Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I ’ve never been on a yacht before, and have no idea whatsoever of the grandeur of one when it’s up close and personal. It looks like a billionaire owns it, and they probably do. Heath is multi-millionaire turf, but even he raises his eyebrows when our host welcomes us onboard ready for our luxury afternoon tour of the C?te d’Azur.
The view from the deck is stunning, showing off the Vieux Port de Cannes and its bustling, high class atmosphere. It’s so glamorous here that many yacht afternoons involve nothing more than hanging around on the boat while it’s moored, but Heath has gone all out for this reward – as expected. We’re going to be having a true sailing experience.
“I know you love the sea,” he says.
He takes a seat next to me on the deck, not nearly so caught up in his disguise as he was at the vineyard just a few days ago. He’s opted for casual. A designer shirt in whites and pale blues, with no tie. A dark blue pair of chino shorts finish it off perfectly. His hair is in a ponytail, and he’s wearing a cap, but it isn’t twisted up and out of view this time around, and his sunglasses are smaller today.
Josh is in purples, hardly a shocker. A deep mauve t-shirt with some black chino shorts like Heath’s – clearly plucked out of Heath’s wardrobe.
I’m the only one truly dressed up for the occasion, my makeup styled to the max and my hair flowing down my back, sleek and straight. I’m in a fitted black sundress, with my tiny black bikini underneath, and it barely covers my ass.
I adore the way the guys don’t take their eyes away from me for so much as a second. The possessiveness in the air from last night still lingers, tense. Hot. Spicy. Enough to give me tingles.
These two stunning men haven’t stopped staring at me all morning. Even through our fruit salad breakfast they looked more ready to eat me than their slices of watermelon. They’d have been more than welcome to, if we hadn’t been pushed to get ready for our adventure.
“Drinks, Mr Mason?” our assistant asks Heath, clearly recognising him, but Heath directs the question to me. “Le souhait de la dame vient en premier.” Ladies first.
“An orange juice, please,” I say. “I’ve still got a muggy head from all those cocktails last night.”
“Same,” Josh says. “Add some lemonade to mine though, please.”
Heath is grinning, his smile perfect in the sunlight. “In that case, I’ll side with these conservative sailors and go for a juice myself. I’ll have grapefruit, please. Grapefruit and soda.”
The assistant leaves us to it, and I dare to probe Heath as to the prices on here, even for an orange juice.
“You don’t want to know,” he says. “It’s quite frankly ridiculous, but that’s Cannes for you. I bought a place here when I was stupid enough to think I wanted to be at the heart of the faux, pretentious celebrity community, but the villa became too much of a home to let go.”
“Woah. We must have cost you a fortune on our excursions this week.”
Heath is still smiling, kicking his legs out with ease. “You make it an entirely different matter altogether. You make the experience more than worth it. I’ve enjoyed every single second. Money well spent.” He looks at me in particular. “I wouldn’t deny you anything, Ella. Any capital involved is irrelevant.”
“Neither would I,” Josh adds, then elbows Heath in the arm. “Heathy baby may have all the dollar and swagger of an A Lister, but I’d still pamper you like a fucking princess.”
“You do pamper me like a fucking princess,” I say to my boyfriend, leaning over to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Every single day. And you know what they say? Treat me like a princess, fuck me like a whore. I’m a winner on both fronts.”
“Thumbs up for that,” Heath says. “And I’m not a bloody A Lister, Josh, thank God. I can’t hack the attention of being a B Lister, let alone the top of the tree.”
Heath is playing it down a bit. Yeah, worldwide he has more of a cult status than a mega movie celeb would have, but in London, he’s one of the best known faces on TV.
I think he’s playing it down for himself, more than anyone else right now, and that works for me. Whatever it takes to make him feel good. He’s certainly feeling better at being outside the villa walls.
I just hope it can last when we’re gone.
When we’re gone.
Fuck, how that thought pains.
Tomorrow morning we’ll be on a flight out of here, back to not-so-sunny Heathrow airport.
It’s not just the hangover giving me nausea, it’s the knowledge that we’ll be leaving our wonderful client behind. So much of me wants to take him by the hand and ask him to come with us, but I can’t. I daren’t.
Nausea turns into excitement as the yacht’s engine fires up. I hand my juice to Josh so that I can jump up and down as we depart from the marina, transfixed by the trail of foam the boat is leaving behind.
I love the sea. It’s AMAZING. I love being ON the sea. It’s absolutely out of this fucking world.
Heath dismisses our assistant with a non, non, merci when they offer us a talk as to what the tour involves. Turns out he already knows the deal well enough himself.
