The Director's Cut by Js Taylor (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt) 📕

me to feel… All this pain.”

I am struggling to breathe and get the words out through the sobs.

“Well I… Don’t. Want. It!”

I take a deep, juddering breath, and James holds me close. I don’t know why, but I let him.

“Issy,” he says softly. “This is nothing to do with my method. I wouldn’t do that. Not without telling you.”

“Then why?” I accuse. “Why take me in there and let me see that?”

He’s quiet for a moment, and his face shows confusion.

“You didn’t like me lighting two candles,” he says slowly, as though working something out.

I say nothing in reply.

“Listen.” He pulls me away from him a little, so he’s looking in my face. “I respect the dead, Issy, and I like to honour those who have passed. But I have never felt about anyone, living or dead, the way I feel about you.”

His face is so sincere, that I give another sob. And then I’m halfway between laughing and crying.

James’s face breaks in slight relief, but there’s still an anxiety there.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I say. And I don’t. This laughing, crying mess, is not who I usually am.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” says James. “You’ve just never let things out, that’s all.”

Is that true?

But I don’t have time to analyse what he’s saying. In the next moment, he’s pulling me back inside the church.

“Quick, Issy,” he hisses. “Get inside.”

“What? What is it?” I can hardly make sense of what’s going on before I’m dragged back.

“What?” I repeat as I’m physically bundled back inside the large church opening.

James steps in quickly behind me, surveying the scene on the street.

He yanks out his phone suddenly and stares at the screen.

“Shit!”

It’s one of the few times I’ve heard him swear. Something must be very wrong.

“What is it?” I venture, my earlier hysterics completely forgotten in the sudden drama.

“There was a man outside,” he says. “I think I recognise him. He’s a reporter.”

My eyes widen as I try and take in what he might mean.

James holds his phone out to me in explanation. “And it looks like my press people have been desperately trying to get hold of me in the last few minutes,” he adds.

My heart sinks.

“Does that mean they’ve found us?”

James makes another peak outside the church entrance.

“Maybe.”

He looks as though he’s considering something for a moment.

“Wait here,” he says. “Don’t move an inch.” And before I can protest, he steps back out onto the street, in the direction of the newspaper reporter.

Chapter 10

I stand in an agony of suspense for what feels like an age. And then I hear footsteps and see James return. His face is grim as he walks towards me. Without saying a word, he wraps his arms around my waist, and I feel myself falling into the familiar smell of him, warming in his body heat.

“What happened?” I ask, frightened of the expression on his face.

“I took care of it,” he says, his voice dark.

“Wait. You took care of it? What does that mean?” I pull back a little from his arms.

“We were lucky,” he says. “I knew that reporter. I’ve met him before a few times, in London. I have a good connection with him.”

James sighs.

“But it still confirms my worst fears. It looks as though someone in the cast or crew is still leaking information. That reporter wasn’t here by accident. He was following a lead.”

My eyes widen.

“There’s nothing to worry about for the moment,” adds James. “I was able to persuade him to take his interests elsewhere.” His face looks strained.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” says James, “I made it worth his while to drop the possibility of a story.”

“You mean, you bribed him?” I am shocked.

James smiles a little and shakes his head. “No, Issy, I didn’t bribe him. I don’t go in for illegal acts,” he adds.

“Then what?”

“I negotiated a story swap,” he says. “I promised him an exclusive interview.”

An interview? James told me didn’t do interviews anymore.

“I thought you hated interviews?”

His mouth sets in a grim line.

“They’re not my favourite thing.”

“And that’s all it took?” I ask slowly. “An interview with you? To make him drop a story about us?” This seems very unlikely.

What has James promised?

James leans forward and kisses my nose.

“Shhh,” he says, “I don’t want you overthinking this. I would walk over hot coals, Issy, to protect you. In comparison, an interview is easy.”

He gives me a half-smile at this, and I don’t know whether to be mad at him.

“Did you find out anything more, about where the leak came from?” I ask.

James eyes darken.

“No,” he says shortly. “Not really. Although we can presume it was the same mystery person who made the first leak.”

“Why do you think that?”

“The leak was made using the same phone – the same number. The reporter was good enough to share that with me. Newspapers track things like that,” he adds.

“Then can’t the reporter give you the phone number?”

James shakes his head resolutely. “Journalists have gone to prison rather than give up their sources, Issy,” he says grimly. “I know better than to even ask.”

I am quiet for a moment, turning this around in my mind.

“Do you have any more ideas who it might be?” I say eventually.

“I have a few ideas,” says James.

I am thinking through the crew. Aside from Natalie, Callum, and I, we have Will on security and around twenty crew members. Natalie’s entourage was mostly left in London, with the exception of a hair and make-up expert and her downtrodden personal assistant.

“Would someone get money?” I ask. “From leaking information?”

“Only if a story runs,” says James, “but yes. They would stand to make tens of thousands, if they brokered the right deal.”

“Do your press people think it’s someone who knows that?” I ask. “Is it someone who knows how to make deals with the press?”

“I don’t have that information yet,” says James, but he’s looking at me admiringly. “I’m expecting a full report tomorrow.”

“What do we do in the meantime?”

James’s