Chapter 7
7
Ten minutes later, hunched into his jacket with a beanie pulled low, Oliver found himself on the beach, an excited Casper racing ahead like it was the first time he’d ever seen sand. He’d only got ten paces when his phone buzzed in his pocket.
Paige.
Nope. More fucking hamster bullshit.
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What the… recognise letters ? Go home, hamster weirdo, you’re drunk. The Hamster Facts person had clearly lost the plot.
Although, if it was true, maybe he could train Pavarotti to write the bloody book!
Shoving the phone and his hand back into his pocket, Oliver trudged along the beach. It wasn’t windy but it was still bitingly cold, the chilly air burning his lungs. The ocean was still a frosty jade, making his testicles retract just looking at it, but it was calm, lapping at the beach with a tiny little frill of foam as it curled in to kiss the sand.
A frill that Casper was currently barking at, chasing the water as it ebbed, running away from it as it pushed forward again to terminate in another little curl of foam. A flock of seagulls landed nearby, their yellow beaks a bright splash against the dull background and Casper forgot all about chasing waves, taking off after them, announcing his imminent arrival with an excited bark, causing them to scatter.
It unleashed a memory from when he was a kid and he used to come to the beach house for his summer holidays. He must have been four or five, eating fish and chips on the beach with his dad. He remembered his father wore a pair of Speedos, his athletic frame a deep nut brown from his tanning salon addiction. Oliver had felt very special with practically everyone on the beach whispering and pointing at them because of his dad. Because they loved his dad. Which he totally understood because he loved his dad too.
A gull had swooped down and stolen a chip right out of his hand and Oliver had cried. More from the shock of it than the loss of the chip. His father had laughed initially but when Oliver had continued crying, he’d clearly been embarrassed by his son’s emotional display, quipping to people nearby, ‘Anybody’d think the kid had lost the part of Hamlet to an American .’
There’d been general laughter and he’d even signed an autograph and he may have only been young but Oliver could still remember realising that he wasn’t the centre of his father’s world.
Pulling his phone out of his pocket, Oliver navigated to his notes app and tapped the microphone and started to talk. ‘I loved my father but nowhere near as much as he loved himself.’
And then he couldn’t stop talking.
* * *
After almost an hour had passed and Oliver hadn’t returned, Paige, who’d been sitting at the table attending to some urgent work that had landed, stopped what she was doing and opened the door to the deck. Frigid air slapped her in the face as she crossed to the railing, her eyes squinting as she identified the man and dog at the far end of the beach trudging back in her direction. Casper was giddily running about, alternating between chasing waves and chasing gulls.
Oliver was holding his phone close to his mouth which was moving and she smiled.
Was he making headway on the book? Or possibly leaving her a disgruntled voice mail about catching his death out on the beach. If it was the former she was going to be smug AF and planned to mention her brilliance as much as possible. If it was the latter, she’d delight in sending it to the Just Desserts WhatsApp chat.
Slipping back into the house, she resumed her work until she heard him enter via the downstairs door twenty minutes later. She could hear him talking to Casper and Paige smiled to herself again. She’d been doing that a lot where Oliver was concerned but seriously, for a man who’d professed to neither liking nor wanting a dog and a hamster, he seemed quite smitten with both of them.
‘Hey,’ Oliver greeted as he approached from behind.
As if she hadn’t been spying on him from the deck, Paige turned, placing her arm along the back of the chair. ‘Hey.’
He was pulling his beanie off, his dirty blond hair totally dishevelled and yet somehow disarmingly attractive in his faded jeans and chunky cable knit jumper. Had it been her letting her curls free from prolonged enclosure in a beanie, she’d have looked like she’d stuck her fingers in an electrical socket but no, Oliver bloody Prendergast looked like he’d just stepped out of the pages of an Old Spice commercial.
His cheeks were pink and his eyes bright and he didn’t seem remotely cranky about the soggy dog beside him tracking sandy footprints across the pristine floorboards.
‘You look pleased with yourself.’
