“And how does that make you feel, Will, seeing what your fame did to her life?”
“Well, it feels awful,” he admitted. “I even considered quitting at times, going back to the stage and hoping people forgot about me.”
“You never told me that,” I turned to him. He gave me that ridiculously cute, sheepish shrug.
“And why didn’t you quit?” Erica asked.
“Because the harsh reality is, when people forget about you, you don’t get offered the best roles.”
“I’d never let him quit.” I squeezed his hand and turned to him. “You’re too good.”
“Aww,” Erica grinned before continuing. “Now, I gather that things have been rather rough for you since that news broke.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Will agreed. “The press are like sharks who have caught the scent of blood, endlessly circling, looking for weakness.”
“Well the story certainly does capture the imagination. What was it like, meeting under those circumstances?”
I allowed Will to explain.
“For those who don’t know, a psychologist called Arthur Aron devised an experiment whereby he tried to artificially create an emotional connection, using 36 questions. As you get further and further down the list, the questions become deeper and ask about some very personal things. The idea being that if you both make yourselves vulnerable to each other, that creates trust between you, which can sort of jumpstart the emotions.”
“Well, seeing how sickeningly loved up you two are, it must work,” Erica teased.
“I don’t know the success rate of the study, but it certainly worked for us.” He kissed the back of my hand and offered me a shy smile.
“So why did you agree to do it? Not enough pretty women in Hollywood for ya?”
Will laughed. “The woman leading the study is an old friend of mine and when she told me the parameters, it fascinated me, so I agreed to take part.”
“And what about you, Elle, did you know Will Braxton was going to be your partner?”
“No,” I shook my head. “I’d probably have backed out if I had known.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s really intimidating to sit there and share your deepest dreams and darkest times with someone you know from the cinema, especially if you already fancy them. Luckily, it didn’t turn out that way; Will’s really personable and put me at ease, but that would have been my feeling had I known beforehand.”
“So were you two matched at all, or just randomly put together?”
“Random,” Will confirmed. “Although I had such a tight timeframe, that I suspect Elle might have been chosen because she could be there on short notice.”
“Are you calling me easy?” I teased him.
“No, just available- That came out wrong.” The audience laughed.
“Now, I don’t want to presume anything, although I will,” Erica teased me. “But do you have any idea of the amount of jealousy directed towards you right now?”
Will laughed slightly awkwardly as he always did when people made reference to him being any kind of sex symbol.
“Oh, I know,” I assured Erica. “They like to send, tweet and email me hate mail, so they make sure I know.”
“And how do you respond to that?”
Oh fantastic, we were on to the serious questions.
“I don’t. There’s a new setting on Twitter so I only see replies from people I follow, my regular mail is redirected to Will’s people now, and they open and check it before I do. I’ve started new personal and professional email accounts, and I only take on new work from people recommended by existing clients.”
“That’s got to be hard.”
“It is. Honestly though, I try to keep it in perspective, 99% of people are somewhere between perfectly fine to very nice, it’s just a tiny but vocal minority that ruin things, and I keep reminding myself that only unhappy people want to make others unhappy, and since I put these steps in place, I only see a tiny amount of hate.”
“Didn’t someone attack you last year, because of your relationship?”
“Yeah.” My left hand unconsciously went to my eye, recalling the bruise that had taken two weeks to fade. “That shocked me and put me out of sorts for a while.”
“What did she say when she hit you?”
“She just insulted me and told me I didn’t deserve Will. I try not to think about it too much but I will say, she got one punch in, but I got two and knocked her on her arse.”
“Arse,” Erica repeated, laughing. “I love the way you Brits talk. You even make beating someone up sound classy.”
Everyone laughed.
“So do either of you ever Google yourself?”
“Oh no,” Will shook his head. “I did once or twice early on and quickly realised that’s a very bad idea.”
“What about you, Elle?”
“I’ve made that mistake,” I admitted. “If you’re already in a dark place, it’s kind of tempting to go and read things that back it up but on the whole, I’ve been very good at avoiding online discussion of me. Although I do have a friend who texts me links to funny articles with ludicrous stories about us, so I try to have fun with the downsides of it too.”
“Articles like what?”
“Well the first one I texted to my old school friend, was my bedroom secrets laid bare by a man who I had never slept with and who had never been in my bedroom. She sends me similar things now; like speculation on whether I’ve had a boob job because I wore a padded bra, and I remember a list of my favourite books, half of which I'd never read or never heard of.”
“But getting back to the jealousy for a moment, how does being the focus of those kind of ugly sentiments make you feel?”
“Uh, not great but I think the saddest thing, is how in the 21st century, we’re still pitting women against each other. The truth is, I’m not their competition and to say that I am, denies Will his autonomy. I mean, if you take me out of the picture right now, chances are Will wouldn’t fall for any of the women who hate me and even if he did, it would only be one person out of all of them. So really, their problem isn’t with me, it’s with Will’s taste.”
“Are you saying I have bad taste?” he asked me.
