Starshine

by Melody Winter

  I took a deep breath and held it in before sighing. I’d expected more from them. Not only had Alex shattered my illusions of what I thought he was like, so had Amy. I debated whether I was in some sort of parallel universe. But, my thoughts returned to the new-found fact that Alex was an incredible actor, and Amy a very realistic actress, whenever they were out in public.

  I was a fool for believing everything I had seen and read. I didn’t know a thing about them. I bit my bottom lip, fighting the sudden emotion that washed over me. I was determined not to cry; I was just being stupid and over dramatic. But I couldn’t help but feel like a big part of my life had suddenly disappeared. I had nothing to replace it with. Alex and Amy had been a sweet couple in my imagination, the sort of people you could invite home to meet your mum.

  I swallowed hard, forcing the unwelcome tears away as I dawdled over to a fold up canvas chair, ready for the next scene to start.

  “Hey,” Alex’s quiet voice interrupted my thoughts. He stood only a few feet away from me. “You okay?”

  I lifted my head and narrowed my eyes. Was he concerned about me, or was he about to unleash his vile and venomous words my way?

  “Why are you so bothered?” I said, straightening my back. I didn’t want to be drawn in to talking to him at this moment. I wanted to lick my wounds, pretend that I’d not had every single one of my fantasies ruined by him.

  “It’s just . . . well, I saw the way Amy ignored you. She’s such a bitch.”

  I snorted at his statement. “It seems that your personality has rubbed off on her. I only hope that after my four weeks in your charming company, I’ll manage to retain some clarity of humanity and not end up like either of you.”

  “It’s not infectious.” A small smile twitched at the corner of his mouth as he spoke. But it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. He repeatedly ran his fingers through his hair, but I tried to ignore the action. I was too busy staring at his stupid perfect face trying to figure out why he was talking to me. I swallowed loudly as his hand continued to pull through the side of his hair.

  “Well, I won’t be here for four weeks. I’m going to Los Angeles next Wednesday,” he said. “And, you’ll be in the editing studio for the final two weeks. So theoretically you have less than two weeks to put up with all this shit.”

  “I don’t know if I can survive even a week of this.”

  Amy was screaming at some poor man about there not being enough sugar in her coffee.

  “The way you both behave is quite disappointing, and franking incredibly disturbing,” I said, focusing on Amy, and ignoring Alex.

  “Well, you need to get used to it,” he snapped, bringing my attention back to him. His whole posture had altered. His back was straight and his jaw tense. “If you don’t like it, you can always leave. You know where the door is.”

  He turned sharply and sulked back to his spot across the room.

  I opened my mouth to say something to his retreating form, but thought better of it. Who was I to challenge Alex Denton?

  My eyes travelled quite unintentionally to his ass again. He was the most arrogant and nasty person I had ever met, but he really did have a nice ass. My frown turned to a smirk as I registered my wandering thoughts. It was so damn typical of me to see the positive in something that was beyond all hope. Maybe I should speak to his ass, I was convinced it would be nicer than his mouth. My shoulders shook as I laughed at my own private joke.

  “Care to share the joke, Ella?” Rowan said as he sat down and opened a packet of crisps. “God knows I could do with having a laugh about something. These two get worse every day.” He threw a few more crisps into his mouth and offered the packet to me. I shook my head at his gesture before taking a deep breath. I wanted to ask him some questions that were playing on my mind. Unfortunately, I had no idea whether he would be willing to answer them.

  “You directed the other two films before this one. Were they always like this, or did something happen?”

  Rowan sniggered, crisps flying from his mouth. “Something definitely happened.”

  He screwed the packet of crisps into a ball.

  “You don’t breathe a word of this to anyone, understand. You are under a confidentiality clause. I don’t need to remind you that if this gets spoken about, I will sue you, and you’ll be fired.”

  I nodded, drawn in to what he was about to tell me.

  “It’s quite simple, really. What happened . . . was that Alex fell in love with Amy.”

