Page 41 of The Payback Plan
His smile slowly faded, as their gazes locked. The breath practically stopped in Paige’s lungs and she mentally kicked herself. For God’s sake, she probably sounded like she was flirting with him. And she definitelywas notflirting. She’d been… deflecting.
Quickly she added, ‘And you have a dog to wash and a book to write.’
But for once, he didn’t seem pained by either task, he just nodded before looking at Casper and saying, ‘You heard her, dude, you’re filthy.’
It probably shouldn’t be a turn on that he’d said filthy, especially after Harvey had defiled their sex life by sharing it with the world. But the way Oliver said it with zero connotation and 1000 per cent posh Brit, reminded her that once upon a time, she’d loved getting a bit freaky between the sheets.
‘Let’s get you respectable,’ Oliver continued cluelessly as he left with the dog close on his heels to what must surely be smoke billowing out from between her thighs and the clash of a hundrednotvery respectable thoughts running through her head.
* * *
By the time the following Tuesday rocked around, Paige had rationalised her uncharacteristic reaction to Oliver as purely hormonal. She was clearly ovulating and she never knew how the fuck that was going to pan out so, off-limit thoughts about Bella’s ex were just this month’s little gift from her ovaries.
It was so muchfunbeing a woman.
To compensate she’d gone full VA-from-hell mode, ruthlessly organising and cataloguing his daily oral epistles while leaving coffee rings on every available surface, deliberately letting Pavarotti out which involved a two-hour hamster hunt and losing an earring down the sink which she pretended was a family heirloom and simply must be retrieved.
Oliver had suggested calling a plumber but she’d raised an eyebrow, clearly questioning his masculinity and he’d sighed and asked the great god Google for help because it hadn’t taken a mind reader to figure out Oliver Prendergast had never got his hands dirty in his life.
When he’d finally fished it out despite the general dishevelment from a soaking of gross S-bend water, he’d looked exceptionally pleased with himself and damn if that wasn’t just plain fucking adorable.
She knew a dozen men in her family alone who could unclog an S-bend without having to do a YouTube tutorial prior but somehow Oliver looking all blue collar as he triumphantly raised her two-pound charity shop earring – the little plastic rhinestone winking as it swung from his fingers – made her want to do him under the sink.
Gah!
But, she’d steadfastly ignored all of it. Unlike his writing which she found impossible to dismiss. Paige had made a career out of transcribing various clients’ words into letters, booklets, manuals or whatever document they wanted with zero emotional investment. True they were generally dry business tomes dealing with policy and procedural matters or boring, impersonal company memos and correspondence so they were easy to deal with usually while music blasted into her eardrums.
Oliver’s writings were about as personal as was possible to be and utterly absorbing. The stories as they came in each day tugged at her heart strings. A boy with a father who he adored even through interactions that seemed brief and perfunctory to Paige and, she suspected Oliver, but obviously meant everything to the younger version of himself.
A boy with a mother who understood that her husband was too absorbed by a cutthroat industry and riding the wave of his fame to cultivate a rich family life but had assured young Oliver he was doing the best he could even though adult Oliver had mused in his recordings that she, too, had felt passed over. He recounted a tale when he’d been seven and he’d overheard her telling a friend that becoming emotionally dependent on Roger was pointless because he just didn’t love her enough to make losing herself worthwhile.
It wasn’t – thus far – a typical tale of fame and drugs and adultery like so many Hollywood biographies but she couldfeelOliver’s struggle for true connection with his father. The way his pride and admiration warred with his yearning for more. In the stories so far, Roger hadn’t ignored his young son but Oliver had clearly felt the moments of greatest affection from his father were the moments when a camera was around.
The more she read, the more she disliked the famed Hollywood actor. Roger Prendergast may have been able to buy and sell her father dozens of times over but Paige had always been secure in her father’s love and his affection had never felt budgeted or performative.
It made her feel wretched for Oliver and it wasn’t what she wanted to feel. He’d wronged her friend, she was supposed to be feeling vengeful. Which was exactly what she was grappling with at Jiya’s café when Doris and her WI crew crowded inside. The weather was overcast and chilly – just for something different…
The women waved to her as Doris walked over for her usual chat. Instead of her trademark smile however, a frown turned the lines on her forehead into deep furrows.
‘You looked like you lost a pound and found a penny,’ Paige said.
Dorishmphed. ‘Pippa broke her ankle on the weekend,’ she muttered with no preamble.
Paige blinked. Was she supposed to know who Pippa was? Although the name did sound familiar. ‘Pippa?’
‘Geraldine’s great-niece? From ITV? And our guest speaker on Thursday?’
‘Oh yes.’ Paige nodded. She remembered now.
‘She’s apparently fine,’ Doris continued. ‘Had it pinned and plated yesterday and is being discharged today. I honestly don’t see why she couldn’t make it tomorrow; we offered to send a car but she declined which is very inconvenient. I mean, really, millennials never had it so easy. Whatever happened to carry on?’
Paige pressed her lips together at Dorry’s obvious dismay. It was clearly veryun-Britishof Pippa to let down the WI in their hour of need. But having broken her wrist several years ago and been shitfaced on pain killers for an entire week during which time she’d hadn’t been able to string a sentence together let alone perform coherently as a guest speaker, Paige wasn’t so quick to judge.
‘Everyone is so terribly disappointed and now I have to scramble around for someone else to fill the spot at such short notice. Rebecca volunteered to talk about that time she was an extra on the secondJames Bondfilm but there’s only so many times you can hear about what a gentleman David Niven was and how many times she shagged the head stuntman who apparently was hung like a donkey.’
Paige blinked. That did seem like a lot of TMI for a WI meeting.
Dorry sighed. ‘Everyone was so looking forward to hearing some real insight into the film and TV industry.’
