Page 96 of Scotlander

‘It’s the least I can do for you, Willa. The very least.’

And then, because time was precious, especially to someone like Orla, Willa was on her own again, waiting for the boarding call for the City of Angels.

Chapter Forty

‘Look who’s heeeeeeeere! It’s LA’s Little Miss Superstar!’

A few whoops greeted her as she walked into the hospitality suite. Charlie Foster instantly roused the usual motley crew of reporters and producers into a standing ovation as he dubbed her ‘the Siren of Sweeps Week’.

‘Chef wants you to know she’s joined a Waste Not Want Not programme that donates food to a nearby shelter,’ said the room’s hospitality manager before he was crowded out by Willa’s peers.

‘Have you seen Bryony since The Great Expenses Swindle?’ asked a reporter from Cincinnatti. ‘I heard she bought seven muumuus at the Royal Hawaiian on Aubrey’s card!’

‘I never liked her. Team Willa all the way!’

‘Don’t you mean, Madame Exec Producer?’ Charlie corrected. ‘Why are you here anyway? Don’t you have any plebs to send along?’

‘We’re still down for that lunch, right, woman?’ Priya asked.

‘Hey, Willa! Check out my human bagpipes. Bowm bowm dee bowm deeee bowm deeee—’

‘I didn’t think you had it in you, girl.’ Charlie plopped himself down beside her after Willa and Priya had managed to put a tentative date in the calendar. ‘Crushing the competition like that.’

‘What? You mean Entertainment Tonight?’

‘And Access, and E!, and anyone else trying to kill it in this game. You go, girl! I always knew you had it in you.’

She pulled a face. ‘You literally just said you didn’t think I had it in me.’

‘Did I?’ He laughed. ‘You know I’m your biggest fan, right?’ Charlie booped her on the nose as if she were an adorable puppy. ‘I want to be you when I grow up.’

‘Yeah, right.’ They clinked iced tea glasses and, she had to admit, the praise felt like arriving at an oasis after a long, painful journey through the desert. TiTs had smashed it in sweeps week. For the first time ever, she’d been sent a gift basket piled high with all sorts of ridiculous chocolates and speciality snacks and wine she definitely wouldn’t have been able to afford on her old salary. Her latest pay packet had come with a bump. And, of course, there was the new job title. They hadn’t found anyone to replace her yet, so she was doing her old job and the new one, but it wasn’t like she’d expected everything to change. Sure, the hours were longer and the stress levels exponentially higher, but it wasn’t as if she was working in the coal mines.

She gave her hair a sassy flick and sat back as the usual inane how-was-such-and-such-a-celeb-today chitchat got underway. As nice as it felt to be lauded by the pack she’d once felt sidelined by . . . she wasn’t feeling it. She wasn’t feeling any of it. She’d been home less than a week, but from the moment she’d landed . . . it felt wrong. And lonely. How could she be surrounded by all the people she’d physically ached to be friends with and still feel lonely?

‘Hey, Pendleton!’

Willa looked to the doorway where Matt Damon stood proud of a team of senior publicity VPs. He flashed his brighter-than-bright smile. ‘Good work in the Highlands.’ He put on a Scottish accent. ‘Art imitating life. I love it, lassie.’

She offered him a feeble smile and they had a mini finger pistol shoot out. Everyone laughed and applauded and when he was whisked away, the studio staff huddled round her to ask if Matt had flown out to pick potatoes too.

This was the sort of attention she had craved for years. Being the alpha producer who could snap her fingers and things would actually happen. Magical things. Like Matt Damon knowing exactly who she was.

But Matt Damon didn’t know who she was. Not really. And what had happened in Balcraigie wasn’t even close to art imitating life. It was life imitating art and then getting a kick in the gut as a blunt reminder that life was still life when the credits rolled.

And that’s when she finally knew. Actually, genuinely, right down to her marrow understood why Valentina had sent her to Scotland.

She, Willa Jenkins, was the biggest superfan of all.

Her entire life she’d been a Hollywood devotee. The hopes, the dreams, the endless fantasies. They’d been the things that had kept her head above water when she feared she would drown in a life that didn’t sing to her. Not Val. She was a woman who’d actively engaged with her life. Shook it up when it needed a change. Fixed it when it was broken. Squeezed everything she’d ever wanted out of it and then some. And in her spare time she enjoyed a few wistful what ifs in front of the television.

Willa had gone miles beyond that. She’d worshipped at the altar of showbiz. The lights, the cameras, the action. Moved away from the community where her family had built their lives. Disassociated herself from them to the point that, much like Gabe, they may as well be estranged. She hadn’t told them she’d been in Scotland. Or about her promotion. Or about Finn.

She’d become the type of person she liked to mock. Like Charlie. A person who bought the buzz, hook line and sinker. A slave to the actors who seemed to shapeshift extraordinary fictions into reality. She’d believed that if she’d been closer to it – to them – she too could live a different life to the one she’d felt predestined to live back home.

But the truth was, as a TiTs producer – a job she’d thought was the apex of living the dream – she would only ever be an observer.

She’d thought she’d finally won her version of an Oscar, but actually? It felt like the booby prize.