He just nodded and smiled and somehow that had more of an effect on her than if he’d raved effusively. ‘It was productive?’
‘It was very productive.’
And he looked as if a load had been taken off his shoulders and that hit her straight in the solar plexus. She was here in this house to mess with his life a little. To throw a spanner in whatever works she could and this was the very opposite of that. She wasn’t supposed to be helping him. But to see him like this – so… lit up, so engaged. It filled her in a way that nothing else had since she’d had to walk away from her law degree.
The success of her business had been fulfilling and a way to show the world that she’d moved on. But this? It filled an entirely different cavity inside her, one that yearned for an emotional connection she’d denied herself for so very long.
And that was as alarming as it was tantalising.
‘So…’ She wiggled her eyebrows to lighten the moment. ‘I was right?’
He gave a half laugh. ‘Yes.’
Pressing her lips together, Paige cupped a hand around her ear. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you properly?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, Paige Barker. You were right.’
‘You do know I’m going to be unbearably conceited now, right?’
‘I would expect nothing less.’
They smiled at each other then, for a stupidly long amount of time. Clearly weirded out by the prolonged interval of silence, Casper gave a little yippy bark which thankfully shattered the strange moment.
‘Were you serious about helping me? With the transcribing.’
Paige blinked, getting her head back in the game. ‘Sure. Absolutely.’ She could still do that and screw with him in other ways, right?
‘It’s a bit all over the place, just stories I remember from when I was a kid.’
‘That’s fine. Why don’t you download what you have into a Word doc or message it to me, whatever works and I can go from there. I can do a clean version and also start to sort things into some kind of chronological order so it’ll help structure wise later.’
He nodded. ‘I’m not sure of the quality, the wind blew up towards the end and probably interfered with the audio.’
‘It’s fine. If there’s anything I can’t figure out, I’ll flag it. Have you thought about using an app like Dragon or something similar that actually learns your voice and the transcribing is much cleaner?’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘But I’ll look into it. Right after I get this one’ – he glanced down at the wet dog – ‘cleaned up.’
The one in question wagged his tail and stared adoringly at Oliver, clearly knowing he was in no danger of being disciplined over his bedraggled state.
Oliver ruffled the dog’s head. ‘You are an utter disgrace.’
But it was said with complete affection and Paige found herself, once again, all warm and fuzzy on the inside. Gah! It was starting to become a pattern. If she wasn’t careful, it could become a habit. Helping Oliver with his father’s biography was one thing. Getting the warm and fuzzies every time he looked at the dog was another.
She had to remember why she was here – he’d jilted Bella on the morning of their wedding. The affection of a stray dog didn’t expunge that.
As if to remind her of her mission, her phone chimed a notification from the Just Desserts WhatsApp group. She knew it was them because she’d chosen a popping champagne cork as the sound.
Perfect timing .
Grateful for the interruption, she turned to pick up the device, her fingers stalling as Oliver said, ‘You have two phones?’
A spike of adrenaline flushed into her system. Fuuck . The hamster phone – not quite as sexy as the bat phone but appropriate – was sitting out next to her actual phone, plain as day. Careless.
‘You some kind of Jason Bourne?’
He laughed, clearly thinking the preposterous idea amusing. Except she was carrying out secret nefarious stuff so his joke was a little too close for comfort. She’d been having great fun making up shit about hamsters but she really needed to be more careful with this double life she was living. She might not be selling state secrets but what she was doing here was a secret from him.
‘Oh yeah…’ Paige forced both her voice and her actions to be casual as she picked up her phone. ‘One personal, one for work. I like to keep my worlds separate.’
‘Kinda like a… spy?’
She glanced at him and he was smiling again and the warmth was back despite the situation. ‘Well, I could tell you the truth but then I’d have to kill you.’
His smile slowly faded, as their gazes locked. The breath practically stopped in Paige’s lungs and she mentally kicked herself. For God’s sake, she probably sounded like she was flirting with him. And she definitely was not flirting. She’d been… deflecting.
