Chapter 20
I wake up in Hannah’s little single bed the next morning with Stevie draped over my legs, a fluffy rainbow bunny on top of my head and the memory of Hunter’s kiss still on my lips.
Did that actually happen, or did I dream it?
I lie in bed for a few minutes, feeling pleasantly fuzzy and warm from the memory, and wondering if there might be an opportunity for an action replay at some point.
Like today, maybe.
Who knew my journey of reinvention would involve meeting someone like Hunter?
Someone who tells me I’m special, and kisses me like he believes it?
Oh, and who . . . lives in the far north of Scotland.
In a castle where someone stabs turnips just to prove how much they hate me. There is that to consider, too.
I push Stevie off my legs and get out of bed, silently slipping out of the T-shirt Hunter gave me last night and into my clothes.
Hunter’s door is closed, and although I hover outside it for a few seconds wondering if I should at least knock and let him know I’m leaving, in the end, I slink off quietly, not wanting to wake him.
The thought of going back to my room doesn’t seem nearly as scary in the light of morning as it did last night, but I take my time heading back there anyway, still thinking about Hunter, and how he lives in a hotel that’s approximately six hundred miles from London; and I know because I googled it last night, before I went to sleep.
But no, I’m not going to think about that right now.
I’m not going to think about Hunter at all, in fact.
I’m going to think about . . . hot tubs.
Yes, hot tubs. Because I’m sure I remember something on the itinerary about this morning being a spa day, where we’d get to sample all the various treatments the hotel has to offer, and I have to admit, that does sound rather nice.
If only Sabrina and Dante decide to let me stay here long enough to find out.
I’m still thinking about the hot tub as I make my way back to my room (only now I’m thinking about Hunter being in the hot tub with me; which isn’t exactly helping with the whole not thinking about him thing .
. .), but I stop in my tracks when I reach it and find the door standing wide open, and a tiny flicker of movement inside which can mean only one thing:
There’s someone in my room.
Again.
And, this time, I’m finally going to find out who it is.
‘Aha!’ I yell in a crazed voice, adrenalin making me brave as I burst into the room like a clumsy superhero. ‘Caught in the act!’
There’s a shrill scream as Bex jumps up from where she’s been sitting on the edge of the bed, looking beautiful and fragile, in a hand me my smelling salts kind of way.
‘Bex? What are you doing here? How did you get in?’
I eye her warily, then glance around the room to make sure everything’s as it should be.
‘Sorry,’ she says in an unusually subdued tone as she sinks back onto the bed. ‘One of the housemaids let me in; she was in here cleaning when I arrived. I hope you don’t mind? I just wanted to thank you for what you did yesterday. You know, on the beach?’
I nod cautiously, my heart sinking at the revelation that not one, but two people have been in my room without me knowing about it.
I’m never going to figure out who the turnip stabber is at this rate.
‘Seriously,’ Bex goes on, oblivious to my distress. ‘I owe you one, Rosie. I could have died out there.’
‘You probably wouldn’t have,’ I say, coming over to sit next to her.
‘You’d have landed on sand, so it wouldn’t have been too bad.
I’ve fallen off loads of times and I’m still here.
Unless you landed on your head, obviously.
I suppose you could’ve broken your neck that way.
Or your back. That would’ve been bad, too.
Um, anyway, I’m glad you’re OK, and not, you know .
. .’ I trail off, realising my nerves are making me ramble. ‘You are OK, aren’t you?’
‘Oh, I’m fine,’ she says, rubbing her arms and staring at the floor. ‘I was cold more than anything else, and that was my own fault. The vet said to just rest up and stay warm.’
Her pretty face arranges itself in a pout.
‘I also wanted to apologise for how I’ve been since we got here,’ she says, in a voice so quiet I think I must have misheard at first. ‘The whole “Wrong Rosie” thing,’ she goes on, still looking at the floor. ‘I know you didn’t like that, but I kept doing it. I was just being horrible. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s—’ I’m about to assure her it’s fine, but then I remember what Hunter said about asserting myself, and I straighten my shoulders, figuring now’s as good a time as any to make a start on that.
‘I appreciate the apology,’ I say instead, wishing he was here to see me.
‘I’m really not horrible,’ Bex says, looking up at me, her eyes swimming with tears – which are so unexpected coming from someone like her that I momentarily forget we’re supposed to be in the middle of a heartfelt apology here. ‘Honestly, I’m not. I just . . . I’ve been having some issues.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ I ask, remembering the argument I saw her having in the grounds yesterday. ‘Is it Daniel?’
‘Daniel? No. No, Daniel’s a sweetheart,’ Bex replies, wiping her eyes.
‘No, it’s me. It’s all me. We’ve been trying to get pregnant,’ she goes on in a rush.
‘But it hasn’t happened yet, and honestly, I’m starting to think it might not happen at all.
