Chapter 40
The food was incredible, the view out over the lake beneath the sunset was spectacular, the wine exquisite.
Still, Ellie found it hard to fully relax with all the curious eyes on them both.
She could feel Estella’s uncertainty, the way she twisted it up and disguised it with sharp sarcasm and pithy one-liners.
It turned her inside out to know that there was a different side to Estella and she was, perhaps, the only one who got to see her with her claws retracted.
She wanted to say please stop, please come back to yourself, but she knew it wasn’t that simple.
It was one hell of a self-protection mode, but also, who was to say that one version of Estella was more authentic than the other?
Ellie for the life of her, couldn’t say either way.
They ate al fresco, serving themselves and staying on their feet, a long, lazy meal full of conversation.
Ellie suspected that Alison knew full well that there wasn’t a chance in hell that they’d all survive a formal sit-down meal, and she couldn’t figure out why the hell Alison had brought them all together.
“It’s so weird seeing the two of you side-by-side,” Hope exclaimed at one point, two glasses of wine in, gesturing from Ellie to Estella. “Like, you don’t look remotely alike, but oh my god you played such an incredible Estella last season! You’re wildly talented.”
Ellie blinked. Hope sounded absurdly like a legitimate fan which was extremely confusing to contemplate.
“She’s something else,” said Estella. Her tone was wry, but her hand slid warmly around Ellie’s waist to squeeze her. “What?” she said when Ellie side-eyed her. “I’ve told you what an incredible actor you are.”
“I mean, you have,” Ellie said. “But you’ve never told me you think I’m good at playing you.
” She wasn’t sure what had gotten into her.
Wine, perhaps. But suddenly, it nagged at her, taking central importance in her mind.
What did Estella really think about her performance of her literal life?
And why had she never told Ellie, one way or another? Because Ellie was about to do it again.
“You’re terrifying,” Estella said. Her voice was soft. “So, I’d say you hit all the right notes.”
Ellie’s stomach sunk like a stone. She’d played Estella Grant with all the gusto of an incredible, seductive and morally-bankrupt woman, hitting all the slightly camp notes the script had created for her.
It had been wildly fun inhabiting her skin as she manipulated dangerous men and seduced husbands, stoking up the violence all around her and fanning the flames that almost destroyed the city.
And Estella, the real Estella, quite rightly, hated it.
Hated it enough to pursue Ellie, to try to make her play her with complexity and nuance.
Suddenly, the words tumbled out of her, right there at the edge of the party on Alison Hartmann’s front balcony.
“Do you want me to stop?” she asked.
“What?” Estella cocked her head, like she hadn’t heard the words.
“If you tell me that you don’t want me to do this season, I won’t do it. I’ll quit.”
Estella gaped at her, and Hope didn’t even pretend she wasn’t going to stick around for this conversation.
“Ellie,” Estella said reasonably. “I’m quite sure you’d get sued to high hell if you dropped out at this point.”
“Of course.” Ellie swallowed. She knew what she was offering, and she forged ahead anyway. “But it’s your life, Estella. If you don’t want me to play you for the world on television, then I won’t do it.”
“Why?” Estella sounded slightly desperate. “It’s your career! It’s… I’m a great fucking role.”
“I mean, you are.” Ellie couldn’t argue with that. “You’re fucking delicious to play. You’re my chance of a lifetime. But you’re much, much more than that—”
“For fuck’s sake,” Estella breathed out sharply, and just like that, her hand slid around Ellie’s jaw, pulling her in and kissing her.
Ellie couldn’t hide her own short gasp; Estella had never kissed her in front of anyone before, let alone this group of highly invested onlookers.
She couldn’t tell if Estella had kissed her to stop the words that were coming, or because she’d heard the message just fine without them.
When she pulled back, Estella’s gaze was soft.
Hope was still standing there, even though she’d turned her head away, a smile quirking her mouth.
“Do you see what I have to deal with?” Estella said to Hope, as though they were old friends.
She shook her head at Ellie, her voice firm.
“No matter what happens, I want you to play me, okay? Play me going down in a blaze of glory, if that’s where it all ends.
Play me even if it all goes to hell. I don’t want anyone playing me, but you. ”
Just like that, Estella strode away, leaving Ellie standing alone on the balcony. She shivered, as the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Hope’s eyes were warm.
