Page 13 of One Day and Forever
Tress was closest to the door, so she left the room first, partially blocking Kara’s view of the reception area. Which was probably why it took her several seconds to register that Corbin Jacobs was standing there. Or rather, leaning there, on a set ofcrutches, with one foot in a plaster cast that went up to his knee, wearing a smug grin she’d pay money to wipe off.
And standing next to him was the head of Public Relations for the studio, a suave operator who had also been hired as Corbin’s personal PR guru. He had been there at the party too, had caught the tail end of the altercation. He’d watched Corbin scream in her face and call her a C.U… She couldn’t even process the rest of that thought. He was the man who’d quickly gone into damage control mode, automatically doing what was best for his clients, Corbin and Jeremy. He was the man who’d told her she’d been wrong, that she had to forget it ever happened, and that she should basically beg Corbin and Jeremy for forgiveness. He was the man who’d watched both her and Casey suffer the abuse Corbin had doled out that night, and who still,still, chose to represent him, instead of being on the right side of this. Even when she’d begged him.
Oh, and he was supposed to be on holiday today too, yet here he was, still standing by that scumbag’s side.
Yep, there, staring straight at her with an expression she couldn’t quite decipher, was her now-ex-fiancé, Josh Jackson.
6
OLLIE
It didn’t matter how sunny it was in LA, or how bustling the New York sidewalks were, Ollie always got more of a kick driving through the streets of Glasgow, especially on a day like today, when the Christmas lights were still up, and the pavements were already busy with folk on their way to work, and shoppers headed to bag a bargain in the January sales.
When he was a kid, his mum and Jacinta would bring them all into the city centre on a Saturday afternoon, to go to a matinee at the cinema or – if they’d just been paid and had a bit of extra cash – the theatre. Years later, when they were in high school, Kara would drag him into town every Christmas for the switch-on of the lights at George Square. In the summer, they’d all lie on the grass in Victoria Park or over in Kelvingrove Park in the West End. And when they were in college, they would pub crawl their way around half the bars in the city centre. Glasgow was part of him – and the more he was away, the more he missed it.
Sienna had never felt the same way about his home city. Born and raised in Santa Monica, she’d grown up in the warm sunshine at the beach and in the swish opulence of the storeson Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, so the grey, rainy streets of Glasgow had no appeal. That had been part of the whole ‘opposites attract’ thing when they’d met – him, a working-class lad from Scotland, with a mother who was a legend in pubs and karaoke bars across Glasgow, and her, a wealthy California beach chick from a famous acting family that stretched back three generations. Even her considerable acting skills hadn’t been able to pull off any kind of enjoyment of the life here in Glasgow. She’d come back with him three or four times since they married, but every time, he could see after a week or so that she was craving her own world.
All of that made what he was about to do today even crazier. They’d already driven from the Park Circus area of the West End, across the city to the South Side, where they’d stopped for bacon rolls and mugs of builder’s tea in a greasy spoon that had been there since Ollie was a kid. He’d pulled a beanie down over his hair, shoved on a pair of fake specs, and neither of the two other people in the place had batted an eyelid at the strangers. No-one would expect a world-famous super star to be sitting in the corner munching crispy bacon. Although, the waitress had raised an eyebrow when Calvin had pulled a napkin out of the table dispenser with a flourish and tucked it into the neck of his cashmere sweater.
Now, they were about five minutes away from their destination, and the whole point of the trip.
‘How’s your mum doing?’ Calvin chatted away while he drove. ‘Ah, I miss that woman. In another life, if I hadn’t… you know… been irrevocably attracted to handsome but flawed chaps with a touch of arrogance and a nifty line in chat, then I would have swept that fine woman right off her furry slippers.’
Despite the unease that had been seeping through his bones as he pondered his incompatibility with his wife, Ollie grinned. ‘She’s doing great. She docks in Miami tomorrow and then she’sflying to Hawaii for a family friend’s wedding. I’m meeting her there. She always asks for you too. You know she loves you.’ Calvin had been his mum’s manager for many years, and he always said…
‘You know, I’ve said it a million times, but it was one of the great injustices of my career that Moira Chiles didn’t make it in theatre. I wholeheartedly believe she could have been one of the great musical stars of her generation.’
They both knew why that hadn’t happened. She’d simply refused to live in London because she was a single mum to a small child and she wouldn’t leave him. She also had elderly parents and she wouldn’t even consider leaving them in anyone else’s care. ‘I do just fine and I’m perfectly happy up here in the pubs and clubs,’ she said, so often that he truly believed that until he was well into his teens and developed enough emotional intelligence to understand that she’d had to convince herself of that because the reality was that despite her gargantuan talent, she’d sacrificed her dreams so that she could be his mother.
‘I’ll tell her you said that again. It’ll make her day. She’s still convinced that she’ll get her name in lights one day and I wouldn’t bet against her.’
Before Calvin could say any more, he let out a yelp and a couple of expletives as the car skidded in the slush when they turned a sharp corner. The windscreen wipers had been on full pelt to clear the snow that had been falling since they left his house, and it was laying thick as they turned into a side street lined with tenements that had seen better days. There were a couple of empty shops. Some boarded-up windows on the bottom-floor flats. A few teenagers hanging out by a chip shop at the end of the road, its shutters already up and the lights already on. They drove about halfway down before Calvin pulled in and stopped the car, in front of a building that Ollie knew only too well, but it looked a lot different now than it did in hischildhood, when he would be brought here every Sunday by his grandparents.
‘Majestic, so it is,’ Calvin quipped, with a grin. ‘I tell you now, if this church collapses to rubble when we’re in there, and wipes us both out, I’ll be having a word with the big man about his real estate when I get upstairs.’
Ollie didn’t reply, too busy taking in every inch of the building as he climbed out of the car.
There was a gent in a suit, with a parka over the top, huddled under the porch at the entrance, who stepped towards him now, hand outstretched. He introduced himself as the estate agent handling the sale of the property and then held open the huge, wooden door for them to enter, launching straight into his sales spiel.
Ollie tuned in and out of what he was saying.
‘It hasn’t been a house of worship for over twenty years.’
‘Used as a community centre for a decade, then bought by a developer.’
‘For the last ten years, the developer has been sitting on it, waiting for the area to undergo some kind of regeneration.’
‘Developer has decided to cut losses and sell.’
It was pretty much all information that he knew already, because Calvin had done the research and briefed him on it.
The idea was simple – a theatre school for kids with a passion for acting or singing, who couldn’t afford private lessons, one that would be a safe haven and somewhere that they could come to learn, to socialise and to develop their talents. It was Calvin’s retirement project, something that would leave a real lasting legacy. He already had a group of talented actors on board, grants lined up, and plans for fundraising, but he needed a big name to partner with him and provide a substantial cash injection to buy the building and share the cost of the renovation. Calvin also wanted someone who would be morethan just a name, someone who would not just make a financial commitment, but a time commitment too.
When Calvin had first brought this to him, Ollie knew his old friend was hoping he’d throw his heart into the ring and be that main partner.
Ollie wanted to be that guy. He just didn’t know if he could get Sienna on board and if he couldn’t, it was a deal-breaker.
They spent the next hour walking the premises, talking through plans, options, costings. By the time they got back in the car, he was sold. This could be awesome. The chance to do something that mattered. Make a difference to the community.
