She didn’t look like someone on vacation either. Her hair was done up to within an inch of its life, her makeup was more on point than I’d possibly ever seen, and she was wearing a sharp pencil skirt and heels.
Heels!
It took me all of a few milliseconds to catalog all these details about her before I saw the microphone she had clutched in her hand. My gaze flew up and over her shoulder to where a cameraman was standing at her back.
He had been aiming the lens at the water, but when he heard the woman drawing in an audible breath, he swung it around to face me. The pieces of the puzzle snapped into place at the very moment that the woman brought her microphone to her red-painted lips and offered me what I assumed was supposed to be a smile.
“Well, hello there. I can’t believe I’m actually bumping into you just like this. Aren’t you the girl who’s been seeing William Kent?”
I froze up for a moment before snapping back to reality. This was the plan. I should have expected someone to track me down eventually. I just hadn’t expected it to be so soon.
I guess the media has taken the bait we dangled.
A quick mental check-in allowed me to remember I looked perfectly presentable—by Mackinac standards anyway. Nothing about me said Hollywood—in my pale yellow top and patterned maxi-skirt. Brown leather sandals adorned my feet, my hair was up in a ponytail that should’ve held for just the walk to the bank, and at least I was wearing mascara.
I pasted what I hoped looked like a surprised and not terrified smile on my lips. “Yes, ma’am. I apologize for bumping into you. My head must’ve been somewhere in the clouds.”
The woman’s eyes widened, and I wondered if I was supposed to have denied having been the girl who’d been seen with William. I shrugged it off, though. This is the plan. There’s no point denying it was me.
“I’m Arabella Steele with Hollywood Entertainment News,” she said, evidently having gotten over her shock already. She held out a slender hand tipped with nails as long as my fingers and painted an alarming shade of orange. “Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?”
“An impromptu interview?” A lump jumped into my throat, and I had to clear it to keep from squeaking. “Right here on the sidewalk?”
Locals walking by were already giving me curious looks, and the sun suddenly felt terribly hot. Arabella didn’t look fazed by any of it as she flashed me a pearly-white smile that was so sweet it had to be fake.
“We can do it right here,” she said. “Unless you’d like to go sit down somewhere? I think this gives us a charming view of downtown, though. Don’t you?”
“Oh, yes.” I nodded like a bobble-head doll. Get it together, Anna. This is what everything is riding on. “I think I have time for a few questions.”
The reporter didn’t hold back, but I soon realized that really, all she wanted me to do was talk about William. That was something I’d been doing for as long as I could remember. She asked me plenty of questions, and I answered them all honestly.
After all, any lie could blow up in William’s face and this place was only so big. It wouldn’t take much digging for her to uncover the truth if I wasn’t honest.
“Just to be clear, you are the woman who was seen around town with producer William Kent last week, is that correct?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I smiled, taking her offered hand and giving it a firm shake just like my dad had taught me to do. “My name’s Anna.”
“Anna,” she repeated as if she was trying it on for size. She shot a look over her shoulder. “Are you getting this, Pete?”
“Sure am,” the cameraman replied, and then she got started.
Leveling her brown eyes on mine, she flashed an over-the-top grin and angled her body to face me. “So, Anna, you and William Kent? He’s quite a catch. How did that happen?”
“You might know him as William Kent, the catch, but to me, he’s just Will.” I shrugged, a shy smile tugging at the corners of my lips. “How did it happen? I don’t even know really. I guess it all goes back to my first day of school.”
Her lips formed a perfectly round O, and there was a rush of disbelief in her eyes that quickly turned to joy. “As in, your first day of first grade? Is that what you meant?”
I nodded. “William and I met on my very first day of school and his very first day of the second grade. We’d known about each other before that, but we only really became friends then. That’s why I like to think of that as when our story really begins.”
All of this was true, but saying it the way I was felt like I might be laying it on too thick. Arabella looked at me like she’d struck pure gold, though, so I figured I was doing the right thing.
“Wow, your story really began at such a young and tender age?” she asked cloyingly. “Tell me more. We want to hear everything.”
I giggled. “If you’d like to hear everything, we’re going to need to take a seat and settle in for a good, long time, but I’m more than willing to tell you what I can in the time we have.”
She leaned forward conspiratorially, almost as if we were friends about to share some gossip. “It started as friendship and, I’m assuming, quickly blossomed into something more? I saw those pictures of you and I’ve never seen the illustrious Mr. Kent looking quite like that.”
A flush spread over my cheeks, heat rising from my neck, but I guessed even that would give my interview an air of authenticity. “Well, I wouldn’t say it was quickly. We were teenagers by the time it became anything more than friendship.”
She let out a girlish giggle. “Was he your first crush?”
Oh, Lord. Am I really going to share these details with the whole wide world? If I wanted to stick to the plan, then yes. That was exactly what I was going to do.
My face probably turned the color of a stoplight, but I nodded again and answered her in a voice that was slightly softer than before. “Yes, he was. Will was my first crush and my first love.”
