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

and flips the page. And the next shot is of James, standing alone, in a starched-looking school uniform. He can hardly be much older than seven, and I can see instantly something is very wrong.

It’s not the same happy boy from the previous picture.

He’s like a different child.

“James looks really grumpy,” comments Camilla, frowning.

But I can see, it’s so much worse than that. He looks… damaged. Broken.  It’s awful to see, in such a young child. Looking at the picture, I feel like my heart is being torn in half.

I turn up to look at James, my face a question. But he looks away.

“It always seemed strange to me,” I hear Lady Berkeley say, “the English tradition of sending boys to board so young. And in such adult uniforms.”

I hear disapproval in her voice, and I can tell that she’s seen it too. This terrible change.

“Here,” adds Lady Berkeley, leaning forward. “Let’s see some happy photos. Isabella. Let me show you some pictures of James after his first big movie success. He looks pleased as punch,” she adds, pronouncing the colloquialism carefully in her Eastern European accent.

After lunch, James takes me for a walk around the house and grounds, and I find myself marvelling at how much of England is owned by his family.

He shows me his plain childhood bedroom, and a library where he used to read. But overall, I am struck by how much this wasn’t his home growing up.

“What was boarding school like?” I ask, thinking back to the picture of the distraught little boy in a high collar.

“Cold,” says James shortly. “In every way. The master’s main aim was to crush excess emotion out of us. I was behind the other boys, so I took a lot more schooling. Mainly, that meant being hit with canes.”

I feel my heart go out to him.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Don’t be,” he replies, and I feel as though a wall has come down.

We wander through the next few rooms in silence.

“Are you due to inherit this?” I ask as we move through into a huge corridor.

It’s dawning on me that as the only son, James could become Lord Berkeley.

“I wasn’t,” he murmurs. “My father had me written out. But my stepmother persuaded him to reverse it a few years ago.”

I squeeze his arm. The memory is obviously painful.

“So you’ll be Lord Berkeley?” I manage tentatively. It seems an incredible idea.

James turns his green eyes on mine.

“Officially, yes. Although it is possible to give up your title. Lords have to attend the House of Lords, to vote on politics. Those duties might be difficult to fit around my movies.”

I decide not to question him on it further. We’re at a huge window now, on the second floor. I let my eyes run over the yawning distance of green hills and forest.

“So where does the estate end?” I ask.

“We can’t see the end of it from here.”

Whoa.

“It’s a big estate,” I venture.

“Yes.” He points into the middle distance. “That’s where we’ll be filming later.”

“How much later?” It’s occurring to me that our time together could be over soon, and I want to relish every second.

“Quite soon,” says James. “But we’ll have more time together later.”

He smiles at me, and I sense his earlier mood has passed.

His eyes flash wickedly. “We’ve got a few more days here,” he says, “and I’ve got so much more to show you.”

“Oh really?” I raise my eyebrows at his tone. “Like what?”

“Like…” James turns me gently and presses me back against the window, his hands press my arms against my sides. “The stables,” he says, leaning in to kiss me, his voice low. “Plenty of whips and riding crops.”

His hand slips to beneath my dress. I feel my body jolt with lust.

“And of course, we have cornfields,” he adds. “Lots of hay to roll around in.”

His hand slides up the inside of my thigh, and I feel my breath tighten.

“In fact,” he decides, “I think you’re going to like the Berkeley Estate, very much.”

His fingers inches further up my skirt, and I move my hand to his wrist.

“Stop,” I whisper, “not here.”

His eyes search my face.

“I’m still dealing with being a lunch date of the Lord and Lady of the Manor,” I say apologetically. “One thing at a time.”

James slides his hand out from under my skirt and kisses me.

“Anything you say,” he says with a mock little bow. “But Issy, you’ve adapted so quickly to my other little ways, I’m sure it won’t take you long to get comfortable with my family home.”

He’s grinning at me, and I can’t help but grin back.

Then his phone sounds.

Frowning, he takes it out of his pocket.

I see his face drop, and instantly, the atmosphere changes.

“What is it?” I whisper, frightened by his sudden shift of expression.

James lowers the phone, and I see him swallow.

He looks for a moment, as though he’s considering whether to tell me. And then he speaks.

“It seems as though someone has tried to open private files on my computer,” he says. His voice is deadly serious.

Private files?

“What do you mean?” My voice comes out as a barely a whisper.

“Someone has accessed my laptop remotely,” he says. “I can’t imagine it would be anyone else but the person leaking to the press.”

He runs his hands through his hair. “In theory, they could have opened almost anything.” His eyes drill me with the significance of this. “Which means,” he continues, “the photos I took of you could have been found. Even copied.”

His face is ashen.

I feel the world sliding away from me.

James is shaking his head.

“It was stupid of me,” he mutters, “I had so much to arrange, I didn’t check the security of the internet connection here. Someone got through on the WiFi.”

“But we don’t know for sure?” I press. “I mean, they might not have seen anything at all.”

From what I remember, there were a lot of files on James’s computer.

“Do you know how long they had access for?” I add.

James is shaking