Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
I was indifferent to my reflection. The dress was beautiful. I looked like a blooming rose. My hair wasn’t right, but I wasn’t doing a full hair and makeup trial. I’d curl it for the wedding. It would be fine. No one would be looking at me anyway.
That was a lie. I couldn’t even let myself believe it for a moment. Garrett might not be willing to touch me, but he’d be looking at me. The knowledge put a smoldering spark in my eyes. My cheeks bloomed like the dress. An aching chasm opened up in my chest. I wanted to be angry and indifferent, but mostly, I just wanted him. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t have to.
I wanted him. And my entire life had been dedicated to going after what I wanted. Why was I stopping now, just because it was getting harder?
“You look beautiful,” the assistant said, the pin still in her mouth, her articulation still perfect. “Got a hot date for this wedding?”
I started to say no, but at the last second, I changed my mind. Even without a pin in my mouth, my answer came out garbled. “N-yes.”
She raised her perfect eyebrows. “No yes?”
I hesitated. I felt like I was at a crossroads. Like I was deciding my fate with what I chose.
“Yes,” I said so firmly that the assistant began to laugh. The pin fell out of her clenched teeth and pinged off the hardwood floor.
“Go get ‘em, tiger,” she said, and knelt down to retrieve it.
Noemi had cars retrieve the wedding guests from the airport. I rode to the villa with her younger brother and his wife–Chris and Jamie. They were nice and so normal that they made me feel normal too. I didn’t get a single question about being Magical Melody or what Andrew Quinn was really like. We talked about the flight and the island and the activities Noemi had planned. Before we followed the porters in opposite directions, they said they’d find me at dinner.
I had a feeling Noemi had known they would make me feel comfortable. She’d wanted me to bring Andrew or my mom, but both were busy. And I couldn’t tell her that having Andrew here would complicate things more than they helped. But knowing that Chris and Jamie would pal around with me tonight didn’t settle my nerves entirely. I took a fitful nap to recover from the jetlag, then got ready for dinner.
Tonight was as casual as it got. Tomorrow night would be the official rehearsal dinner, and then the next day would be the wedding, and then I’d fly home the next morning to be on set by that evening. I had another week of principal shooting before my character wrapped. I’d be on call for reshoots, but it would be time to get serious about my next role.
I thought about the auditions I’d fit in over the last month. Most of them had blurred into hopeful maybes, but there was one that stood out. It was an indie movie with an up-and-coming director who was only a few years older than me. A wunderkind who looked like he’d patterned his entire look after Kevin Smith. Backward baseball cap, scruffy facial hair, and logo t-shirts with a zip up hoodie and baggy jeans. His last movie had taken the festival circuit by surprise and based on the part of the script I’d read, his next one would be even better.
I wanted it. I wanted it so much I deliberately wasn’t thinking about it. I didn’t want to drive the luck away. But right now, it was either think about Garrett or think about the movie, and of the two, it was easier to think about the movie.
But it was impossible to think about the movie in a vacuum. Garrett had sent the script to me. Julian had been talking about it at their weekly happy hour, and Garrett finagled a copy for me. Then my agent had bulldozed the casting director into giving me an audition.
Needless to say, I wasn’t the first choice.
But still, I wanted it. It bled over and made me want other things, like the man who had gotten me the script and kissed me like no one ever had.
I stepped into a pair of linen pants and when I pulled them up over my hips, I wondered what it would feel like to have Garrett’s hands tracing this path, up my calves, over my curves, to wrap around my waist.
Familiar determination swelled up from somewhere deep in my stomach, blossomed in my chest.
I was going to find out what it felt like.
And if I had my way, it would be on this trip.
21
GARRETT
I’d been looking for Destiny since the moment I stepped off the plane, but I didn’t see her until dinner.