The Perfect Hero (26 page)

So a fifty-minute – make that fifty-five-minute – delay wasn’t anything to worry about really. In fact, it gave him a chance to practise things in his mind.

‘Heidi,’ he could say, ‘you know how much I care about you?’

Hmmm. Did that make him sound too overbearing? He didn’t want to smother her and scare her away. She was a modern independent woman who would laugh in his face if she thought he had visions of hiding her away from the world and mollycoddling her.

‘Heidi – what can I say but I love—’

‘Oh, Adam!’ her voice suddenly called across the restaurant and, sure enough, a dozen pairs of eyes flashed in her direction as she waltzed towards him wearing the sort of dress that Nana Craig would have sworn should be classed as underwear. ‘Have you been waiting ages for me, darling?’ She leaned across the table, flashing an expanse of bosom and leaving a red smear across his mouth.

‘No,’ Adam lied. ‘Not at all.’

‘I just couldn’t get away on time.’ That was as much of an excuse as she was going to give this time but Adam didn’t mind.

‘That’s okay,’ he said, watching as Heidi arranged herself, flicking her hair back and fluffing out her dress around her knees. Then, because he couldn’t bear to delay it another moment, he reached across the table and took her hand in his. She looked at him with those huge cat-like eyes and he cleared his throat.

‘Heidi,’ he said.

‘What is it? Are we going to order?’

Adam had smiled. ‘Yes, of course we are, but I wanted to ask you something first.’

‘Oh?’

‘You know how I feel about you, don’t you?’

Heidi’s eyes had narrowed. ‘Well, I guess,’ she said.

‘I’ve never met anyone like you before.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t expect you have.’

‘And I want to ask you to marry me.’

Heidi’s pretty mouth opened in a perfect circle. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, really,’ Adam said with a little laugh. And then an awful silence fell between them.

‘Oh, dear,’ Heidi said at last.

‘What?’ Adam said, panic rising in him.

‘I didn’t see this coming,’ she said. ‘I mean, we’ve been having fun, haven’t we?’

‘Yes,’ Adam said. ‘We have.’

‘What we have – it’s a lovely, summery thing, isn’t it?’

Adam swallowed hard. A lovely, summery thing? What the hell was that supposed to mean? ‘Heidi – I love—’

‘Don’t say that,’ she said, removing her hand from his.

‘Why not? Why shouldn’t I say it? It’s what I feel.’

Heidi took a deep breath and then dropped her bomb-shell. ‘But I’m already married.’

Adam’s face froze and he was unable to speak, anger and confusion boiling inside him as he thought about the time they’d spent together – the
nights
they’d spent together, and the weekends away, the parties they’d attended together
as a couple
. Everything had been pointing to a future together, hadn’t it?

‘I’m sorry, Adam. I just wanted a bit of fun, you know?’ Heidi said. ‘My marriage has been stale for years and – well – this has been fun, hasn’t it? You don’t regret this, do you?’

Adam could feel himself heating up as he looked at the stranger before him – the stranger he’d fallen in love with.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘You men are so strange. You get so worked up about a few dates and a little bit of sex. Why can’t you just enjoy things for what they are?’

Adam closed his eyes, willing this to be some dreadful nightmare from which he was about to wake up but, when he opened his eyes, Heidi was still sitting there with that taunting expression on her face.

There was a pause as the waiter came to the table. ‘Ready to order?’

‘Adam?’ Heidi said. ‘Are we ready to order?’

He shook his head. ‘I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.’

Heidi sighed. ‘I guess that’s it then, is it?’ She looked across at him; her eyes had narrowed and looked like little chips of ice.

‘I guess it is.’

She pushed her chair back and he watched as she stormed out of the restaurant, causing heads to turn once again.

‘That’s not my future wife,’ Adam said.

‘Excuse me?’ the waiter said.

Adam laughed. ‘I’ll just finish this bottle of champagne,’ he said.

The waiter nodded and left him to it.

It took Adam a full hour to pull himself together but pull himself together he did. He was so angry with himself. How could he not have known?

Leaving the restaurant, he walked along the river, his eyes gazing out across the city. London was a great place to be when you were in love and a horrible prison when you weren’t.

