Page 9 of From Notting Hill with Love…Actually (Actually #1)

After I’d successfully unlocked the door a piercing, high-pitched wail bombarded my eardrums. The alarm—Belinda had warned me about that.

I ran over to the small black box that sat on the wall opposite the doorway, realizing that I’d had the alarm code earlier on my original piece of paper, but Maddie had only given me the address over the phone.

Think, Scarlett, think .

I knew the six-digit code was something personal to me—I’d thought that when Belinda had told me it the first time, now what was it again?

The wailing seemed to be getting louder. How long did I have before the police would come out? I couldn’t remember what Belinda had said now. If only that damn wailing would shut up for a minute so I could think. Oh, that was the point.

I thought hard.

Now…the first two numbers were my birthday—that was easy, I could remember those. The next was…oh, my bra size minus the cup, yep, got it. And the last two…come on, Scarlett…think…oh, of course, how many times I’d seen the movie Notting Hill !

Hastily I reset the security code, all the time praying I’d remembered it in the correct order. Within seconds of pressing the buttons, the wailing ceased.

I breathed a sigh of relief, pulled my suitcase in off the step, and shut the door behind me. It was only then that I noticed the elegant surroundings I found myself in.

“Wow,” I exclaimed as my eyes ran over the coffee and cream decor of the hall. “Triple wow!”

I quickly explored the house, opening doors and expelling further sounds of pleasure as I became more and more excited.

Belinda and Harry certainly had plenty of money, that was for sure—but I thanked the Lord they had taste too.

Plain walls were simply adorned with bold works of art, and every room was light and airy but managed to remain warm and cozy too.

Everywhere was decorated in a chic, minimalist style, and I loved it.

I selected one of their five bedrooms to sleep in.

It had a lavish purple and lilac theme. There was a beautiful silk duvet cover and scatter cushions on the bed, with full-length raw silk curtains at the window.

This will do nicely , I thought, as I launched myself face down on to the bed, arms and legs outstretched just like Kate Winslet had done in Cameron Diaz’s mansion in The Holiday .

Then I flipped over and lay back on the bed for a moment, admiring my new surroundings.

“Ha ha, you lot,” I said to the empty room.

“Strike one! There’s my first completely spontaneous and totally harmless movie moment and I’ve only been here five minutes! ”

My intention was to go back home at the end of my month away with a list of evidence of things that had happened to me that were the same as things that happened to people in the movies, therefore proving my point to those that doubted me.

I was determined to show that what they considered my strange little obsession was not as eccentric and bizarre as they thought it was.

Movies weren’t that different from real life a lot of the time—I just had to find a way of proving that.

I mean, obviously there wasn’t any chance of me sailing on a 46,000-ton passenger liner when it hit an iceberg, but what was to stop me from going to as many weddings as I could find, in the hope that the best man would forget the rings or the bride would be jilted in sign language by the brother of the groom?

OK, those might not be the best two examples, but it couldn’t be that hard to find movie scenes in everyday life. And after all I was in Notting Hill, which had already given me a good start in meeting Oscar.

I know the others just thought I needed some time away-to get my head together, to think about my life and what I really wanted from it. Dad had seemed especially keen that I do just that.

I thought about my father.

I’d only mentioned him casually to Oscar, saying he felt the same as Maddie and David. But the truth was Dad had just as much to do, if not more so, with me being here as they did.

The day after I’d gone to the art gallery with Maddie, David and I had spent a very awkward day in the house together, desperately trying to spend as little time as possible in each other’s company, therefore ruling out any possibility of needing to discuss the argument of Friday evening .

So for once, when Monday morning came and I found myself climbing the concrete stairs in the plain gray building that housed our tiny two-room offices, I actually felt quite relieved to be coming into work.

The building I seemed to spend most of my life in these days had once been home to a psychiatric hospital, or mental asylum as they were called back then, until a forward-thinking architect in the 1970s had converted the then derelict building into offices.

As I passed through the corridors on a daily basis, I could sympathize wholeheartedly with how the past inmates must have felt at being incarcerated here all those years ago.

At least I got to leave this drab institution for a few hours at the end of every day.

They would have been stuck here permanently, with no light at the end of their tunnel.

