Jenna felt jealous of the beauty and openness of the location compared to the overgrown tangle in the garden at Bramble Cottage. She didn’t need to go into the hotel to ask anyone where any of the cast were, she could hear their laughter and screeches from the car park. She paused for a moment on the edge of the patio. There were guests sitting out with cocktails and wine, making the most of the sunshine. The lawn swept down to the edge of the cliff, part of it lined by bushes, the rest of it dropping away to reveal a sandy cove studded with dark grey rocks.
She took the path along the edge of the lawn towards the noise. The outdoor pool was set away from the hotel, surrounded by a sandstone terrace with sunloungers. There was nothing but the green of the surrounding grounds and the blue of sea and sky.
‘Jenna, you made it!’ Amanda jumped up from her sunlounger and ran across to her in bare feet.
‘This is the life you’re leading outside of filming?’
Amanda grinned. ‘Not bad is it. A taste of a Hollywood A-lister lifestyle.’
Jenna clocked Milo and Timothy along with a couple of the older actors laughing together around the other side of the pool. Both Lily and Amanda were in bikinis with floaty beach kaftans thrown on over the top. Jenna felt overdressed in shorts and a T-shirt. The intense mid-afternoon heat may have dissipated, yet it was still sweltering and the pool was a suntrap exposed on top of the cliff. Jenna longed to dive into the cool clear water of the pool.
‘You’ve got a bikini with you, right?’ Amanda asked.
Jenna nodded.
‘Come up to my room and get changed.’ Amanda took Jenna’s hand and led her back along the path to the hotel.
‘Wait for me,’ Lily said, catching them up.
The inside of the hotel was as swish as Jenna had imagined with a light airiness that continued into the rooms. Amanda’s bedroom was huge, the walls white, with splashes of colour from seaside pictures and the silver and blue bedspread.
Lily wandered over to the window. ‘Your sea view’s even better than mine.’
‘Wishing you were staying here now?’ Amanda flopped down on the bed.
‘Actually, I’m happy staying in my great aunt’s cottage. It’s got heaps of character.’
Lily turned back to face them. ‘That’s what you call something that needs a hell of a lot of work doing to it.’
‘Well, that’s true, it does. But it does have loads of character – beamed ceilings, gorgeous stone walls. You should come over and see it sometime.’ Jenna headed to the bathroom.
‘He fancies you, you know,’ Amanda said.
Jenna turned back. ‘Who does?’
‘Milo. He definitely fancies you.’
Jenna shook her head and closed herself in the en suite.
‘You don’t have a boyfriend, Jenna?’
Jenna sighed. Amanda had been fixated on her and Milo since the moment he turned up on set. Jenna rested her bag next to the sink, unzipped it and hunted for her bikini.
‘Nope. Been single for just over a year,’ she called back.
‘Who finished with who?’
‘I did with him.’
‘Was he an actor?’
‘Nope.’ Jenna wriggled out of her shorts and T-shirt and pulled on the bikini bottoms and top. She stuffed her clothes in her bag. There wasn’t a full length mirror in the bathroom so she couldn’t scrutinise herself, which was probably just as well. She tied her hair into a messy bun, threw on her beach cover-up, slipped her feet into flip-flops and went back into the room.
Amanda whistled. ‘He’s going to fancy you even more now.’
Jenna playfully whacked Amanda’s arm. ‘Stop it. We’re working together, that’s all. And he’s a flirt, he’s like it with everyone.’
Lily raised an eyebrow. ‘Not everyone. Although if I didn’t have a boyfriend, I’d be all over him.’
‘You’re the only single one of us, Jenna, you gotta have some fun.’
It seemed like they were having more fun trying to set her up with Milo then she was having. She might be an actor and good at playing the part of confidence but in real life she still felt out of her depth at times, particularly when she was around someone like Milo who was as easy to talk to as he was easy on the eye.
‘Come on, let’s get back out there and soak up the last bit of sun.’ Amanda scrambled off the bed, pulled down her sunglasses and led the way out of her room.
~
‘At last, you join us!’ Milo patted the empty sunlounger next to him and Jenna slid on to it, dropping her bag on the ground.
She was used to being around actors and had worked with a few famous names, but Milo left her feeling star-struck. It wasn’t like she was a huge fan or anything. She liked him, she’d seen a few things that he’d been in, but he had an air of confidence about him, of someone who knew just how popular, good looking and successful he was. A confidence that often eluded Jenna, even though countless people told her she was talented, that she was pretty...
‘You don’t have the whole place to yourselves, do you? Looked like there were some couples out on the terrace when I walked past.’ Her attempt at small talk was lame but the best she could do under Milo’s gaze.
‘There are a couple of regulars – presumably the hotel manager didn’t want to cancel and piss them off. Think they’re quite excited about being surrounded by a load of luvvies.’
‘At least you’re all out most of the day.’
Even beneath the shade of the umbrella it was still hot, and being flustered was making the situation worse. Lily and Amanda had settled themselves back on their sunloungers at the one shady spot of the terrace and Adrian, who she’d met on set earlier that day, and another couple of actors were sitting together chatting by the wall.
Jenna wedged her
