AIDEN wasn’t overly surprised to find Aisling in the editing room. Her eyes widened when he opened the door.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Checking up that you still have no life outside of this place. What else?’
She frowned as he pulled up an office chair beside her and studied the screens in front of him. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong but don’t you have something to do in just over a day from now? I would have thought that would keep you out of my hair for a while.’
He smiled. ‘That’s kind of why I’m here.’ He set two plastic cups on the console in front of them. ‘I even brought coffee.’
Aisling’s eyes narrowed as she reached for a cup and carefully removed its lid. ‘You only bring coffee if we’re about to pull an all-nighter.’
‘You’ve been working for me too long.’
‘Yeah, and I’m due a pay rise too.’
‘You should put that in writing.’
‘Aiden, you never read anything I put in writing.’ She blew on the top of her coffee cup before sipping cautiously at its contents. ‘So what are we doing?’
‘Are these the dailies you’re looking at?’ He looked at a frozen picture on the screen, recognising Izzy in some kind of shop.
‘Yes. I got sick of watching the news.’
‘Good. Where are the rest of them?’
‘All of them?’ Her eyes widened again. ‘Right from the start?’
‘Yep.’ He smiled a winning smile at her. ‘Every second of them.’
‘You know how much footage that is, right?’
‘I could probably work it out if you got me a pen and some paper, but I have a fair idea that there’s an hour or twos worth,’ He swung his chair back and forth. ‘You’ve been going through them, though. So they’re all in chronological order of some kind.’
She stared at him, wanting badly to stop his damned chair from moving. It had a creak that grated on her nerves. ‘I’ve been putting it together the way we agreed. And I have some of the voice-overs done. But it’s far from ready.’
‘We’re going to redo it all.’
Her coffee went down the wrong way and she coughed for a few seconds before composing herself. ‘Sorry—I thought you said we were redoing it all.’
‘We are.’ He stopped the movement of his chair and leaned towards her, his forearms resting on his jean-clad thighs. ‘I need your help.’
‘Aiden, it’ll take weeks to go through every second of that footage and redo it! And we haven’t got Rick booked for another voice-over session ’til next Thursday.’ She leaned towards him, her eyes sincere. ‘When do you want this done for?’
He smiled slowly, one dark eyebrow quirking. ‘The wedding.’
She gaped. ‘You’ve lost the plot!’
‘That’s just it. I think I just found it.’ He reached for her free hand. ‘I really need your help.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s the only way I can think of to fix this thing.’
She shook her head in confusion. ‘Fix what?’
His eyes blinked a couple of times and then he smiled slowly. ‘I’m in love with Caitlin Rourke.’
‘Oh, well, there’s a newsflash.’ She grinned. ‘Like I haven’t been stuck in this room looking at that little piece of information for weeks now. You wouldn’t even need subtitles for it. We could just show a close-up of that expression you get when you look at her.’
He continued smiling.
Aisling squeezed his hand before releasing it. She raised her eyebrows. ‘Do you have any idea of the tricky piece of editing I’ve had to do to disguise that fact from the public?’
‘That’s just the thing, Aisling. I don’t want to disguise it. I want them all to see. Especially Caitlin.’
‘You do?’
He nodded. ‘Yes. Because when I tell her my part in all this I’m worried she won’t forgive me.’
‘Shut up. She’s as nuts on you as you are on her.’
He shook his head. ‘No, if she’s nuts on anyone then it’s the person she thinks I am. And that’s not the whole story.’
‘You think she’ll go crazy when she finds out you were supposed to make things tougher for her, not easier? That she’ll see it as some kind of betrayal?’
‘Exactly.’
Aisling started to put it together. ‘You think that on top of the stuff she’s going to have to confess to her family that’ll be the straw that broke the camel’s back?’
‘Yes.’
She sat back in her chair. ‘Oh, my God. You could just be right about that.’
Aiden swallowed hard, taking a moment to control his voice. ‘I can’t lose her like that. I need back-up.’
The penny dropped and Aisling’s face broke into an animated smile. ‘Holy cow, Aiden, you need visual evidence!’
‘Now you’re with me.’ He looked up into her eyes. ‘I need to be able to show her that what we feel is real. I need them all to see that, so I stand a chance of holding onto her without her losing any of her family or friends as a result of all this.’
Aisling’s mind was already spinning with possibilities. ‘There’s tons of stuff we can use. It’s been like watching a bloody love story.’
He laughed, the sound filling the small booth. ‘That’s exactly what it is. A love story. But it’s not just about how I feel or what I hope Caitlin feels too. It’s about all kinds of love—love in a family, the lack of love in another family, the love of friends.’
She stared at him again. ‘We can do this.’
‘But we haven’t got a lot of time.’
‘Then we’d better get going.’ She was already on the case. ‘I already know what reels most of the good stuff is on. I’ll dig them out and you can go through them. Then we’ll call Rick first thing in the morning and get him in here.’
Aiden was already removing his jacket and rolling up his sleeves.
‘You need to ring Mick and get today’s stuff in, and we’ll need to get the stuff off the remote cameras in Caitlin’s house.’ She was leaving the room as she shouted back over one shoulder. ‘And there’s no way you’ve brought enough damn coffee!’
The house felt like a ghost ship the next morning.
