Page 90 of Love At First Fright
“How’s this?”
Rosemary sidled closer, running her hands over the nape of his neck, scratching slightly, as she knew he liked. The flare of desire returned in his eyes was unmistakable. “I like you in this one.”
“Do you now?”
“Mmm.” She reached up on her tiptoes, kissing Ellis slowly. She’d never get tired of it. From the corner of the room, Rosemary could hear an incessant buzzing she hadn’t noticed earlier.
“Is there a bee trapped in here?”
Ellis sighed. “No, that’s my phone. It’s been going off all morning, so I threw it in the sock drawer. Some photos from the scene in the bookshop were posted online and it’s caused quite a stir.”
“Really? What are they saying?”
Ellis tilted her face up to his. “Nothing you have to worry about. Mostly just speculation on the nature of our relationship.”
“Has Brody been bothering you, is that buzzing him?”
“Surprisingly, no. Brody did text me this morning just to say that I should say ‘no comment’ to anything that comes through and that he and I will be ‘having words’ before my interview tomorrow, whatever that means. The buzzing is just a load of journalists trying to contact me through social media. Everyone wants to know if I’m cheating on Jenna Dunn with the scream queen of horror fiction.”
“Do you think Jenna is okay?”
Ellis smiled. “She texted to say she’s fine. And that this gives her a reason to go public with Lyn.”
“I’m glad. And just ignore the journalists. Let them wonder. We don’t have to tell anyone.”
A fleeting expression of disappointment creased Ellis’s face, and Rosemary wondered what she’d said wrong.
“Of course. We’ll keep it to ourselves. The crew on set know not to say anything either, so no worries on that front.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes, and guilt flared in Rosemary’s chest. She’d only said that they could keep it private because that’s what she assumed he wanted.
“You’re leaving tomorrow,” Ellis said quietly.
“Yeah.”
“Do you want…?” He hesitated, and Rosemary wondered if he might ask her to come back. “Do you want me to drive you to the airport?” he said finally.
She touched his cheek. “You can’t drive me because you have to go prepare for the Theo Drake interview at the studios.”
He shook his head. “They can wait for me, I’ll be a diva for once.”
“We both know that’s not like you. Ellis, go to the studios. I’ll book a cab.”
He huffed. “I’ll do that at least.”
Rosemary wanted to confess to Ellis that she wanted to come back. That she had never felt for anyone like she felt for him. That he was all she thought about. That she couldn’t imagine a future without him in it. But she couldn’t say any of those things, because at that moment, the doorbell rang.
—
Annie Finch, Ellis’s younger sister,had arrived.
“I brought herbs for Rosemary,” she said the moment she crossed the threshold. Her voice had a soft, raspy quality and there was a quiet calmness to her that Rosemary immediately loved.
Annie was shorter than Ellis, with a delicate plumpness to her figure that reminded Rosemary of a classic 1950s actress. In fact, her outfit was also like something from the golden age of Hollywood, with a fur-trimmed dark red dress that clung to her waist and flared outwards as if concealing a petticoat. She threw an arm around Ellis, but once she spied Rosemary, she all but pushed her brother out of the way.
“You must be Rosemary. It’s good to finally meet in person—I brought you this. It’s a pot of marjoram, which in the Victorian language of flowers was said to mean ‘I wish you joy and happiness,’ which I do. Everything else was particularly sexual, I nearly bought you some red camellias before I remembered that they mean ‘you’re a flame in my heart.’ ”
“Thank you, that’s so sweet,” Rosemary said, taking the pot of herbs. From behind Annie, Ellis was grinning ear-to-ear. “It’s lovely to finally meet you, too.”
“Ellis said you write horror novels, and are famous for it,” Annie said matter-of-factly as they walked through to the kitchen.
