Of course! I’m going to the salon at 12.30 tho. Can’t miss my appointment. Roots are brutal. xx
Okay, will catch up with you there.
Can’t wait. I’ve missed you, son. Great to have you home. xx
Home. Could he really call Scotland home if he was barely here? In the last decade, he’d been the poster boy for the Hollywood dream. He’d travelled the world in private jets, lived in a swanky apartment on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, married and divorced a famous actress, Sienna Montgomery, from a three-generation acting dynasty. Yep, he’d had it all and he was deeply grateful for it. He used to hope that it would last forever… right up until about eighteen months ago, when he’d realised that much as he adored his job, the downsides were taking the edge off his love of the work. Being based in LA and spending most of his life on the road was a lonely existence, he missed Glasgow and his glittering reality lacked purpose. All of which was brought into sharp focus when – bombshell – Sienna was caught cheating with one of her co-stars. That’s when he’d changed everything. He’d founded the theatre academy with Calvin, his former manager and friend, and dedicated the short time between shoots to working there, living in his Glasgow townhouse instead of his LA penthouse. The changes weren’t huge, but they allowed him to spend more time with his mum and friends and then, only a few weeks after his divorce was final, he’d met Stevie and that had wrapped his whole life up in a neat, tidy bow – if you overlooked the fact that she refused to actually commit to their relationship by moving in with him or going public.
They’d had a couple of blissful months together when they first met, but then he had to head back out on location, and since then, their relationship had mostly consisted of daily facetime calls and snatched weekends and weeks when one or both of them could get away from work. They tried to stick to their rule of not being apart for more than a month at a time, but it didn’t always go to plan. She’d even rejected his offer of a weekend in Monte Carlo to celebrate their anniversary because her department was short-staffed and there was no one to cover. In his world, where fame attracted gold-diggers, opportunists and attention-seekers, she was something special. Which is why his hopes for their relationship were terrifying him to the very core – not because he was afraid of commitment, but because he was pretty sure that – oh, the fricking irony – life with a TV star who was away for most of the year just wasn’t what she wanted for her long-term future. He knew he should talk to her. Discuss it. But every time he tried, she brushed it off and changed the subject. In the last month, he’d tried twice to pin her down to a serious conversation about where she saw their relationship going, and she’d changed the subject both times. He wasn’t prone to insecurity or self-doubt, but he’d be crazy not to wonder if this was just a fling to her. A stopgap. A bit of fun while she waited for some doctor who was perfect husband material to come along. Of all the potential pitfalls he’d imagined in his romantic life, having a girlfriend who wanted to keep their relationship top secret and out of the spotlight hadn’t been one of them. Especially as he was now very definitely ready to make this a more permanent situation.
Just thinking about that drew his gaze to the brown envelope over on the desk by the window. Inside was a contract for five further years onThe Clansman. A promise that, if he made it, would ensure that he’d be away for at least eight or nine months a year for another half a decade. A promise that he couldn’t make if he wanted to persuade Stevie that they could have a future together. How many times had she stressed that she wanted a normal life, living in the same country as her partner, sleeping in the same bed at night?
It should be an easy choice. Millions of dollars. Another five years of stardom. But much as that had been his dream since for as long as he could remember, the goalposts had moved. Now he wanted to marry again. To have a family. To settle down. And none of that came with a five-year extension to hisClansmancontract. It only came with giving up the role to be with Stevie. It was a straight choice. The job he loved or the woman he loved.
But there was another complication. A significant portion of his salary fromThe Clansmanfunded the drama academy, so if he quit, then he would put his mum’s future and that of all the students in jeopardy. Could he really bear to do that? Could he sacrifice their happiness for his own?
He couldn’t discuss it with Stevie because he didn’t want to put the pressure of that decision onto her shoulders. Besides, she was someone who made a life of taking care of others, putting their needs before hers. She wouldn’t want him to shelf his career for her and it would be completely unfair of him to burden her with that choice. No, this had to be his own decision. And the deadline to make it was today.
‘Are you deep in thought or have you slipped into a trance of happiness now that the early reviews of the show are in?’ Stevie came back into the room from the dressing area, showered, hair pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck, wearing wide-leg black trousers, a simple white shirt and a pair of kitten-heeled shoes. That was her standard outfit when she had a department meeting at the hospital, before she would change into her uniform of navy-blue trousers and a paler blue tunic for her shift in the radiography department.
‘Deep in thought,’ he replied honestly.