It’s been making me quite . . . well, emotional, I suppose. ’
‘Well, that’s understandable,’ I reply, touching her lightly on the hand. ‘It can take a bit of time, though, can’t it? Trust me, I have three sisters, and not one of them has a filter, so I . . . well, I know quite a lot about this, for someone who doesn’t have kids herself.’
‘That’s the thing, though,’ she says tearfully. ‘I don’t have a lot of time. I’m . . . well, I’m a bit older than the rest of you, Rosie.’
For the first time since I met her, Bex looks embarrassed. I arrange my face into what I hope is an appropriately surprised expression, not wanting to let on that Zara’s already dropped this particular bombshell.
‘That’s why this Face of the Chrysalis contest is so important to me,’ Bex continues earnestly. ‘Because we’ve been saving up for IVF, but God, it’s so expensive, Rosie. So expensive it feels like we’re never going to get there. What if we never get there?’
She turns her wide, panicked eyes towards me and, for the first time since I stumbled across her YouTube channel a few years ago, I realise Bex Foster is just a human being, like the rest of us.
An unfairly attractive, and occasionally kind of annoying one, sure, but still, just a human.
And, right now, she’s a human who needs a little bit of kindness.
‘Of course you’ll get there,’ I tell her, patting her tentatively on the arm, as if she’s one of the ponies from yesterday’s beach ride.
‘Your content’s amazing, Bex. Everyone knows that.
You’re going to win this contest; and even if, for some reason, you don’t, I’m sure the hotel will still pay to use some of your photos in their advertising. ’
I’m not sure of this at all, actually; especially after every-thing Izzie and Ian had to say about the hotel’s future with the bawbag nephew in charge. Right now, though, Bex looks so miserable that I mean every word.
‘Thanks, Rosie,’ she says, hugging me impulsively.
‘You’re being so sweet, and I know I don’t deserve it after the way I’ve been treating you.
I think it’s just the stress of it all. It’s making me a bit crazy, really.
And my period’s due, too, so I suppose it could be hormonal.
Oh, by the way,’ she adds, brightening as she pulls away, ‘I know you probably think no one wants you here after that weird cucumber video, but it’s OK: I spoke to Sabrina and Dante, and they want you to stay.
Well, actually, they didn’t want you to stay at first.’ She tilts her head thoughtfully.
‘They both wanted you to leave. But I told them that if they kick you out, they’ll have to kick me out too, and they obviously don’t want to lose me—’
‘Obviously.’
‘—so it’s all agreed: you’re staying.’
She beams at me, pleased with her work.
‘Thanks,’ I reply, not sure if I should be happy to be staying, or worried that Sabrina and Dante only agreed to it under duress. ‘That’s . . . great.’
‘It was the least I could do after you saved my life,’ Bex says, getting to her feet. ‘I wouldn’t actually have gone, obviously, because I do really want to win the competition, but they don’t know that, so it all worked out. I’ll never forget what you did, though, Rosie. Never.’
I watch as she heads for the door, still pale, but looking a little more like her old self now that she’s got this apology out of the way. She sounds totally sincere but, then again, she always sounds sincere in her videos too, and now I know how fake they are.
‘Um, Rosie,’ Bex says, halfway through the door. ‘Can I ask you a favour?’
‘Sure,’ I reply, hoping it’s not going to be anything to do with Sabrina or Dante, both of whom I’m still scared of.
‘You won’t post that video, will you?’ she asks, sounding almost shy. ‘It’s just, it would be so embarrassing for me. I really don’t want my followers to see it.’
‘Video?’ I frown, wondering if we’re talking about the cucumber again, and what it has to do with Bex and her followers. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh. Haven’t you seen it yet?’ she replies. ‘Luna sent it to us both, earlier. She took it yesterday, on the beach.’
I pull my phone out of my pocket, and she gives a little shriek of horror at the sight of it.
‘No, don’t watch it in front of me,’ she begs. ‘I’m just going, anyway. But please, Rosie; don’t post it, OK? I feel silly enough about it already.’
She leaves, and I immediately open up my email app, scrolling quickly past a bunch of Klarna payment reminders and sale notifications until I find the message from Luna.
‘Thought you both might like to have these,’ she’s written, attaching a selection of photos from yesterday’s excursion, which I scroll through quickly, until I reach the video Bex mentioned, which turns out to be the full, unabridged version of her, Hunter and I all thundering along the beach, Bex screaming her head off and looking a lot like a wet tissue, while I come riding bravely to the rescue, at an angle which, thankfully, makes me look fully clothed.
It ends with a short clip of Daniel struggling to pick Bex up on the beach after Hunter was forced to release her, and Bex yelling that she’s not that heavy, her usual Little Miss Perfect act completely forgotten as she screams at her husband.
For the first time since it happened, I allow myself a moment of pride over how I leaped into action yesterday. Hunter said he didn’t think I had it in me – and the truth is that I didn’t, either. And yet, here’s the proof, captured on camera, that I’m not always the ‘wrong’ Rosie.
Sometimes, in fact, I’m the really quite right one.