We are headed for the Lérins Islands. A group of five Mediterranean islands located off the coast of Cannes. The two largest islands are ?le Sainte-Marguerite and ?le Saint-Honorat apparently, but there are some smaller ones that are uninhabited. Jesus, every single view is spectacular.
We have the opportunity to moor up and explore the islands if we want to, but I have to decline. I don’t want to get off the sea. I don’t want to leave this gorgeous boat, not even for a second.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m getting cheeky. I just… I love it.”
“That’s ok, curva,” Heath tells me. “If you would prefer to stay on the boat, we’ll stay on the boat.”
“I love the idea of the islands,” I say. “There are a billion things I’d like to explore here, I just… this is so great being on here. With you.”
“Why, thank you.” Heath slaps Josh’s leg playfully. “And how about you, sweet Joshua? Are you happy staying on the boat?”
“Too right,” Josh says. “This is a beast of a trip already without parking up anywhere.”
“Maybe next time, though?” I say, hopefully, praying there will be a next time here with Heath, because if there isn’t…
My heart can’t even go there.
Heath grins at me. “We’ll do a proper trip of the islands another time, don’t worry. For now, let’s all just enjoy the sea.”
His words are like music to my soul, and from the way Josh is grinning out at the waves, they are music to his, too. All three of us are buzzing high – and the hangover recovery begins. My soul loosens along with the tension in my head, and my stomach stops turning. No seasickness for me.
I adore the yacht, with its rich interior, but I barely spend any time in it. Fuck the cinema room – which is considerably bigger than Heath’s, and fuck the bar and the games room, too. I want to be Rose on the Titanic, standing with my arms spread at the guard rail and letting the wind of the ocean sweep my heart into the clouds.
“I think you must have been a mermaid in a past life,” Josh says when I plop my butt down between them after another squeak and arm spread. “A sea addict.”
“Good job I have a villa in Cannes, isn’t it?” Heath says, and it’s a rhetorical question, half spoken in jest, but it cements something.
He wants us back here. For real.
I could cry with glee, I’m so happy.
It turns out that three hours on a yacht feels like sweet FA once it’s over. I could spend three years on one, quite happily, and I look at the boat wistfully as we depart. I figure we’ll get a cab straight back home and disappear into the secluded confines of the villa, but Heath hangs back at the dock.
“Wait one moment. Maybe we could sample one of the seafront bars?” he says. “It’s been a while since I frequented one.”
My eyes widen. A bar? Right here on the bustling seafront? Heath really has picked up his socialising game.
“Sure thing, of course,” I say, and Josh nods.
“Whatever you want, boss .”
The bar Heath is gesturing to is heaving, and clearly mega elite. Swathes of swanky guys in white shirts and shorts. Youngsters blatantly from wealth, hitting it with the loud banter. Women who look straight out of Vogue.
I feel a bit out of my depth with this place, even though I’m lucky enough to be adept at playing extroverted, so I feel a twinge for poor introverted Heath, but he strides ahead. Josh meets me with a smirk as I look his way.
“He’s coming out of his shell. It’s fantastic. Look at the grin on his face.”
“Think people will recognise him?”
Josh takes my hand as we follow our client towards the entrance.
“I’d imagine so. I mean, his hat does a semi decent job and sunglasses are sunglasses, but he’s Heath. People know Heath Mason. They’ll recognise his hair, even if they can’t pin him down for absolute certain.”
We’re at the entrance when two girls come racing past us, shrieking about a real A Lister being in the bar and summoning their friends via video call.
Josh smiles at that.
“Actually, maybe he’ll be alright. There are plenty of eyes on plenty of people, it seems. He might just be able to shrink into the sea of posh without causing a stir.”
Heath is beckoning us over, and it gives me another damn round of butterflies to see how excited he is when the staff offer us a booth in the central aisle. We’re amidst the elite hustle and bustle, and Heath is glowing as the server hands us all a copy of the bar menu. The menu is as lavish as the rest of the place – cut into the shape of the Gates of Glory – foiled in gold.
Fuck seasickness, it’s price sickness that almost has me barfing when I scan the drinks list.
Fifty thousand fucking dollars a pop for a bottle of some crazy ass champagne?! Literally. For one pop and about five glasses. This place has to be having a fucking laugh!
Even the cheapest bottle on this menu costs thousands. Five hundred a pop for a cocktail last night was mental enough, but ten grand for a bottle of champers? Base rate? It feels too much. Way too much.
