“Right on.” He pocketed it.
“Who are you looking at, Zach?” Grace asked.
“No one.” He pulled his gaze away from the cross of Miss Prim’s legs beneath the hem of her busine
ss skirt. He had a bevy of skin to look at—tight, tanned, curvy skin—yet he couldn’t stop looking at the shape of her legs or the way her heels made the muscle in her calf flex.
“The suit at the bar,” Tucker countered.
“I thought Zach was the only suit in this bar.” Grace leaned to the side and looked that direction.
“Stop,” Zach said.
Grace’s gaze pivoted to Zach, and she grinned. “That’s different. I thought you were a casual-island-girl type of guy.”
“She’s probably a studio exec,” Josh offered, “making sure everything goes smoothly.”
Grace tapped Zach’s leg under the table. “Maybe you ought to go cozy up to that studio exec, liven up her night a little, and see if you can get a scoop on Ian’s role.”
A spark teased the edges of his bored brain. “That idea actually has merit.”
“You sound surprised. Lots of my ideas have merit. Ask Josh.”
“Absolutely,” Josh answered without provocation, then tilted his head and kissed his bride’s neck.
Zach cast a look at Tucker, and they both rolled their eyes at the newlyweds. Then he turned his gaze on the woman again. Everyone swirled around her, talking, laughing, flirting, without giving her a second look. If she cared, she didn’t show it.
Maybe that was why he kept zeroing in on her. He could relate to that feeling of being invisible. Of being unworthy of attention because of all the shining stars hovering around. He experienced it every time Ian was within five miles. He’d also experienced it within his family his entire life.
Miss Prim picked up her phone and glanced at the screen, then scanned the bar again. And again, her gaze paused on Zach, searched the table, paused on Zach again. This time a little longer, as if to ask, What are you looking at?
A tickle of humor made him smile. She glanced to her left and right, obviously thinking he was smiling at someone else.
“Oooooh,” Grace hummed. “There’s definitely something happening there.”
“There’s nothing happening,” he told her. “I just find it refreshing to see someone who owns some self-possession for a change.”
“She’s not Zach’s type,” Tucker said. “Way too uptight.”
“Just because she’s wearing more clothes than skin doesn’t make her uptight. It makes her well-dressed,” Grace said. “And maybe if he raised his standards, he’d find a girl he’d want to hold on to.”
“I’m right here,” he told them.
“Whoever she is, she’s not here for the same reason everyone else is.” Grace grinned at Zach again with a teasing “She doesn’t seem particularly interested in you—or, I guess I should say, Ian.”
“Maybe that’s it,” Tucker said. “Maybe she knows he’s not Ian. I bet the studio heard Ian was going to bail, and she’s standing by to make sure nothing goes wrong.”
“I don’t look that much like Ian,” Zach said for the tenth time in the last three hours. “Some of the women know I’m not him.”
“Um…really?” Grace chuckled. “I don’t think it counts when a woman asks if you’re Zach, you tell her no, and she chirps, ‘I didn’t think so,’ then asks for your autograph as Ian. And there have only been three or four out of— Hell, how many women are in this lounge, anyway? A hundred?”
“Just under,” Josh said. “Maybe ninety-five.”
“Maybe she’s not an exec,” Grace mused. “She’s not on her phone or running around ‘handling’ things. She’s searching the crowd, watching people. Maybe she’s waiting for someone. Maybe she’s in the wrong place.” Her brows shot up, and she grinned at Zach. “Maybe you ought to go give her a little help.”
“Oh for God’s sake.” Josh laughed and wrapped his wife in a hug, kissing her head. “Zach, would you just go talk to her and get her story so this little matchmaker will go home happy?”
Zach took the out. He was as bored as Miss Prim and uncomfortable stuck in a booth in slacks and a blazer. Grace’s idea of cuddling up to a studio executive when Ian’s role was about to hit the audition block wasn’t a bad one.