  He shot a nervous glance in Alex’s direction, but he was too busy concentrating on his script to notice Rowan.

  “And Amy fell in love with Alex.” He glanced in Amy’s direction. “It was amazing to watch. They fell in love with each other whilst filming that first film. We all saw it. They were completely loved up in real life as well as on screen. They were the perfect couple. Amy was always a bitch to work with mind you, but her acting ability speaks for itself. And Alex always had a way of calming her so that she wasn’t too awkward to work with.”

  I widened my eyes. It seemed incomparable that the same man who behaved the way he did now could have ever calmed anyone.

  “I know, I know. It’s hard to believe when you see how he behaves. But he has a reason. They say that fairy-tale romances always end badly. It did in his case.” He paused, glancing to both Alex and then Amy. “This goes no further, understand?”

  I nodded, frantic to hear the rest of the story—to find out the reason for the change in the man who had built and then ultimately destroyed my dreams.

  “Amy started seeing someone else behind his back, and she realised that she had never been in love with Alex, that it was more an infatuation with him. She fell in love with Simon, and that’s when things went wrong.”

  “Simon, as in the man she’s with now?”

  Rowan nodded. “She saw Simon behind Alex’s back for six months before he found out about it. I have no idea how she managed it. Alex, understandably, wasn’t happy. That was when he changed into the angry and bitter man you now see.”

  “When was this?” I asked, curious as to the timings of things and how it fit into what the public had been told.

  “Just before the filming of Sunspark, the second movie. It was a nightmare situation.”

  “No!” I gasped. I couldn’t believe it. “The word was that they split at the start of filming this movie,” I hissed. “Amy said that Alex’s wandering eye had proved too much for her to cope with.”

  Rowan nodded. “I know. It stinks, doesn’t it? The truth is that she was sleeping with someone else whilst Alex was madly in love with her. And then to top it all, the media machine that is Starshine made them continue to act as a couple in public. Can you imagine how he felt?”

  I dropped my gaze from Rowan and stared at the floor. Maybe I was beginning to understand Alex a little better.

  But Rowan still hadn’t finished. It was as if now that he had told me part of the story, he couldn’t wait to tell me more. “The icing on the cake was when they chose to blame Alex as the reason for the split.”

  “I remember. The media was horrible to him.” I recalled the abusive headlines that were published about Alex, and the outcry of sympathy directed toward Amy. “That’s so unfair,” I practically whispered. “And this is how he copes around her—behaving like a complete shit?”

  Rowan nodded. “He hates her. She broke his heart in the worst possible way.”

  The temptation became too much, and I lifted my head to catch a quick glimpse of Alex. He was leaning against the wall, his hand once again pulling through his hair as he studied dog-eared pieces of paper in his other hand. Then, without any warning, he turned in our direction. He threw the script against his leg and headed toward us.

  “Shit,” Rowan hissed. “Don’t you dare let on to Alex what I’ve told you.”

  “I won’t,” I assured him. “Why would I?” I was sure that Alex wouldn’t want anyone to know what Rowan had told me. I was a stranger to him.
One that he didn’t seem to like.

  “You two having a good gossip?” he questioned, stopping right in front of our chairs. “About me?”

  “What on earth gave you that idea?” Rowan asked lightly, although he was focusing on the clipboard in front of him.

  Alex narrowed his eyes at Rowan before turning to me. “Do you want to tell me?”

  “Tell you what? About my studies at college? I didn’t think you’d be interested in all that? But please, pull up a chair. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” I inwardly wondered whether I should have been an actress. I sounded very convincing.

  Alex drew in a deep breath. “Are we doing this next scene, or what?” he asked. His question was obviously meant for Rowan, but he didn’t shift his eye contact from mine. A contact that I dared to not shy away from.

  Rowan flicked the crisp crumbs from his t-shirt. “Are you ready for it? It’s quite intense.”