“Were you high-school sweethearts?” she asked, and I could practically see the hearts in her eyes.
“Yes, we were. We even got voted as the couple most likely to get married.”
Arabella pretended to swoon before turning serious again, frowning as if she actually cared about us. “What happened? Obviously, you two never quite made it down the aisle. How tragic.”
I gave a hopeful smile, lifting up my hand and crossing my fingers in full view of the camera. “Our lives went in different directions after high school, but now that he’s back in town? Well, it’s like he never left. We might even eventually prove everyone who voted for us correct.”
“Is that what you think is going to happen?” she asked, leaning even closer to me than she had been before. “Have you two talked about it?”
I laughed and waved my hand, shaking my head. “No, not at all. I don’t know what this is yet at all, but I’m looking forward to finding out.”
Chapter 21
WILLIAM
“Who is Anna and where have you been hiding her all my life?” Dave asked when I answered my phone. He sounded like his eyes were bugging out and he had steam coming out of his ears.
I really need to come off this whole cartoon analogy thing.
“Excuse me?” I said, getting up from where I’d been having a drink alone on the patio of the cottage. “How do you know about Anna?”
“She’s all over Arabella’s segment, man. Are you seeing this?” He chuckled. “Good old Ari seems to be the first one of the vultures to have made her way out to your neck of the woods. She’s interviewing some girl called Anna who claims to have been your high-school sweetheart.”
Booya! I had no idea how Arabella had found Anna, but our plan was well and properly in motion if that woman had come all the way out here just to talk to my first love.
Flicking on the TV once I got inside, I sat down on the edge of my bed and caught a bit of the interview. My phone was still pressed to my ear, but I couldn’t focus my attention fully on Dave while Anna’s
beautiful face filled my screen.
“She’s not just claiming it, bro. She really was.”
He let out a low whistle between his teeth. “Why have you been slumming it with Angelina if you’ve had her in your back pocket the whole time?”
“I’d hardly call being with Angelina slumming it.” I emphasized the words because was he motherfucking crazy? Angelina was one of the most beautiful women in the world right now.
And yet, as I watched Anna smiling, her face devoid of the layers of carefully applied makeup the women on that list plastered on for hours every morning, her hair in one of her usual high ponytails, and her outfit probably being worn for the hundredth time and not some couture number that had been sent to her, I kind of got where he was coming from.
His scoff on the other end of the line was proof enough that he knew I was full of shit. “I’m just saying, Will, that girl on my screen? She’s everything every man could ever want and then some.”
Anna laughed as if it had been cued, and my heart did a flip like it’d never done when it hadn’t been about her. “Yeah, she’s something, all right. What did you think of the interview? Looks like she handled herself well.”
“Definitely,” he agreed. “You must mean a lot to her if she was willing to grant an impromptu interview and talk you up like that.”
I made a noncommittal noise in the back of my throat. While I didn’t want to lie to my friend, I also wasn’t ready to let him in on the details of the deal I had with Anna.
The interview went off without a hitch, and I was pretty sure it would be well received. Anna had done a stellar job of pretending she was really into me again, even bringing up that stupid nomination we’d gotten back at school and making it sound like she still wanted it to come true.
The only question was whether she’d been pretending at all. If she’d been putting on a show, it really had been a stellar performance, but a very large part of me wondered if it was real.
After my talk with Jessie last week, I wasn’t sure what to think anymore. All of this started with her brilliant plan, and I’d really thought it would work.
Now I was finding myself worried about Anna like she was mine to worry about again. If there had been no feelings involved, the plan would’ve remained the stroke of genius I’d thought it was at first.
I didn’t want to be presumptuous about her feelings, but I was concerned about being back in her life like this after what I’d learned. When we started this arrangement, all I’d wanted was for Angelina to foam a bit at the mouth and to have a warm welcome when I returned to my normal life in LA.
Anna could give me that by playing her part. But was she playing a part? I really fucking hoped so. The last thing I wanted to do was to hurt her. Jessie had come right out and said that she wouldn’t have dragged Anna into this if she’d thought there were still feelings involved, and I felt the same way.
“William?” Dave’s voice broke into my thoughts. “Are you still there?”
“Yeah.” I hunched over on the mattress, my feet planted a foot apart as I lowered my head between my shoulders and ran my free hand up and down the back of my hair.
The carpet beneath my feet was navy and red, decorated with an intricate paisley pattern that made me think of one of Anna’s skirts. My eyes followed the dips and loops of the woven fabric. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
Just a minute ago, I hadn’t been planning on telling Dave, but I really needed to talk to someone about the gut-wrenching worry building up inside me.
Someone who wasn’t my sister.
As much as I loved Jessie, she had too much skin in this game to be objective about it. I needed the point of view of someone who hadn’t known me and Anna as a couple, who didn’t love both of us, and who would give it to me straight.
I quickly outlined the plan to Dave, who listened in stunned silence before releasing another whistle. “Out of the frying pan and straight into the fire then, huh?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be complicated.” As the words came out of my mouth, I realized just how stupid they sounded.
