Fairytale Beginnings (28 page)

‘I know,’ Milly snapped.

She helped Cameron get changed and led him back into the kitchen, just as blue flashing lights appeared outside the windows. For a village that didn’t seem to exist on any maps and was nearly impossible to get to, the ambulance sure had got there quick enough.

Milly ran outside just as the ambulance was turning around so it was facing the right direction. She quickly told the paramedics what had happened, how long Cameron had been unconscious and how he had been sleepy and dizzy ever since. The paramedics examined him and helped him into the ambulance with Cameron protesting the whole time and Olivia flapping around them all like an oversized bird.

Cameron sat down on the bed inside and Milly moved to get in the ambulance with him.

‘Milly, get my phone will you?’ Cameron muttered.

Milly raced back inside and looked around for it on the table which was covered in Olivia’s stuff. She eventually found it under a pile of papers, grabbed it and raced back outside again, but the ambulance was already pulling out the gate.

Milly chased after it, but it was too far ahead. She sped back to the kitchen and found her car keys. She jumped into Dick and turned the key but though he coughed and spluttered and though she begged and pleaded with him to start, the engine didn’t turn over and she knew by that point the ambulance had already left the village, taking Cameron and the evil PA with it.

M
illy was in a state
. She had no idea where Cameron had been taken. She had phoned every hospital in the local area and even the ones further afield and they all denied that Cameron had been admitted there. As a semi famous celebrity, she supposed he was afforded a bit more privacy than other patients.

She had phoned Olivia more times than she could count but she never answered.

She’d phoned his publishers but couldn’t find anyone who was willing to talk to her.

It had been nearly twenty-four hours since the ambulance had disappeared. She hadn’t slept, she hadn’t eaten, she had cried more tears than she knew she had.

She felt sick.

What if he had died? What if she never saw him again?

She felt awful and she knew part of it was from lack of food. She had to eat something but the thought twisted her stomach. She opened up a can of beans and poured the contents into a saucepan but before she could put it on the stove a taxi pulled up on the drive outside.

Her heart soared and sank in equal measure. It could be Cameron, it could just be Olivia.

She watched out the window and as the taxi drove off, she could see Cameron and Olivia walking back up the drive. Cameron looked exhausted but he was alive.

She flew out the door, down the drive and threw her arms around him, sobbing uncontrollably.

‘I was so scared, I thought you might have died. Are you ok?’

She leaned back slightly to look at him and only then realised that he wasn’t holding her and he was looking at her with absolute hatred.

She stepped back. ‘What’s wrong?’

He didn’t say anything, just shoved a newspaper into her hands and walked past her back to the castle.

Milly stared after him in confusion and then unfolded the newspaper. There, on the front page, was the photo she had taken of her and Cameron in bed together coupled with the headline, ‘
Phoenix Blaze set my world on fire
.’

Her stomach dropped. She flicked open the newspaper and an account of their love story covered two whole pages. The spread included the photos she had taken of him sleeping; one close up of his face and one naked picture of him lying sprawled out face down on the bed, plus the ones he had taken of her naked and the ones he had taken of them together. These were private intimate photos and someone had exploited them. She felt sick for Cameron and then as she studied the words some more, she realised with horror that this wasn’t an account of their love story but an interview with her. There were quotes and huge paragraphs from someone claiming to be Milly giving detailed accounts of her and Cameron’s time together.

She ran after Cameron and burst into the kitchen. ‘I didn’t do this.’

Her suitcase was open on the kitchen table and Cameron was grabbing all her possessions and throwing them in. He didn’t even look at her.

‘I swear, I didn’t do this. I love you, why would I do this if I loved you?’

‘I’ve been asking that question myself,’ Cameron said.

Rage ripped through her. ‘I can’t believe you would think I was capable of this. After everything we’ve been through …’

Cameron slammed his hand down on the table. ‘Yes, after everything we’ve been through you betray me like this.’

‘I didn’t do it.’

Cameron shook his head, throwing more of her things into the suitcase. ‘I thought you were different, I trusted you.’

‘That’s bollocks! You never trusted me. I thought you had got past all those fears and had fallen in love with me. But you clearly never loved me at all if you can believe that I would do something like this to you.’

