Hollywood Heartthrob (3 page)

But Caroline didn’t care. She loved the dramatics and thrived on it. Being an actress was her whole identity. Any opportunity to scream and cause a scene, she took it, believing it her right to be volatile as she was an actress. If she was a good actress, it would be a passable excuse, but she wasn’t. She was a sex symbol, nothing more. And Josh hated how she didn’t care if people took her seriously. He yearned to be a serious actor, to have his peers see him as more than a handsome face.

“Are you seeing someone?” Caroline asked, her eyes wild and desperate. “Is that where you were this morning?”

Neither Josh nor Caroline had been faithful during the few months when they’d been dating in the loosest terms, but she loved to bring up any indiscretions as they were yet again an excuse to be dramatic. Josh began to wonder if she actually liked the fact that they cheated on each other for that very reason, which sickened him a little.

“If I was, it wouldn’t be any of your business.” Josh replied harshly.

Caroline looked genuinely hurt by his response and he saw her visibly deflate before his eyes. She held back tears as she pondered the unthinkable that Josh had perhaps found a woman he preferred to her. But that was impossible. She was the sexiest woman in the world. A magazine poll had declared as much!

“So are you?” Caroline asked her voice small.

“Go finish getting ready,” Josh told her dismissively.

“Whoever she is, I’ll ruin her,” Caroline’s entire demeanour suddenly changed from hurt to wicked as she delivered the threat, her uneven eyes darkening as she did so.

A shiver ran down Josh’s spine and he jogged away from her, desperate to create some distance. It wasn’t the first time he had heard the threat, but it was the first time he’d feared it.

****

Between classes Amy hastily tried to get her papers in order at her desk when she spotted a male figure appear in the doorway.

“I can’t give you that tour now!” she shouted, assuming it was Josh Roberts.

“What tour?” a familiar voice asked and Amy felt her heart sink.

“John, what are you doing here?” she asked the man she’d previously agreed to marry.

John Daniels entered her classroom looking uncomfortable. He looked good with his lean frame fitted into a smart charcoal suit which set off his dark hair. A designer watch sparkled on his wrist, a reminder of why Amy had ultimately left him.

“I was on campus securing some funding for student development in my factories and thought I’d stop by.”

“I’m kind of busy.” Amy explained curtly.

Since their messy break up almost eight months ago, John was constantly making impromptu trips to both Amy’s place of work and home. He always had a legitimate excuse but she saw right through them all.

“You could at least pretend to be pleased to see me,” John said, hurt.

“Why would I do that?” Amy asked.

“Come on, Aimes, when are you going to thaw a bit and stop being such an ice queen?”

Amy wanted to explain that she’d only become an ice queen when John had started paying prostitutes to pleasure him when he was away with work. Money had turned him from a kind man to a cruel one, making him believe that he owned anyone and anything, including Amy.

It infuriated her that even after all this time he had the audacity to follow her around, refusing to let her go, unable to accept that she was no longer his.

“I was thinking we could go grab a coffee together?” John suggested casually, though Amy figured he’d been planning that suggestion all morning.

“Like I said, I’m busy, I have a job.”

“Can’t you spare five minutes?”

“No.”

“Fine,” John was about to leave when he turned back to her.

“What was that you said about a tour? Who are you giving a tour to?”

“What?” Amy asked, distracted by her work. “Oh, um, just a student.” She lied not because Josh mattered to her, but because it would matter to John who could be unbelievably jealous, ever the hypocrite. He even had a new girlfriend now, or so Amy had heard.

“Okay,” John thrust his hands into his pockets and gazed around the room absently as Josh had done just a few hours before.

“Isn’t there a movie being filmed here or something?” he asked a little too directly.

“Yes, there is.”

“With that guy in it all the women are hot for, what’s his name?”

“Josh Roberts,” Amy answered without looking up.

“So you like him?” John challenged.

“No, I know his name. Are we done here? I’ve got loads to do.”

“Have you met him?” John continued his line of questioning.

“Actually I have. And believe it or not he’s as arrogant and annoying an ass as you are!” Amy replied angrily, pointing towards the classroom door.

“Jonathan, goodbye, I am a very busy and important person so stop disturbing me!”

Raising his hands in mock defeat, John left, but he couldn’t help but be troubled by Amy’s reaction to Josh Roberts. He told himself it was nothing, but decided to pop by her classroom later that day just to be sure. After all, if they were going to get back together, and they would once Amy came to her senses, he couldn’t have her getting involved with anyone else in the interim as that would ruin everything.

Amy was his, she had just forgotten that.

