AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When fully dressed, she crossed the bedroom in several quick strides to her dressing table, where arrayed around the oval vanity mirror, was a variety of jewellery boxes, perfumes, brushes, creams and other beauty utensils. Her likeness glowered back from within the glass.
Mina tried to picture the person who had been looking back at her five years before, and then the little nine year-old girl she’d been fifteen years ago. So much had changed. She felt older, drawn, and tired with the weight of a lifetime’s mistakes forever bearing down on her.
Yet still so much was the same.
The same wavy golden hair, angular features, and sparkling azure eyes that had won her that first audition peered back at her. She had been a meek, quiet child back then and her father had thought the experience might help her come out of her shell. He’d had to drag her to that audition kicking and screaming, after a director saw her perform the role of the Pied Piper in her school play and suggested she audition for a role in his new movie, Eternity’s Wisps. The film had been a low-budget B-movie, a science-fiction collage of Star Wars and Star Trek with just the smouldering, gritty hint of Sin City thrown in. It was the ill-born brainchild of a writer long past his best trying to rekindle the forgotten glory of the ‘80s space-race movies, and had held all the prospects for success as a thriller starring Robert Pattinson.
Considering her reflection, she took a shiny black comb inlaid with lapis in hand and began brushing the tangles from her hair until it framed her face and fell down past her shoulders in a wash of sun-kissed curls.
Had her mother looked like her when she was her age?
Mina often pondered the question, even though she knew she would never have the answer. She had not known her mother. She had been too young to remember when she had vanished into the night without a word. Her father never spoke of her, no matter how much she had pestered him. Out of respect for him, Mina had never searched for her, never hired a private investigator or reached out in any way, despite numerous offers from several prime time talk shows.
There were no photos of her in the house, no traces or details online. It was almost as if she’d vanished off the face of the earth and all Mina had left was a name.
Angela Willis.
The name brought her no comfort or rush of recognition however, but installed only the deepest sense of sadness that threatened to overwhelm her in a surge of suppressed emotion whenever she thought of it. She had questions, so many questions. Was her mother alive? Where was she? Why did she do it? Did Mina mean so little to her? Was it something she’d done? The list went on and on. She had forgotten how many times she’d asked herself those poignant questions and bore that inevitable, terrible weight of doubt and self-loathing. Yet, as much as she longed to know the truth, Mina had never wanted to hear the answers. Some things were better left unknown. And as much as people claimed it would set you free, the truth could be a far more bitter pill to swallow than ignorance.
Utterly engrossed in her thoughts and her grooming, she didn’t notice the figure coming up behind her, just out of sight of the mirror, and almost jumped out of her skin in fright when a pair of strong arms suddenly coiled around her waist and drew her backward. Without thinking, she made to lash out with the comb and break free of her captor, but then went limp, the makeshift shiv slipping from nerveless fingers as thin lips teased the sensitive place on the back of her neck, just behind her left ear. Her knees went weak and a low moan escaped her.
Only two men knew about that little spot.
“You look beautiful tonight,” Jason whispered against her throat, sending delicious shivers down her spine as his fingers slipped beneath the waistline of her top to glide across her flat stomach. A tingling sensation zipped down to her centre. Damn him, how did he always know just how to touch her?
“Mmm…thanks, but I really need to go-oh…I’m already running late and Mark’s party is-oh, god…” Words failed her as he began laying fiery little nips and kisses along the curve of her neck before ravenously gnawing on the sensitised tendons. She noted that he hadn’t shaved today and her toes curled at the feeling of his stubble-roughened chin as it brushed against her softer skin.
Jason William Scott Stoker had been her boyfriend for the better part of three years. They’d met while filming The Devil’s Messenger. He had been her co-star and character’s love interest, and they had instantly hit it off, their chemistry as sizzling off-screen as it was on. Though she couldn’t explain it, there was just something about his geeky sense of humour and Newcastle accent that she found enthralling. Seized by the passion of the moment, she swivelled in his arms to catch his lips in a hungry kiss while she tangled her fingers in his dark mop of frizzy hair.
The embrace was instantly hot and heavy. Taking the offensive, Mina eagerly curled a long leg around his thigh while she traced her tongue across his lips, demanding entry. Groaning a low sound, he acquiesced, his hands moving down the curve of her spine to paw her derrière through the tight denim. Though tall and lanky, he was uncommonly strong and she couldn’t help but utter her own low moan as he drew her closer, allowing her to feel the weight of his desire pressing against her, stoking the fire that suddenly burned inside her. Then their tongues met in a fierce dance, their teeth gnashing violently as they battled for dominance, manoeuvring blindly back towards the bed.
Almost knocking her heel on the bed’s heavy oaken frame, she trailed her fingers down his neck to press against his upper torso before she pivoted, breaking the embrace to send him tumbling to the bed. He had a handsome face, rugged with a defined jaw, an easy smile, and emerald-green eyes that could make her go weak in the knees with just one look.
Smirking at his stupefied expression, she bent over his prone figure, her hair spilling over her shoulders to glide lightly over his cheeks, and kissed him again, but it was only a chaste, teasing touch, a ghost of her former passion, and she drew back before it could develop into something more. Confused, Jason’s eyes narrowed and he shot her an incredulous look as she rose to her feet, but she met the stare with only an apologetic smile.
“Sorry, tiger, but I’m already late.” She pivoted on her heel and went back to the dresser. The mauled reflection that greeted her had her lips pressed together in a tight line. Nearly tutting in disgust at the sight of the red blotches on her neck and swollen lips, Mina shook out the dishevelled, and quite unrepairable ruin of her hair before tussling it with her fingers, trying to bring some order to the chaos.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
Her eyes darted to his reflection in the mirror. He was now propped up on the bed by his elbows, his eyes bright as he watched her with an almost lazy smile.
“No, its fine.” Casting a look across the cabinet, she selected one of her foundations and began applying it to the red marks. “This will just be a quick visit. Dad and Alexis are having dinner at Le Cœur de la Mer so Mark is having some friends from university round. I’ll just drop his gifts off, say sorry for missing him earlier and wish him a happy birthday. Then I’ll be on my way home.”
Jason's eyebrow quirked at her. “All that, just for a quick visit?”
Men!
Placing the cosmetic back on the dresser with a roll of her eyes, she then selected her favourite lipstick from the selection. “A girl has to look her best.”
“You’re always at your best. If only you’d let yourself see it.”
There was a depth of emotion in his voice Mina rarely heard there. It made her feel uneasy, as though the heavy knot in her gut was rising to block her throat. Her fingers trembled as she applied the lipstick and she tried to swallow, to force it down.
Don’t say it-
“I love you.”
She stilled, his words striking her like the crack of a bullwhip. Ice ran through her veins as their eyes met in the mirror and she saw the desperate pleading within them.