She plonked down on the edge of the bed. ‘Look, don’t worry about tonight. If Devlin says it’s great, then you’ve got nothing to worry about.’
This wasn’t the time for telling her what he was actually thinking about, so he let her believe she was right. ‘I think winning over Devlin is a bit different from the two hundred family members, friends and students who will be coming to watch the show at the Academy tonight. I just want them all to be really happy when they see it.’
‘And will they be?’ she asked. ‘Sounds like there was a lot going on.’
He shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I haven’t seen the final cut. I’ll be watching it for the first time with everyone else tonight.’
And yes, that did send another tiny shiver of terror up his spine again. Not because he was worried that he could have been filmed doing or saying anything that could end with him being cancelled – although, he wasn’t naive enough to think that a moment or incident in the hundreds of hours of footage couldn’t be taken out of context and twisted. No, that wasn’t his worry. He was media-savvy and always aware of the cameras. His worry was that someone he cared about – one of the students, or a friend, or a member of staff – could inadvertently meet the same fate because they forgot, just for a second, that not only had a documentary crew been filming for the last ten months, but all the public rooms in the Academy had been fitted with cameras too. There were contractual agreements that anyone under the age of sixteen could only be shown in a performance capacity – so no off-stage conversations or drama, and even then, the parents had been walked through every detail of the contract to protect the kids by the Academy lawyers. The production company had been allowed to film off-stage footage with the older teens between sixteen and eighteen, but again, only with those who gave permission. It had been a fine balance. They wanted to spotlight talent and show how the Academy benefitted the teens in the local community, but at the same time, protect them. That’s why he’d insisted on picking the production team and stacking it with people he knew and trusted. Hopefully that would safeguard them all, while still making great TV.
However, there were no rules in place for the adults who worked and volunteered in the Academy, and some of them could be a worry. His Aunt Jacinta, a former soap actress and now a full-time coach at the Academy, could probably hold some kind of world record for offending people with passive-aggressive comments and bitchy asides. His mum didn’t suffer fools or injustice gladly or quietly. And some of the coaches were as wonderfully dramatic off stage as on it. Ollie just hoped the viewing public would be gentle with them all, because, the truth was, they needed the funding that the documentary was bringing in, and the Academy would only continue to survive and thrive if it was recommissioned for a second and third series. They’d got the first series based on his global popularity as the star ofThe Clansman, but that would only get them so far.
When the documentary dropped globally on Netflix tonight, they needed great viewing figures, or it would be a one-series-wonder, especially as his plans for today could end his time onThe Clansmanand the salary that came with it. But he’d worry about all that later. Right now, he had other things on his mind. The most important of which was now leaning over to kiss him goodbye.
Stevie eventually pulled away, but he playfully tugged the collar of her shirt back down towards him, so that he could kiss her again.
His finger traced a path down her cheek. ‘It’s not fair that you kiss me like that. Especially as you appear to be fully clothed and I’m… erm… not.’
‘That’s because I’ve got a job to go to and you… erm… don’t.’
He was still chuckling when her phone rang. Stevie picked it up off her bedside table and put it on speaker as she answered it. Her best mate and colleague, Caleb, sounded impatient.
‘Your chauffeur awaits. I’m downstairs and don’t be long because in this street someone will think I’m casing the joint and I’ll be in the slammer by lunchtime. And you know I couldn’t survive without a decent moisturiser.’
Ollie watched Stevie’s gorgeous face break into a grin that matched his own. It would be easy to be jealous of Caleb, especially as he was 6ft 2, with a ripped gym body and a face that looked like it should be on a magazine cover instead of in nurses’ scrubs on the floor of the Emergency Department, but the truth was, over the last year, Caleb had become one of his favourite people too.
Stevie chuckled. ‘I’ll be right down. I’ll bring bail money just in case.’
After hanging up, she leant down and gave Ollie another quick kiss. ‘If I don’t get back before you leave, I’ll see you at the Academy later.’
‘Oh, so you’re being seen in public with me?’ he teased her.
‘Sure, but I’ll keep a discreet distance and deny that we’ve ever met in person. You’re cute, but I don’t need that kind of drama in my life.’
As she gave him a breezy wave and rushed out the door, Ollie reflected that he’d heard her express a similar sentiment many times before. She didn’t want the spotlight. She shied away from the public eye. She wanted no part of the fame that he dealt with every day. No part of the drama. Or scandal. Or celebrity.
And that was the issue, because his life came with all of those things.
