‘Sorry,’ she blurted out into his silence. ‘I read too much into that stuff sometimes. I didn’t mean to tell you how you feel.’
‘No. It’s okay. You’re right. I said I’m fine…but I’m not.’ He grabbed another handful of sand and released it again, this time looping a figure of eight around. ‘I feel like I’m in danger of coming out of my skin, but I don’t know why.’
She lifted her head tentatively, resting her cheek on her arm instead and letting her dark hair fall across the other cheek, like she was still trying to hide from him a little bit. He itched to smooth her hair back, away from her face. It suddenly didn’t seem fair that she was allowed to touch his face every day at work, but he couldn’t reach out and stroke his thumb across the curve of her cheekbone. ‘Maybe I need you to do that head-cracking thing you threatened me with the other night? You can tell me what’s going on in there.’
She took the bait of his teasing – even though he was half serious – and sat up straight again. ‘I didnotthreaten you.’
He held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘I wouldn’t dare suggest otherwise.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Is it something other people were saying at the party? Have they made you feel bad?’
‘Arepeople saying things that would make me feel bad?’ He raised an eyebrow.
Her lips parted for a moment, once and then again, before she bit her lip. ‘Do you want to know? I didn’t think you cared?’
‘I guess this comes under the heading of: “Have I done something to upset people?” I know I put the production at risk. Are people unhappy about that?’
‘No. Not that I heard. They were just talking about how it ended up being more important who won the pissing contest between you and him – rather than what had actually happened to Ruth. Like a show of male dominance or something.’
A cold shiver rolled over his arms and across his shoulders. He swallowed over a sour taste in his mouth and nodded slowly. ‘Yeah. Yeah, maybe that’s part of it. I threw my weight around a lot today.’
‘But you did it for the right reasons.’ She pushed her hair back from her face and frowned. ‘All day I was talking to Ruth, and one of the things she was most worried about was being sacked because it would be easier than getting rid of him. It’s terrible enough when people act like that – and when they’re already in positions of power of you, it just feels so hopeless. Butyouused your position to counteract that.’
A lump grew in his throat. How did she do that? How did she keep looking at him in this guileless way that made him feel like maybe he was closer to the kind of person he wanted to be than he gave himself credit for? He wanted to be humble, and close to his family, and someone who acted with integrity – rather than just a mouthy, common-as-muck hothead.
And it meant even more to him coming from her because he knew how hard it was for her to speak up. It was like she weighed every word before it came out of her mouth, and if she’d chosen those ones for him, they were all the more valuable. She made him feel special in a way that was entirely different to the shallowness of being a celebrity and his image.
And maybe he’d have been able to cope with that on another day – but this evening it was just one more messy emotion he was unequal to managing. Too much of a temptation when his other responsibilities to his family, and therefore his agent, demanded he did the opposite of what he wanted to do. He clenched his hands back together again and offered her a tight smile. ‘Thank you. D’you think you’ll be able to go back into the party soon?’
He couldn’t go off and leave her alone here on the beach with night drawing in. But he couldn’t stay here much longer either. Not without doing something really stupid.
God, he’d even told her he didn’t have a girlfriend. Like subconsciously, he’d known he didn’t want that barrier between them. He could do with as many barriers as possible between them at the moment.
‘Oh.’ She swallowed and looked back over her shoulder towards her apartment. ‘In a little while I guess. Are you going back?’
‘I’ll stay until you’re ready to go back in.’
‘You don’t need to wait for me if you want to leave.’
He shook his head. ‘I do. I can’t leave you out here alone now it’s getting dark.’
‘Right. Well. I guess I’ll go back so I’m not keeping you.’ She was tightening her arms around herself again.
‘You don’t need to. If you need more time, it’s fine,’ he lied, and he could tell she was seeing straight through it, though she probably didn’t knowwhyhe was lying.
‘No. I’ve obviously upset you. I shouldn’t have said anything about what people were talking about. But I kept something to myself earlier, and I thought that was a mistake, and I just really wish there was a friggin’ rule book about this stuff.’ She rubbed her hand over her eyes.
‘You haven’t upset me.’
‘I can see I have. Either that, or you came out of here because you just can’t help being all chivalrous and now you’ve seen I’m not a quivering wreck, you need to get home. It’s fine. I didn’t tell you about the social anxiety so that you’d feel sorry for me.’
‘Lila, slow down—’
She jumped up to her feet, dusting her skirt off hurriedly and as he looked up at her, he got a face full of sand. He flinched and brought his hand up to his face, blinking at the stinging in his eyes.
She landed on her knees beside him immediately as she muttered swear words. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry. Let me see.’ She grasped his wrist, encouraging him so gently to pull his hand away.
‘It’s okay.’ His eye was watering but it wasn’t that bad. Still, he let her brush her fingers across his cheek beneath his right eye, feather-light, while her other hand rested on his shoulder to steady herself. He needed to move away, remove himself from the scent of her, from seeing her face so close, all fine pretty lines, thick black lashes and eyebrows pinched together in concern. He was trapped by her delicate touch; the incidental tenderness of it.
