At any rate, I simply wasn’t made for a tropical environment like rock girl obviously was. My curly mop of dark hair didn’t do that beachy wave thing; it frizzed. My lily-white skin didn’t bronze; it burned. Also, I was allergic to sundresses, especially those in bright colors.
“You’re staring.”
I spun to see Jackson Power’s lopsided grin. A pair of black Wayfarers slid down his nose, revealing mirthful muddy green eyes.
“Hard not to,” I admitted.
“I’ll say.” He dropped his backpack and towel on a lounger under one of the ten or so straw umbrellas that dotted the beach and pulled his T-shirt over his head, revealing sun-kissed olive skin. Jackson was skinny, to be sure, but not unattractive. He was our director though, and I would never cross the line with someone I was working with.
Never again.
“Why didn’t you come fishing with us yesterday?” Jackson asked.
“I get seasick,” I lied.
Jackson watched our mermaid stretch her long limbs out like a cat, her chestnut locks tousled by the steady midday breeze.
“Who is she?” I asked.
“Stella’s new assistant.” He tossed his sunglasses into his bag. “She always did like the pretty ones.”
I opened my mouth to inquire what he meant, but he was already off, diving horizontally into the shallow water.
Annoyed Stella had somehow hired an assistant I knew nothing about, I collapsed on a chair in the shelter of an umbrella and gladly shed the black sun hat I’d thought ideal back home in Los Angeles last week. I’d since come to understand why everyone wore light shades in the tropics, but the appropriate hats in the gift store were so exorbitantly priced that I had yet to bring myself to buy one. I blew down my black T-shirt and tugged at the damp waistband of my jean cutoffs, which I’d taken scissors to only this morning. Denim: also inappropriate for the Caribbean. My suitcase of dark T-shirts, jeans, and cargo pants was going to have to be amended.
I’d slathered myself in SPF 70 and worn a sporty black one-piece beneath my clothes in hopes of perhaps going for a swim, but as I gazed upon the goddess on the rock, I thought better of it. Not because my sense of self-worth was tied up with my physical appearance—which it wasn’t—but because I was only human, and while the curves on my vertically challenged frame were kept mostly in check by daily CrossFit torture, I knew when I was out of my league. Not that anyone was looking. Not that there was anyone on the island I’d have wanted to look. Still, vanity.
Was vanity permissible these days? I wasn’t sure. I knew I was supposed to be self-assured and body-confident, everyone else be damned—and that sounded fantastic—but it was also a tall order for a girl who’d grown up in millennial Hollywood (oh, the midriffs!) with a misogynist father. So I buried my shameful insecurity beneath an industrial-strength steel facade and didn’t let anyone in. According to my therapist.
I observed from behind my Ray-Bans as Jackson and the girl pretended not to notice each other out in the bay. Assistant, my ass. This chick was an actress preening for the director if ever I saw one. And I’d seen plenty.
A soccer ball landed next to my chair with a thwack, sending sand flying. Even in my foul mood, I could see it was a sign too obvious to ignore. It wasn’t the crew’s fault I hadn’t been invited fishing yesterday; I shouldn’t take my anger out on them. Anyway, I enjoyed soccer.
Gathering my wild curls into a ponytail, I dribbled the ball over toward a sound guy, two grips, a PA, and an electrical engineer. “Room for one more?” I asked, squinting into the sun.
“You’re on our team,” Sam, the scrawny sound guy, called. “That’s our goal.” He indicated two orange plastic cones about fifty feet away.
I threw a thumbs-up and kicked him the ball. I hadn’t played seriously since high school, but I was a decent defender and could pull off a few tricks that made me look cooler than I was. In no time I was sandy and sweaty, my foul mood forgotten.
We’d stopped for a water break when I saw my boss emerge bare-chested from a pathway cut between the red-flowering trees. Cole Power, the Sexiest Man in Hollywood twice over: first after his breakout role at twenty-five—thick dark hair falling in front of stormy blue eyes, cigarette dangling from pillowy lips, T-shirt sleeves rolled to display bulging biceps—and again three years ago at forty-six, in a slim-fit black suit this time, close-cropped hair accentuating a square jaw, and one of the most recognizable faces on the planet, made only more desirable by age. A distinctly male advantage.
These days the hair was back, and thicker than ever. Navy board shorts rode low on his hips, threatening to slide off as he sauntered along the shoreline toward me, his bronzed chest cut by minimum two-hour workouts with his trainer every morning. He was a gorgeous man with charisma to spare, not to mention an icon: the original Outsider, a rebel artist with a dimple and a penchant for fast cars, expensive wine, and beautiful women. But I’d been working for him only three months, and his mercurial charm had already worn thin, revealing an ego larger than his home state of Texas lurking just beneath the surface. It wasn’t his fault, per se. If I’d had the entire globe sucking my dick on command and blowing sunshine up my ass for more than half my life, I’d probably be a narcissist too.
The immediate problem though—the problem that made me want to run and hide in my beautifully appointed bungalow—was
