“Green room?” Osian asks. “Is that like a greenhouse?”
“In television, the green room is where people – I mean show people: presenters, guests and so on – sit and wait before and after filming. It’s like a hospitality lounge.”
He nods, waiting for me to continue.
“Ian managed to pick the lock on the drinks cupboard. He made me laugh because we were ‘tea leaves’ now.”
Osian frowns and his eyes move as if he’s trying to work something out.
“You’re really not a Londoner, are you?” I have to smile despite the story. “Tea leaf is rhyming slang for a thief,” I explain. “Anyway, we ‘thieved’ a bottle of Grand Marnier and sat on the sofa. It was a large bottle. We drank the entire thing.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself,” Osian says softly. “I’ve been there.” His face is full of kindness. The way he looked when he helped me with the panic attack.
“Yeah, but in this case, we got quite pissed.”
He crooks an eyebrow. “I’ve been there too.”
“And one thing led to another.”
He makes a tiny head motion, up and down. “And that too. In my busy dating days.”
“But you haven’t been here.” I bite the inside of my lower lip then say, “Not unless you were caught on the security camera. And the next day, everyone at work had seen the footage.”
He grimaces. “How revealing was the film?”
“Not very, but enough so there’s no doubt what was happening. A bra getting flung over the back of the sofa. Boxer shorts kicked off and falling on the floor.” I reach for the glass, but it’s empty, so I just play with it, turning it around and around on the table.
Osian takes the water jug and pours me more. One of the ice cubes falls in with a plop, making the water splash a bit.
He wipes around the glass with his napkin. Then he moves his empty plate out of the way, reaches for mine and moves it to the side. After a moment, when I haven’t said anything, he reaches across the empty table between us and lays a gentle hand over mine. “It probably feels a lot worse to you. I doubtpeople working in the media are such prudes. Half of them will have been up to similar shenanigans at some point. The gossip will soon die down and be replaced by newer gossip.”
True. If that had been all. But there was a further complication. The real reason I started waking up in the middle of the night with my heart pounding.
Chapter Twenty-three
“The thing is,” I explain, “Garden Rebirthis a small niche programme. It airs on a channel with modest audience numbers.”
“I used to watch it,” he says. “Mostly because I liked your work.”
“Yes, but you are a niche audience, aren’t you? None of the major channels wanted it because they already had other more established garden programmes. But that was set to change. Styler TV is expanding. The PR department has lined up some very high-profile guests. A senior royal in May followed by a couple of major celebrities in June. They’re already in talks with Channel 4. At the moment, not many people know me, but if I stayed, I’d soon be a household name. And then, camera footage of me, drunk”—I put on a giggling silly expression—“my underwear flying into the air”—I mimic a flinging motion—“it would go viral.”
He winces. Clearly he understands because he too was once famous.
“That’s why you came here. To the middle of nowhere.”
“No, I came here because Kendric Park had this amazing opportunity,” I say with a genuine smile. “It was an unexpected bonus. But yes, you’re right. I had to”—I emphasise—“had toleave Styler TV. That drunken night ended my TV career.”
“You don’t sound sorry?”
It’s interesting that his attention is more on me and how I feel rather than the facts. I’ve never had a man care so much.
“I’m not sorry at all. That job had already evolved away from the original concept; it had become more show business than real horticulture. But…” I purse my lips, remembering that resignation meeting with the Head of Productions. “When I left at a tricky time of expansion, my bosses were not happy.”
“They threatened you?” He guesses fast like hitting a ball back, the ace tennis champion he used to be.
“In television, programmes are filmed several months before broadcast. Reliability is super important because it takes time to replace a presenter, particularly in a specialised programme likeGarden Rebirth. So when I walked out with no notice…”
He frowns. “Didn’t your contract stipulate a notice period?”
