PLAYING WITH HER HEART
BY LAUREN BLAKELY
Copyright 2013 by Lauren Blakely
LaurenBlakely.com
Cover Design by ©Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations
PHOTO COPYRIGHT ©Ryan Orange
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Copyright
Also by Lauren Blakely
About
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Acknowledgements
Resource Guide
Sneak Peek of The Breakup Album (releasing October 2013)
Sneak Peek of Nice Girl to Love by Violet Duke
Contact
ALSO BY LAUREN BLAKELY
Available at all fine e-tailers
Caught Up In Us
Pretending He’s Mine
Trophy Husband
ABOUT
Playing With Her Heart
Intended for 17+ due to sexual content.
When you’re acting the role of a lifetime, how can you know if love is real—or all just a part of the show?
Twenty-three-year-old rising theater star Jill McCormick has built a life out of pretending. Pretending she’s happy, pretending her long-distance crushes add up to something real, pretending she’s not haunted by the dark secret that shattered her world six years ago. Cast in her first Broadway show, she desperately needs to keep her façade intact, but that’s before she comes face to face with her devastating new boss…
Hot-shot director Davis Milo knows the first rule of directing: never fall for your leading lady. Captivated by Jill’s raw talent, he fights his feelings, but watching Jill onstage with another man is more than his jealous streak can take. Keeping things professional isn’t an option. He wants all of her.
Soon the ingénue and her director are staying late in the empty theater, their private rehearsals spiraling into new, forbidden territory. Caught up between fiction and reality, Jill struggles to find the truth in all their staged kisses. But how can she be sure that what she feels is real, and not a part of the play? And when two people spend their lives pretending, what happens after the final curtain falls?
This book is dedicated to all my readers. Thank you for making this possible, especially my early readers – Violet, Melody, Cara, Michelle, and Kelly.
PROLOGUE
When the lights go down in the theater, I am ready to pretend. I leave the past behind to become the character on the stage. I share a lingering look with the handsome man across the crowded room. I turn back to the others. Then a hand brushes against my shoulder. I shudder. Close my eyes. Feel him near me. Everyone else fades away. He’s suddenly the only one there. He kisses me. I kiss him back, and I can feel the kiss in every single cell in my body. Deep, and fevered, and possessive. My head is spinning, my heart is jumping. I am that woman on the stage and I’m having what she’s having. Love without reason. Love without fear.
For two hours under the spotlights, I’m living someone else’s life.
Then the play ends, the curtains rise, and I am back to being me. I come down from my temporary high, still wanting, still wishing, knowing only that I’ll need another role, another part to feel this way again.
I take my bow, and say goodbye to the character, to the kiss, to the possibility of that kind of love.
Because love like that only happens when it’s make believe.
At least, I’ve always thought so.
Then I met Davis Milo and everything in my life changed.
Irrevocably.
CHAPTER 1
Davis
The moment she emerges from the wings and steps on stage at the St. James Theater to sing her solo, I know—without a shadow of a doubt—that she’s my Ava.
Her voice gives me chills. She starts small, as the song calls for, in a trembling kind of tone, and then through each verse her voice strengthens, matching the lyrics, the tone of the song, the story the music is telling: a young woman who was all alone, but who had to find her own way to her dream, and found it through pain and patience and heartache.
When she reaches the chorus, her voice is all I feel, and it’s got arms and fingertips that stretch from the center of the stage all the way around the theater to the balcony. A voice that surrounds you, and mesmerizes you with color and heat. The voice has layers and hurt all in one and so does this actress, her face, the way she wrings the emotion from the words.
I rest my elbows on my thighs, my hands clasped together, seeing only her from my seat in the second row. I want to hold onto this moment, this feeling of being the director who discovers the next big star, because it comes around so rarely.
She has it all, everything I want, but she also has something more. She has sex appeal and she doesn’t even know it. Something in the way she carries herself, in how she looks at you, a torch singer sort of sensuality in her gaze. She’s all innocent blond on the outside, but deep down she can pull off the provocative with that fantastic body and the way she moves on stage. That’s what I need. That’s what I want.
She’s going to bring down the house. She’s going to make the audience cry and cheer. She’s going to make them want her.
And it sure as hell doesn’t hurt that she’s absolutely fucking beautiful.
When she finishes, I want to stand up, shake her hand, and tell her she’s been cast in this love story. But I restrain myself. “Thank you so much. Now, the scene and song with Mr. Carlson.”