  “I know. I’ve read the script.” He waved his papers in the air toward Rowan, but still, his gaze remained fixed on me.

  “Something wrong?” I asked sharply. I didn’t like his eyes focusing on me the way they were. It unnerved me.

  “Just trying to figure you out.”

  “Why?”

  “I have no idea.” He turned away and headed over to the set. “Amy! You ready? Or are you still moaning about the sugar in your fucking coffee?”

  I grinned as Amy stomped her foot again. Even though Alex’s behaviour was rude and unnecessary, I found myself understanding it. Caught between the two of them, I knew which side I’d take. My thought shocked me. It wasn’t like me to take sides. I was always the one who tried to see reason, to work things out. At college, I’d become somewhat of an agony aunt to my friends, frequently sorting through their relationships problems whilst my own crashed around me. I shuddered—best not to go there.

  But it seemed that I had already taken sides between Alex and Amy.

  I had no first-hand knowledge of the situation. Rowan could be telling me a pack of lies for all I knew. But the more I thought about things, the more it all fit into place. Where was all the evidence of the women that Alex had supposedly slept with? The only photographs that were ever published of him with other women, were of him with female co-stars from his other films, or with Amy. Many tabloids had run articles on woman who said they’d slept with him, but there was never any evidence—never any photos of them together. And whereas I devoured these stories, looking for an insight into him as a person, I never once, fully believed them. Like I said—there was no proof of them being together.

  Was I feeling sorry for him, making excuses for his unacceptable behaviour?

  Maybe Amy did deserve what he threw at her, what she did was unforgiveable, but the rudeness he had pushed my way was completely out of order. What had I done to him? I growled under my breath as I tried to balance my fantasy man with the man before me. He’d destroyed my dreams earlier this morning, but knowing what I did now, perhaps I understood—just a little bit.

  I glanced in his direction as he held the chair out for Amy to sit down. How far beneath the surface was the man I desperately wanted to see? Was the gentleman, the kind-hearted and softly spoken man the public saw the real him? Where was that man now, and what would it take to break him free from the barrier he had put around himself?

  Did he just need someone to listen, to not judge him, and to love him for the real person he was, not Alex Denton, the famous actor?

  I hoped my fantasy man was still there—somewhere.

  I ignored all of Alex’s curt and nasty comments to Amy throughout the rest of the day. I tried hard to look beyond what I was witnessing, desperate to find something of the Alex Denton I’d believed in before I was introduced to him this morning.

  I witnessed kindness from him at certain times. There were several small gestures that I caught during the times between filming, and he even managed to reduce Amy to a fit of giggles at one point. Her genuine smiling face hadn’t lasted long though as he had ruined the moment by verbally slapping her down again. I had seen the look of joy in his face as she had laughed and at that moment, I wondered if he was still in love with her.

  I also kept feeling his gaze on me, but whenever I looked up, he would quickly turn away. I guessed that he was somewhat intrigued by my presence here. Rowan had explained that a work experience place had never been made available on the previous films due to the sensitive and highly secretive nature of them. They had never wanted to risk an unknown person blabbing everything to the press. Everyone working in the studio today was a very trusted member of the production team or film crew. They had all worked on the previous films and they all knew each other. I was an outsider, a very privileged outsider. I think that my presence was quite a talking point for many of them. Amy just ignored me, and it seemed that Alex wanted to as well, but just couldn’t quite manage it.

  I was exhausted by the end of the day. Even though it had gone quickly, it seemed that being in the presence of a constant stream of hate and cynicism drained me more than any amount of lack of sleep could manage. Rowan thanked me for my patience with everything and told me that he hoped I’d come back tomorrow. He was concerned that a certain person would keep me away. I’d reassured him that it would take more than Alex Denton to stop me returning.

  I ventured past several security check points as I strode to the welcome freedom of outside. Everything appeared a little bit surreal. With the brightness of the studio lights left behind, I rubbed my temples and my frown-lines away. The last thing I needed was a migraine.

