No Matter What (113 page)

“I’ve got to get to wardrobe,” he whispered, giving her one last, lingering kiss. And then he was gone, leaving
India
wondering just what the hell had happened.

She was still standing there when Bobby came in.
 
He put the coffee he was carrying down on the table and looked at her, cocking his head to one side.

“Are you alright?
 
You look a bit flustered.”
 
He turned round and looked out of the window, noticing JJ talking to one of their co-stars.
 
“Oh, ok …” He looked at
India
again, who was now getting herself a glass of water.
 
“Have you had a visit?”

India
knocked back the water and started fanning herself with her script.

“You could say that.”

“A bit of repeat action was it?”

“Not enough time.”

“So, why’s your shirt unfastened then?”
 
Bobby sat down on the arm of the sofa and picked up his coffee.

She put her glass down and fastened her shirt back up, looking in the mirror and sorting out her hair before turning back round to look at Bobby.

“It was like something out of a movie, Bobby.
 
He walks in here all masterful and sexy as hell – so bloody sexy – and he kisses me, makes me literally go weak at the knees ...”

“Feels you up ...”

“Bobby!”
 
She threw a cushion at him.
 
“Stop making it sound cheap.
 
It wasn’t like that.”

“What
was
it like then?”

She looked in the mirror again, gently touching her lips with her fingertips, lips that were still tingling from JJ’s kisses, and she smiled.

“It was like magic, Bobby.
 
That’s the only way I can describe it.
 
It was just like magic.”

CHAPTER 55

Kenny knew his time was well and truly up.
 
There was only one explanation as to why she was acting like she was, and although he didn’t want to face up to it, he had a feeling he was going to have to.
 
All the signs were there.
 
She was hardly home in the evenings, and at weekends, if she wasn’t working, she was out most of the time too.
 
She was always singing along to the radio, always sending or receiving secret text messages and smiling to herself.
 
It was written all over her face.
 
He’d seen it before.
 
Someone was doing this to her, someone was making her this happy and that someone wasn’t him.
 
But the biggest tell tale sign of all was that she’d stopped asking him to stay over.
 
She’d stopped needing him and that hurt like hell.
 
Because
he
still needed
her
.
 
He always would.

In his heart he knew who the person was who’d stepped into his shoes and taken her away from him.
 
It was obvious, maybe not to everyone else but he knew her too well.
 
She couldn’t wait to get to work in the mornings, and whenever he visited her on the set of ‘Covert One’ she was bouncing around like some kid at a birthday party.
 
She’d moved on from Michael, that was quite obvious now.
 
He just wished she could have moved on with him.
 
But it looked like JJ Foster had won that race, and Kenny hadn’t had any idea that he’d even been in the running.
 
A younger, newer man had come in out of nowhere and swept her off her feet and maybe that was what she needed, maybe people that reminded her of the past weren’t good for her, but that didn’t mean Kenny had to accept it immediately.

There was no proof that he was right, of course.
 
She’d never told anyone she was seeing JJ and there’d been nothing in any of the papers or magazines about them being a couple, but Kenny just felt it.
 
He could read her, he could sense things.

“Do you know if
India
’s seeing anyone?” he asked Reece, who was over in
Malibu
to look after Ethan while
India
was spending a few days in
New York
.
 
She was there to wrap up filming of a special ‘Covert One’ season finale and attend a movie premiere.

Reece looked up from tidying Ethan’s toys away.
 
“No.
 
She hasn’t said anything to me.
 
What makes you think she’s seeing someone?”

“Haven’t you noticed the way she’s acting at the minute?
 
She’s always happy. She’s always bounding around the place, always smiling ...”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“No,” Kenny sighed, leaning back against the breakfast bar, pushing a hand through his hair.
 
“No.
 
Of course it isn’t.”

Reece started spooning coffee into the machine, getting cups out of the cupboard.
 
“You knew this would happen sometime, Kenny, and if it’s true then maybe we should be happy for her too, if it means she’s finally starting to move on.”
 
He switched the machine on and turned round to face Kenny, folding his arms as he waited for the coffee.
 
“Although, that doesn’t mean I still don’t want to know what it was that Michael did to her that still makes her feel the need to cut him out of her life completely.
 
If she
has
found someone new then it’s taken her three and a half years and … well, she was too bitter and too angry for too long.
 
And there was a reason for that.”

Kenny dug his hands deep into his pockets, staring down at the floor.

Reece looked at him.
 
“Do you know for sure she’s seeing anyone else?”

Kenny looked up, shaking his head.
 
“No.
 
No proof, but the signs are there, Reece.
 
I know her, and I think I know who he is too, this man who’s making her so happy.”

Ethan came running into the room dressed in his favourite outfit of jeans, baseball boots and rock band t-shirt – The Rolling Stones was his choice for today.

“Are you talking about mommy’s new boyfriend?”

They both looked at him.

“Mommy has a boyfriend?” Reece asked, crouching down to Ethan’s level.

Ethan nodded.
 
“JJ.
 
He’s mommy’s new boyfriend but she said I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone yet.
 
Is she gonna be mad at me, granddad?”

Reece smiled.
 
“No, sweetheart, she isn’t.”
 