It was that evening that he’d decided to go back to Lyme Regis – for good. And it wasn’t just to run away from his doomed relationship. He wanted to smell the sea air. He wanted to stride out across the fields and breathe in lungfuls of fresh air.

He left within a fortnight, determined that he was going to focus on his work. He was through with women. Well, until he’d met Kay.

Now, driving out of Lyme Regis with Kay beside him, he wondered if she was right. Maybe Jane Austen fans were destined to be disappointed by love because nothing could ever live up to the happy endings created in fiction. And yet here he was in love once more. Even though he’d told himself that it would never happen again and that he’d be better off single, he’d found himself falling for Kay.

Chapter Thirty-Two

There was a voice coming out of the shrubbery and it didn’t sound too happy.

‘I have enough to worry about with schedules and the weather and a million other things without having to worry about my lead actor as well!’

‘Well, stop bloody worrying about me then!’

‘How can I when you kidnap my daughter and then go stomping off ?’

‘I did not kidnap Annabel.’

‘No, you just went off with her without telling anybody.’

‘I’m not going through all this again,’ Oli’s voice shouted. ‘I told Clare – okay?’

Gemma bit her lip. She hated arguments but she couldn’t help listening in on this one. Not that she had much choice. The whole cast and crew had downed tools and were listening in too.

‘I’m not going to discuss it any more!’ Teresa’s voice yelled. ‘That’s an end of it.’

And then the voices quietened.

‘I don’t think we’re going to get that other scene done today, are we?’ a voice said.

Gemma turned around and saw Rob. He was grinning and his eyes sparkled with mischief.

‘I wonder what’s going on with them two, anyway?’ Rob said when it was clear Gemma wasn’t going to answer his question.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean it’s like they can’t live either with or without each other.’

‘Well, I wish they could just get on with things until we finish shooting.’

Rob walked towards her. ‘You okay?’ he asked.

‘I’m fine,’ she said.

‘Want a cup of coffee?’

‘No, thank you,’ Gemma said, her mind still on Oli and Teresa.

‘Tea?’

‘No.’

‘How about—’

‘Look,’ Gemma interrupted, ‘I’d just rather be on my own – if you don’t mind.’

‘Oh.’

Gemma started to walk back to the trailer. Filming was hard enough without all this business with Oli. And now Rob kept popping up every time she turned around. What was it with men?

As she climbed the steps into the trailer, she dared to glance back and, sure enough, he was staring right back at her, his smile bright and undiminished.

It was a short drive from Lyme Regis to Charmouth and the sweep of sea that greeted Kay from the car park at the bottom of the lane took her breath away.

Jane Austen had written about this countryside and Kay had read that passage in
Persuasion
over and over again since moving to Lyme Regis.

‘You’ll love it here,’ he said. ‘It’s such a special place.’

Charmouth might not be the first destination for those with a bucket and spade; the visitors were far more likely to be wielding metal hammers.

‘This is the best place ever for fossils,’ Adam explained. ‘People come from all over the world to find them. We’ll have a quick tour of the heritage centre and shop before hitting the beach then you’ll be an expert and know exactly what we’re looking for.’

Twenty minutes later, and with a tiny guidebook to help her, Kay was ready to attack the beach. They crossed a little wooden bridge over a river and headed towards the main beach. There was a good stretch of shiny sand but the beach was predominantly stony with great grey cliffs stretching up heavenwards all the way along to Golden Cap. Kay looked back along the coast and saw the sandy beach at Lyme Regis.

‘Can you see Wentworth House from here?’ she asked, shielding her eyes.

Adam looked. ‘There’s the row of beach huts so Wentworth House will be about there,’ he said, pointing.

Kay smiled. Her own little piece of the Dorset coast.

It was then that Adam’s phone rang. ‘Blast,’ he said.

Kay turned away to give him a moment’s privacy.

‘No, no, no,’ he was saying, ‘the budget won’t allow for that. There’s got to be another way. Yes, but we tried that before and it doesn’t work.’

Kay frowned. There was obviously more to film-making other than handsome actors and beautiful costumes.

‘Sorry about that,’ Adam said a moment later. ‘I’ve switched it off now.’

‘Are you allowed to do that?’

‘I think the film world can manage without me for a couple of hours. Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s get to work.’