Cameron slammed the lid shut and zipped it up, then stalked past her, opened the door and shoved the suitcase in the back of her car.

‘Get out and don’t ever come back.’

He strode off to his bedroom without a look back.

Olivia stared at her with disgust. ‘Looks like someone’s shine has rubbed off.’

Milly had no words. How had this happened?

Cameron came back into the kitchen, wearing only his jeans. Milly gasped at the dark bruise down one side.

‘Olivia, I need you in the bedroom,’ he said.

Milly watched in horror as Olivia slipped out of her jacket and then walked past Cameron towards his bedroom. Cameron followed her and slammed the door to the lounge.

Milly stared at the door. With angry tears pouring down her cheeks, she walked out. She hoisted her suitcase out of the back of Dick and walked down the drive. She would have to arrange for a garage to come and collect him at some point, if Cameron hadn’t burnt him to the ground in some spiteful rage.

Anger boiled inside her as she walked through the gate. It had taken everything she had to let herself trust in a happy ending with him and now he had betrayed her. How could he possibly think she would do that to him?

She was shaking all over and she knew she had to get some food. She walked into the village, a huge lump of emotion and tears clogging in her throat making it difficult to breathe.

She knocked on Gladys’s door. When she answered her face lit up at seeing her and then immediately fell when she saw Milly’s expression.

‘Come in dear, I’ll put the kettle on.’

‘
H
as she gone
?’ Cameron asked as he paced around the bedroom.

Olivia tottered out to check, he heard the lounge door open and then she came back. ‘Looks like it.’

‘Good.’ He flopped back down on the bed. ‘I need to sleep, bloody doctors kept me awake all night.’

‘I know you’ve been hurt by this, let me help you.’ She ran a hand over his arm but he moved out of her reach.

‘Liv, I’m in a really bad mood and I don’t want to say something that I’ll regret. Will you please just leave me alone for a few hours.’

Olivia sighed. ‘Well, can I get you anything?’

‘Yes, the newspaper.’

‘Cam, I really don’t think you should read that now, it isn’t going to make you feel any better.’

‘I need to know what she said about me.’

Olivia disappeared back into the kitchen and brought the paper back.

She hovered for a moment.

‘I can’t believe she told the papers that you didn’t write the
Hidden Faces
series. I hate to say I told you so, but you should never have trusted her with that.’

‘I shouldn’t have trusted her with anything, but that secret is going to ruin me.’

‘Maybe it isn’t. Maybe she’s done you a favour with that. You’ve always said you wanted everyone to know. This might help to get your fans back on side before the release of the next book.’

Cameron had nothing to say, he was so angry. When it was obvious he wasn’t going to speak to her, Olivia left, closing the door behind her.

He stared at the picture of him and Milly on the front page. They looked so happy together, so in love. How could she have done this to him?

He opened up the paper and stared at the pictures of him lying fast asleep, stark naked. How could she deny that she had done this when she was the one who had taken these pictures? Why would she take photos of him naked whilst he slept unless she had intended to sell him out all along?

Two pages of his most intimate moments with the woman he loved revealed for everyone to see. When he had been discharged from hospital this morning, he had wanted nothing more than to rush back to Milly, but as they had driven the short ride from the hospital in the taxi, Olivia had handed him the paper and he had been so enraged by what he had seen that he hadn’t even been able to read it. Now he needed to know.

He started to read and became more and more confused. The description of his relationship with Milly was a complete pack of lies. Milly’s account of how he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her and that they had slept together the first night they had met in the giant four poster bed was utter bullshit. What followed was an account of sex on the banqueting table, sex in the dungeons with Milly manacled to a wall, and sex with Cameron dressed in a full suit of armour. It was a work of fiction and made Cameron out to be a really kinky sex maniac. Why would Milly tell these lies? It was bad enough that she had sold her story to the papers but to completely make up what had happened between them was just weird. But then his relationship with his last girlfriend, Stacey, had ended in the same way, with a pack of lies printed in the papers. He read the part where she explained about him not writing the
Hidden Faces
series. It killed him that she had used that for her exclusive. He hadn’t told anyone that before. There were only a handful of people that knew; a few people from the publishers, his agent and Olivia.