“What would you like?” Heath asks, with his easy grin still bright on his face.
“Maybe another orange juice, please.”
He tips his head, laughing. “An orange juice, in this place? Don’t you fancy some champagne?”
I actually feel sick at the thought of fifty thousand for one fucking bottle.
“I think I’m alright for champagne, thanks,” I say, wincing as I point to my head. “Still a bit muggy.”
“You don’t need to have champagne,” Heath says. “You could have a spritzer? A cocktail? Bucks fizz? There are plenty of your favourite sparkling wines on here, too. Take a look.”
Bizarrely, I don’t want to take a look. Being on a yacht with Heath Mason earlier felt elite beyond elite, and so did the club and restaurant last night – before I turned into a beach slut, but something feels off about this place.
The atmosphere is… different.
I realise to my absolute horror that I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.
Here, in this bustling show off den, I get another foul taste of what the celebrity culture can be like. Competitive and snarky. Judgemental. Ugly and social media driven, everyone out to prove something. Because that’s what the atmosphere is in here. Snobby.
Snobby and elitist and shallow as fuck.
I don’t know how such a glamourous place could give me the heebies, but it does. It feels septic.
“You alright?” Josh asks, putting down his drinks menu to squeeze my knee. “You got the after effects of being on the sea or something?”
I shake my head. “No, no. I’m alright.” I try to focus on the menu. This is all about Heath’s happiness and experience. Not mine. “Maybe I should go for a lovely sparkling white…”
The words on the list blur as I scan them, the insane prices stabbing me in the guts. I should expect this. The more glamorous the location, the higher the prices, right? The Agency is no different. You get what you pay for. You want elite service, you pay elite prices for them.
I take a breath, because I’m ok with that. If people can afford it, and want to enjoy it, then that’s how it is. If Heath can afford to treat us, and treat himself, and he wants to, then that’s cool.
Or it is until a group to the side of us get a server arriving at their table with six bottles of the fifty grand champagne in a huge bucket, brimming with ice.
Three hundred grand’s worth of champagne in one fucking bucket.
The guys at the table are youngsters, barely my age. They let out Etonian rich boy type huzzahs , practically snorting like toff nosed pricks, and the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
“Fucking hell,” Josh says. “They’re really going for it, getting sloshed at fifty grand a bottle.”
Heath’s eyes narrow as he looks at them, but he doesn’t comment, just watches. Like the rest of the place. The twats suddenly get the attention of the whole damn bar when one of the idiots stands up and raises a bottle over his head.
“Water fight!” he yells, and his friends cheer along, grabbing a bottle of champagne each and raising them over their heads like snobby bully boys.
Water fight? What the fuck? Surely not…
The pig-headed jackasses shake the bottles of fifty grand champagne with everything they’ve got, practically wanking the bottles in their desperation to get the fizz pumped. Time slows down as I watch them. The smug expressions on their spoiled ass faces, their sheer delight at having more money than brains.
The first cork gets popped, and the rest fire in quick succession, and it’s for fucking real. It’s a water fight – or a champagne fight to be specific. Like dumbass kids in a school yard.
The idiot pricks use those prized bottles of deluxe, world class champagne as fire hoses to soak the shit out of each other, laughing like pre-schoolers as they do it. Three hundred thousand fucking pounds spewing over each other without a care.
It transports me back to the Ella working every hour she could at minimum wage, just to feed herself on pasta through the month and pay the bills. The Ella who avoided the tube to save the fare, even though her feet were killing her after twelve hours straight on her feet already. I remember the fear and dread at checking my account balance, and realising I only had a few pounds left until my next pay day – crying because I couldn’t book in any more shifts, I was working so many already. I used to be so fucking scared.
And that Ella sees these idiots through one sorry lens.
They aren’t just smug idiots, out to show off their wealth to the world.
They are cunts.
Selfish. Entitled. Stuck up, snotty cunts, who don’t give a fuck about anything but their own bloated egos.
It stabs a knife into a buried wound, skewering straight into my guts.
I’m no longer the entertainer Holly when I get to my feet at the table and shoot them a look that could kill. I walk towards them, one step at a time, shaking Josh’s hand off as he reaches for mine.
It takes the idiots a few seconds to notice my approach, wet shirted and laughing their heads off as they summon a waiter for another six bottles.
“Makes you feel good, does it?” I ask the ringleader. “Throwing cash around like it’s worth nothing whatsoever, just for a pathetic ego boost? People are starving. Homeless. Battling to earn enough money to pay for their families to eat every month, and you lot… you’re a fucking disgrace. A joke.”
