It was when I was looking for which way to leave that I felt Bella’s gaze home in on me. She was like a heat-seeking missile when she spotted me. The mean, stocky security guy was whispering something in her ear, and she was smoothly nodding.
My heart rate raced, and I needed to get out of here. None of the pieces fit together in my mind, but there was a puzzle to solve. Before I could run, Bella spoke.
“There she is…the woman of the hour.” She strode toward me, her fans watching, and a stray cameraman following.
If there was ever a time I’d wished to have the power to disappear, it was now.Why am I the woman of the hour?
I’d lived over four decades and never felt the dread like I felt in this moment.
I’d never been cool or popular or famous or rich. I was me, James Silver—reserved, bespectacled, and lesser-than. I’d always had a few close friends, and that was enough. I’d never dreamed of making a spectacle of myself, and now this…
“Hellllooo,” Bella spoke, standing in front of me, elongating the greeting and holding her hand out.
If I was sweaty before, that was nothing. My pores opened and I felt my whole body go clammy. Wiping my sweaty palm on my already wet shorts, I placed my fingers in hers.
“James?” She asked me as if she didn’t know. It was thewhyshe knew that I wanted to understand.
“Yes. Everyone calls me Jamie,” I told her.
“Bella. Nice to meet you.” She acted like this was a totally normal meet-and-greet. “I was just here meeting with Ford. Out by the pool. That’s why I’m dressed like this.” This led to her waving her hand in front of her body,Price is Rightstyle, making sure everyone listening noted her fabulous body and even more fabulous barely there swimsuit. “He needed to go over some pressing details one-on-one.” She purred during the “pressing” and “one-on-one” parts.Purred.
“Oh,” was my idiotic response.
“He and I are very close. He looks to me for a lot of input. I think that’s why I need to stay on the island next week.” She swayed her hips side to side as she dropped bomb after bomb on an imaginary battlefield.
Problem was, her warfare was working. I ran my hand down my ratty ponytail and felt smaller than my actual five-foot-six stature. In a matter of moments, I was back to being the scholarship kid at prep school and not the accomplished businessperson I’d become. Funny how a few quick minutes could take away years of work and accolades.
“Anyway, I’ve heard so much about you. You and Ford were playmates when you were kids. How you looked like Little Orphan Annie. Cute as a button. Hey, Earl,” she called to the guy with the camera, “get a picture here of Ford’s love interest with me. Poor thing must go home tomorrow…real world and all for her…while we have to stay another week in paradise. There are a few scenes I still need to shoot. We want them to be absolutely perfect. Beach scenes, rawr.”
That was right—she roared while making her hand into a paw, pretending to scratch the air. For her final sentiment, she winked and smirked, and I wanted to disappear. Instead, I stood there like an injured puppy being photographed and shouted at before my feet finally worked again.
Sadly, I ended up not meeting Billy. Nor did Ford and I take a convertible to dinner. Rather, we stayed in our room. Wish I could say we were feasting on one another, but we were fighting over my picture online. With that dreadful moment seared in my brain—plus the barrage of pictures for anyone to see—I was deep in my head, my self-esteem at the bottom of the ocean. I couldn’t stop chastising myself. I would say Ford was doing a pretty good job somewhere between tolerating and pacifying me. Too bad it didn’t make a difference.
I was feeling some sort of way that wasn’t how women my age should be feeling.
Jealousy and a need for vengeance were only the beginning of my feelings. I paced, ran through scenarios in my head, and cursed myself out until I toppled on the couch in my robe.
Much later in the evening, I still couldn’t believe I didn’t resist the photos or verbally object to that witch, although I didn’t call her that to Ford’s face. She was one giant witch. No matter what Billy texted or Ford said, nothing took away the thought that I’d stood there like a duck crossing the road in Hawaii, waiting to be bait. And bait I was.
“You do not look ugly,” Ford said while manning his phone and running his hand down my cheek as I stared at the photo again. His team back in Los Angeles, whoever they were, were trying to get the picture taken down. What he couldn’t take away or remove was the icy feeling curling its way up my spine every time I thought about the interaction.
“I look like the wicked stepsister, and she looks like a Mediterranean Cinderella.” I rambled on like a high school girl, not a levelheaded woman.
“Stop, James,” he said, putting his phone down, shutting the laptop propped on the sofa, and pulling me in for a hug.
He held me tight, and for a moment the insecurities dropped. But like a match to kindling, they immediately flared again. “What about when I leave tomorrow? I cannot compete with her.” I spoke truthfully and honestly for the first time in hours, my thoughts racing in my mind.
“Not possible,” he said, running his palm down my back. “That’s why she went after you. Because I don’t want her. Red, I only want you.”
I stood there still only clad in a hotel robe, never having gotten dressed after my long shower, and laid my forehead on Ford’s shoulder.
“I’ve waited a long time for you,” I admitted softly into his body.
“I’ve waited too long to realize you were who I was waiting for…”
We stood like that for a while, me nuzzling his chest, his hand massaging my back, and the quiet enveloping us.
The steady hum of his phone vibrating jolted us from the moment. It stopped and started several times over before Ford stepped away from me to check it and set it down. It only started up again.
