouldn’t.
She was asking legitimately, damnit! There was still so much more of Estella’s story she wanted to know.
Eventually she started feeling antsy and then resigned.
Estella hadn’t answered the text — if she’d gotten it at all — and the series filming date was creeping closer, with no word from her.
It was for the best, Ellie tried to decide.
She knew a lot about Estella that she’d never have been able figure out, if not by spending time with her.
That had to be enough. And, oddly, the idea of playing Estella was also increasingly alluring, as though inhabiting her on screen was almost as good as being in her presence.
By the second week of January, Fallen called them in to the production office for an all-cast meeting and Ellie walked in feeling sky high. Here she was, at last, in her very first starring role. The difference was palpable.
“Here she is,” said Jimmy Jenkins, gripping her hand in both of his and presenting her to the team of gathered executives, including Pete the show-runner and Anastasia the director, both of whom she’d met a few years ago when she’d filmed her parts for series six.
“Our beautiful Estella Grant.” Ellie, for the first time ever, felt utterly startled to hear herself described as her character.
Because Estella was so utterly her own distinct person now, no longer a caricature of a gangster’s wife, the way she’d felt last season.
Now she was the woman who’d toyed distractingly with the ties of her bright bikini while she’d talked to Ellie about sex.
The woman who’d made Ellie confess that actually, she’d just gone a year without sleeping with anyone at all, and that, oh god, she missed it.
The woman who made her miss it even more, simply by dancing too closely with her in a nightclub and by sitting quietly beside her in Ellie’s dark apartment.
Ellie swallowed. Very belatedly, she realised that getting to study Estella was going to cut both ways. Because Ellie was going to have to act now with Estella in her brain. To walk like her, talk like her, commit on-screen crimes like her, all the while wondering, what will Estella think of this?
She kept the thoughts at bay as the actors, writers and the rest of the creative crew sat around the table together and reintroduced themselves.
She was close with Sophie, who played Alison Hartmann, and remembered Sebastian — her on-screen husband, Mike — fondly from last time.
He was handsome and appropriately menacing, and, to her total delight, extremely gay.
The right kind of sexual chemistry could be difficult to convincingly demonstrate on screen at the best of times, but Ellie knew they both had this one down pat.
Sebastian was an excellent actor, and for her own part, she knew with chagrin that all she had to do was think about Estella — the way she moved, the way her lips deliberately parted when she listened to you — and she’d have chemistry with a pot-plant. A plastic pot-plant.
During their one-on-ones, she sensed delight from the creative team as she filled them in on her thoughts on the character and all the ways she wanted to bring Estella to her full glory on screen.
She fought the urge to prod them, to figure out their intended angle, slightly afraid that if Estella ever did get back to her, she’d ask questions about the script that Ellie didn’t want to answer.
The day finished up with a quick toast of champagne for a great season ahead, then slowly the room began to empty. She was just bidding farewell to Sophie, when she heard the voice close behind her.
“Eloise.” She turned to see Jimmy Jenkins waiting for her.
His tie was loosened, his top button undone.
He was a larger-than-life presence, but then again, he was one of the most powerful figures in the Australian television industry.
All their careers were in his hands. She’d met him only a handful of times during season six, during casting mostly, and at the odd industry event.
He was hard to miss in any room: broad shouldered, heavy-set, towering above most average humans. She smiled up at him, instinctively.
“Mr Jenkins.” She shook his offered hand, and he squeezed it in both of his. His palms were hot and sweating.
“Jimmy, please.” He smiled back at her, teeth blindingly white in his jowly face. “Have you got half an hour? I make it policy to have a bit of one and one time alone with my star.”
“Oh,” Ellie said. Sophie was waving a final goodbye as she disappeared on her way out the door and Ellie waved back.
She was conscious of the hair on the back of her neck standing up, and she wasn’t sure if it was just the focussed attention of a powerful man, the impact of the word star, or the way the once loud room had rapidly quieted as the cast trickled out.
“Of course,” she said. “I’d love to. Shall we sit? ”
“Let’s head up to my office,” he said, his large hand appearing on the small of her back.
Some kind of small alarm bell started in the back of her brain, but she forcibly silenced it.
Don’t be stupid, she told herself. He’s the head of the production company.
You’re in the starring role. Of course he needs to speak with you.
She nodded and made herself smile, and he led her out through the door and into the silent, empty corridor, heading towards the back of the building.
She could hear her heels echoing around them in the quiet as they clicked along the marble.
He led her to the elevator, and she saw her reflection, slightly wan under the dim lights.
She could feel the way Jimmy hadn’t taken his eyes off her for even a second and she became uncomfortably aware of the amount of flesh she had exposed.
She’d dressed today the way Estella would, trying out how it felt to be in Estella’s skin again.
She was pretty sure it didn’t feel like this.
She swallowed hard, and offered Jimmy a brightly bland professional smile, as the door slid open on an empty floor with a series of numbered doors.
What was this building? Was there a hotel on top?
It kind of looked that way. She felt queasy, but she wasn’t quite sure how to politely backtrack.
“This way,” he directed her down the corridor, one hand on her lower back, the other pulling a swipe-card from his pocket as he stopped outside one of the doors. Ellie’s heart was banging in her ears at the odd energy coming off this powerful man, something jarring in the atmosphere.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” came a thin voice out of nowhere.
They both turned abruptly, though Jimmy didn’t drop his hand from Ellie’s spine.
There, quite suddenly, was the young woman from the reception desk, appearing from the bank of elevators.
Ellie had never felt more relieved to see anyone in her life.
Lucia was slightly out of breath, her eyes wide.
“Your wife has been on the phone,” she said to Jimmy, apologetically. “She said—”
“It can wait, Lucia,” Jimmy said coldly, his jaw going hard. “I’ve asked you to hold my messages this evening. As you can see, I’ve got an important meeting.”
“I’m so sorry,” Lucia said, going very still.
She seemed to run out of words. Her eyes flicked to Ellie and held her gaze, something urgent flaring that Ellie couldn’t understand.
She felt her breathing speed up and realised that hers had unconsciously aligned with Lucia’s.
Something was very wrong here. She remembered, with a jolt, Lucia’s sharp insistence, all those months ago, that Ellie never meet with Jimmy Jenkins alone.
“Oh my goodness,” Ellie said quickly. “I’m so sorry.
I just remembered that my boyfriend made dinner reservations tonight to celebrate!
” She pulled just out of reach of his sweaty grip.
“He’d be so disappointed. Can we please postpone?
I’d love to take the time to meet properly.
” She gave Jimmy her biggest, sweetest smile.
“Of course,” he said, no trace of disappointment, or of the steel he’d just used on Lucia. It made her break out in goosebumps to see the shift. “We’ll do drinks. I can send you a car.”
“I’d love that,” Ellie said. She felt his eyes on her back as she clipped away from him and stabbed the down button for the lift.
“Lucia, do you think you could please help me with directions?” She wanted this young woman as far away from this man as possible; she knew exactly what she owed her.
But as the doors slid closed and enveloped them in silence, Lucia turned immediately bright and evasive.
“Oh my god, this season looks so exciting, don’t you think?
” she said loudly, with deep perkiness. “You’re going to be amazing, I just know it.
” She kept up a stream of meaningless patter, all the way down to the lobby and to the front door, not letting Ellie get a word in.
Then she hesitated, her voice in a low whisper.
“Go,” she said urgently. Then she smiled widely and waved Ellie out into the Melbourne city streets.
Barely six steps later, Ellie almost jumped out of her skin, as an arm slipped familiarly through her own.
“Well, hello you,” said Estella Grant.