Quickly she added, ‘And you have a dog to wash and a book to write.’
But for once, he didn’t seem pained by either task, he just nodded before looking at Casper and saying, ‘You heard her, dude, you’re filthy.’
It probably shouldn’t be a turn on that he’d said filthy, especially after Harvey had defiled their sex life by sharing it with the world. But the way Oliver said it with zero connotation and 1000 per cent posh Brit, reminded her that once upon a time, she’d loved getting a bit freaky between the sheets.
‘Let’s get you respectable,’ Oliver continued cluelessly as he left with the dog close on his heels to what must surely be smoke billowing out from between her thighs and the clash of a hundred not very respectable thoughts running through her head.
* * *
By the time the following Tuesday rocked around, Paige had rationalised her uncharacteristic reaction to Oliver as purely hormonal. She was clearly ovulating and she never knew how the fuck that was going to pan out so, off-limit thoughts about Bella’s ex were just this month’s little gift from her ovaries.
It was so much fun being a woman.
To compensate she’d gone full VA-from-hell mode, ruthlessly organising and cataloguing his daily oral epistles while leaving coffee rings on every available surface, deliberately letting Pavarotti out which involved a two-hour hamster hunt and losing an earring down the sink which she pretended was a family heirloom and simply must be retrieved.
Oliver had suggested calling a plumber but she’d raised an eyebrow, clearly questioning his masculinity and he’d sighed and asked the great god Google for help because it hadn’t taken a mind reader to figure out Oliver Prendergast had never got his hands dirty in his life.
When he’d finally fished it out despite the general dishevelment from a soaking of gross S-bend water, he’d looked exceptionally pleased with himself and damn if that wasn’t just plain fucking adorable.
She knew a dozen men in her family alone who could unclog an S-bend without having to do a YouTube tutorial prior but somehow Oliver looking all blue collar as he triumphantly raised her two-pound charity shop earring – the little plastic rhinestone winking as it swung from his fingers – made her want to do him under the sink.
Gah!
But, she’d steadfastly ignored all of it. Unlike his writing which she found impossible to dismiss. Paige had made a career out of transcribing various clients’ words into letters, booklets, manuals or whatever document they wanted with zero emotional investment. True they were generally dry business tomes dealing with policy and procedural matters or boring, impersonal company memos and correspondence so they were easy to deal with usually while music blasted into her eardrums.
Oliver’s writings were about as personal as was possible to be and utterly absorbing. The stories as they came in each day tugged at her heart strings. A boy with a father who he adored even through interactions that seemed brief and perfunctory to Paige and, she suspected Oliver, but obviously meant everything to the younger version of himself.
A boy with a mother who understood that her husband was too absorbed by a cutthroat industry and riding the wave of his fame to cultivate a rich family life but had assured young Oliver he was doing the best he could even though adult Oliver had mused in his recordings that she, too, had felt passed over. He recounted a tale when he’d been seven and he’d overheard her telling a friend that becoming emotionally dependent on Roger was pointless because he just didn’t love her enough to make losing herself worthwhile.
It wasn’t – thus far – a typical tale of fame and drugs and adultery like so many Hollywood biographies but she could feel Oliver’s struggle for true connection with his father. The way his pride and admiration warred with his yearning for more. In the stories so far, Roger hadn’t ignored his young son but Oliver had clearly felt the moments of greatest affection from his father were the moments when a camera was around.
The more she read, the more she disliked the famed Hollywood actor. Roger Prendergast may have been able to buy and sell her father dozens of times over but Paige had always been secure in her father’s love and his affection had never felt budgeted or performative.
It made her feel wretched for Oliver and it wasn’t what she wanted to feel. He’d wronged her friend, she was supposed to be feeling vengeful. Which was exactly what she was grappling with at Jiya’s café when Doris and her WI crew crowded inside. The weather was overcast and chilly – just for something different…
The women waved to her as Doris walked over for her usual chat. Instead of her trademark smile however, a frown turned the lines on her forehead into deep furrows.