Caitlin wandered aimlessly from room to room, her eyes taking in the Christmas decorations, their lights off, the laptop lying on the kitchen table, Aiden’s room with the bed still made. And it was like seeing what her life would be like without him in it.
She spent nearly half an hour sitting on the end of his bed, staring into space. Then she spent twenty minutes crying under the jets of a shower. She made toast and then let it go cold while she stared at the dining room chair where he had sat to write. Then she walked into the living room, where she could still hear his voice as he asked where Tinkerbell lived on the tree.
When the phone rang she almost broke her neck getting to it. ‘Aiden?’
‘No, it’s me. Izzy.’
Caitlin swallowed hard and tried to hold the emotion out of her voice. ‘Hi.’
‘You okay?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine. You?’
‘Well, apart from feeling like dirt for not being there for my best friend when she needs me, I’m grand.’
Caitlin went silent and blinked back a fresh wave of tears.
‘You still there?’
‘Yes.’
Izzy sighed on the other end of the line. ‘I still think there’s something not quite right here, Cait. I’m not going to lie to you about that. I couldn’t.’
She felt a wave of guilt flood over her.
‘But what you said last night was very real. You love Aiden, and I know that now. I’d still like to walk up that aisle with you tomorrow, if you’ll let me.’
‘Of course I’ll let you, you idiot.’ Her voice wavered. ‘I couldn’t do it without you. And anyway…’
‘Yes?’ Izzy’s voice was as wobbly as Caitlin’s was.
‘It’s too late to get anyone else to fit in your dress.’
Her doorbell sounded and her heart jumped. ‘I’ve got to go, Izzy. Aiden’s here.’
‘Okay. I’ll see you later, at your parents’ place.’
‘I’ll see you then.’ She paused for the briefest second. ‘I love you, Izzy.’
‘Love you too, sweetie.’
The large smile on her face faded as she opened the door to find Mick and Joe in front of her.
‘Don’t look so pleased to see us, now.’
‘I’m sorry, guys.’ She glanced past them to the empty pavement. ‘I thought you might have been someone else.’
‘No, we haven’t seen Aiden since last night.’ Joe rubbed his ribs when Mick nudged him. ‘When we left you guys here.’
Caitlin frowned at them. ‘You don’t know where he is?’
They both blinked and shook their heads.
‘Can’t you ring the other crew to find out?’
‘No. Sorry, Caitlin.’ Mick’s face flushed slightly at her question. ‘We’re not allowed to have our phones turned on when we’re filming. We won’t see Lou or John ’til we turn in our reels tonight.’
Her head dropped in disappointment. Where was he?
‘Ah, now.’ Joe’s voice piped up from in front of her. ‘I’m sure you’ll hear from him before the day is out.’
‘I’d better.’ She forced the words out from behind clenched teeth as she stood back to allow them into the house. Where in hell was he?
He was emotionally drained. He’d been watching and piecing together footage for over twelve hours. And it had been like living it all over again.
Aisling silently placed another cup of coffee in front of him and squeezed his shoulder before leaving the room. Aiden kept on watching.
He’d been right about how amazing Caitlin would look on screen. She was stunning. Her eyes were darker, her skin glowing. Even in close up she was beautiful, and he was just mesmerised by her.
And he’d missed so much that the cameras had caught.
The footage from when they’d first met had made him laugh. Man, he’d looked like hell. Any wonder she’d taken such an instant dislike to him. Then he’d listened to their first conversation across the hall in the darkness, the camera’s night vision making everything a pale shade of green as their voices bounced back and forth. He’d heard the flat tone in her voice as she’d told him about Liam for the first time, and he’d remembered how he’d felt when she told him.
So much had happened since then. Had it really only been three months?
Then he’d watched what he hadn’t seen, when Mick and Joe had spent their first day with her. He’d listened to the conversation in the car, when she’d talked about how much she missed Liam, what it had been like to lose someone who meant so much. And he’d wanted to reach out into the screen to touch her, to let her know he was there for her.
There was their first argument: shots of him outside her door, trying to get her to talk to him.
Every second was caught. Even conversations he’d thought hadn’t been heard. And he was glad that it was him putting it all together, not someone who hadn’t lived through it all or felt the emotion attached to it.
Aisling reappeared as he was transfixed with footage of Caitlin’s conversation with her mother and Cara after he’d left on the reception booking day. He could understand now why she’d been upset enough to quit. Especially when he heard her mother say how Liam was probably smiling down on her.
‘You need to call Caitlin before she phones the police to look for you.’
He frowned. ‘What time is it?’ He glanced down at his watch. It was after lunch. She’d already have left for her parents’ house. He’d wanted to see her before then, to reassure her again. ‘Damn. We’re running out of time, here.’
‘We’ll make it.’ Aisling smiled down at him. ‘Rick’s on his way in for the voice-overs. You finished them yet?’
‘Almost.’ He ran his hand back through his hair, then down over the stubble on his face. ‘We’re going to need to pull another all-nighter, aren’t we?’
‘Probably.’ She sighed in resignation. ‘But you need to get at least some sleep, or you’re going to look like hell at the wedding.’
‘This has to be right.’
‘And it will be.’ She squeezed his shoulder again. ‘Now, go call Caitlin and let her know you haven’t run out on her.’
He smiled at the irony of the words. Running out on her was the last thing he was doing. Far from it. He was trying his best to stay. He just hoped it would be enough.