No Matter What (21 page)

Others had moved on too.
 
Terry was now a permanent fixture in
Los Angeles
, living in
India
’s beach house.
 
He’d gone back to the
U.K.
, only briefly, to find that his football career really couldn’t be resurrected in the way he’d wanted it to be so he’d bitten the bullet and left it all behind for good.
 
He’d moved to
L.A.
, landed a job in a
Beverly Hills
High School
as a soccer coach and, once his green card had come through, he’d finally begun to settle into his new life.
 
He hadn’t thought
L.A.
was anywhere he’d ever end up but it was somewhere that was slowly growing on him.
 
He had a dream job and was close enough to his sister to make sure she was ok.
 
He couldn’t be happier.

But
India
didn’t need looking after.
 
She was doing just fine on her own.
 
After the success of her movie with Michael - which had gained her various award nominations - she’d gone on to even greater things and been more in demand than ever.
 
She was an actress that could turn her hand to anything from romantic comedy to high drama, and whatever it was she was asked to do she did it in a way that had Hollywood crying out for more.
 

She’d also become involved in a lot of charity work over the years and spent a lot of time, when she wasn’t filming, travelling the world helping the many causes she represented.
 
She was living life at a thousand miles an hour and throwing herself into everything she did 100% and that’s the way she liked it.
 
She liked to keep busy.

After moving out of the beach house, and handing that over to Terry, she’d moved to a new home in Beverly Hills - a beautiful cream coloured Spanish-style house set in a small but still generous gated estate with the most idyllic gardens, a huge swimming pool and a guest bungalow in the grounds.
 
She also had three more members of staff to add to the make-up artists, hairstylists and P.A. she already had working for her – a chef, a gardener and a driver.
 
Never in her wildest dreams had she ever imagined she’d have staff but it was necessary in her life now.
 
She needed these people but she treated them as friends.
 
That was the way
India
was and she couldn’t change, and in return they worked hard for her, they were loyal and always there to make sure everything was as perfect as it could be.
 
She couldn’t have asked for a better team of people around her.
 
She was happy.
 
Very happy.
 
Although she missed living by the beach.
 
But it had been the sensible thing to do, to give Terry the beach house.
 
It brought back too many memories for her.
 
It represented a part of her life she was quite happy to put behind her, a time when she’d been young, a bit naïve maybe.
 
Things were more settled now, and at the age of twenty-eight she was more in control of everything.
 
And that’s the way she wanted it to stay.
 

She may have been a few years older but she’d grown more beautiful with those few passing years.
 
Her skin was the colour of a true Californian and her hair, although a little shorter now, was always perfect thanks to her wonderful team of hairstylists.
 
She looked like the beautiful
Hollywood
star she’d become, and it seemed as though she had everything she could possibly want, yet one thing was still missing.
 

Since everything that had happened with Kenny she’d been extremely reluctant to let herself get close to anyone again.
 
She’d had a few dates here and there but nothing special.
 
She’d kept them all at arms length, preferring to keep people as friends rather than let them get any closer.
 
Trusting someone again was something she was finding pretty hard to do.

But there was one person she’d become a lot closer to over the last few years.
 
One person who’d become very important in her life.
 
Michael Walsh.
 

When everything had kicked off with Kenny he’d been the one person who hadn’t lectured her, the one person who hadn’t gone down the “
I told you
so
” route and she’d loved him for that.
 
He’d become the person she’d gone to when she’d needed to have a moan about the nagging coming at her from all angles, the person who’d just sit and listen and never judge.
 
That was something nobody else had been willing to do.
 

He’d taken her out to dinner when she’d needed cheering up, and he’d even helped her find her beautiful new home, which wasn’t that far away from his own.
 
They were practically neighbours, and that suited her just fine.
 
He was a true friend to her.
 
Someone she held very close to her heart, and whether he became more than just a friend was something she’d thought about a lot.
 
There’d been times when she’d sensed things had maybe moved up a level, turned that corner, but she’d always taken a step back at that point, despite something in the back of her mind telling her that Michael might actually be good for her.
 
But she loved him as a friend and she was scared of losing that.
 
Because real friends were something you needed badly in the industry she was in.
 
It had taken almost six years but
India
had finally found her feet in
Hollywood
.
 
Now she could truly call
Los Angeles
home.

Right now they were all in
Palm Springs
, a trip organised by Reece for Terry’s thirty-second birthday.
 
Michael was there too, even Kenny.
 
It may have taken time and a lot of effort on the part of some people but they’d all eventually accepted that Kenny was in India’s life to stay, whether they liked it or not.
 

Vince Maine had also come along, taking a break from Vegas to spend a bit of time with them all.
 
He was Michael’s closest friend therefore
India
had gotten closer to him too, over the years, and she liked him.
 
She liked him a lot.
 
He was funny and kind and he always made her laugh.
 
She’d been to Vegas a few times over the last few years and he’d always made sure there’d been one of his best penthouse suites ready for her when she’d arrived.
 
