Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
It’s pointless trying to play things down when I arrive back at the Airbnb. Josh sees through my ‘chilled’ facade the very moment he sets eyes on me.
“What is it?” he asks, and his arms are around me before I’ve even kicked my pixie boots off. “Was something wrong with the proposal? Did something happen on the way back?”
I shake my head. “No, no, nothing at all.” I fight the lump in my throat. “And that’s the thing. The proposal tonight was so good. It was so nice.”
He keeps hold of my shoulders as he pulls away, his stare digging into mine.
“Two guys. A celebration…” He pauses, weighing it up. “I imagine it was quite a loving one.”
“Yeah, it was amazing. They are so in love. So secure. So…” My breath hitches. “And it reminded me of… it reminds me of.” I choke as I try to speak. “And I just miss him, you know? I miss you and him. I miss…”
“Shh,” Josh says and rocks me in his arms. “I know, I know. I miss him, too.”
Josh maintains his composure as I lose mine, his body so firm when mine falls apart. Just like always. Just like it has been since Cannes. He’s such a protector and I love him so much for it.
“What are we going to do?” I ask him. “We can’t lose him for ever, can we? What if we never see him again?”
Josh stiffens at that. “For ever is a long time. We just have to focus on the here and now. You are only just back on your feet, and you’re doing really well. You’re making strides every single day. Worrying about Heath is down the road yet. It’s not the time.”
I push Josh back, taking a deep breath before I carry on.
“You’re lying to yourself,” I say. “You’re denying yourself the pain to protect me from mine. I know you are.”
He blinks, and his lip trembles, just a touch.
“That’s not how I see it, Ells. I’m not denying myself of anything. I’m putting you first, where you should be.”
I run a finger down his cheek.
“I love you, Josh. That’s a beautiful thing. But you have to accept the same. I need to be supporting you, the way you’re supporting me. We’re a team, aren’t we?”
His smile is so genuine. His lip trembles again.
“We’re the best team there could ever be. Rain or shine, it doesn’t matter. We’re in it together.”
My incredible boyfriend is right, we are the best team there could ever be… but that team is smaller than it was in Cannes…
The team in Cannes with the three of us together, free to express ourselves as us, without restraint was a whole new team of its own.
Josh loved Heath before I did. Before I ever met him.
Josh had Heath in his life for far longer than I ever knew.
My pain must dwarf his, no matter how strong he is about it.
I address the elephant in the room. Finally. My inner turmoil wouldn’t let me face it before. I didn’t want to ask the question when I was too lost to think straight, but it’s time now.
“How many proposals have you turned down?” I ask my boyfriend, and he knows what I’m talking about.
He takes a deep breath.
“That doesn’t matter.”
“So, you have, haven’t you? You’ve had proposals and you’ve turned them down?”
“As I said. It doesn’t matter. I did it for him as well as you.”
“Of course it matters! It matters for him, too!”
He grips my shoulders.
“Neither of you were in a position to make any kind of call on that. I had to be the one who held strong. For all of us. Ells, you were suffering. Your situation has been fucking horrendous.”
“And so was yours!”
“Not nearly as bad as yours, sweetheart. Not even close.”
I kick off my pixie boots and walk into the kitchen. I need a hot chocolate, even though I feel sick to my stomach.
Josh joins me in the doorway.
“I would have told you if you’d have wanted to know, believe me.”
I nod. “I know that. I have no doubt. I just wasn’t brave enough to face it. I’d have asked if I was.”
I take the tub of hot chocolate from the cupboard. My hands are shaking as I put the kettle on to boil.
“You could have gone to a proposal with him on your own,” I say. “You could have… I dunno. Kept him far away, but still managed it. Somehow.”
He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t have done that. Not to either of you. You needed me, and support, and care. And Heath is Heath. He needs privacy. He needs his own security in his position, and we’ve been too close to him to risk it. Both of us.”
I close my eyes as he addresses another elephant in the room. I prepare for Josh to carry on.
“My identity could have been linked to yours, just like that.” He clicks his fingers. “It still could. And if anyone caught sight of the pictures of either of us in Cannes with him. If that hit the news. Especially if it hit the news about me and him.”
I lean back against the worktop. He’s right.
Heath’s privacy would have been at stake. Jeez, when things were at their most savage online, it would have been out of this world. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
“I know Heath understands,” Josh says. “It’s natural for the heart to want to rule the head, but when you’re a man in a position like he is.” He sighs. “It’s not as if he’d ever think we don’t want to see him. Jesus, Ells, he knows us too well for that.”
I nod. “I’m sure he gets it. Still hurts, though. For all of us.”
I sigh, because there is a sense of relief now the elephants in the room have finally been acknowledged. I couldn’t face looking at my own Agency account, let alone think about Heath’s and any fallout landing at his door. I didn’t have the mental strength to handle it.
