She nodded, only realising she was crying when she saw tears splashing on the back of Nanna’s hand.
‘Where’s Hannah?’ Nanna asked her mum softly.
‘She’s in my room. Her dad called earlier, but she missed him. She’s calling him back now.’
Hannah came bursting in at that moment, her face flushed. ‘Please don’t kill me!’
Ellie wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. ‘Why would I kill you?’
‘Well, you wouldn’t killme. But you might kill my dad.’ Hannah bit her bottom lip with nervous excitement.
Ellie sat up a little straighter. ‘What? Why?’
Hannah glanced at her phone. ‘Because… he’s about to pull up with Alex King in the back of his cab.’
‘What!’ Ellie jumped up from the table, her knees banging against the top and knocking over her cold tea. Everyone stared at each other in shocked silence.
Hannah took a deep breath, and added, ‘Dad says he needs to talk to you.’
There were several honks from outside, and they all ran to Ellie’s bedroom and looked out of the window. Martin’s cab was trying to inch through the flower market, but traffic was always slow going on market day, as the road was filled with beautiful flower stalls – and, currently, a lot of photographers.
Like a pack of hyenas, they sensed fresh news and were ready to pounce. They filled the pavement and made it impossible for Alex to make it to the house. He leaned out of the cab windowas if trying to judge the situation. But then he glanced up at the house and at the window where she stood. Their eyes locked and she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. A whirlwind of painful longing rushed through her like a tornado.
His blue eyes widened, and he said something to Martin, who stopped the cab with a jerk. The air rushed out of her lungs in a wheeze. Alex stepped out of the cab, but the photographers rushed forward, blocking his path.
With nowhere to go, he hauled himself up onto the cab’s roof.
Martin wouldn’t be pleased about that, she thought. But then she realised Martin was the person shoving him up there by pushing both hands against his bottom.
‘Ellie!’ Alex shouted, above the raging crowd of questions and camera flashes, and suddenly a hush descended over the street. ‘Ellie, listen!’ he continued. ‘Richie lied. He was playing you, just like he’s played all of us from the start. I don’t know what he told you, but I want you. I want us to be together, for real!’
She stared at him, her heart fluttering back to life, only to be crushed by reality. She leaned out of the window, her tea-stained dressing gown squishing against the glass. ‘It’s not going to work,’ she shouted back. ‘I won’t leave London. I won’t leave my family. I don’t want to go to LA.’
‘We won’t!’
‘But the franchise… and I don’t suit your life.’
The crowd’s heads flipped back and forth between them as if they were watching Wimbledon.
‘I know I haven’t got everything figured out. But I know I could never leave my family or the East End. I don’t want to live in LA, I wouldn’t fit in there and I don’t want to fit in there.’ Her voice trembled at the last bit and the crowd issued a collective ‘aaw’ before turning back to Alex. Ellie was sure she could see them all scowling at him in disapproval.
‘But I want you!’ Alex yelled back. ‘Wherever you are, that’s where I want to be. I’m not moving to LA anyway. I planned to go to LA in a couple of weeks, but it’s just to meet with Francesca Tatiana for my next theatre project.’
The crowd gasped in excitement.
‘Oh, she’s good,’ said Nanna with an appreciative nod.
Alex wasn’t done. ‘I’ve just accepted an in-house job at the theatre. I’ve decided to be like you, and follow my heart and be true to myself – wherever that may take me. But more than that, I finally worked out what I want in life… and it’s you.’
One of the sellers passed him a gorgeous bunch of flowers. ‘Say it properly, lad.’
Alex took the bouquet and held it up to her, even though they were still too far away to touch. ‘I love you. Please say you love me too!’
Choking back a sob, she ran from the window and down the stairs. Nanna shouted down to Alex as she ran down the stairs, ‘Don’t panic, handsome, she’s on her way!’
Ellie threw open the front door, but the photographers blocked her path. ‘Get outta ’er way, ya bunch of idiots!’ shouted some of the burly market sellers, most of whom she’d known her whole life. They pulled the photographers out of her path, and she walked forward as if she were Moses parting the Red Sea.
‘I love you,’ she shouted, her floppy-eared slippers slapping on the pavement.