‘You looked like you lost a pound and found a penny,’ Paige said.
Doris hmphed . ‘Pippa broke her ankle on the weekend,’ she muttered with no preamble.
Paige blinked. Was she supposed to know who Pippa was? Although the name did sound familiar. ‘Pippa?’
‘Geraldine’s great-niece? From ITV? And our guest speaker on Thursday?’
‘Oh yes.’ Paige nodded. She remembered now.
‘She’s apparently fine,’ Doris continued. ‘Had it pinned and plated yesterday and is being discharged today. I honestly don’t see why she couldn’t make it tomorrow; we offered to send a car but she declined which is very inconvenient. I mean, really, millennials never had it so easy. Whatever happened to carry on?’
Paige pressed her lips together at Dorry’s obvious dismay. It was clearly very un-British of Pippa to let down the WI in their hour of need. But having broken her wrist several years ago and been shitfaced on pain killers for an entire week during which time she’d hadn’t been able to string a sentence together let alone perform coherently as a guest speaker, Paige wasn’t so quick to judge.
‘Everyone is so terribly disappointed and now I have to scramble around for someone else to fill the spot at such short notice. Rebecca volunteered to talk about that time she was an extra on the second James Bond film but there’s only so many times you can hear about what a gentleman David Niven was and how many times she shagged the head stuntman who apparently was hung like a donkey.’
Paige blinked. That did seem like a lot of TMI for a WI meeting.
Dorry sighed. ‘Everyone was so looking forward to hearing some real insight into the film and TV industry.’
Before there was a chance to fully think it through, Paige was already opening her mouth. ‘What would you say if I not only knew the son of a famous British Shakespearian actor who made it big in Hollywood but that he is currently living in St Ives. And is also a script writer?’
Well, that was a bit of a stretch but he had written scripts. Or partially written anyway. And he’d hate it which made it about as perfect as it could be.
Win/win.
It was Doris’s turn to blink. ‘You know Roger Prendergast’s son?’
Paige supposed given the tabloid coverage of him being in St Ives all those months ago, it wouldn’t take someone as switched on as Doris to put two and two together.
‘I do.’ She wasn’t about to admit to living with him lest she have the entire WI turn up on her doorstep.
Although…
‘That would be amazing!’ Doris’s eyes sparkled. ‘Would he say yes, do you think?’
‘Of course. We’re like this,’ she said, lying her ass off as she crossed one finger over the top of the other to demonstrate said closeness. ‘I reckon he’d love to help out the WI.’
Given it had taken her weeks to pry him off his couch to just step outside the door to the beach, she knew for sure he was going to hate it. Paige couldn’t wait to see his face when she sprung it on him. ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t even mind bringing along one of his dad’s BAFTAs, probably the Oscar statue too.’
Doris’s eyes practically bugged right out of her head she was so incandescent with excitement. Paige felt a momentary twinge about using an unsuspecting WI in her payback plan for Oliver. But it was doing them a favour. And if it just so happened to completely inconvenience Oliver at the same time then even better.
‘Oh my.’ Doris pressed her hand to her chest like she was about to take a fit of the vapours. ‘That’s better than anything Pippa could offer.’
Paige figured poor Pippa had enough on her hands to be miffed over being one-upped by an Oscar statue.
‘Ladies!’ Doris turned to the group giving their coffee orders, beaming like a freaking lighthouse. ‘We have a replacement for Pippa that’s going to blow your minds.’
And that was it, there was no going back now.
* * *
‘No. Absolutely not . One hundred per cent no.’
‘Oliver.’ Paige, expecting resistance, folded her arms and adopted her sternest expression. She’d waited until later that night when he was watching one of his favourite movies in the media room before she dropped her bombshell. ‘It’s the WI. They’re a national institution. You can’t say no to them.’
The overhead lights were out, the flickering of the screen casting shadows on the walls and across their faces. Oliver paused the movie, the shadows freezing in place as Oliver also folded his arms and returned her gaze unflinchingly. ‘Watch me.’