Rage flows through my arms so strongly, I have to clench my fists at my side.
One of the guys looks at me like I’m shit on his shoe.
“Oh, woe is me, says you, in fucking Cannes, you snotty bitch.” Then he laughs. “Oh wait, are you not upper class? Seems not from your accent. Are you a whore on someone’s arm? I bet your pussy is worth less than one of these bottles, so why don’t you shut your self-righteous mouth and quit complaining?”
One of his friends laughs along with him.
“You’ve got it nailed, Jimmy. She’s definitely a hooker, look at her.” He pauses. “How about we give you a bottle and you come sit at our table instead? Let’s fill your trappy mouth up with something other than envy.”
I feel winded, because the burn inside me is anything but envy.
It’s pain.
Hurt.
“You’re nothing but entitled, greedy fuckups,” I say. “Every fucking one of you. You’re fucking disgusting.”
I don’t know where I’m dashing to when I’ve had my say, I just go. Every pair of eyes in the place burn in my direction, but I can’t control myself. All I can think of is the bullying bitches where I used to work, despising me and judging me, and making me take the blame for all their poor efforts and fuckups, just because I was desperate.
Nothing is any different here amongst this kind of elite . This place is full of wankers.
I hear Josh’s voice booming in the background, but I can’t bear to face him right now. My throat is choked up with the need to cry, which is stupid. I’m at the happiest point in my whole fucking life, but some rivers run deep. The memory of hopelessness is still strong enough to bury me.
One of the servers opens the barrier entrance for me and I dash on down to the marina. People are staring, I feel them in a blur, but I keep walking, breathing as deep as I can so I don’t break and cry, because what the fuck have I just done? And what the fuck am I fucking doing?!
I’m not Ella here. I’m Holly the whore. I should be Holly the whore, and Holly has no right to be drawing attention to Heath or acting like that in any circumstances. I’ve fucked up big time.
“Ella!”
Oh hell, I hear Heath’s voice in the distance, and I stop walking, trying to compose myself.
“Ella, wait! Stop!”
I try to bury the pain, and focus on the apology, because I owe him one. I should be grovelling on my knees for being so fucking unprofessional after all he’s done, and he’s got every right to be fuming at me.
I turn to face him, and manage a sorry before my breaths choke me up. I don’t have any words other than that, feeling so small and pathetic and vulnerable and wrong that I don’t know where to start.
“Breathe,” Heath says, and his voice is so still. No rage there at all.
“Leave,” I manage to whimper. “Get away from me, before anyone sees you. I’m sorry. I’m really, really fucking sorry. I just… I can’t…”
I feel the faces all around us, watching. I know how close he is, stepping forward.
“Leave!” I hiss. “Honestly, Heath, just go. Go! I’m so sorry.”
But Heath Mason shakes his head. He takes off his sunglasses, so his blue eyes lock onto mine, and tosses his cap on the floor.
He’s him.
And he’s coming towards me.
“I’m sorry,” I try again, but he tells me to shh – his beautiful eyes so warm, and that’s when the tears finally fall.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he says. “Everything you said is true. And I admire you for it. Ella, I admire you, full stop.”
His words thump my ribs, making my heart pang.
“I shouldn’t have done that…”
He brushes his thumb across my cheek, wiping a tear away.
“Everyone should have. Those idiots deserve every word they got, and you deserve this.”
I stiffen up as he lands his gorgeous lips on mine, because he has to be fucking crazy. He’s lost his mind, kissing me without his sunglasses on while people watch us. People who will know who he is.
Except I can’t stay stiff in his arms with his mouth on mine. I can’t fight the way I want him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and kissing him back as my tears keep on falling.
“I’m proud of you,” he says when he pulls away. “I’m proud of everything you are, and you should be, too.”
I have no words, only the blooming feeling of raw emotion.
Love.
I flinch as I hear the pounding of feet heading in our direction, but it’s Josh, racing towards us at full pelt.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he says, catching his breath. “I just threw that guy over the railings, and tripped his gobby mate up in the aisle.”
“You did what?!” My eyes widen, but his cheeky smirk shines bright.
“They fucking deserved it,” my boyfriend says. “Nobody calls my princess a trappy hooker.”
“ Our princess,” Heath corrects him. “Good for you, Josh.”
Thank fuck there are a bank of cabs waiting at the top of the marina driveway, because my adrenaline spike eases away to nothing and leaves me like a shell.
I need home.
The villa, with its high walls, its secluded grounds, and its beautiful silence.
And my two princes there to share it with.