Chapter 26
Violet
It had been nearly two weeks since their first date, and Violet was washing her hands in the basin in the loos at work when she caught sight of her reflection.
She grinned. For someone working nearly sixty hours a week, she didn’t look tired.
Her eyes were bright, and her skin was glowing.
They had had two more dates since that first night, each one ending in bed, much to their mutual satisfaction.
This last weekend Finn had spent the night at hers.
He had demanded sight of the oversized tartan sleep hoodie, which Violet reluctantly dug out from where she had hidden it, before he made her model it for him. It didn’t stay on long.
Work was going well, too. She was being given more responsibilities, and she knew the daily routine tasks inside out and was able to anticipate what was needed.
Jake had congratulated her last week on doing so well, and Rachael had sent her out with the second unit for a day, giving her the chance to do a little more.
She felt taller, more energetic, stronger.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket as she was drying her hands.
Where are you?
Her belly turned over as she read Finn’s message.
They had hardly seen each other for the past two days.
Violet had been with a splinter unit yesterday, and they hadn’t seen each other at all.
Today, she was on the studio floor, but they had a larger cast in, so she hadn’t stopped running about all morning.
Back in a minute, she typed.
The message flashed as read, then a reply pinged up.
Tell me where you are.
I’ll be back in a minute.
Vi! Where are you?
What was he being so bossy for?
I’m in the loo! she wrote. Then added, Back in a min.
She splashed water on her face and used her damp hands to try to tame down some fly-away hairs, before smoothing some lip balm onto her lips.
There was a soft squeak as the door to the toilets swung open. Finn stuck his head in and whispered, ‘Is it just you in here?’
‘Finn! What are you doing in here?’
He ignored the question, advancing towards her. ‘I haven’t seen you for two days, Violet.’
He reached forwards and hooked a finger into the waistband of her trousers, pulling her hard up against him. His groin pressed into her belly.
Oh.
‘That’s a very long time. It’s driving me insane.’
He was dressed in his farmhand costume, a rough and dirtied shirt with a neckerchief, and trousers and hobnailed boots. He had smudges of dirt on his face, and his hair was even more tousled than usual.
Violet pushed against his chest, stepped back and hissed, ‘Finn, you have to get out of here. Someone could come in any second.’
He stopped and looked at her, then cocked his head to one side. His eyes roved over her, dragging over her from her face to her feet.
‘You’re right,’ he said, and in one swift move propelled them both inside a cubicle.
He locked the door behind them and wrapped his arms around her, dipping his head, his lips covering hers.
Despite herself, Violet’s body softened instinctively, and she moulded herself to him.
Finn groaned into her mouth, his hands dropping lower, cupping her bottom, pulling her into him.
She gasped as she felt his hardness press into her.
‘You feel what you do to me?’ Finn grumbled into her ear. ‘Violet,’ he pulled back and looked at her, dark eyes earnest. ‘I can hardly remember my lines. All I can think about is you, and this…’
His head dipped, and his lips were on hers once more, his tongue diving into her mouth, seeking hers, pulling her lips between his teeth. For a moment, Violet forgot where she was.
‘I want you,’ he murmured, as he trailed hot kisses down her neck, his stubble grazing her soft skin. ‘Seeing you at work today and not being able to touch you… It’s like bloody torture. I don’t know if I can wait until the weekend.’
Violet’s back was pressed against the stone wall at one side of the cubicle.
Her hands instinctively went to his shoulders, her fingers running over the breadth of muscle beneath the rough cloth of his shirt.
She was loath to admit it, but she felt the same as Finn—it was exhausting being around one another but having to mask how they felt all day long.
Violet was careful not to even look Finn’s way if possible, worried that some sharp-eyed crew member would see the looks that passed between them.
‘We’re at work,’ she protested.
‘We are,’ Finn murmured, nodding as his hands slid up her cheeks and into her hair. He pulled back and looked at her, his eyes just inches from her. ‘Don’t you want me to give you a good performance review?’
Violet felt an ache of longing between her legs. Her breathing was growing rapid and shallow as Finn kissed up her jawline.
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
Then his lips were on hers, his tongue possessively taking over her mouth. She arched her body into his and wound her arms around his neck, as Finn pulled her in so tight there wasn’t a sliver of space between them.
‘Jake for Violet,’ crackled in her earpiece, making her jump, and she broke the kiss and pulled away.
‘Nooo,’ Finn groaned into her neck as she fumbled for the radio cord and shoved him away.
‘Jake to Violet,’ he repeated, sounding a little irritated.
Fingers finally landing on the button, she pressed and said brightly, ‘Go for Violet,’
Finn leaned back against the opposite wall of the cubicle, breathing hard and looking slightly dishevelled. Only part of that was due to his actual costume design.
‘Violet, we need bottled water for the green room. Can you please go and get some?’
‘Copy that,’ she replied. ‘Going now.’
When she had dropped the cord, she dug her hands into her hair and hissed, ‘Jesus, Finn. What happened to being discreet? You’ll get me fired.’
‘Maybe,’ he grinned. ‘But not for the reasons you thought a few weeks ago. And I can’t believe you picked talking to Jake over me.’
‘Jake’s my boss,’ Violet retorted.
Finn pushed himself away from the wall. ‘Okay, fair point.’ He held his hands up. ‘I’m sorry, and I’m going now.’
He bent and gave her one last lingering kiss, then eased open the stall door, winked at her and slipped out.
Violet pushed the stall door shut behind him, shaking her head, and a second later she heard the door to the toilets open and then clatter closed again.