Casper, who was lying on the couch between them, whined slightly, obviously unhappy about the tension between his humans. ‘You want to say no to a bunch of women whose mothers and grandmothers practically ran the country through two world wars? You’re a braver person than I am. They know things, Oliver.’
There was no response. Just unblinking resolve.
‘Besides, I’ve already told them you would.’
‘Well un -tell them.’
She shook her head, her curls bouncing. ‘It’s impossible. It’s a done deal. I promised Doris. They’re expecting you and they’re so excited. Myrtle is making a batch of her scones which are reputedly the best in the county.’
Oliver gaped. ‘How can you be in town for just over three weeks and already know Doris and Myrtle from the bloody WI?’
‘Because I’m not an anti-social hermit. I met them at Jiya’s café in town and we got talking.’ She bugged her eyes. ‘This may come as a surprise but people actually like me.’
Before she got plastered all over the internet, Paige had been very social. She made friends easily and liked to chat to random people at a coffee shop or on the Underground. The revenge porn had made her more guarded, pushed her into a shell and she was only just starting to realise this exercise she was undertaking with Oliver was dragging her out of her comfort zone as well.
He opened his mouth as if about to rebut what she’d said then shut it again before saying, ‘No. It doesn’t surprise me.’
Paige wasn’t sure if it was a compliment and refused to dig for more info but her body was taking it as one anyway, flushing with pleasure. Not sexy times pleasure but pleasure at being appreciated. God knew if anyone had a reason to not like her, especially after her campaign of discomfort by a thousand paper cuts, it was Oliver but he was regarding her earnestly and the only conclusion she could draw was that he liked her, too?
Despite the constant irritant she’d been to him these past weeks.
She wished she knew how to answer that but she didn’t so she pushed on while he was seemingly amenable to her presence.
‘So that’s a yes then?’
There was another beat or two of intense regard before he threw back his head and laughed. ‘Only you,’ he said, rolling his head to the side as his laughter settled, ‘would turn a compliment into something completely different.’
His eyes settled on hers and even hooded in shadows, the intensity of their Roger Prendergast blueness pierced right through to her brain.
‘It would mean so much to them,’ she pressed. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know that you made a bunch of little old ladies happy?’
If Paige thought she had him, she was wrong. Oliver Prendergast decided to play hard ball instead. ‘I’ll trade you.’
She frowned. She didn’t like the sound of that but if it got her what she wanted then… ‘Okay. I’m listening.’
‘If I do this, you only practice that damn violin when I’m on the beach.’
Paige stifled a smile. Every time he winced during her practice sessions it felt like another little paper cut for Bella. ‘But I’m getting better. Pavarotti likes it so much, he jumps straight on his wheel when he hears it. It’s like he has his own personal workout orchestra.’
Oliver snorted. ‘I hate to be the one to break this to you but he gets on the wheel as soon as you start up that bloody racket so he can drown you out.’
She suspected Oliver was right which should have been annoying but instead the fact that he knew the hamster so well was just charming as all giddy up. ‘Okay fine. Deal.’
Paige stuck out her hand and he took it but she was not prepared for the surge of heat that trekked up her arm as they shook. Nor was he if the way he looked at their joined hands was any indication.
What was even happening now?
Withdrawing her hand, she said briskly, ‘On one condition.’
‘Nope. It is unconditional. Do not pass go. No correspondence will be entered into.’
‘Hey, you started the haggling, not me.’
‘I think the term you’re after is negotiations.’
He sounded so stuffy when he said it but his very British accuracy appealed to the baby lawyer in her which once again strengthened her resolve to keep making life uncomfortable for Oliver because, damn it, she’d have made an excellent lawyer.
‘They would love for you to bring along the BAFTA.’ She glanced up at the row of awards that, even in the darkened environment, dominated the room in all their cold, gleaming glory. ‘And the Oscar. Kinda like show and tell.’
Oliver gaped at her like she’d asked him to do the talk naked. ‘That Oscar is insured for a million quid!’