Patrick Carlson, the actor who landed the lead role in Crash the Moon, jumps from the red upholstered chair next to me. He’s here at the final auditions, along with the producer and Frederick Stillman himself, the most revered composer in the last quarter century, who’s collected armfuls of awards for Best Musical. Actors fall all over themselves to star in his shows, directors fawn at his feet.
I would have fawned to land this gig, but I didn’t have to.
I’ve won three Tonys, one Oscar, and my Broadway shows have all returned on their investors’ dollars. I directed a film too—that’s how I nabbed that golden statuette. So Stillman called my cell one fine afternoon six months ago, and told me he was offering the directing job to me, only me, and to no one but me.
I said yes on the spot.
Now I want to say yes to her.
Jill
My twenty-three years on earth have led me to this moment. Every singing lesson I ever took.
Every acting class I ever went to.
Every play I read, song I heard, emotion I called forth from deep inside for a part.
Here. Now. Today, as I wait center stage on the creaky floorboards in this gem of a Broadway house, for him.
But really, more than anything, it’s the fact that I finished five marathons that matters most right now. Because of that, I have the training, the perseverance, and the composure to not freak the fuck out as Patrick Carlson joins me under the spotlights that shine on us. I can barely see the powers-that-be because the seats are shrouded in darkness, and the lights are on the stage. But I can make out the silhouette of the hotshot director Davis Milo in the second row, along with the producer, and the God I bow down to—Frederick Stillman himself, who wrote this anthemic musical. I’d enter the Hunger Games for a chance to perform in something he’s created, but fortunately all I have to do is nail a scene with Patrick, the man I’ve been in love with from afar for the last six years.
So, as if I’m running with the kind of focus I need for 26 miles—blinders on, nothing but blinders—I ignore the fact that Patrick is the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, that his honey blond hair looks thick and soft and that his light brown eyes draw me in with their warmth, just as they did all the times I skipped class in college to see matinees of Rent to watch him play Roger, or Wicked to see him as Fyero. All the moments I was mesmerized by him, and fell deeper under his spell.
But I let go of that now. Because I am no longer Jill, aspiring New York actress auditioning for her first Broadway role, and he is not Patrick, the man who exudes talent and charisma every second he’s on stage.
He’s Paolo, a mercurial and captivating artist, and my teacher. And right now I am Ava, a twenty-two-year-old painter without a family. I face the audience—nearly 1,600 empty seats and only a few occupied ones, the spotlights from above beaming brightly, the antique gold auditorium with high-flying balconies surrounding us.
He steps behind me. He says not a word. Instead, he breathes out, “hmmm,” as he places his hands on my arms, as if he’s considering Ava, then runs his palms sensuously from my wrists to my shoulders.
“You must let go, Ava. You try too hard to make your paintings perfect. You need to make them you.”
I nod, breathless, speechless, because this man Ava has admired, looked up to, is touching her. He brushes my hair away from my neck, and I lean my head to the side, letting him trace the vein in my neck with his finger. Then, as if I’ve just remembered that I’m a good girl, that I don’t do this, I jerk away.
Because I am, shockingly—me—a good girl.
“I am only here to learn.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “I am teaching you.”
Ava wants to correct him, to tell him he’s not, that he’s crossing lines, even though the crossing of them feels good to this young woman who’s felt far too much of the not-good in life for far too long. Ava’s not ready for this yet. She wheels on him, fire in her eyes, lashing out with the first sung lines in a heated duet.
“You don’t have permission to lay your hands on me.”
He plays the gentleman, giving a gesture of surrender. “Forgive me. I only touch you as your teacher,” he sings softly, but powerfully in that tenor that could melt igloos.
“That’s not teaching.”
“Then find your own way to paint.”
He starts to walk off.
Ava huffs, crosses her arms, looks away, and sings roughly of all the ways this man makes her crazy. He tells her how her brushstrokes are too controlled, her head is too much in the way, she needs to throw her body into the act of painting. And I hate it, and him, because he feels like the one thing that stands between true creativity and me.
I sing an angry lament, a furious plea to the universe to send me elsewhere. But yet, there is no place else for me, nowhere to go. I’ve been left all alone, and all I have is my art, and he’s the only one who can make it better.
Make me better.
I chase him before he leaves the empty classroom. Ava detests aloneness, even though it’s the thing she knows best. He’s nearly off-stage, and I grab his shirt, and he gives me this look—satisfaction and curiosity.
“I see you’ve changed your mind…”
My shoulders fall in resignation of Ava’s reality. I will only succeed with him. “I need you, Professor Paolo.”
“Don’t call me professor.”
