H (9:03 AM): The lack of you.
H (9:10 AM): So I’m glad we’re friends. That’s all I’m awkwardly trying to say.
H (9:18 AM): If you dream of me this time, try dreaming I can fly or turn invisible. Or that my best friend is Cher. That’s way cooler than a flat tire.
H (9:19 AM): Not that I’m assuming you regularly dream of me.
H (9:26 AM): I don’t dream of you that often, of course. So.
H (9:39 AM): Anyway. Talk soon!
Chapter One
Hannah Bellinger had always been more of a supporting actress than a leading lady. The hype girl. If she’d lived in Regency England, she would be the second at every duel, but never wield the pistol. That distinction was never more obvious than now, as she sat in the dark audition room watching a girl with pure leading-lady material emote like her life depended on it.
Hannah’s hands disappeared into the sleeves of her sweatshirt like twin turtles ducking into their shells, her hidden fingers curling around the clipboard in her lap. Here it came. The big finale. Across the Storm Born production studio, their lead actor ran through a scene with their final actress hopeful of the day. Since eight A.M., the studio had been a revolving door of wide-eyed ingénues, and didn’t it figure that not a single one of them would click with Christian until Hannah was past the point of starving, her mouth tasting like stale coffee?
Such was the life of a production assistant.
“You forgot to trust me,” the redhead whispered brokenly, tears creating trails of mascara down her cheeks. Dang, this girl was fire. Even Sergei, the writer and director of the project, was held in a rare thrall, the tip of his glasses inserted between his full, dreamy lips, that ankle crossed over the opposite knee, jiggling, jiggling. That was his I’m impressed posture. After two years of working as his production assistant—and nursing a long-unrequited crush on the man—Hannah knew all his tells. And this redhead could bet the rent on getting cast in Glory Daze.
Sergei turned to Hannah where she huddled in the corner of the freezing conference room and raised an excited black eyebrow. The shared moment of triumph was so unexpected, the clipboard slid off her lap and clattered to the ground. Flustered, she reached for it but didn’t want to lose the moment with the director, so she jackknifed and gave Sergei a thumbs-up. Only to remember her thumb was trapped inside the sleeve of her sweatshirt, creating a weird, starfish-looking gesture that he missed, anyway, because he’d turned back around.
You absolute turnip, you.
Hannah replaced the clipboard in her lap and pretended to write Very Serious notes. Thank God it was dark in the rear of the studio. No one could see the tomato-colored tidal wave surging up her neck.
“End scene!” Sergei crowed, standing up from the table of producers that faced the audition area to deliver a slow clap. “Extraordinary. Simply extraordinary.”
The redhead, Maxine, beamed while simultaneously trying to wipe away her dripping mascara with the hem of her black T-shirt. “Oh wow. Thank you.”
“That felt fine.” Christian sighed, signaling Hannah for his cold brew.
I have been summoned.
She rose from her chair and set the clipboard down, retrieving the actor’s beverage from inside the mini-fridge along the wall and bringing it to him. When she held out the metal travel tumbler and he made no move to take it, she gritted her teeth and held the straw to his lips. When he had the nerve to look her in the eye while sucking noisily, she stared back stone-faced.
This is what you wanted.
A regular job that would allow her to earn money—and not rely on the many millions her stepfather had in the bank. If she dropped her last name, slurpy ol’ Christian would spit out his cold brew. But apart from Sergei, no one knew that Hannah was the legendary producer’s daughter, and that’s how she chose to keep it.
Stepdaughter, she mentally corrected herself.
A distinction she never would have bothered to make before last summer.
Had that trip to Westport six months ago really happened? The weeks she’d lived above the Pacific Northwest bar, restoring it lovingly with her sister in tribute to their birth father, seemed like a hazy dream. One she couldn’t seem to shake. It rode her consciousness like dolphins outlined in a barrel wave, making her wistful at the oddest times. Like now, when Christian was bugging his heartthrob eyes out, letting her know he was ready for straw removal.
“Thanks,” he huffed. “Now I’m going to have to pee.”
“Look at the bright side,” Hannah murmured, so as not to interrupt an effusive Sergei. “There are mirrors in the bathroom. Your favorite.”
Christian snorted, allowing a grudging uptick to one side of his mouth. “God, you’re such a bitch. I love you.”