  As I ambled to the bus-stop, the warm summer air gave way to a darkening sky. My pace increased, but it was only a few minutes before the rain started. Heavy, large drops of water fell from the sky, and I was drenched in a matter of seconds. My short flowery summer dress clung to my body in an unforgiving way, and my cardigan hung like a heavy rag from my shoulders.

  The bus-stop was only a short walk from the entrance to the studios, and I ran toward it, seeking refuge under the metal shelter. Typically, as soon as I reached the dry haven, the relentless rain stopped. I huffed at my lack of timing. If I’d walked faster I wouldn’t have got wet. If I’d taken more time getting ready to leave the studio, I would have stayed dry. As I waited for the bus, birds began to sing and fly around. A black-bird landed on the grass at my side and tugged on a worm that wasn’t quite ready to give itself up for a meal. Flowers waved in the soft breeze and I inhaled the damp fresh air, enjoying being outside rather than inside in the studio. It was quiet, apart from the birds. The studios were only a short drive from the craziness of central London, but the difference was amazing. It was like being in the country.

  The silence was suddenly broken by the thud of distant music and the roar of a car engine. I glared at the car as it sped along the road toward the bus-stop, and inwardly cursed the idiot behind the wheel.

  My glare turned into a worried frown when the silver car slowed down and stopped at the bus-stop. The dark tinted passenger window slowly hummed down, and the thud of music turned into a deafening roar.

  The driver of the car was revealed—Alex Denton.

  He raised his eyebrows, before lowering his gaze and taking in the sight of my dress clinging to my legs. I was glad I had a cardigan on, no matter that it looked like a wet sack now. At least he couldn’t see my bright pink bra, one that would be very visible underneath a practically transparent wet dress.

  Alex licked his bottom lip as he stared at my legs, and I realised that the relief I had felt that he couldn’t see my bra due to my cardigan, had been misplaced. The modest woollen covering wasn’t long enough to cover my lower half. My matching pink pants would be very visible and I suspected that they were what Alex Denton was looking at.

  “You’re wet!” he shouted above the relentless thudding of the music.

  “You noticed!” I yelled back, wondering why he hadn’t turned the music down if he wanted to talk. I toyed with the idea of whether
to accept a lift or not if he offered me one. The thought of being trapped with him in a car had always been a dream of mine, but after everything else that had happened today, I didn’t know whether I had the strength to spend even one more second in his scintillating company. But I was tired and I wanted to get home as quickly as possible. The thought of racing through London in his very expensive sports car, or trudging through traffic on a crammed public bus for a good thirty minutes made my mind up. I’d accept the lift if he offered. If he was sarcastic with me, I could just ignore him. Maybe he’d even mellow a little and I’d get to see what he was really like when he wasn’t in the same room as Amy.

  He slowly lifted his hand, curling his finger to beckon me toward the car.

  I took one step forward, stopping abruptly as he held his hand up in a halt position. Now what was he doing?

  “You really are very wet!” he said before reaching forward and flicking a small silver switch on the central console. The music died, leaving the sound of the engine idling.

  “No shit, Einstein. It has just poured down,” I said, my voice edged with sarcasm.

  His jaw tightened at my response, and his eyes drifted down my body again.

  “Hot pink?” he said, although it sounded more like a question.

  I knew exactly what he was referring to. My cheeks heated as I pulled at the front of my cardigan, but it was no use. It wouldn’t stretch to cover my lower body. Knowing there was nothing I could do about my see-through dress, I gritted my teeth and offered Alex a stony stare. One that dared him to continue with his next response.

  “I like it,” he said. “Not as slutty at red.”

  My body tensed. My nostrils flared as more heat flushed my face. Did he just refer to me as being slutty?

  He smiled before pulling a sudden poker face. I was so wrapped up in thinking of a response to his somewhat undisguised insult that I didn’t see the bus approach.