“Um, of course not, darling…”
“But with so many people willing to take your place,” Erica continued, “doesn’t it ever make you feel insecure and jealous?”
Oh well, if we were being truthful, in for a penny, in for a pound. Welcome to Elle’s Relationship Philosophy 101.
“No, and I’ll try to explain why. There’s one thing I’ve never understood about woman who are cheated on, and I’ve been cheated on, so this isn’t judgement, but so many women blame the other woman. I just don’t get that. I mean, if it’s a friend or family member, that’s a double betrayal but most of the time, the other woman is a stranger who owes you nothing. Why shouldn’t she make a play for your man?”
“But what about the wife and sometimes, kiddies too?”
“But that other woman made no commitment to the wife, and those children aren’t her responsibility. I’m not saying that having an affair with a married man is a good thing to do, it isn’t, but the person most in the wrong is the man. He did make a commitment, to a relationship if not a marriage. If there are kids involved, he did father them and he is the one responsible for betraying them. These other women (or men for that matter) don’t have magical, mystical powers to make people forget their commitments and responsibilities and become a cheater, and if they’ll cheat with one person, they’ll cheat with another so even if some women turn them down, they’ll just keep trying until they find one who doesn’t care that he’s in a relationship.
“So the thing is, when it comes to cheating, I don’t look at how many women might like the man I’m with; that’s irrelevant. Every woman on the planet could fancy a man, but he’s only going to cheat if he’s inclined to do so. If I thought there was a chance that Will might c
heat, sure, I would be hellishly insecure given all the opportunities his career affords him but when I look at him, I see a man of integrity. If I had any doubts about his ability to be faithful, I wouldn’t be with him in the first place.”
“That’s no guarantee though,” Erica cautioned.
“No, I agree, and I ignored my instincts with the boy who cheated on me. I know better now and I always listen to that little voice of disquiet when it speaks up. Luckily, so far it doesn’t have a bad word to say about Will.”
Will raised my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles.
“Wow,” Erica grinned, “That got kinda deep. For what it’s worth, I agree with you, but right now we have to go to commercial.” She turned to the camera. “When we come back, I’ll be asking about wedding plans, and later in the show, we have a very special dance off between Youtube sensation, Dancing Bunny Girl and dance troupe, Diversity.”
“That was very well put, darling,” Will said once the director announced we were clear.
“Thank you.”
“How are you doing?”
“I’m okay,” I smiled, and I meant it.
When the show returned, we were still sitting in the middle of the set.
“Now, before we move on, I just have one last question, Elle,” Erica began. “Does he have any flaws?”
I laughed. “Well, now that you come to mention it-”
Will looked to me, slightly surprised.
“He chews chocolate, rather than letting it melt on his tongue and savouring it.”
Will chuckled.
“Ooh, yeah, that is a serious flaw,” Erica agreed with me.
“Sacrilege,” I agreed.
Will shook his head in disbelief.
The rest of the interview remained light, with Erica asking about the next Shadow Watch movies, and our wedding plans. We stayed to watch the dance off between the Youtube star and Diversity, and Will even ended up joining in. As I watched them, I mused that this whole interview hadn’t been nearly so painful as I had thought it would be. In fact at times, like during the dance off, it had been great fun.
Chapter Nineteen
I was on the set a lot more with Firebolt 3, as I had been hired to draw the tie-in comic books, and it was kinda fun to watch. I hadn’t seen any wire work before and of course, Will’s transformation into Dante each day, was a revelation and I liked the long haired look.
Thanks to being kept in solitary confinement in a windowless cell, Dante started the movie pale faced, with matted, messy hair and although he scrubbed up once he had escaped, he kept the pale appearance and long, dark hair for the duration of the film. Most people seemed to like the look so there was talk of not cutting his hair for the next two Sentinels films, but that was for other people to decide. I certainly didn’t mind if he kept it.
In an attempt to reduce time in the make-up chair, the crew had opted to give Will hair extensions. They always struck me as high maintenance but at the end of each day, the hairstylist plaited his hair, so the extensions couldn’t be too damaged.
Dante’s hair was sort of mid shoulder blade in length. I had never been into men with long hair, floppy maybe, but not long. Dante however, blew my previous misconceptions out of the water. I even made Will take the braid out some nights, just because I loved the way it hung down when we had sex, and I’d have to brush it back to see his face.
We even had sex while he was in costume sometimes and when he was in the mood, he’d use that slightly deeper voice he used for Dante on me, and turn me into a puddle of goo. I could quite see the appeal of bad boys at those times.
These last few days had all been emotional ones for Will, full of (verbal) confrontations between Agent Firebolt and Dante. They had been partners in the agency once, until Dante turned rogue and they became enemies. Dante wasn’t just a bad guy who had sold out for money though, he had been betrayed by his agency, who had tried to kill him, and he had turned rogue in order to survive. And it turned out he was very good at being a rogue agent, but he wasn’t evil incarnate and he had as much love for his former partner, as he did animosity.
It was a tricky blend to manage but Will pulled it off with aplomb.