I gesture to the tub of hot chocolate in case Josh wants one, but he shakes his head. Damnit, I don’t even want one myself, but I need the sugar hit.
“You’re getting better now,” he says. “I’m so proud of you. You could have been holed up for months with that barrage of shit going on around you, and that would have been totally fair. But you weren’t. You’re such a fighter.”
I scoff laugh. My eyes feel swollen from crying.
“I don’t feel like much of a fighter right now.”
“Well, I’m looking at one. I see one, even if you don’t.”
“Thanks.”
I stir my hot chocolate. My hand is less shaky now.
The pain of loss is settling now it’s had its airing and crystalised it into something tangible.
Something we can face together. And I’m ready for that.
I’m ready to be at Josh’s side again, standing tall, rather than a wreck in his arms every night.
“Are you ok?” Josh asks me. “Like I said, I would have told you, if you’d have asked.”
I meet his eyes. “I know you would have.”
I sip my hot chocolate while he leans in the doorway. He hasn’t had a proposal tonight. He’s in a pair of loose grey joggers and a baggy black t-shirt, hair unkempt after a night of waiting up for his hooker girlfriend to get home safe, but he still looks incredible. He always does.
“When did you last hear from him?” I ask.
“Almost a month ago now.”
“How many times did he try?”
“Three. Once straight after we got back, actually.”
I shudder at the thought.
“He must have been freaking the fuck out about getting exposed.”
“Or freaking the fuck out about you.”
My eyes widen. My heart pangs.
“He’d have known I’d be safe,” I say. “Safe with you.”
“Yeah, he would have.”
I look through the kitchen window. Dawn hasn’t hit yet, and there is that kind of calm ambience that always comes in the early hours of the morning, when most people are fast asleep. Psychic silence.
“For ever is a long time, you’re right,” I say. “We’ll see him again, won’t we? We have to.”
“I’m not making promises. It’s not my place to. But we can hope. We can stay positive and keep building ourselves back up.” He smiles. “And hopefully, soon, we’ll get home. That’s a good first step to focus on.”
Fuck, how I’d love to be back in Belgravia. This Airbnb is great, but the idea of walking back in through our own front door. Bliss.
“One step at a time,” Josh says. “And you’re sprinting like a champ, baby. You really are.”
When I look at the love of my life standing in the kitchen doorway, with the look of pure adoration on his face, it makes my heart swell. It’s so genuine. So real.
I’ve been in a box of mirrors this evening, but I don’t need a mirror to know I’m looking back at Josh with the same kind of devotion.
It stirs something else in me. The need to stand firm and tall for my partner, supporting and caring for him as brilliantly as he has done for me. And that involves something he doesn’t likely even realise. He’s so selfless when it comes to putting his loved ones before himself.
Somehow, somewhere, in some place and time, Josh needs to see Heath again.
And somehow, somewhere, in some place and time, that’s going to happen. I’m going to make sure of it.
I pray to God I’m there with them, but even if I’m not, it doesn’t matter. Josh needs to see Heath again.
“Come, drink your hot chocolate on the sofa,” Josh says, with a smirk, the awesome charisma back in his eyes. “I need a snuggle with my hot, pixie princess, and I have something to show you. Something you’ll want to see.”
I follow him through to the living room, and he already has his phone in his hand. He’s scrolling through his feed as I take a seat next to him, pressing up close to his side.
I don’t flinch when I see Connor’s stuck up, dumbass fucking face onscreen anymore. All I get is the ick. But I definitely don’t get the ick at the text underneath it. Far from it.
The MUA in the bathroom with Connor, while he was supposedly loved up with Katie Del Francis, has come out publicly. She says he was an arrogant bully, and she didn’t want to lose her career over it. That’s why she went along with him and betrayed Katie.
She says she was treated like a hooker. Told how she needed to perform like she was nothing but a cheap whore. He even gave her a tip for her services. But she wasn’t a hooker. She was just a makeup artist trying to do her job.
She used to be a fan of his, sure, she says. But not anymore. Not now he’s treated her like that, and fucked Katie over as well.
What a big fucking tit Connor is turning out to be now he’s in the spotlight.
And what a big fucking win for me.
Katie Del Francis is firmly on side with poor Miss MUA, and the arguments are raging in the comments, post after post after post. Out of a whole chain of threads, there are only three mentions of me as the previous ‘hooker’ Connor claimed to be involved with, and they are on team MUA, saying he must have a whole backlog of talking shit.
The tide is turning, and the interest in me is firmly slipping away.
I only hope Connor keeps fucking up like the wanker he really is. The world will see his true colours a lot more clearly than I ever did, naive and besotted with him for years.
“Keep that sprint up, Ells,” Josh says, and kisses my head. “Everything is going to be just fine.”
With a sigh, I snuggle in to my amazing man.
I hope he’s right.