He flicked back to the front page and stared at the photo of them together again. She loved him, he knew that. She had shown him she loved him time and time again. The day before when he had knocked himself unconscious, she sat with him even when in doing so she was risking her own life. In the moments when she thought he was still unconscious she had kept telling him she loved him.

He flicked back to the photos on the inside of the paper. These had been taken with her phone. If it wasn’t Milly that had done this, then who?

His hands shook with rage as he crumpled the paper into a ball. How had he been so stupid? The bang to the head, the exhaustion of going without sleep for over twenty-four hours? There was no excuse.

He stormed from the bedroom into the kitchen where Olivia was on the phone again. She looked at Cameron’s face and quickly ended the call.

‘Maxwell, I’ve got to go.’ She hung up the phone.

‘You fucking bitch,’ Cameron seethed. He waved the screwed up newspaper at her. ‘You fucking did this.’

She scrambled out of her seat suddenly looking very pale. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You sold this story to the papers. You did the same with Stacey too, sold a pack of lies under her name. This wasn’t Milly at all.’

‘Of course it was her, the photos came from her phone.’

‘Which has been in here almost the whole time she’s been here.’

He rounded the table towards her and she moved away, keeping the table between them.

‘You’ve hated her from the second you met her. She tried to tell me and I just didn’t believe her.’

‘No, she wasn’t good for you. I was only trying to protect you but I would never do something like this.’

‘Why would she still be here, knowing the story would be published today? Why would she do this to me when she loves me? Why would she ruin her reputation when it was so important to her? Why would she make up a complete pack of lies about our relationship?’

‘To make it sound more interesting.’

‘Why would she need to make it sound more interesting? It was fucking perfect and you screwed it up.’

‘She was a money grabbing whore, why can’t you see that?’

Olivia’s phone lit up with a new call, and Cameron looked at the caller ID to see Maxwell’s name flashing next to a photo of Olivia and Maxwell, the CEO of Palace Hotels. It was quite obvious from the photo that they were a couple.

Suddenly everything made sense, her desperation for him to sign with Palace Hotels, trying to find dirt on Extravagance and Milly, he had been so blind.

‘You’re sleeping with the CEO of Palace Hotels, that’s a bit of a conflict of interest there wouldn’t you say, Liv?’ He glanced down at the table and spotted the contract with Palace Hotels. He recognised the logo at the top. ‘This was what you were trying to get me to sign yesterday, when I had banged my head. I could have been seriously brain damaged and the only thing you cared about was this. The only money grabbing whore is you.’

Cameron threw the newspaper across the room in a rage. He moved round the table towards her and she turned and ran, immediately tripping over Milly’s shoes that were left lying in the kitchen. Everything happened in slow motion as she grabbed the handle of the saucepan filled with cold baked beans to stop herself from falling, the beans flew through the air, she hit the floor and the beans landed with a splat on top of her head. Gregory leapt up from his position by the stove and proceeded to lick the baked beans from her face as they slowly dripped down her cheeks.

‘No, get off me, get him off me,’ Olivia sobbed.

He crouched down next to her, ignoring Gregory’s ministrations. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. ‘You’re fired. Get out of my home right now and I never want to see you again.’

He stood up.

‘You’re firing me? After everything I have done for you?’ Olivia cried.

‘You’ve done nothing for me. No, wait, I tell a lie, the one good thing you did for me was put me in touch with one of the best fucking lawyers in the country. If there is any possible way I can stick criminal charges on you for this, I will. Slander, libel. There’s also the little case of using private photos without permission, fraud maybe, for acting in Milly’s name. I think you’re looking at some serious time in prison for this.’

He didn’t need any further confirmation that Olivia had been the one that had betrayed him but the fact that she went as white as a sheet when he was talking about prison was the final cherry on the cake.

‘Get out now. I swear if you’re still here when I get back you’re going to see me really angry.’

He grabbed his car keys and stormed out, leaving her crying on the kitchen floor as Gregory continued to lick her clean. Cameron only hoped the beast would eat her after he had licked all the beans off her, though he severely doubted that Gregory would enjoy the taste of Olivia’s bitterness.