He looked up at Kenny.
 
“JJ Foster?”

Kenny nodded.

Reece stood up, giving Ethan a cookie and ruffling his hair.
 
“Ok kiddo, off you go.
 
Grandma’s out on the deck waiting for you.”

Ethan ran off out of the huge glass doors that spread along the beach front side of the house, out onto the deck that led down onto the beach, grabbing his bucket on the way.

Reece poured himself and Kenny a coffee.
 
“You know JJ, don’t you?”

Kenny shrugged, taking the cup from Reece.
 
“Sort of, but I wouldn’t call him a friend, exactly.
 
He had a small part in one of my movie’s a couple of years ago and we hung out for a bit.
 
I never thought for one minute he’d be her type though.”
 
He looked out of the windows, out at the view of the ocean, the sun beating down on the white sand.
 
“It can only have started since she began work on ‘Covert One’.
 
She’d never met him before that.”

“Maybe it’s what she needs, Kenny.
 
Someone new.
 
Someone different.”

“Maybe it is.”

Reece looked at him.
 
He knew how much this must be hurting him, given the way he felt about
India
.
 
But, if it was true, then he was going to have to get used to it. Kenny wasn’t a problem anymore though, Reece knew that.
 
He might find it hard to accept any new relationship
India
might have, but, eventually, he
would
accept it.
 
Because he cared about
India
.
 
No, it wasn’t Kenny Reece was worried about.
 
What really worried him was Michael’s reaction.
 
Reece still spoke to him; he still saw the way he was whenever
India
’s name was mentioned.
 
Reece knew, in his heart, that her ex-husband had never gotten over his daughter and whatever it was that had happened between them, and if her finding a new, younger man triggered off something that nobody was expecting then they needed to be ready.
 
Nobody really knew what was around the corner, but given the last sixteen years of their lives, Reece had learnt to expect anything.
 
He’d learnt to expect it all.
 
And this time would be no different.

***

They’d been filming the season finale of ‘Covert One’ in
New York
, and
India
was quite sad that it was all coming to an end.
 
She’d been working on the hit TV show for almost two and a half months now and it had been one of the best experiences of her life.
 
She’d loved every second of it.
 
This show would stay with her forever, not least because it had given her JJ.
 
There was already talk of reprising her character in the new season and she knew that, if she was asked to come back, it would take her about three seconds to say yes.

She and JJ had only been together for just over a month but it had been a month of incredible sex at any spare moment and she was the happiest she’d been in years.
 
How they’d managed to keep their relationship a secret for so long when they could barely keep their hands off each other was anyone’s guess but they had and that was the way they’d wanted it whilst filming was taking place.
 

They’d had numerous scenes together over the course of filming, including one where they’d had to kiss, and that had been hard because they’d had to make sure no-one could tell that that wasn’t the first time they’d kissed each other.
 
Just one look, one tiny little thing could have given their relationship away and neither of them had wanted that to happen at that time.
 
The secrecy had been a turn on; it had made everything so much more exciting.
 
Stealing kisses around corners and having sex in their trailers between scenes; it had all been the most incredible time for
India
.
 
Like waking up from a bad dream and suddenly realising there was a whole new world out there to be a part of.
 

She couldn’t say she was in love.
 
Not yet.
 
Not when she knew a part of her was still with her ex-husband.
 
She was never going to throw herself open to those feelings quite so quickly again after Michael, but she loved being with JJ.
 
She needed to be with him, and if that all led to something else eventually then that was fine.

But this weekend was special, not only because filming was at an end, but it was the weekend that
India
and JJ had chosen to finally make their relationship public knowledge.
 
They couldn’t keep it a secret forever.
 
They were running out of ways to hide their feelings in public and they now wanted to bring everything out in the open.
 
It was time.

They were going to a premiere in
Times Square
that evening, and turning up as a couple was the way they’d chosen to break the news.
 
No pre-empting, no statements given out beforehand.
 
They were just going to turn up and make sure nobody was under any doubt that they were an item.
 
They’d make sure everyone knew they were now together.
 
Very much together.
 
India
’s P.R. people would probably throw a major fit at the way she was handling this but she didn’t want it announced in some clinical way, not this time.
 
JJ was different, and
India
was so sure of her relationship with him that she’d had
JJ
tattooed on the inside of her left wrist. Two tiny black J’s that meant she felt something for this man.
 
Even if she wasn’t quite sure what that was just yet.
 
She’d kept it hidden underneath wrist cuffs and her watch until now but, well, now she could let everyone see it.

Part of her wondered whether she should have told her father, or even Kenny, before tonight but she’d eventually decided against it.
 
She didn’t want anyone’s approval, she didn’t need it.
 
She knew what she wanted.
 
She wanted JJ.
 
She’d told Bobby, of course, and Ethan, and whether a four year old had managed to keep it to himself was anyone’s guess but no-one had said anything to her so she assumed he’d told nobody.
 
Bobby had been an angel in managing to keep their secret, and he was the only one who knew they were going public tonight, and she’d told him because she knew he wouldn’t try and talk her out of doing it in this spontaneous way.
 
Bobby was used to anything after almost ten years of working with her.
 
He could handle any situation she threw his way.