“Over the top?”
“Right. Maybe something a little different? A little less… new?” I watched Jessica scan through some more listings on her iPad before she turned to me.
“There is another I’ll show you if you have time. It’s less ostentatious. More unassuming.”
“Still on the water?” I didn’t know why that was so important to me, but maybe growing up poor had made me feel like you’d really made it in life when you could wake up every morning and see an endless expanse of water stretching out in front of you—something most people would never be able to afford in California, even movie stars. And there was plenty of water here in Maryland.
“Yes, still waterfront,” she confirmed. “More land than the others, actually. Just not as much house.”
“Let’s go!”
I arrived back at Tess and Juliet’s house later than I’d planned, and was disheartened to see several long black town cars and a van already pulled into the circular drive in front of the house. The magazine folks were already here. Would they already be interviewing Juliet, wondering where her new boyfriend had gone off to? Had I forced her into another bad situation?
“Here he is,” Juliet called, opening the front door just as I thanked Jessica and pushed closed the passenger door to her car. I heard her sharp intake of breath through the open window as she spotted Juliet, but she was gracious enough to pull away rather than linger.
“I’m so sorry I’m a little late,” I said, adopting my boyfriend persona even as my stomach turned at the falseness of it all.
“It’s fine, hon,” Juliet said, reaching a hand toward me. “Did you find what you needed?” She turned her movie-star smile on me and I forced a smile back.
“Yep, found exactly what I was looking for,” I told her, wishing I didn’t have to pretend for the rest of the day, that I could just fast forward to the future, to everything I’d dreamed of when I’d walked through the little waterfront cottage with the sweeping back deck nestled beneath two-hundred year old oaks on the edge of the Patuxent River.
I wanted to find Tess and tell her that as soon as I’d seen the place, I’d seen us in it, seen us standing in front of that railing looking out at the water, seen us laughing in the expansive kitchen with toddlers running at our feet, seen us nestled in bed in the grand master bedroom, which also faced the water. I’d seen the future I wanted; now I just needed to show it to Tess. And make her believe in it.
I knew it was crazy. I knew it was all too fast.
But I didn’t care. Because I knew Tess was the only woman for me, and I just had to prove it to her.
As soon as I was done pretending to be in love with her sister.
“Hello, Ryan.” Alison Sands greeted me, and I took a deep breath, telling myself this was the end of the pretense. That soon, I’d be able to be exactly who I really was. That soon, I could tell Tess I was staying—or at least making a second home here; ask her to give me a chance.
“We’ll just do some more casual shots now that we’ve got the afternoon sun,” Alison said, waving a hand at the golden light draping the back lawn. “And then you lovebirds can go change for the party.”
“Perfect,” I said, wrapping my arm around Juliet’s waist and pulling her near. “That sounds perfect.”
This was going to be the hardest role I’d ever played.
Chapter Eighteen
Tess
I watched from the top of the stairs as Ryan wrapped his arm around my sister’s waist, looking like the happiest guy in the whole world. He’d been gone the entire day, so there’d been no opportunity to talk about what had happened between us, to get myself straight. Clearly, he wasn’t worrying about it or obsessing over what could or couldn’t be between us.
Of course he wasn’t. He was a movie star—a spectacularly handsome Hollywood playboy, and a good actor. It was practically his job to make me feel like I was different, like I wasn’t just another girl on a long list of girls. And he was too good at his job. I had felt special. I had felt unique. But in the cool distant shadow of his absence, I found my rationality and logic. And there was no way Ryan McDonnell had an ounce of real interest in a water adventure instructor from the middle-of-nowhere, Maryland. It just didn’t make any sense.
I’d spent the day alternately overwhelmed by ridiculous anticipation of what might happen between us, buoyed by a ridiculous hope, and berating myself for being so easily infatuated, so easily convinced there was something there. I’d been the one to push him out of my bedroom, so it didn’t make much sense that my heart was still squeezing at the thought of him, pushing me to hope for impossible things. My mind was the rational voice, the one I needed to listen to. It had been only two days, after all. And he was a friggin’ movie star. I was Tess Manchester. This was clearly not my life.
Now, as I stood watching Ryan’s strong firm body pressed up against the side of my sister’s lean petite form, all my doubts crystallized and hardened into facts.
It had been fun. It was a fling. It didn’t matter what he said—weren’t actors known to be flighty and unreliable? Actually he was the only actor I knew besides Juliet, so I really had no solid evidence, but it was easier to trust my own assumptions than to put any faith in something as impossible as Ryan McDonnell being interested in me.
I continued down the stairs and slipped through the hall to where Gran sat on the back porch, reading on her ereader.
“Hey there,” I said.
“Manhattan?” Gran lifted a silver shaker my way and nodded
