“I saw a video where some American woman showed everyone how to make tea in a microwave. I nearly died,” Casey’s mom replied as she retreated down the corridor with Olivia. As hard to resist as Olivia was, she couldn’t quite believe her mom had gone so quietly.
Casey turned back to Neil, still standing five feet away. He looked at her with a sneer now, seeming like he’d regained his composure.
“Nice uniform. Or is that what you lesbians wear for fun these days?”
“I want the money back.” Casey ignored his attempt to rile her. “And whatever you’ve still got of her stuff, or I’ll get the police involved.”
Casey was experiencing a strong sense of déjà vu. She had stood toe-to-toe with her stepdad, just like this, asking for him to return her mom’s jewelry. She had threatened the police then too. It hadn’t worked.
“We both know your mom’s not going to press charges.” He leaned down and picked up his cigarettes, slowly putting them in his back pocket. “And everything I stole, every penny I took, I deserved for putting up with her. We both know what a pain in the arse she is.”
Casey balled her fists, breathing deeply to keep her composure. Neil screwed the cap back onto the vodka bottle and picked it up.
“And the rent money?” Casey tried to keep her tone calm. “I suppose you stole that to spend on drink?”
“Nah.” He headed for the front door, then turned back. “I took that to give to my sister, for the kids. She needed it.”
“My mom needed it. You were supposed to be paying her rent. She might lose this house because of you, because of what you stole.”
“Maybe.” He hesitated at the door, an unpleasant smile on his face. “But I’m sure you’ll help her out. You always do. Tell your mom, I’ll see her another time—when she hasn’t got company.” He made it sound like the threat it was.
He slammed the door shut as he left, and it took all the control Casey had not to march after him and punch him squarely in his nasty, smug face. He didn’t give a fuck about her mom, maybe he never had. She was just a soft touch, and he knew it. Her stepdad had lasted a lot longer than Neil, but in the end he had treated her just as badly. Her mom had a way of attracting the worst kind of men.
She took in a couple of deep breaths. Her mom’s debts were manageable. She could pay off the most urgent ones and—hopefully—come to an agreement with the landlord to slowly pay off the arrears. But Olivia was right, the number one priority had to be making sure that Neil stayed away so her mom could rebuild—with Casey’s help—and not have him hanging around like a bad smell, waiting to prey on her.
She hadn’t wanted to tell Olivia any of it, but she insisted. So, sitting in the car outside the corner shop, Casey had told her everything. Hannah had always made her feel embarrassed about her mom and Casey couldn’t help but think that hearing it would be enough to make Olivia back off and put an end to whatever closeness Casey had felt developing between them. But Olivia had listened quietly, and together they had come up with a plan.
Casey walked slowly to the kitchen. Her mom and Olivia were at the table, eating biscuits and drinking the tea that Olivia had told her mom she was desperate for, the tea she admitted on the drive over that she didn’t like all that much.
When Olivia looked in her direction—her face a picture of concern and care—Casey held up her phone and gave Olivia the thumbs-up. The recording she’d made—on Olivia’s advice—might not be enough to get Neil arrested, but she had to hope the threat of it would be enough to persuade him to stay well away from her mom in the future.
She sighed as she sat at the table.
“Olivia was telling me about the time she was on the red carpet at the Emmys and she stumbled and nearly knocked Gerard Butler over. I said I wouldn’t have minded falling on top of him. But of course Olivia wouldn’t have enjoyed that as much as me.” She laughed, but Casey could tell she was still upset. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you’d met someone while you were in America and that your girlfriend’s a beautiful actress.” Her mom sipped at her tea. She seemed a lot more sober now.
“Olivia’s not my—”
“Your mom showed me how to ‘mash’ the tea to make it stronger.” Olivia interrupted her. As she spoke, she inclined her head toward her mom and shook it ever so slightly. The message was clear. Olivia didn’t want Casey to correct her mom.
“I like her a lot more than your last one.” Her mom looked in her direction as she said it, before returning her attention to Olivia. “I’m sorry to say it, but she was a bit stuck up. I could always tell she thought she was too good for us, too good for Casey. I didn’t say it, but I was glad when they broke up. Casey deserved better,”
Her mom was almost saying something nice about her. Almost.
Olivia sat quietly, just listening, letting her mom speak. She seemed oddly at home.
“She was cut up about it of course. She might look tough, but she’s got a soft heart and I know it was hard—”
Casey felt herself tense.
“Mom, Olivia doesn’t have time for all this. We only came because Neil was here. We need to get back to—”
“I drive her crazy always getting into these kind of situations. I don’t know how to make it up to her, but even if I did, I couldn’t, because she just left—went to America and left me.” For an instant, her mom looked upset, but then she brightened. “And she met you. A famous actress who doesn’t think she’s too good to eat my custard creams.” Her mom looked from Casey to Olivia. “I’m glad. I’m really glad.”
“I have to go and have my photos taken for a magazine article.” Olivia glanced at Casey, a mischievous smile spreading slowly across her beautiful face. “But I’ve definitely got time to look at any photos of Casey you might have from when she was a baby. You must have some for us to look at while we finish off this pot of tea.”