Of course this was going to get complicated. With a history like ours, there was no way this was ever going to stay simple.
I sighed, closing my eyes as my mind took me back to the beginning. Jessie and Anna had been seated next to one another at their first-grade orientation. They’d hit it off immediately, and my sister had come home babbling about having made a new best friend.
On their first official day of school, she’d made me wait at the front steps for Anna to arrive. I’d never forget the moment I realized the little blonde girl with the bright eyes and the smile so big it threatened to envelop her entire face was that friend.
I’d taken a liking to Anna immediately. We never had that relationship where she was my little sister’s irritating best friend. I’d taken her under my protection as surely as Jessie was there, and the rest was history.
Over the years, there had been times when we’d been closer than others. Sometimes, I’d barely spend time with them for months, and then the next semester, we’d be inseparable again.
My friends became their friends later on, and the two of them were eventually considered a part of our group. Then the big shift happened. That moment when my friends and I realized that we had two girls in our midst.
Our balls dropped, they got boobs, and suddenly, the dynamic of our little group changed. Our once easy chatter became loaded with lingering looks, charged moments, and previously unknown levels of desire.
My friends vied for their attention but quickly realized neither of the girls were interested and went on to try their luck elsewhere. As for me, I’d only ever had eyes for one girl.
Anna.
From the moment I realized there was more to girls than just them having pigtails, there had only been her. If I’d thought that wouldn’t factor into this arrangement, I’d been stupidly and sadly mistaken.
Dave agreed once I laid it all out there. “You might not have thought it would be complicated, but it was always like holding a lit match near a tank of gasoline.”
“So you think I made a mistake?” I asked.
He chuckled. “No, I actually think it was a really fucking good idea. Anna agreed to the terms of this deal, remember? That’s all it is. Business. It helps both of you.”
“What about the possibility of her getting hurt when I go back?”
“Don’t overthink it, bud,” he said. “Keep doing what you’re doing because it’s working. Anna knows what’s going on. As long as she keeps that in mind, she’ll be fine.”
“I guess.” It didn’t sound foolproof to me, but he was right. Anna had agreed to this. She was a smart woman. She wouldn’t have done it if she’d been too afraid—just like she hadn’t come to my dad’s funeral for the same reason.
I breathed a sigh of relief and heard Dave’s fingers snapping. “Oh, I haven’t told you yet. Angelina called me.”
“She called you?” I frowned. “Why? You two don’t exactly have the greatest of relationships.”
“We don’t, but she knows we do. She wanted to know why the hell you were in the middle of nowhere. Guess she didn’t know you were from Mackinac.”
I cursed under my breath. “I’ve told her at least a hundred times. I never brought her here because she would despise it, but you’d think she’d at least remember where I fucking come from.”
“Why do you think she’d despise it? I enjoyed it when I went there. Fine, it could’ve been for a better reason than your dad’s funeral, but it’s a nice place.”
I laughed softly. “The salons, spas, and restaurants wouldn’t come close to meeting her standards of luxury and you know it. Can you imagine her trying some of the fudge or if she realizes there aren’t any cars here?”
“Nope,” he said cheerfully. “Don’t worry too much about any of it, though. Angelina is Angelina and Anna is Anna. They’re both doing what’s right for them, so you just do what’s right
for you.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s the way to go.”
We talked for a few more minutes, and by the time we ended the call, I felt a lot more confident about the situation with Anna.
She’d walked into this with her eyes wide open. I couldn’t let myself get caught up in my own head. Her decisions were hers to make, and she’d made this one.
Well, that’s it then. Enough avoiding her. It was time to get this little show back on the road. She’d be at work now, but I could always go see if she was free tonight.
Chapter 22
ANNA
A couple of guys around my age lingered in the Tourism Center after the rest of the group left. I shuffled some of the pamphlets people had taken off the shelves but left behind, offering the two a polite smile.
“Was there anything else I can help you with? It’s time for me to close up shop, but you’re welcome to come back tomorrow if you’d like to browse through some more of the available activities.”
The one with the dark spiky hair and bleached tips grinned at me, but it wasn’t a friendly grin. It was strangely lopsided, and paired with the way his eyes lingered on my breasts, it looked downright leery.
“We’re fine right here, thanks,” he said, exchanging a dark look with his redheaded friend. “What did you say your name was again, sweetheart?”
I ignored his question, stacking the pamphlets on the counter before walking around it with my purse and keys in hand. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I really do need to lock up now.”
“Don’t be like that,” the red-haired one said. I made it to the door before I felt him moving in behind me. “We’re just looking to have a little bit of fun. What would you say to working overtime tonight? Come for a drink or two with us.”
“I already have plans,” I lied, thanking my lucky stars that the door was still open. I moved through it, standing on the outside as I held up my keys and jingled them. “Thank you for the offer, but unfortunately, I need to get going.”
The Billionaire’s Second Chance: A Small Town Romance Page 13