“She’s in love with you,” she said. Ellie shook her head. She could still hear Estella’s voice, predicting it all ending in a blaze. Did she mean them? Or did she mean something else? She craned her neck around Hope, but Estella wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
“Hope.” Ellie cut to the chase. “Why did you and Alison invite us here? What the hell were you thinking?”
Hope reached out, and gently touched her arm, her eyes filling with sympathy. “So you knew where we were. When the time comes. If you need us.”
The hair on the back of her neck was screaming now.
Ellie’s throat worked, trying to find the words.
When what time comes? What do you know that I don’t?
Why would I need you? But just then, Arthur popped up by her side, full of questions of his own, asking Hope a thousand questions about guinea pigs, a subject which she seemed to be oddly expert in, just another surreal addition to the night she was having.
Ellie made her way from the balcony to the empty living room, her heart racing, unable to see Estella anywhere.
She wasn’t in the kitchen, nor in the bathroom, as Ellie tiptoed down the hall.
Then, she saw a door half-open at the very end.
When she peeked in, it was the master bedroom.
Estella was just inside the door, her eyes on the bed, like she was in some kind of a trance.
“What are you doing?” Ellie whispered.
“Hope was sparing you,” Estella said, her gaze fixed. “I held them at gunpoint on the couch, but I also walked them in here, made them get on the bed.” Ellie couldn’t speak. Estella’s voice was low in the half-light of the bedroom, her face in shadows. “It sounds insane, but I wanted closure.”
“Closure?” Ellie wasn’t sure she’d heard right. Gunpoint.
“I know,” Estella said, her tone wry. She was quiet, for a long moment, and then, she sighed. “We need to end this, Ellie.” Her tone was flat, and sad, but quite firm. “There are things coming that I can’t protect you from. And I’m never going to be good for you.”
“Estella—” Ellie wanted to stop her, but she didn’t have the right words to come next, so she just stood there, mouth hanging open in the wind.
“I held those women at gunpoint,” Estella said again, this time with a trace of anger in her tone. “For fuck’s sake, Ellie—”
“You saved their lives. You told me that. Alison told me that, herself!”
“And I also scared the living hell out of them, just to have the last word. I’m not a good person, and let’s not pretend as if I am. My parameters are wildly off. We’re going back to Melbourne tomorrow, anyway. You’ve got a series to film and I’ve got…” she trailed off.
“Got what?”
“I’ve got my own job to do.”
“What job? What’s worth ending in a blaze of glory?’”
“Ellie, oh my god, stop! I didn’t mean anything by that,” Estella said, the lie as clear as day. “Come on, we should go.”
“No!” Ellie refused. “Stop pushing me away—”
“This isn’t pushing!” Estella did push her then, just enough that Ellie’s back met the wall. “If I want to push you, you’ll fucking know it.”
Ellie could see the war in her eyes; Estella wanted her, so much that she refused to let herself have her.
Heat ripped through Ellie at the knowledge, making her lose all semblance of control.
She tilted her throat back, pressing her hips up, her tongue wetting her lip.
“Push me then,” she whispered, and Estella growled in the back of her throat, her hands tightening on Ellie’s hips like a warning.
“Show me,” Ellie goaded her. “Show me what a bad fucking person you are. Do your worst, Estella. Take what you want.”
Estella bit Ellie’s lip, hard, and Ellie almost crowed at her victory.
Because Estella was already pressing her harder into the wall, one hand grasping Ellie’s breast and squeezing, then pushing inside the neck of her dress to touch her skin, twist at her nipple, making her cry out.
Estella was doing everything but pushing Ellie away and that put her right where Ellie wanted her.
Then Ellie’s dress was shoved up above her hips, Estella’s fingers finding her, the words almost accusing in her ear — you’re wet — before she was fucking Ellie, roughly and tenderly, up against the wall of Alison Hartmann’s bedroom.
When Ellie came, shockingly fast, at Estella’s urgent insistence, she almost tumbled into Estella’s arms, kissing her soft skin where her neck and her shoulder met.
“Take me home,” she murmured, trying not to make her desperation clear.
Estella was trying to end this, for better or for worse.
Something was coming. Something that Ellie couldn’t understand or control, something that meant goodbye forever, and she couldn’t figure out how to undo any of this, only delay it.
She took a shaky breath, her fingers tight on Estella’s skin, needing more, needing everything.
“Take me home to bed, please. Let me give you what you need.”