These movies were usually dismissed as ‘action flicks’ which was a real shame because the scripts and characters were all layered and nuanced, and far more intelligent than your average action movie.
Will isn’t usually one to bring his characters home with him but sometimes, inhabiting and portraying Dante’s inner pain and anger got him down a little. That’s one of the reasons I dragged him back to his trailer for a quickie, because sex helps his moods. It doesn’t cure them, but it does help.
“We’d best get back,” he said with a sigh as we cuddled afterwards.
I hastily re-buttoned my shirt but Will stopped me at the door, pointing out that I was one button out all the way along.
“Bugger.” I redid the buttons. “Okay?”
“Perfect.” He stole a kiss.
Much as it sounds like a fun day off for me, I was actually here working. Since I’d got the contract to illustrate the tie-in comics, I came to the set to watch pivotal scenes being done, getting some quick sketches down to work from later.
Most of the comics were original material to bridge the gaps between movies in the franchise, but some of their content was taken directly from the movies. Today’s scene would likely feature in a flashback in the post-Firebolt 3 comic, which would bridge the gap to Sentinels 3.
Most of the film was being shot at Pinewood Studios, but there were a few location shoots too, and there was one which didn’t require Dante, so Will would have two weeks off (yay!). Soon they’d be heading out into London, showing Agent Firebolt living there (those were the location shoots Will wasn’t need for), then filming would move to the Highlands, then to the desert in North America.
I had to go on those too, to familiarise myself with the landscapes. I didn’t really mind, this contract would put me on the map, and they were paying me quite handsomely for my time.
I could only do preliminary work for the moment. I knew the basic plotline of the comics but I didn’t have a layout or script yet, those were written once the film was finished, just in case anything important changed during the reshoots.
Back on set, Dante was now yelling at Firebolt, who was flinching with every word, as if they physically hurt him.
Will was going to need a relaxing evening, I decided. A bath, a backrub and a nice takeaway should do it.
***
“I’ve had a fantastic idea for the wedding,” Will said, barrelling into the house a few days later and yelling from the front door.
We’d been talking a lot about the wedding recently, trying to find a location where we could be private but still have the people we wanted there.
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” He came into the kitchen looking flushed but grinning.
“So what’s this big idea?” I asked, putting the kettle on.
“I was looking for a way my more well-known friends could assemble and not be noticed so I started to think of film festivals. Then I remembered Edinburgh’s film festival, so I started to look at locations around there and found the perfect castle.”
“You want us to get married in Edinburgh Castle? That’s not exactly low key, Will.”
“No, not the castle, a castle. Don’t worry, it’s just a small one, tiny really, and the best part is, not only is it private, it has 17 bedrooms and an extra cottage we can rent, so we’d be able to house up to 38 people. Well, 36 and us.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” I agreed.
His grin widened. “If we do it in August, people can claim they’re in Edinburgh for the festivals, between the film, arts, comedy, books and fringe festivals, the whole city is packed with celebrities, so no one would think anything of our guests being there at the same time. Plus your sister lives there, which can explain our presence in the city. It’s perfect.”
“Won’t
you be filming Sentinels in August though?”
“Yes, but it’s filming in the UK and if I have a word with John, I’m sure we can work out a couple of weeks or so when I won’t be needed.”
“Do I even want to know what it costs to rent a castle?”
“Absolutely not but in my defence, I will say that I read that the average wedding now costs 25 thousand pounds, and this is not even remotely close to that.”
“Okay, so tell me about this place.”
“It’s called Dundas Castle and it’s just outside the city, near Queensferry and, oh it’s easiest if I just show you.”
He grabbed my hand and all but ran from the room, dragging me after him and once again I marvelled at how this man, who could be as enthusiastic as a 5 year old child, could also play believable villains with ease.
In the office, he pulled a second chair up to his desk and loaded the website.
“That’s beautiful,” I said as we browsed through the pictures.
“Isn’t it? And we can have the ceremony there as well as the reception.”
“I’m sold,” I beamed at him.
“Wonderful!” he grinned. “I must call John then as soon as we’ve sorted a date, get it booked. “Do you want to go up and see it first?”
“That might give the game away. I suggest we do as much by phone and email as we can. Hannah might be able to help with anything that has to be done in person. Maybe she’d even let us make the booking under her name.”
“And what will we do about your mother?” He knew she couldn’t keep a secret, but I could hardly not invite her.
“She adores you, so if I say we’re popping up to see Han and offer to pay for her to join us, so the whole family can get together for once, I’m sure she’d go for it.”
“Then we spring the wedding on her?” he sounded worried.
“Yes. I don’t care how mad she is. I’ll tell her to make sure she brings a dress for Musselburgh races, whatever she chooses for that should be suitable for a wedding.”
“Well, she’s your mother, so you know best.”
***
Rather than traditional therapy to get over my fears of being judged (I’d already had my share, having taken advantage of the counselling services offered by my student union at university), Will suggested that I take acting classes.
Making Love (Destiny Book 1) Page 19