‘Your eyes, they’re really pretty.’ James gently pushed me off and sat up. ‘So, blue. Have you ever thought about going darker with your hair?’
‘Muh?’ Seriously, I was dry-humping him on the beach and he was asking me if I’d thought about cracking out a bottle of Nice ’N Easy?
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, gently pushing me up and averting his eyes while I put myself away. ‘I spend far too much time with make-up artists. They’re always telling me if my hair was darker it would make my eyes look bluer. Apparently.’
‘Make-up artists,’ I nodded. ‘So not all those hot women you’re forever being pictured with?’
‘Not approved,’ James smirked, taking my hand and pulling me up onto the sand. ‘Shut up and come on.’
The endless ocean melted between the cloudless blue sky and golden beach, but it just couldn’t compete with the skin-on-skin contact. I was sure that the tiny thrills that kept tickling up and down my back would go away if I could just speak to Alex. But my phone had only had the decency to buzz once and that was to remind me that the repeat of Gossip Girl was starting. Or it would be if I had been in New York and not Malibu. I gave myself a mental shake and breathed out. Either I was just going to have to put Alex out of my mind and get on with the interview, or I was going to have a week’s worth of embarrassing anecdotes and an empty Dictaphone.
‘Shall we sit down for a while?’ I asked, kicking off my sandals and pulling out my ‘I’m a professional’ paraphernalia.
‘Jesus, I suppose so,’ James screwed up his face. ‘I know you’re a journo and everything, but can we at least attempt to keep it fun? I’ll let you in on a secret, I’m not a very good celebrity.’
‘I’ll try,’ I said wryly. ‘And I can let you in on a secret too: I’m not a very good journalist.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ he said. ‘I’ve read your stuff, you’re great.’
‘Don’t you have people to do that sort of thing for you?’ I asked, trying not to be too flattered. ‘Surely you don’t actually read for yourself?’
‘There’s actually just my manager, an accountant somewhere who makes sure I don’t go broke –?and Blake. When I first moved here, I had dozens of people, but it just didn’t work. I’ve never been great at letting people think for me and talk for me, and I hate having dozens of people around me when I don’t know if they’re genuine or not. That’s one of the reasons we’re doing this.’ He tilted his head and looked squarely at me. ‘Blake is … Blake is great at running my life but I don’t think he’s the best person to put in front of journalists. All the media people out here are just, well, just too much. They have to know every single thing that you ever did or might do. There was just no privacy, ever. This, by the way, is off the record.’
I held up the Dictaphone. ‘You want me to turn this off?’
Instead of answering, he took it from my hand, turned it over a couple of times and gave it a considered look. Before throwing it hard and far into the sea. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘Don’t ever ask to borrow my phone,’ I said, wondering how I would write that off as expenses. Shit. ‘So let’s just sort this out. The magazine told me we were trying to do a piece to explain to all your adoring female fans that you’re not some heartbreaking Hollywood lothario but just a misunderstood artist looking for your perfect woman. What was it that you were expecting?’
‘Well, that sounds good, let’s do that one. What do you need from me?’ he asked, concentrating on running streams of sand through his fingers. ‘I’m literally yours between now and the weekend.’
I tried not to think about what ‘literally yours’ could amount to and concentrate on the job at hand. Ish. ‘I have a billion questions but, to be honest, I’ve never had to work off questions before. How about if we chat, I’ll check the topics we’re supposed to cover every so often, and when I write stuff up at night, you can check it before I send it to my boss?’
‘You’ll never work for Vanity Fair, you know that, don’t you?’ he shook his head. ‘But that sounds perfect.’
‘OK,’ I nodded. ‘Before we start properly, though, I have to ask you one thing. And yes, I know I can already hear Blake giving it some “not approved”, but since you just chucked my Dictaphone in the ocean, I’m asking it anyway. Where are you from?’
‘Well, Angela Clark, I went to drama school in London—’
‘Not the biog, thank you very much. Where were you born?’ I pressed. I was getting the honest answer to this if it killed me.
‘Fine, fine, I’m surprised it’s not common knowledge anyway,’ he shrugged. ‘I’m from South Yorkshire. Near Sheffield actually.’
‘No way,’ I laughed out loud. ‘My grandparents lived in Sheffield; I spent every summer there for years. I could hear you had an accent but I couldn’t quite place it.’
‘What did you expect? They don’t really go in for “it’s grim oop north” at RADA,’ he said, flicking a handful of sand at me. ‘Where’s your Yorkshire accent?’
‘Didn’t say I was from there, I just spent a lot of time throwing a tantrum on the floor of Redgates toy shop as a child,’ I said. ‘Happy memories.’
‘Ahh, Redgates. I got all my Star Wars figures there. That’s how I knew I wanted to be an actor, I wanted a little plastic figure of me, just like my Luke Skywalker.’ He made a little pile of sand between us, then pressed it flat with the palm of his hand. ‘I thought they made figures of everyone, you know? And when my mum said they only made them of people in films, I decided that was it. I’d have to be in films. God, I haven’t thought about Redgates for years. My mum would take me there on my birthday and then we’d go to the Wimpy on The Moor. How mad is that?’
‘Mad,’ I agreed. ‘Who would have thought: James Jacobs, the toast of Hollywood, Yorkshire born and bred.’
‘Well, I wasn’t James Jacobs then,’ James grinned. ‘Just plain old Jim.’
‘Jim?’ I tried not to laugh. ‘Jim Jacobs?’
‘What’s your problem with Jim? My dad is Scottish.’
‘Nothing, I can just see why you changed it,’ I said, composing myself. ‘You don’t really hear people talking about Sexy Jim or Hot Jim, do you?’
‘I suppose not,’ he said, laughing at something he clearly wasn’t going to share. ‘It’s more of an Old Jim or Pervy Jim.’
‘Or Fat Jim,’ I added.
‘Did you just call me fat?’ He pushed me sideways, knocking me off my balance, back into the scorching sand.
‘No,’ I said, trying not to count up how many times he had already seen my knickers. ‘I called you Fat Jim.’
‘Come on, fat or not, just thinking about a Wimpy is making me hungry,’ he said, jumping up and pulling me with him. ‘Let’s go and get something to eat.’
I nodded and
