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Evie snickered. “Fizzy pop.”
Leaning in, Sunita hid behind her hand. “It’s a quarter vodka,” she whispered through an impish smirk.
“How’d you—”
“Alaia.”
Evie’s brows scrunched as she spotted the cathedral’s minister stood behind them. “But—?”
“Don’t worry,” Sunita insisted. “She didn’t steal it from my parents’ cupboard.”
Underage drinking—especially public underage drinking—wasn’t really Evie’s thing, nor were carbonated beverages, but under the circumstances…
She cautiously sniffed the potion, inhaling an eye-watering brew of sweet cola and something reminiscent of rubbing alcohol.
“Go on,” urged Sunita. “It won’t bite.”
Upon Evie swigging a mouthful, a searing burn hit her tongue and cascaded down her throat. Holy shit! Her eyes watered as the liquid heat blazed through her. “Sunita!” she croaked, coughing into the crook of her elbow as the adults in their spectator cocoon stared. “You sure that’s”—cough cough—“only a quarter?” Evie blanched.
“My bad!” Sunita giggled as she pried the boozy concoction from Evie’s grip. “If this doesn’t make you feel better, it’ll definitely help you forget.” She took a careful sip and crinkled her nose, hugging the precious bottle against her parka.
“Did you see the photos in The Mail last week?” Evie’s shoulders sagged. “Nick walking his dog Ross around London—with Bree Wilson-Jones?” His blonde Dalston Grove co-star Bree played baby mama Amanda to Nick’s baby daddy Jake. “There were photos of them leaving a club holding hands, too. Sun, I think they’re together.”
Sunita offered the bottle to Evie again. “Don’t dwell. Drink.”
Slowly lifting the Coke and cheap vodka to her lips, she took a small mouthful, its fizzy burn painfully pleasant this time. Evie blinked lazily and cradled the bottle as she spied an auburn-haired cutie in the crush. Her eyes sharpened. “Sun! Is that your guy?” Gesturing ahead, Evie’s thumb poked through the dropped stitches in her mitten. “In the wine-colored football top?”
“No, that’s my brother,” said the posh English accent to her left. “That’s Tarquin.”
NICK?! Evie’s heart exploded into a million glittery stars of confetti.
SIX
EVIE
Now, Thursday, June 22
Eyeing the ferry arriving from Kirkwall, Evie murmured a “Thank god” and set down her wooden spoon, leaving behind three slow cookers of simmering chili and Gemma’s well-thumbed copy of The Cookery Year. She scrambled to the catering truck’s passenger-side door and slid it open, her impatient wave quickly acknowledged by a disembarking Sunita. Evie’s frantic greeting, however, didn’t dissuade a pair of black-and-white oyster catchers flying cheekily close. “Nice try”—she snickered, wiping her hands on her tomato sauce-spattered apron—“but crab isn’t on the menu today.”
She squinted ahead, delighting in the sun’s shimmery dance across the Sound’s choppy waves and the colorful lobster creels stacked quayside, but her appreciation stopped short of the imposing stone castle bearing his surname. She could ignore its majestic towers and Victorian turrets (all seven of them) until the Highland cows came home, but there was no disputing Balfour Castle’s charms or why the production chose the estate on the island of Shapinsay for their first day of filming in Orkney.
Ignoring Nick, though, wouldn’t be as easy.
He had shown up briefly during the morning rush, deep in conversation with the director, but he kept a healthy distance, his appetite for confrontation considerably less than it had been in Marwick’s the day prior. The dark-haired woman Evie saw with him before the puppet crash (his assistant, maybe?) collected his breakfast (a black coffee and an egg and bacon burrito), and together they disappeared up the long winding road to the castle, sparing Evie an awkward run-in while frantically feeding a continuous flock of ravenous actors and crew.
Three hours later, her hands had stopped shaking, but her stomach and forehead remained knotted.
“One mealtime down, only seventy-something to go,” she mumbled, returning to the binder housing Gemma’s production-approved meal plans, meals Evie had never made, let alone for a group as large as the one filming at the castle.
One meal plan read later, Sunita barged through the truck’s doorway along with a bulging assortment of Tesco bags. “Mmm!” Her grocery haul rebounded off the knees of her dark jeans. “Smells good!”
Rubbing the elastic edge of her hairnet with the heel of her hand, Evie quirked a brow. “Don’t sound so surprised.”
“Chili?”
“Yep, served with chunky bread and a spinach salad topped with apple and a vinaigrette dressing.”
Sunita lifted her chin toward The Cookery Year and the multitude of sticky tabs protruding from its pages like a neon fringe. “Someone was swotting up on recipes last night.”