She leaned against the cubicle door, giving her heartbeat a few seconds to return to something like normal before she went to lug a case of water to the stage.
She was straightening her lanyard, which had got tangled in her collar and radio cord, when the toilet door opened again. Reaching out a hand to the sliding lock, which would release the cubicle door, she paused when she heard voices.
They were clearly mid-conversation and speaking in the kind of hushed tone used when people were gossiping but pretending not to.
‘I mean, she’s definitely into him,’ said one voice. ‘I see the way she looks at him when she’s giving him his coffee or something. It’s all a bit adoring fangirl.’
‘I don’t get a vibe that he’s into her,’ came the other voice. ‘Has he got a girlfriend?’
‘I don’t know. He’s never mentioned anyone in passing. Me and him get on like a house on fire, though! Jake thinks he’s gay.’
Violet was sure this voice belonged to Meg, an overly confident twenty-something from the crowd costume team who said pacific instead of specific and was constantly taking breaks to vape something that smelled like blackcurrant squash.
There was a snort, and water splashed into a basin. ‘Maybe someone should tell her it’s not a good look!’
‘No, leave it,’ Meg said. ‘If Rachael and Jake hear about it, they won’t take her onto that film they are doing next. And I told my stepbrother I could get him in with the AD team.’
‘True. No one wants a trainee AD who causes drama with cast. Does this lipstick look okay?’
‘Uh-huh, looks fine. On that TV series I did last year, they let the floor runner go because she was all over one of the main actors.’
‘Shit, did he complain about her?’
‘They didn’t let it get to that stage,’ Meg said. ‘They made up some other reason to let her go. I think she’s working in Tesco at the moment.’
Violet had stopped breathing.
‘Harsh.’
‘But fair. There are lines you don’t cross.’
There was a scandalised intake of breath. ‘Are you saying she’s crossed a line? Like, she’s…done something?’
‘No! Maybe. I don’t know. She looks like she would, given the chance.’ Meg snorted, and they both cackled. There was a pause, then a sigh. ‘I think I’ve put on weight.’
‘Naah, you look great!’
Violet’s breath was stuck in her throat, and she was frozen to the spot. She couldn’t have moved if she tried.
‘I’ve got to stop getting snacks from craft. I had two cheese toasties yesterday.’
‘So, you don’t want this chocolate bar you asked me to grab for you?’
The voices were moving in the direction of the door.
‘Okay, okay, gimme it.’ A wrapper crinkled and ripped. ‘I’ve probably got my steps in today, anyway.’
The door hinges squeaked.
‘Where do you think the wrap party will…’
The voices faded, and the door banged closed. Violet was alone in the bathroom once more.
Reaching out a hand, she leaned heavily against the closed stall door and gasped for breath.
What had she done? What was she doing? She was the idiot fangirl trainee destined to be let go and left to find work with whoever would hire her after such a debacle.
She was shaking as she tried to smooth down her shirt.
She felt like she had been picked up and dropped into an entirely new timeline, as if the reality with her and Finn in the cubicle moments before belonged to someone else.
With trembling fingers, she reached for the door latch and stepped out into the bathroom.
For once, she had felt sexy, the romantic lead in her own life.
A woman who was desired and desperately wanted and wanted the hero in return.
Ten minutes ago, the encounter with Finn had been a sexy, romantic tryst, taking risks because they just couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
Now, it was a seedy fumble in a workplace loo.
She wasn’t a kid, fighting raging hormones. She was a grown woman with a career plan. She still owned a Filofax, and she used it. She had a budget tracker attached to her bank account and an app that reminded her about birthdays. Violet was not a girl who jeopardised everything for a boy.
At the sink, she ran her hands under the cold tap and frowned at the reflection staring back at her.
Her skin was blotchy with pink spots, and the glow that had been there not long before seemed to have got up and gone. Pulling her shoulders back and holding her head high, she marched back to set.
Making her way carefully around the edges of the stage, she spotted Meg scrolling on her phone. Violet stared until Meg glanced up. She gave Violet a half smile, and Violet forced her facial muscles to throw some sort of smile-grimace back to the gossipy two-faced cow.
Shuffling further round, the side of the set opened up, and she saw Finn.
Kathy, his costume standby, was shaking her head and using a portable steamer to try to get creases out of the shoulders of his shirt.
Creases Violet had put there barely fifteen minutes before when she was clutching onto him in the toilets.
Finn was shrugging, clearly denying he had any idea how his costume had got into that state.
Violet’s heart, already in her belly, sank even further.
Meg was right, even if she didn’t have all the facts.
She had no business jeopardising so much for a…
a…what was it, anyway? A fling? A hot workplace romance that would burn itself out in weeks?
Theatre was notorious for short-lived, intense relationships and affairs, forged when people were thrown together and bonded fast over projects no one else could truly understand except those swirled up in the middle of them.
Was it the same in film? Was that what this was?
A hot romance that wouldn’t survive once the cameras stopped rolling and the thrill of the secrecy was gone?
Tugging at her lanyard, which refused to lie flat, she glanced down at her ID badge.
Violet Hathersay
Trainee AD
Huxton Bridge
Only a few months ago, she had been dreaming about the day she would get her first job in film & TV. She had done it. She had worked hard, and she had made it happen.
She recalled what Finn had said about her being brave, taking a risk. He was right. She had walked away from her old life and risked a great deal for a new beginning.
Now it seemed like everything she had worked for was hanging by a thread.