Lost in her script, she’s ethereal. Golden curls caught in a velvet headband, impossibly long lashes casting shadows as she works. Even her fingers are elegant, wrapping around a strand of that famous Sinclair mane. The haircut that both of my sisters—and thousands of other girls—ripped straight from magazines to show their hairdressers, hoping to capture a fraction of its effortless perfection.
She’s pure grace.
A strand of pearls adorns her slender neck. She has perfect cheekbones, a soft jawline, and a pink cardigan falling just so off one shoulder. The glimpse of a silk strap beneath feels like a deliberate temptation.
As a teenager, I spent hours staring at her poster on my wall before falling asleep, dreaming about what her signature peach lip gloss tasted like. She wets her lips, and my cock hardens in my trousers.
Fuck.
“Mr. Hastings,” Felix seethes. Reese looks up, and our eyes meet. Something shifts in her expression—curiosity perhaps, or recognition. Then her face hardens into perfect disdain, as if I’ve committed some unforgivable social transgression. “Are you planning to read your lines from there or join the rest of us?”
“Searching for a seat,” I say, glancing away for a second. But when my gaze returns, Reese is already back in her notes. Completely ignoring me. There’s some kid next to her—Simon something, my supposed second-in-command in this thing.
I head over, trying not to look too eager, though the spring in my step threatens to betray me.
I’ve done the whole celebrity scene—met the who’s who, mingled with all the big names, collected numbers from Met Gala royalty, and saved them under fake names in my phone.
But seeing Reese Sinclair in person makes me reconsider my assumption that this sugarcoated darling isn’t my type.
“This seat taken?” I ask Simon perfunctorily, sliding next to him before the kid can answer. Her scent hits me immediately—cedar and magnolias, but darker, earthier. I turn to her and say, “Good morning, Reese, I’m—”
“Dante Hastings.” The way she says it—crisp, rehearsed—makes my own name sound foreign to my ears.
Interesting.
“Indeed.” The room’s ambient noise fades as I lean closer. Close enough to drown in her perfume, yet far enough to maintain plausible deniability. “I have to wonder,” I say, refusing to let our brief introduction die such an ordinary death, “if we’ve crossed paths before. Perhaps at one of those tedious LA parties where everyone pretends not to notice each other?”
“Excuse me?” The air around her turns cold, but I catch that telltale tension in her shoulders. She’s aware of me and resisting that fact.
“Well, you know who I am.”
“I’m a professional, Mr. Hastings. I know everyone I’m working with.”
“Of course,” I concede, watching as she returns to her script annotations, her pen moving across the margins in decisive strokes. Where is America’s darling starlet? Where’s that musical southern drawl she carefully conceals in interviews? “You got any notes you can share with me, help get me up to speed?”
“Where’s your script?”
“Didn’t think I’d need to bring the one I’ve been poring over endlessly,” I bluff.
She flicks her fingers, still absorbed in her page. A PA appears with a script as if she summoned them from thin air.
I murmur thanks. My shirt collar tightens like a noose. What’s with the indifference?
The script before me might as well be written in Sanskrit. I stretch out beneath the table with calculated indolence, but she remains immune.
Doesn’t spare me a glance. Doesn’t flinch.
Well then.
I reach for my apple and roll it between my fingers, pretending to read my lines but tracking the way she tucks a strand of gold behind her ear, exposing that unfairly perfect jawline. I bite into the fruit, letting out a loud crunch that’s impossible to ignore.
Her eyes catch mine, lightning-quick and scorching. Dismissive, but there’s finally a glimpse of heat beneath the ice. I place the half-bitten apple between us—a dare, an offering, a trap.
“Terrible manners of me. Should’ve offered to share.”
“No, thank you.” A flush blooms on her throat. There it is.
“Have you worked with Felix before?” I ask, though I’ve memorized her IMDb page.