Casey had never seen her mom move so fast. In the blink of an eye, she had the lid off a square metal biscuit tin she extracted from the sideboard against the far wall and was riffling through the photos.
“This is when she had her First Communion.” She held out a photo for Olivia to take.
“That’s a very pretty dress.” Olivia smirked in her direction. “Why is she scowling?”
“Because of the dress.” Her mom laughed. “She was never happy in a dress.”
She handed another photo to Olivia.
“That broken tooth happened after she fell off a chair in a café. She was trying to pet a dog that didn’t want to be petted. I’d gone to get a napkin or something and when I came back she was on the floor. She was crying, but not because of the pain. She was just mad at the dog.”
Casey poured herself some tea and sat back in her chair. She was going to spend the next however many minutes watching her mom show Olivia old photos of her, while Olivia pretended to be her famous American actress girlfriend, having potentially just been helped to see off the man who had been exploiting her mom. It was turning out to be a strange but unexpectedly good morning.
* * *
“That’s great. Could you put both hands on the umbrella and stick your ass out a little more…yeah, like that, like you’re a really sexy Gene Kelly or something.” The photographer snapped away as she spoke. “Maybe lift it to your shoulder like a rifle? That’s it. Keep looking at the camera like that. It’s perfect.”
Olivia did everything she was told without a murmur of complaint. The photographer had dressed her up in a pinstripe suit and bowler hat and just handed her a long umbrella with a wooden handle to play with.
Casey was sitting at the back of the room—in semidarkness—watching with rapt attention. Olivia looked amazing. She was wearing the suit without a shirt underneath. It was all very tastefully done, but it was impossible for Casey’s blood not to feel hot at the sight of Olivia dressed like that.
When they arriv
ed an hour ago, Casey expected to wait in the car. But Olivia had insisted she come inside and keep her company during the shoot and she couldn’t say no. Not after what Olivia had just done for her.
And if she was honest, she didn’t want to be away from Olivia either. The experience with her mom, with Neil—seeing how well Olivia handled it all, how solid she was—made Casey feel all kinds of other feelings on top of the attraction she normally felt whenever Olivia was anywhere near her.
“Okay. That’s fantastic.” The photographer lowered her camera. “Let’s do the cocktail party scene and then we’ll call it done.”
“Not done—then we need to do the actual interview.” The interviewer—Alice—was sitting in a chair on the other side of the room. Casey didn’t like her. She’d been asking questions of Olivia the whole time they’d been there, and it seemed to Casey as if she was trying to catch Olivia off guard.
She had the feeling Olivia didn’t like her either. She kept her answers short, and when Alice asked whether Olivia ever had trust issues when it came to relationships, “for obvious reasons,” Olivia gave her a withering “Really?” and shook her head wearily.
Casey had no idea what Alice meant, but it was clearly something that made Olivia unhappy and annoyed. The temptation to google Olivia—to find out things about her—rose up again, but she resisted. She wasn’t going to do that to Olivia. She was going to let her decide what she wanted Casey to know.
When Alice asked Olivia about Billie, about what it was like for them to work together, about whether their off-screen chemistry was as strong as it seemed, Casey again felt something she recognized as jealousy. Olivia closed down the line of questioning, but it left Casey wondering if her refusal to believe Olivia and Billie had something going on was because she wanted Olivia to have better taste in women, or because she wanted Olivia’s friendliness toward her to mean something.
Olivia tipped her hat off, left it on the chair, and walked toward her. The sight of Olivia approaching her in that low-cut suit sent her libido into overdrive, and Casey felt a little ashamed of the reaction. The outfit was a thirst trap and she’d fallen in headfirst.
“Still awake back there?” Olivia’s tone was light and teasing.
“Very awake. I’m a big fan of musicals. I was waiting for you to give us a chorus or two of ‘Singin’ in the Rain.’ I’m assuming you sing and dance, as well as act. I have a lot more faith in your talent after this morning.” Casey hadn’t been able to stop thanking her for what she’d done, but she knew it was making Olivia uncomfortable, so she made herself not say it again.
“You wouldn’t have that faith if you heard me sing. Small children have been known to cry and animals hide.”
“That bad, huh?”
Olivia nodded. Casey started to smile.
“What?”
“I’m just thinking about how much it rains here and how cold the winters are. You’d catch a definite chill walking from the Underground to your swanky office in the city in that outfit.”
The suit artfully covered Olivia’s breasts, but the creamy skin of her chest and the curves of her cleavage were visible. And the effect was disgracefully sexy.
“You’re sitting back here worrying that I might catch a cold?” Olivia said the words slowly, sexily. “That was not the impact I was hoping to have.”
“What can I say? I’m a very caring sort of ‘girlfriend.’” She accented the word with speech marks. It was the first time either of them had acknowledged her mom mistaking them for lovers. “The kind that would make you put on a warm scarf and send you off to the office with a healthy packed lunch and a kiss on the forehead.” She was flirting. Kind of.