“What should I call you?”
“Don’t call me. Kiss me.”
And then he casually runs a strand of my hair in his fingers and lets it fall. I grab him, bestowing a hard, wet kiss on his lips.
Patrick’s lips. Paolo’s lips.
Oh God. He tastes divine. Paolo. Patrick. My teacher. The actor I idolize. They all collide at once—reality, make believe, years of crushing, a moment of pretending. I don’t know if the way I feel right now comes from me or from Ava, but all I know is—without even opening my eyes, without even hearing ‘end scene’—we have a crazy kind of chemistry that can’t be faked.
Then I break the kiss and run offstage where I slam into Alexis Carbone, all bleached blond, bosomy, and pipes like nobody’s business.
I don’t stand a chance.
* * *
“Watch where you’re going next time,” Alexis says in a perfectly sweet soprano, a voice so pure and lovely that it nearly masks what’s underneath. Because—call me crazy—but I’m pretty sure when you say ‘Watch where you’re going’ that you’re not actually looking out for the other person. But I’m still flustered from the kiss to end all kisses so I mutter a quick “sorry” as I try to move past her in the wings.
“Of course you’re sorry. I’m here,” she says with a plastered-on smile, and a haughty tilt of the head.
Her words burn, but while I’m not a doormat, I won’t take her bait. I’ll do what I do well. Pretend. “Why, I have no idea what you could possibly mean. It’s delightful to see you, Alexis,” I say like a Southern belle, then turn quickly for backstage.
I leave because if I stay within her vicinity she might completely ruin my Patrick Carlson buzz, and I need a few moments to relive what just happened on stage, especially since I’m going to replay it tonight when I’m alone in my darkened bedroom and imagining Patrick is with me, as I do nearly every night. Patrick has done so many things to me already, has said all the words I want to hear, has kissed me in all the ways I want to be kissed. He has touched me under the covers in my imaginary life. Now I’ve had a sampling of the real thing, and I can’t bear to let it slip from my fingers so quickly. I press past the dressing rooms, saying a quick goodbye to a stagehand wheeling a dolly in a cramped hallway, then make my way to the stage door, pushing it open into the alleyway that runs along the back of the theater.
Greeted by a snap of cold air, I lean against the brick wall, drop my bag, and run a finger across my lips as if I can reactivate that kiss, recall it back into existence like it’s a hologram. I close my eyes and replay. Patrick’s breath, so soft. The slightest bit of stubble on his jawline. The way he tasted faintly of cinnamon.
The real thing—even staged—is so much more potent than what I imagined, and he’s had the starring role in all my fantasies for years. I’ve been with him a thousand times over, touched him, felt him, tasted him. Let him do the same to me. If I hadn’t been in love with this man since I saw him play Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls when I was seventeen and desperately needed to escape from all the things th
at had fallen to pieces that awful year of my life when I did everything wrong, then this moment would have sealed the deal.
I want this part so badly. I want it for me. I want it for my career, and I want it so I can finally be more than just a person in the audience for him.
So I can be as real to him as he’s felt to me.
I force myself to leave this alleyway, and get on with my day before the director and producer and Stillman himself call the NYPD on the crazy stalker actress outside the theater. I head straight for nearby Bryant Park where my good friend Reeve said he’d be waiting for me. He’s an actor too, and I find him quickly, lounging at one of the metal tables, reading the script for the movie he’s working on. He has his girlfriend’s dog with him—a little brown and tan chihuahua-mini pin in his lap. It’s adorable how Reeve has not only fallen hard for Sutton, but also for her dog. He puts the dog and pages down, stands up and holds his arms out wide, an expectant look on his face. “So, do we have a reason to celebrate? Are you the new ingenue of old Broadway?”
I shake my head, and that’s when the reality comes crashing down. I will never have the chance to act in this show. It’s as if I finished first in the uneven bars, and then Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas appeared out of the blue to school me and win gold. “I highly doubt it. Alexis Carbone showed up right after me,” I say, and my heart feels heavy knowing the show I want is likely out of my grasp.
He makes a face as if I just breathed last night’s onions on him. “Wait. Don’t tell me. Ava has an evil twin sister and they want Alexis for that role?”
“Ha. I wish,” I say and let my shoulders sag. I guess the effect of the stage kiss is wearing off. “But you know it’s going to be her. She has an insane following. Her fans love her and would line up for blocks to see her.”
“Yeah, but look, sometimes it’s the new kid who gets cast. You never know,” Reeve says, and I know he’s trying to be encouraging, to buoy me up.
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