The absolute heaven of being able to be with him.
It’s been two weeks since our little Gordon Kay stunt, and life feels full. Shooting is still full-on, every news outlet on the planet wants an exclusive, and interest inGrosvenorhas reached such fever pitch that Donna and her publicity team have brought forward their release schedule for previously embargoed footage, sharing behind-the-scenes photos and video clips on social media and giving us the green light to selectively do the same.
Josh and I may be having a little too much fun with it.
We run everything past Donna before we hitpost, but we have Instagram Stories of us messing around in costume, a few growly clips of Josh talking in his Dom accent, and even some TikToks of us doing trending dance moves dressed as Dom and Georgiana.
But with the publicity push comes an endless clamour for photo shoots—both forGrosvenor’s publicity shots and for magazines. I can’t imagine what the reception will be like when the show actually launches in December.
I have a new pit-bull, though: Mr Joshua Lander. He’s in everyone’s faces, telling them where to go if he feels they’re piling too much pressure on me. Instead of giving me orgasms between takes, he gives me foot massages (although there’s plenty of opportunity for the former every night at The Grove) and he had me on an IV vitamin drip yesterday morning given the hectic weekend ahead. He’s a bit of a mother hen, truth be told. But mother hens have never been so sweet. Or sexy.
And it has been a hectic weekend. We came back down toLondon on Friday night and yesterday, Josh and I braved our first #Crohn’sWarrior event for women with Crohn’s. We had panels and breakouts and a lot of cheerleading, and it was fucking amazing. I welled up about every ten seconds, and more than once I found Josh bawling his eyes out as he hugged it out with attendees.
I made it clear he had to be there for two reasons.
One. Totally gratuitous, famous eye candy, to give these women a treat.
And two. To remind them that real men won’t let a woman’s Crohn’s diagnosis stop them from finding her beautiful.
So many of the women were younger than me, and so many of them—around seventy percent—had undergone major surgery, with a large proportion of those now stuck with wearing stoma bags for life. Hearing them open up about the body issues and depression so many of them had been through made me glad we’d chosen to hold this event for women only.
It’s important to be able to talk about this stuff in a safe place, because so many women feel completely isolated by their diagnosis. We discussed everything from how hard it is to make plans when you have Crohn’s to how to conduct your sex life with a stoma attached, and it made me more grateful than ever to still have my colon.
I almost felt inadequate, like my struggles had been so much less severe than those of so many people in the room. But I wanted to remind these women that fame doesn’t make any of these problems go away. I shared with them that the morning Josh invited me out on that first hiking date in Cap d’Antibes, I got up at 5am so I could hang around the loo and manage my dodgy tummy before I went out. He cried that night, in bed, recounting it to me.
And in casea roomful of women wasn’t enough for one weekend, today I’m inflicting my extended family on Josh. My aunt and uncle, Laura and Charles, are having us over for lunch with my cousins, and my parents are coming down from Chipping Norton for the day. Laura and Charles live locally in Holland Park, just a few streets away.
The lunch is to celebrate my and Josh getting together properly—which is very sweet of my aunt, though I have no doubt she wants a good chance to ogle him in person—and also to celebrate my cousin Miles’ engagement to his fiancée, Saoirse. I stayed away from their proper engagement party (because no bride wants her special evening hijacked by a couple of celebs whose mugs are all over the news at the moment) and I’m dying to meet Saoirse, so Laura suggested we do a family thing privately at their house.
Much as I’m looking forward to toasting Miles, and meeting Saoirse, and cuddling my cousin Stephen’s seven-month-old twin girls (they’reidentical! Sooo cute!), and watchingJoshcuddle them (be still my ovaries), the biggest treat of the day will be something else.
Thatsomething elsewalks into the kitchen, clutching Olive and looking stunning in a cream strappy dress with a subtle fern print all over it. Wow. Her makeup is light and dewy, and her hair is perfectly blow-dried with more bounce than her usual silky curtain allows.
‘Get a room,’ she mutters, but there’s no hostility in her tone.
‘You look beautiful!’ I release Josh, who turns to look at Nora and whistles.
‘Wow. Looking good, Nor. Where yougoing today?’
‘Lunch with you guys.’ She’s no longer pissed off with Josh, but her manner around him is still pretty stiff, mainly because, as she’s admitted to me, she finds him far hotter than she thinks is morally acceptable when he’s dating her housemate. I don’t have a problem with it; I’m used to every woman on the planet fancying my boyfriend, and I know when he’s unveiled as Dominic in all his ducal glory, his fanbase will grow to a whole other level of obsession. I’m happy to share the love.
‘How come? Is that because you’re doing the wedding planning for Elle’s cousin?’
‘Nope.’ I smirk openly at Nora, though I’m thrilled she got the gig for Miles and Saoirse’s wedding. It’s going to be epic. ‘Nora’s coming along as amember of the family, aren’t you, Nor?’
‘Fuck off,Elle.’
She scoots out of my reach with Olive.
‘Huh?’ Josh turns to me. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Did you not tell him?’ Nora asks me.
I pat Josh’s arm. ‘I did not. We operate on a need-to-know basis in this relationship.’
‘I’m so fucking confused.’ Josh tugs Olive out of Nora’s arms and holds her tucked under his chin, right up against his pecs. Lucky Olive. ‘You’re the only woman in this house who isn’t weird,’ he croons as she licks his stubble adoringly. ‘Aren’t you, baby?’
I decide to put him out of his misery. ‘Okay. I’ll say this fast. As far as our whole family and everyone else is concerned, Nora is dating Miles’ middle brother, Theo. But she’s not, really. Theo’s dating her to get his parents off his case about being irresponsible and immature, because he wants in on running their latest hotel venture.