Olivia looked at her for a beat without saying anything and Casey felt the best kind of tension between them.
“Well, you’re definitely going to be worried about me catching a chill when you see this next outfit.” She moved into the curtained off changing area at the back of the room with a swagger and Casey couldn’t help but grin.
Being around Olivia had stopped being a trial and started to feel good—probably a little too good. And because of that, she needed to guard herself better. She had another ten days of Olivia’s company and that was that. Olivia was off to the next city on their European tour and would forget all about the driver she’d had in London. Casey was pretty sure Olivia left a trail of people who had fallen for her charms behind her at every stop.
While she waited, Casey distracted herself with tasks. She emailed the audio file of Neil confessing his crimes to the officer in charge of her mom’s case. She didn’t expect it to make any difference to their willingness to charge him, but if there was the tiniest chance it would help them do something to scare him away, she wanted to take it. She made an arrangement to go to dinner with David and her mom, and she sent a gloating message to Gina about the fact she was watching Olivia Lang do a photoshoot.
The curtain was pulled back and Olivia stepped into the room wearing a short, blood-red dress that looked like it had been painted on. Casey wasn’t proud of the up-and-down look she gave Olivia, but her legs, her curves, the heels she was wearing to match the dress, caused a throb of arousal low down in Casey’s center and not staring seemed impossible. When she returned her gaze to Olivia’s face, she saw that Olivia was blushing.
“You look amazing.” Casey couldn’t help but say it. “Positively sinful, but also amazing.”
“It’s all Susie.” Olivia smoothed a hand down the dress. “I’d never have the confidence to wear this as Olivia.” She hesitated, seeming nervous.
“I can’t imagine anyone, including Susie, could wear that dress and look as good as you do right now.” Casey meant it; it wasn’t a line.
“Well then, I guess we’re both glad you like it.” Olivia smiled, her gaze holding Casey’s for an instant before heading back to the brightly lit area at the front of the room.
Damn. Casey let out a breath. The pulsing between her legs was letting her know that her attraction for Olivia was not, despite her best intentions, going anywhere.
The photographer handed Olivia what looked like a margarita and she moved to settle herself on a barstool. The dress was so tight that it wasn’t an easy maneuver, and as she shuffled herself onto the seat, the wedge of lime perched on the side of her glass fell to the floor. Olivia hadn’t noticed, and neither had the photographer. Casey moved to pick it up from the floor and handed it back to her. As Olivia took it from her, their fingers brushed and Casey felt the contact like a small electric shock.
“Thank you.” Olivia’s eyes were wide. “You’re very gallant.”
“I try. It’s all in here somewhere. I just need a little practice.”
They stared at each other for a moment. There was something between them. Casey didn’t understand it, but it felt good. It was something she hadn’t felt for a very long time.
“Hey, do you think you might want—” The photographer spoke to her.
“Yeah, sorry. I’ll get out of the way. I was just picking up the…” Casey pointed at the glass as she backed out of the space.
“No, I didn’t mean that. I mean, do you want to stay? Maybe I could take a couple of shots of you with Olivia. I mean, you look great together. Why not?” The photographer looked over her shoulder at Alice, who was now standing in front of her chair, looking interested.
“That is a great idea. It would totally suit the vibe for Susie to be getting her hooks into someone at the party and you,” she pointed at Casey, “are gorgeous.” She turned back to the photographer. “Could she be a guest at the party? Or maybe she could be a hot bartender. Do we have a tux or something back there she could wear?”
The photographer headed to the changing room. Casey felt panic rising from her feet. She didn’t want to be photographed with Olivia. She wasn’t here for that. She looked at Olivia, willing her to tell them it was a terrible ide
a, so that she wouldn’t have to.
“It’s good your girlfriend is so game for this.” Alice spoke to Olivia. “It’s gonna be great. I was wishing we had brought Billie to the shoot to spice things up, but this is even better.”
“I’m not game for this—” Casey finally found some words.
“She’s not my girlfriend—” Olivia spoke at the same time. “She’s just my driver.” Her tone was crisp. It was true, of course, but there was something about the way she said it that made Casey feel small. However close to Olivia the events of the last couple of days had made her feel, to Olivia she was still “just” the driver.
Alice peered across at Casey, who had retreated slowly into the semidarkness at the back of the room.
“Oh, I didn’t realize,” Alice replied, “but that’s even better. Susie would totally be banging her driver—especially if she looked as good as her. Maybe we could play with that trope a little. It would look great on the cover, and it’d do wonders for circulation of the print edition.”
“I’m not doing that.” Casey spoke louder than she intended. “I’m not playing with any fucking tropes, thank you.” She made herself calm down. “I’ll wait for you in the car.” She spoke as she turned for the door, not looking at Olivia.
None of this was Olivia’s fault. They weren’t girlfriends and she was the driver, so Olivia had every right to clarify that. But for some reason, Olivia’s rapid denial of her had hurt. And she felt stupid for hurting.
“Casey.” Olivia said her name as she was half out of the door. She turned back to her.
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