The Perfect Hero: The perfect summer read for Austen addicts!. Victoria Connelly

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СКАЧАТЬ Sophie did her best to stifle a giggle.

      Les grabbed the coffee pot and started pouring. ‘Looks like it might rain,’ he said in a voice that reminded Kay of a rainy grey morning.

      ‘Forecast isn’t good,’ Teresa agreed. ‘We might have to do the Uppercross scenes instead.’

      Gemma, who was just walking into the room, suddenly looked startled. ‘The Uppercross scenes?’

      ‘Unless the rain holds off and we can shoot some of the Cobb stuff,’ Teresa said.

      Kay watched as Gemma pulled out a chair and sat down. She didn’t look happy.

      ‘Good morning!’ A bright voice filled the room and Kay looked up to see Oli striding into the dining room, his smile filling his face. It was all Kay could do not to tip Sophie’s juice into her lap. ‘How are we all this morning?’

      ‘God, Oli!’ Beth said. ‘How can you be so unrelentingly joyous? And how did you escape without a hangover? I saw the amount you put away last night.’

      Oli grabbed a piece of toast from the centre of the table and started spreading it thickly with yellow butter. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, my poppet,’ he said, taking a big mouthful and munching happily. ‘I hardly touched a drop.’

      Beth shook her head and returned to her cereal in disgust.

      ‘I did warn you all,’ Teresa said. ‘I said one drink, didn’t I?’

      Kay grinned at the conversation but her eyes hadn’t left Oli’s face. As she fussed around making sure everyone had what they needed, her eyes kept flicking back to him and she recalled the films that she’d swooned over in the past. It had been the adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities when he’d first caught her eye. He’d played Sydney Carton and Kay had cried her eyes out when he’d sacrificed his life for the woman he loved.

      There’d followed some rather awful romantic comedies where he’d played vacuous heroes who always got the girl. Still, he’d been very cute and his audience had swelled. Then the temptation of Hollywood had beckoned and he’d been cast as the wife stealer in a film called – unsurprisingly – The Wife Stealer. It had been dreadful. The only redeeming thing about it had been the near-nude scene and the press that had followed. Many a still from the film had been published in the tabloids and Kay had to admit that it had brightened up a few dreary lunch hours.

      Looking at him now, she tried not to think about the near-nude scene and the length of his bronzed back and his tight firm . . .

      ‘I’ll get some more toast,’ she blurted, causing everyone to turn and look at her.

      ‘You all right, Kay?’ Sophie asked. ‘You look all flushed.’

      ‘I’m fine,’ Kay said, hurrying from the room as quickly as she could.

      She must not fall in love with him. She must not fall in love with him. Handsome men were bad news. How many times had she had her heart broken? She didn’t like to think about the number of handsome men who’d won her heart and then stepped all over it. She hadn’t come to Lyme Regis just to repeat her past. She was going to throw herself into her work and make a go of her new business, and focus on her illustrations too. She did not need a man in her life.

      But, as soon as she returned to the dining room with a pot of tea and more toast, she knew it was too late and, when Oli looked up and beamed a smile at her, she knew that she was totally smitten.

       Chapter Ten

      Gemma couldn’t believe that they might be shooting the Uppercross scenes that day. She’d thought they were doing the ones on the Cobb. She was ready for the Cobb.

      How could film companies do that? It seemed perverse to her – like reading a book out of sequence. Of course, she knew what it was all about – making the most of the weather conditions and making sure the locations worked for you but, for actors, it was always difficult. Take her first job on Into the Night for example. She’d arrived on set that first day and had had to shoot the final scene. It was a topsy-turvy sort of a world and such things could easily unbalance an insecure actress.

      Gemma sank down on to her bed and picked up her script. She was quite sure her mother had never had such a problem with learning her lines. Gemma could remember her with her scripts throughout her childhood.

      ‘Mum,’ Gemma would say. ‘Can you help me with my homework?’

      ‘Darling, I have homework of my own!’ her mum would say, flicking her long dark hair over her shoulder and then sitting herself on the floor in a strange yoga position, her script in front of her and her back to her daughter.

      Gemma would go upstairs to her room and, about an hour later, there’d be a knock at the door.

      ‘Did you still want some help?’ her mum would ask. Gemma would shake her head. She’d have done her homework by then.

      Thinking back to those times now, her mother had never needed more than one read through a script and she had it down. Maybe she’d had a photographic memory or maybe her crime caper lines had been easier to learn than a Jane Austen adaptation, but one thing was for sure – her mother had never got nervous. She’d thrived on the adrenalin that filming produced. There was a permanent buzz about her – she oozed energy and was always the life and soul of the party – and there’d been quite a few at the height of her success in Bandits. Gemma remembered them well. She’d be trying to sleep upstairs when, downstairs, dozens of guests would be dancing and shouting in the living room. And the dining room, kitchen and garden. Even Gemma’s bedroom hadn’t escaped with one amorous couple once falling on to her bed in a lusty heap, the woman screaming to high heaven when she realised there was somebody already in it.

      ‘Come on! It’s time to go home,’ Kim Reilly would yell several hours later. ‘It is a school night, after all!’ There’d be ripples of laughter and Gemma would check the little light on her bedside clock. Her mother’s idea of ending a party early would be somewhere around three o’clock. Then, because she didn’t like to shirk her motherly duties, she’d come into Gemma’s room and squeeze her shoulder. ‘I didn’t wake you, did I, darling?’

      ‘No, Mummy,’ Gemma would say.

      ‘We were nice and quiet, weren’t we?’

      Gemma would nod, the shrieking of the guests still ringing in her ears.

      She’d lost count of the number of nights’ sleep she’d disturbed over the years and the number of tests she’d failed because she’d just been too tired the next day in class.

      Gosh, Gemma thought to herself, is that who I’ll turn into in a few years’ time? The thought terrified her because, more than anything else, Gemma wanted to settle down with the perfect man and have lots of perfect babies. But what if she turned into her mother, putting her career as an actress first and partying hard into the night? She shook her head. She was never going to allow that to happen. It just wasn’t her. She was more of your sit-at-home-with-a-good-book-and-a-cup-of-tea sort of girl. And then there was the knitting. Gemma really wasn’t your typical young actress courting the press by spilling out of taxis wearing the latest fashions, and schmoozing with her fellow celebrities at every red carpet event going. Getting drunk in the newest bar or dancing at the trendiest nightclub just wasn’t СКАЧАТЬ