It was Paige’s turn to gape as she turned her eyes on the golden statue standing erect as an army colonel and possibly as arrogant as one too. Wow. ‘Okay, that’s a lot.’
‘It’s an Oscar. A best actor Oscar. One of the most coveted awards in the world. And rare. There’s only been 103 recipients to date.’
Paige had assumed the gleaming hardware above was reasonably valuable but that figure set her back on her feet.
‘Other than a monthly feather dusting from the cleaner, it hasn’t been touched since it was set up there next to the others over a decade ago.’
Frowning, Paige dragged her gaze off it to Oliver. ‘What? Your father didn’t get it down and look at it every now and then? Show his buddies? Surely you’ve done the same?’
‘Of course not, I’ve never touched it. I’ve never touched any of them.’
He’d never touched any of them?
‘They’re there to be looked at. To be admired.’
Look but don’t touch. It sounded very much like Oliver’s relationship with his father from what she’d gleaned from the recordings. Oliver could look but he couldn’t touch. Roger Prendergast could be loved and admired – in fact he both craved and demanded it – but only at a distance.
‘Haven’t you ever wanted to?’ Paige knew if her father had a gold Oscar to his name, everyone in the family would have pictures holding it. Hell, she and her siblings would have each taken it to school for show and tell, at his insistence. It would no doubt have come home with hundreds of sticky finger prints dulling its shine and he’d have just given it a quick polish – probably with the tail of whatever shirt he was wearing – and popped it back on the shelf in his shed or maybe in the loo.
Wasn’t that where Emma Thompson kept hers?
He shrugged. ‘Sure. I guess.’
‘Then why haven’t you?’ She didn’t need to say, Your dad’s not around any more to police or object , it was implied.
‘I guess it’s never felt like… the right moment?’
Paige wondered what that moment might be and if it would ever occur but instead of pressing him on it, she just nodded. ‘I had a great-aunt once, Bessie, who as a young woman, fell in love with an antique china tea set with a delicate bluebell pattern that she’d seen in a local dealer’s window. She couldn’t afford it, so she negotiated with the owner to pay it off at a sixpence a week. It took her a year but she did it.’
He quirked an eyebrow. ‘Am I Great-aunt Bessie in this equation?’
Ignoring him, Paige continued her story. ‘It was her pride and joy and even as a kid I could see why. It was so pretty, the flowers all hand painted, the porcelain so delicate that when the sun shined on it you could almost see through it. Every time we visited I asked if we could use it for morning tea but she’d just ruffle my hair and laugh and say she was saving it for a very special occasion, like the Queen visiting.’
‘Let me guess,’ he said derisively, ‘the Queen never visited?’
Paige’s lips twitched. ‘Nope, she never did. She died when I was fourteen having never actually drunk tea or served cakes from it. She’d loved it and waited to use it for over fifty years and she never did.’
The set had gone to her daughter who had sold it to a dealer a few months later which made Paige sad all over again remembering it now.
‘Your point being, life’s short, don’t wait for the right moment?’
‘My point being, get the damn Oscar down and spread some of that Hollywood stardust around to some little old ladies from the local WI.’
And for yourself . Get it down and see that it’s a one-foot-tall bauble awarded at a moment in time and not a statement of a person’s worth or character. Nor was it a divining rod for a person’s success. Maybe at eye level it would be less intimidating. Maybe Oliver could see that it was just an object that had only as much power as he gave it.
Although Paige wisely said none of that.
‘Have you never just done something for someone for no other reason than because you knew it would please them?’
Surely, if more people in this world did that there’d be less Horrible Harveys.
He regarded her for long moments as if he was seriously considering the question which was clearly vexing him if the scowl spreading across his ridiculously attractive features was any indication.
Even scowling he managed to look effortlessly sexy.
‘Okay fine,’ he huffed. ‘You have a deal. I take the awards and you never play that damn instrument in my presence again.’
Paige nodded with zero smugness and left the room before he changed his mind.