He was surprised to see Dick still sitting patiently in front of the house, but he guessed that the car hadn’t started when Milly had tried to leave earlier or even the day before when the ambulance had left without her. She couldn’t have got that far in the last fifteen or twenty minutes. He ran round to the garage, jumped in his car and tore out of the gates, determined to put this right. He only hoped she would listen to him.

M
illy stared
at the phone in her hand in shock. She’d just been fired. This day couldn’t possibly get any worse.

Gladys had fed her up with cake and mugs of tea. Milly had been ranting and screaming at her about Cameron when Castle Heritage had suddenly phoned. She hadn’t really heard the words they’d said although she certainly got the gist. She didn’t even have anything she could say to defend herself as although she hadn’t sold her story to the papers and the bizarre sexual antics weren’t true, her relationship with a client was and she knew they were totally justified in sacking her, especially as she had stayed at the castle the week before her holiday on company time purely because she had wanted to stay with Cameron.

The phone rang again and she saw Belinda’s name flashing on the screen. Shame and guilt ripped through her. Belinda would be so disappointed.

Thankfully Gladys had left to give her some space when Castle Heritage rang, and she was still banging around in the kitchen now, making cakes or other such delights.

Milly answered the phone.

‘Hi Belinda,’ Milly said, her voice was choked.

‘Milly, I’ve just seen this awful business in the papers. Are you ok?’

‘I didn’t sell my story, none of that stuff is true.’

‘Of course it isn’t. I know you better than that.’

‘I’m so sorry, I’ve let you down again.’

‘How have you let me down?’

‘Because I let my heart rule my head again.’

She stared at her knees, surprised to see scratches on them, probably from being in the cave the day before. Had that really only been twenty-four hours earlier, when the only thing she was wishing for was for Cameron to be alive. Now all she wished was that she had never met the man in the first place.

‘Honey, your heart should always rule your head. Trust in your heart, it knows you a lot better than your head does. I love you so much and all I want is for you to be happy. Don’t shy away from love just because you’ve been hurt in the past. Embrace it and all its wonderful, glorious and horrible moments. I never ever want you to miss out on being in love because you let your head decide rather than your heart.’

‘Listening to my heart has just cost me my job.’

‘Nonsense. I will speak to Nicholas about this, don’t you worry. We go way back.’

‘That’s ok. I deserve to be sacked,’ Milly said, sadly.

‘What utter rubbish! You work damn hard at that job and you have done for several years. He was only saying to me the other week what a breath of fresh air you were and how much he loved having you work there. He’s a proud man and he won’t like that Castle Heritage has been dragged into this mess but he will calm down in a day or two. I will speak with him.’

‘Maybe it’s time for a change. Maybe I’ll lecture in historical architecture instead. I think I might really like that.’

‘You would be wonderful at that, you have such passion for what you do.’

Milly sighed. Where she worked hardly seemed important anymore. Her heart was in tatters. The numb anger was starting to fade and the acute pain was finally catching up with her.

‘Tell me about Cameron,’ Belinda said, softly.

‘I love him with everything I have.’

‘Then you fight for him.’

‘He hates me and I hate him a little bit right now for believing that I would do that.’

‘It must have been a shock for him. The pain you’re feeling right now because he jumped to the wrong conclusion is the same pain he felt when he thought you had betrayed him. You are a kind, sweet, generous soul. When he apologises, be generous with him.’

‘He’s not going to apologise.’

‘He will. I’m staring at this photo of you two now. The man is completely in love with you. He’ll come to his senses. Now where are you?’

‘I’m still in the village near the castle. Dick refused to work again so I was just going to call a taxi.’

‘I’ll send Jamie to come and collect you. It might be an hour or two but then you both can come round for dinner tonight and if you want, you can stay a few days.’

Milly smiled. ‘I’d really like that, thank you.’

‘I’ll see you tonight, my beautiful girl.’

Belinda hung up and Milly smiled at the unconditional love her aunt had for her.

Milly said goodbye to Gladys and decided to wait on the green for Jamie, she needed some space.

She stepped out the front door and walked down onto the road just as Cameron came tearing out the castle gates in his car. He looked furious. He saw her and the car screeched to a halt a few metres away. He got out the car and ran towards her. He looked like he wanted to kill someone, preferably her. She turned and ran across the green away from him.