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Chapter One
Rayla
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Millie asks.
I smile and shake my head as I inch my way forward in the line to check my luggage. Millie and I were supposed to be visiting her Maine holiday home together for a week this summer, but her flight has just been canceled and she can’t get another until tomorrow evening.
That’s the price we pay for arranging holidays when we live on opposite sides of the country.
I’m flying over from California and she’s stranded in New York.
“It’s just a day,” I tell her on the phone. “I’ll hang out. Maybe work on that play I’ve been neglecting. Maybe I’ll run some lines. Please relax.”
“I just feel so bad.”
She groans in that way I’m familiar with, all her empathy bursting through.
Ever since we met by chance at college two years ago, it’s difficult to imagine life without her. We bonded straight away through our shared love of literature and drama and generally being silly. Neither of us had a bona fide bestie when we were growing up, and it’s like we’re making up for that fact as we threw ourselves into this friendship, our chemistry goes well beyond our two years.
I find myself being able to read her far easier than anybody else, even my mom and step-dad, Markus.
“Just relax, jeez.” I laugh. “It’s not your fault the flight got canceled, is it?”
“Freaking mechanical fault.” She sighs. “It’s like the airline’s trying to trap me in New York.”
“So you can work on your novel?” I tease.
One of our running jokes is that we’re both constantly starting projects only to abandon them. Even though it always makes me laugh when we banter in this way, I can’t deny there’s a nugget of discomfort in there when I think about my unfinished play.
I know it’s the same for Millie with her novel, and what are friends for if not to joke about your shared failures with you?
“Yeah, exactly.” She giggles. “I’ve already rebooked for tomorrow evening, but that means you’re going to have the whole place to yourself for at least a day. What the heck are you going to do?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll set the place on fire.” I laugh. “You’re talking like I’m some helpless damsel or something, completely lost without you.”
“Well, do you remember when we first met?”
I groan, a smile touching my lips as the memory hits me. It was at an extra-curricular drama club and I was carrying all the props in the universe. At least, that’s how it felt at the time.
As the newbie, I was tasked with carrying a bunch of hats, wigs, fake guns, cutlasses, and a bunch of other drama-related stuff into the big rehearsal hall. But of course, I ended up dropping the whole pile at the worst possible moment, right as the Queen Bee was launching into her lengthy monologue.
Everybody laughed as it all crashed down around me, but then Millie was there, kneeling down beside me with a soft smile on her face.
She’s my opposite in pretty much every way, physically speaking.
She’s thin and tall. I’m short and, well, not thin.
She has blonde hair and I have dark brown.
She’s got a tattoo on her wrist – a blue butterfly – and another of an angel spreading its wings on her lower back. I don’t have any tattoos, never even thought about it. I tell myself this is because I want to keep my skin untouched for acting roles in the future, but honestly, it just doesn’t interest me.
And needles?
No thanks.
“I think I’ve matured a little in the last two years. I mean, heck, look at me… ready to brave the dangerous terrain of Maine all by myself, ready to stay at a luxurious holiday home and completely raid your fridge.”
She laughs. “Yes, everything’s already been stocked up. I spoke to Jensen earlier in the week.”
I’ve never pried into just how wealthy Millie is, but I know she has a fair amount of money because her dad is Roman Robinson, one of the most successful authors of the last fifty years. His series of World War Two novels has been made into a hit television show and every single one of his thrillers are international bestsellers.
Jensen is the Robinson’s fixer – a man who arranges for their lives to be easy and fluid and fun.
So many girls would flaunt this wealth, rocking up to college with designer labels and draped in jewelry. But Millie has never advertised the fact she’s Roman Robinson’s daughter, and when she submits short stories to publications, she even uses a pen name so they won’t make the connection.
“I don’t want to succeed just because my dad did,” she said to me once, while sitting up late one night in the drama hall, empty apart from us so our voices echoed all around us. “I want to do something important, significant, meaningful… and not just because my last name is Robinson, you know?”