Mrs. Jameson was our part-time secretary, or Miss Moneypenny, as I secretly called her when I was trying to inject some interest into my long, boring days, and I would pretend these rather boring, tiny offices were the hub of MI6.

She was already hard at work when I arrived.

She smiled at me over her gold-rimmed spectacles as I opened the door.

“Morning, dear, how are we today?” she asked, looking up from her typing. “There’s an awful wind out there this morning; fair blew me away when I got off the bus.”

“Yes,” I agreed, as I hurriedly unbuttoned my coat. “It is a bit brisk. Is Dad in yet?”

“Yes, dear, he’s in already. I believe he’s on the phone just now.”

“Oh, right. Thanks, Mrs. J,” I said as I hung my coat up on the old wooden coat stand in the corner of the room. I’d hoped to get in early today and make a good impression on Dad. It might have helped soften the blow a little when I mentioned the possibility of taking up Maddie’s offer.

The office door burst open—my father had obviously finished his phone call.

“Morning, Scarlett, glad to see you made it in at last,” he said, brushing past me. He placed some papers on Mrs. Jameson’s desk. “This is the account I was telling you about, Dorothy. Can you check the invoices back from August, please?”

“I’m not late,” I said, looking at my watch. “Actually I think you’ll find I’m early, Dad.”

“That makes a change,” he mumbled as he searched through a filing cabinet.

Mrs. J rolled her eyes at me and mouthed the words “bad mood” while my father had his back to her. So I carried on through to the tiny room Dad and I shared as an office. I heard the door close behind me.

“Good weekend?” my father inquired, as he thumbed through the files he was carrying.

“Er, not too bad,” I answered cautiously.

I figured this was probably not the best of times to mention Maddie’s idea.

In fact, now I was back here again, I realized it was likely there never was going to be a good time.

So I decided that the best plan for now was just getting on with some work.

I would bide my time and wait and see if a better moment arose later.

For the rest of our Monday morning, I chased up a few unpaid invoices while Dad spoke to potential clients about the benefits of installing a popcorn machine in their refreshment areas.

Then, while Dad phoned the bank to talk to them about extending our business loan, I surfed the net while pretending to type a letter.

It was virtually the same as any other mind-numbing day at the office.

I’d soon exhausted all the movie websites I had bookmarked and was just about to log on to robbiewilliams.com when I noticed Dad was watching me from his desk.

Quickly I closed the Internet down.

“Scarlett?” he said slowly.

“Yep,” I said, opening the letter I was supposed to be typing again.

“Is everything all right with you lately?”

“Yeah,” I said, concentrating hard on the screen.

“Are you sure?”

I looked up from the monitor. What was going on? Dad never usually inquired about my state of mind during work hours.

“Yes.”

My father sighed. “Scarlett, I do have eyes, you know; you’ve not been your usual self lately. What’s wrong?”

I shrugged. “Nothing.”

My father raised his eyebrows.

“It’s nothing, really, Dad.”

“Is it David?”

“Maybe.”

“Scarlett, come on; you’ve got to give me more than that. I’m a man; I’m not good at this relationship stuff.”

I half smiled. “You always coped all right before when I had problems.”

“I had to, didn’t I?” Dad said in a gruff voice. “There was no one else to. Have you two had a fight? ”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” I lied.

“Really?” Dad said, his brown eyes watching me closely over the top of his reading glasses.

“Yes…” I began. Then I stopped. Wait, something wasn’t adding up here…

“He’s been to see you, hasn’t he?” I said suddenly, as the missing link clicked into place.

My father shuffled some papers about on his desk like a newsreader at the end of a bulletin, and then he placed them back down in exactly the same spot they’d started out in. “David did come to see me on Saturday. He seemed awfully worried about things.”

“What sort of things ?” I asked in a tight voice.

“Now, Scarlett, don’t get wound up just because David is showing some concern for your relationship.”

“I’m not getting wound up,” I said, while under my desk my hands began to form tight fists in my lap. “I just don’t see why David came to see you, that’s all. What goes on between us is our business.”

“Because he’s worried about you, that’s why.” Dad removed his glasses and walked the short distance across the office toward me. He perched awkwardly on the corner of my desk. “He says you don’t seem yourself these days. And like I said earlier, I’ve noticed the same.”