She’d always had a good time there, and that had always been down to Vince.

The hotel they were staying in here in
Palm Springs
may not have been like anything she’d stayed in over in Vegas, but it was doing its absolute best to make this weekend perfect for them all.
 
A party had been arranged for them in one of the private houses in the hotel grounds, and from what
India
had seen over the course of the day when she’d visited the house, no expense appeared to be spared.
 
Thanks to Reece.
 
Terry wasn’t used to this kind of fuss on any kind of day never mind his birthday but he was going to have to get used to it.
 
She wanted him to have a good time, relax a little while he was here, and after a day playing golf with Michael, Vince and Reece, she was sure this party was just what he needed to let his hair down a bit.
 
Something she’d never really seen her brother do.

She was ready for a good party herself that was for sure.
 
It had been a while since she’d really had fun and she badly needed to have some, before she forgot how to.
 
She’d been away in Canada filming for the past few months and she couldn’t wait to spend some much needed time with everybody, have a few drinks, a bit of a dance, it was going to be a good night.
 
She could feel it.

There was a knock at the door of her private suite and she quickly stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around herself and another one round her wet hair as she ran out into the living room.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Michael, honey.”

She opened the door and smiled as he stood there, holding a single white rose which he held out for her and she took it, standing aside to let him in.
 

Their relationship was still a very grey area, she was still wary of taking that step forward from friends to something much more than that, but she was enjoying being with him.
 
That she
did
know.
 
He was so far removed from Kenny, so different to anyone else she’d been out with and he was just what she needed right now.
 
So he was a bit older, so what?
 
Maybe that was the attraction.
 
All she cared about was that he made her feel good.
 
Who knew where it was heading?
 
They hadn’t even so much as kissed yet - not outside of a film set anyway – but it was nice just taking one day at a time, letting it all happen slowly.
 
He wasn’t pushing her and she wasn’t letting herself rush into anything.

“I was going to ask if you were ready yet but I can see you’re not,” he smiled.
 
“Unless you’ve just discovered the latest fashion trend, in which case, I must say, you carry it off beautifully.”

She shut the door behind him and laughed, kissing him on the cheek.
 
“I’ll be five minutes, I promise.”
 

He followed her into the bedroom as she ran off into the en-suite bathroom.

“Five minutes?
 
Without make-up and hair to do their magic?
 
You sure about that?”

She stuck her head round the door and poked her tongue out at him.
 
He laughed, sitting down on the edge of her huge bed, listening to her running around the bathroom, knowing she didn’t need any help at all to look beautiful.
 
She was just fine as she was.

Michael Walsh couldn’t believe how perfect his life had become lately.
 
Kenny Ross had done his worst and the one person she’d turned to had been him.
 
Just like he’d planned, just like he’d hoped she would.
 
She’d come to him, leaned on him and needed him.
 
And he’d been there.
 
There was no other place he was ever going to be.
 
Ok, so the relationship was still growing slowly –
India
didn’t want to be rushed into anything and he understood that - but they were getting closer all the time, little by little, bit by bit.
 
Every time he took her out to dinner, every time he accompanied her to a premiere or a party, it was all adding up, all making her see just how good they could be together.
 
The only blot on this otherwise perfect scenario was that Kenny Ross was still very much a fixture in
India
’s life, but Michael had quickly realised that to oppose that in any way would only alienate him from her life, and he cared too much about her for that to happen.
 
So he’d just decided to keep a very close eye on Kenny, and make sure he never got close to
India
in that way again.

He looked up as she came out of the bathroom, make-up light on her tanned skin, her blonde hair tousled around her shoulders, the towel still wrapped around her body.

“Do you want me to leave while you get dressed?” he asked, standing up and making his way to the door.

“No, you’re ok,” she smiled.
 
“I’ll just nip into the dressing room, and I really will be five minutes, honest.”
 

He smiled back, wanting to just stay here with her, pull that towel away from her and spend the night making love to her, but that would come.
 
He knew those times would come, and the days of wishing and hoping would soon be over.

“We can go down together then, can’t we?” she went on, running into the dressing room.

He walked over to the mirror and looked at his reflection.
 
At almost forty-four he looked younger than his years, and that was probably thanks to coming off the alcohol and drugs when he had.
 
There were lines round the eyes Of course, those tell-tale signs you couldn’t hide unless you wanted to go under the knife, and he didn’t, but somehow they worked on him.
 
And the fact that he still had the most piercing of blue eyes was always something that made him stand out from the rest.
 
He hadn’t been short of female attention over the years, he just hadn’t been interested.
 
He only wanted one woman and anyone else was only ever going to be a very poor substitute.

“Ok.
 
I’m done.”

He turned round as she came back into the room and he almost gasped out loud at the sight of her.
 
She looked incredible.
 
Why she needed all those make-up people and hairstylists around her at home when she could do her own magic in ten minutes was beyond him.