Chapter 2

Tulip

Blossom may be the one with a business degree, but offering this place out as a filming location has got to be her worst idea yet. And now we’re stuck with this idiot.

“I’m staying in this?” he asks. “Is there even Wi-Fi?”

Ugh. I know we’re not doing as well as we expected, and I want to get this place back on track, but this isn’t the right way to do it. Our land is too precious for some production company to come mess up our fields and terrify our livestock. It should be for our community, for families, not egotistical movie stars and their entourages. I’ve also bitten my tongue long enough after Blossom’s warning earlier, and for Clover’s benefit. But it’s just me and him here now, and some of that simmering annoyance is seeping out.

“What do you think this is, the dark ages? Yes, we’ve got bloody Wi-Fi, phone signal too once you’re on the farm. There’s even electricity, and no, it’s not powered by a cow on a treadmill round the back of the hut. You want to go check, just in case?”

“I was just aski—”

“Oh, and you’ll love this, we’ve got hot water. And not the kind you have to boil up in a pot first, either. I won’t have to come fill a bath for you like some kind of Victorian chambermaid.”

“Of course not, you’d never make it as a chambermaid, they had to be quiet and unobtrusive.”

Smirking bastard. Well, maybe one night out here with the sounds of nature and Mr Movie Star will leave in a huff of entitled rage. “Dinner is at half six. Suppose we can’t let you starve, I don’t fancy being on the news. Don’t feel like you have to come though, there’s always take-out. Yes, we have that too. Word of warning though, it’ll take longer than in your fancy cities, and no, we don’t offer room service here, not even to the likes of the great Cooper Fox.”

He frowns but says nothing, just bites his lip as if he’s trying to hold something back. Clearly my raised eyebrow and roll of my eyes knocks it out of him though.

“What is your problem with me? I did nothing to you, and you were instantly unfriendly.”

And there was me thinking I was quite lovely to him outside the farm. I helped him on his way, warned him about the incoming rain. Perfectly pleasant. “I was not.”

“No? You acted like you didn’t know who I was when we met, yet all the time you were just trying to get me to move along. It was underhanded, a silent kind of hostility. And this whole attitude you’ve got is unnecessary.”

I can’t help myself. “Is it?” I snarl. “I don’t live under a rock, of course I know who you are. An entitled prick paid millions to play dress up. And it seemed to me that you didn’t think our home was good enough for you, that all us country folk are some kind of backwards bumpkins.”

“Not at all. I think Blossom and Clover seem like perfectly well-educated young women. You however, the pugnacious and … volatile thing you are … who knows what lies beneath?”

He really is an arsehole.

“Hark at you with the long words. I suppose you went to some posh boarding school and top university?”

He shakes his head. “You may know of me, but you don’t know me. I went to state school like most kids. But I worked hard and ended up with a place at Oxford.”

“Of course you did.”

“Which I turned down to go to drama school.”

“Well, note to self, keep you away from Clover. I don’t need you getting it into her head that fun and frolics are better than getting an education.”

The look he gives me is hard to interpret. If I had to take a guess, I’d go somewhere between disgust and agreement.

I don’t know why I feel I need to defend myself against him. Maybe it’s the impenetrable stare, those dark brown eyes staring into my soul, but it burns inside me, makes my hackles rise. “Well, Mr Movie Star, what you think of me doesn’t really matter, but for your information, I have a masters degree in Agriculture and another in Animal Science.”

“And yet, I’d be more impressed if you were a normal human being,” he says.

And now he’s yawning. How rude.

“Keeping you up, or is this just another sign you clearly don’t want to be here?

“I want to be here as much as you want me here,” he spits.

“Hmm, that was obvious within seconds of seeing that face.”

“I usually get complimented on my face. If it pissed you off that quickly, have you considered it might be a ‘you’ problem?”

“You’re the one who’s invading my land. I have every right to be pissed at you.”

He’s raging so much he’s almost puce. “You might want to reconsider that stance. I didn’t offer your farm as a filming location. I didn’t accept a contract from a major movie company. And I certainly didn’t choose to ‘invade’ fucking nowheresville and stay in a shed.”

Damn the man for having a point. I reign in my contempt – just a little – because it’s true, it’s not his fault. Not really. But I’ve got all this anger, and it’s easier to take it out on him than Blossom. She’s far too level-headed and fact-oriented. I just won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he’s right.

“But it is your fault you’re so shit at acting that you’ve got to come here for two weeks first to be able to play your role.”

The venom drains from him as he slowly shakes his head. “Actors research roles, it’s a thing. You think I knew how to be anything I’ve played in my films? A lawyer, a mechanic—”

“A superhero? Where does one go to research that? You hang out at the comic book store?”

That slow shake of the head again, a hard massage to his temple. “I didn’t even want that role.”

“Why did you go for it then?” I ask.

“I didn’t. It was written with me in mind, they wanted me from the off.”

“Ah, yes, I forgot for a second you’re so famous shit like that happens.”

“It’s not easy, you know,” he snaps, a dirty look flashed my way.

“What? Having things handed to you? The countless awards? The adoration of the entire world? The pick of any woman you want? Yeah, sounds like hell.”

“Not knowing who really cares about you, feeling pressure not to let anyone down, spending hours, days, weeks even, stuck inside because the paparazzi are camped out on your doorstep. Finding yourself splashed all over the tabloids because you trusted the wrong person, someone who you thought cared, but who was only out for what they could get, yeah, it’s a fucking dream come true.”

He slumps down on the bench outside the pod, head in hands. I’ve clearly struck a nerve, and I feel strangely guilty, and looking at him, my anger fades quickly.

“Why do you do it then?”

He doesn’t look up. “I love acting, it’s all I ever wanted to do.”

There’s a despondency there, a sadness, even though he’s talking about the thing he loves. And it makes sense to me, not because I understand that world, but because I can relate to it, empathise.

“But it comes with all these responsibilities, and all these things you couldn’t have foreseen, or you did, but you thought it would be different for you, because it was your dream?”

He looks up as I sit cross-legged on the deck opposite him. “Yeah, exactly that.”

Cooper Fox may be one of the biggest stars in the world right now, but maybe his life isn’t the stuff of dreams. He’s still a person underneath all that fame and glamour, one with problems just like the rest of us.

“I get it, I do. I feel like that about this place. It’s all I ever wanted, to take it over one day, run it like mum and dad did. It’s not quite working out that way.”

“Movie stars turning up on your doorstep probably isn’t helping,” he says, smile playing on his lips.

“No, not really. But maybe they’re not as bad as I thought.”

He laughs. “Is Miss Tulip’s cold front thawing?”

It’s a nice laugh, and hell, he’s good-looking when I’m not being mad at him. “Don’t get excited, it might not last. Depends how much you piss me off tomorrow.”

“Oh honey, when I’m excited, trust me, you’ll know.”

The way he looks at me then, dark eyes never leaving mine, that jawline ticking, glimmer of a smile, teasing, it does things to a girl. But I’m me, and those things should not be happening. Not while I’ve work to do. And not with the likes of him.

This is going to be a very long two weeks.