“So, you ready to give me that tour?”

Amy looked up and sighed angrily only to see that this time it actually was Josh at the door, leaning casually against the frame and smiling at her.

Suddenly the fatigue she felt from a day of teaching faded away and she felt light inside, as though her whole body consisted of nothing more than air.

“I’m very busy,” Amy declared, tapping the pile of papers before her as she said so.

“Too busy to take me on my promised tour?” Josh teased the words out as she spoke, playing with her, constantly smiling.

“Are you always such a flirt?” Amy asked directly.

“What, me, no!” Josh laughed and made a shocked face.

“I’ll take you on your tour now-”

“Great!” Josh interrupted but Amy wasn’t finished.

“Only if you stop flirting as it makes me cringe.”

“Ouch!”

“Just be yourself,” Amy said, trying to make her request sound a little kinder.

“Myself?” Josh raised his eyebrows in surprise. “That’s a tall order. I’m an actor. I’ve been paid to be anything other than myself for the past ten years!”

“Well just consider this yet another role, only this time, I want you to be Josh Roberts. The Josh Roberts before he found the fame and fortune.”

“I can do that,” Josh nodded and smiled. “I mean, he’s still in there somewhere.”

“Just hidden beneath the designer clothes and flashy cars,” Amy quipped. 

“Come on, this tour won’t start itself!” Josh directed. “You should know that the real Josh Roberts is very impatient,” he added.

“It’s creepy when you refer to yourself in the third person,” Amy teased as she picked up her handbag and left the classroom, leading the way down the hall for Josh to follow.

****

She did her best to guide Josh around the various points of interest and sound knowledgeable but he saw right through her act.

“You don’t know what you’re on about,” he stated as Amy stood before the West Wing of the college and attempted to remember when – and why – it had originally been built.

“Yes, I do,” Amy replied. “The West Wing was built just after the Second World War.”

“Then why does that plaque up there say 1932?”

Amy glanced up at the plaque Josh was looking at and sighed.

“It’s okay if you don’t know,” he smiled warmly at her.

“But I should know. I mean, this is the place where I teach. It doesn’t look very good to the students if I don’t know the origins of the buildings around me.”

“It honestly doesn’t matter,” Josh slipped a consolatory arm around Amy’s slight shoulders and was surprised by how natural the action felt.

“As long as you know about the subject you are teaching, this history stuff is just fluff. Unless you are a history teacher. In that case it’s bad.”

“I’m English Lit,” Amy laughed. “Anyway, since when was Josh Roberts such an understanding guy? From what I’ve read online you can be more than a bit of an idiot.”

“So you’ve read about me online?” Josh smiled.

“No flirting, remember?” Amy said, her eyes narrowing in warning as they walked idly around the campus outside, his arm still hung around her.

“Okay, well. Yes, I’ve behaved badly on set but it’s because I’m paid to. It’s all part of the act, the persona. These days with the media being how it is you need to get people talking about a movie before you’ve even finished filming it.”

“But doesn’t it bother you that people think you’re rude and obnoxious?”

“Not really,” Josh shrugged. “The people that matter know the real me, like my parents and brothers. I don’t care what anyone else thinks.”

“I wish I could be that thick skinned.”

“To be an actor you have to get used to the knocks, to people judging you. It’s all part of it.”

As they walked Amy realized just how close she suddenly felt to this man. Normally she would be scared by such an intense feeling, but walking with Josh and talking with him, it just felt…right.

She liked this Josh Roberts. The guy who was open and caring, he was so much nicer than the cheesy flirt who she’d met before.

“You know, you should try being yourself more often,” she noted as they headed back towards her classroom.

“You think?”

“Yeah, you actually seem like a pretty decent guy.”

“I’ll take that,” Josh smiled.

They gazed into each others eyes for a moment and Amy felt a shiver run down her spine.

“You know, since you like the real me…” Josh cleared his throat and suddenly seemed nervous.

“I was thinking that maybe you’d, let me take you out…as the real me.”

“Like on a date?” Amy teased.

“Yes, like on a date.” Josh blushed.

“Okay,” Amy found herself agreeing, while inside her head her inner voice was screaming that it was madness as he was a famous movie star and could never be serious about a nobody like her.

“Okay, great,” Josh beamed. “I’ll come pick you up tomorrow night.”

“Great,” Amy nodded.

They parted ways and Amy headed back to her classroom and the pile of papers she still had to grade which were waiting for her on her desk.

She was so caught up in the moment that she didn’t spot the figure lurking in the darkened hallway close to her classroom.

As Josh strode off the figure moved, keeping closely behind him.