Kay had seen the pretty ammonites in the gift shop and was desperate to find one of her own but it wasn’t easy and she was lazy to begin with, expecting her prize to be quickly won with only a quick shove with her boot to reveal the hidden treasure. But this soon frustrated her and she crouched down closer to the ground. Adam was crouching too and this made Kay anxious. What if he found something before her? Competitiveness set in and a fossil frenzy began with fingers turning over stones – quickly but carefully – shuffling along the beach with her bottom hovering in the most ungainly of fashions. But Kay didn’t care. As long as she got her fossil. Charmouth, she thought, was the most unfriendly beach in the country because everyone’s eyes were fixed to the ground and everybody was a rival.

After about ten minutes, Kay stood up and stretched. She couldn’t hover any longer and so took to bending down instead.

‘You’ll get fossiler’s stoop if you do that for too long,’ Adam said, turning round from his patch on the beach.

‘Why can’t I find anything?’

‘Be patient. It’s a case of training the eyes. That’s all. There’s no secret.’

‘But you’ve found so many!’ she said, looking at the collection he was holding in his hand. It was crammed full of tiny ammonites.

‘Yes, but I’ve been doing this since I was a kid.’

She looked up at the grey cliffs above her. They looked horrendously unstable and almost alive with menace. It was easy to imagine the wonders that they must hide – the prehistoric beasts which were ready to burst free from their muddy tombs. All it would take was that one extra storm; just one more landslip and they’d be free. But Adam had warned her not to go too close to the cliff and told her the story about the famous nineteenth-century fossil collector, Mary Anning, who had been trapped by a landslip which had nearly killed her, so Kay kept her distance from them.

She took a deep breath and began again.

‘Oh my goodness!’ Adam suddenly exclaimed. He was leaning over a dark boulder, his chisel in his hand and his back to Kay. Straightening up, Kay stumbled over the beach to reach him.

‘What is it? What have you found?’

‘I think it’s a tyrannosaur.’

‘What?’ Kay’s mouth dropped open. ‘Show me!’

Adam turned around from the boulder and held out a tiny purple soft toy dinosaur he’d been hiding in his jacket.

‘It’s the discovery of a lifetime,’ he said, a big grin bisecting his face.

‘Adam!’ she said with a laugh, ‘I thought you were serious.’

‘I saw him in the shop and couldn’t resist him,’ he said.

‘And I thought you’d gone back in to get proper equipment,’ she said.

‘Go on, then,’ he said, ‘back to it.’

Kay giggled as she put the furry dinosaur in her pocket and returned to a patch of beach of her own.

The sound of hammering rocks vied with the incessant waves as Kay worked her way slowly along the beach once more. As she continued to hunt, she couldn’t help wishing Oli was there. Not that this would be his kind of thing. In fact, she couldn’t really imagine him there at all. She remembered seeing a photograph of him in a celebrity magazine once. He’d been on board a very expensive-looking yacht somewhere in the Mediterranean. That would be the kind of holiday by the sea he’d enjoy – not fossil hunting on a wind-battered bit of Dorset coast.

She looked up and watched Adam for a moment. How patient he was, searching the stones and sand with relentless precision, his thick dark hair flopping over his face. He had his sleeves rolled up and Kay couldn’t help noticing that he had rather nice strong arms that had obviously caught the sun recently. No wonder Gemma had clapped her eyes on him, she thought. He really was very handsome.

Kay returned to scanning the beach and – suddenly – there it was. Sitting on the shingle as if it had been waiting especially for her, was a tiny golden ammonite. It was the size of a thumbnail and seemed to be winking up at her, daring her to pick it up, which Kay was only too happy to do.

‘I’ve got one!’ she yelled. ‘I’ve got one!’

Adam stood up and came running towards her. ‘Let’s see then, Darwin.’

Kay held it up for his inspection. ‘Isn’t it gorgeous?’

‘It’s a beauty all right,’ Adam said, taking it from her and examining it closely. ‘Well done!’

Kay beamed with pride. ‘Gold too!’

‘That’s the iron pyrite or Fool’s Gold,’ Adam said, handing it back to her.

‘It’s so beautiful. It’s like a piece of jewellery,’ she said, holding it up so that it caught the light.

‘Nothing beats that first fossil!’ he said. ‘And I think you win the prize for the best today.’

‘I’ll keep it forever,’ Kay said. ‘Unless . . .’