Page 25

Take Two

The romance scene begins again as soon as the black-and-white clapper falls. The gentle requinto music starts up, guests begin to mill gracefully through the mansion, and Marsh tries to look extra dramatic in front of the mural.

She’s not thinking about anything but this moment, she tells herself. She’s going to live, breathe, and be this role.

This is her life. The one she’s dreamed of, the one she’s on All This and More to seize.

She’s going to make it everything she wants.

“ Buenas tardes, se?ora,” Ren says again, behind her. “I haven’t seen you here before.”

This time, Marsh is ready for his reveal when he removes his mask.

They flirt, ad-libbing a bit, the conversation full of banter and tension. Ren mentions the painting in his room he thinks a sophisticated, gorgeous woman like her would appreciate.

“If it’s so beautiful, why do you keep it hidden?” Marsh teases him as he leads her down the hall.

“I have many secrets,” Ren replies, to a subtle exclamation of drums.

The door opens, and this time, Marsh walks in first. Ren is standing behind her as she looks at the painting, so close that his breath flutters across her earlobe, sending it tingling.

“Perhaps I have a secret, too,” she tells him.

Ren’s eyes are hungry. “I look forward to discovering it.”

Marsh’s hair tumbles sexily, and Ren’s hands roam her body, finding their way down her gown and then up underneath it as they drift toward the bed again, locked in a kiss. Even though they’re supposed to be playing two characters who have just met, they move in total, passionate harmony, almost like it’s been choreographed ahead of time. It almost feels like Marsh has been in this exact moment before.

Actually, maybe she has been in this exact moment before, she realizes.

The longer the scene rolls, the more recognizable it becomes.

The layout of the place, the two of them together, the way they’re holding and touching—it almost seems like a replay of when she and Ren hooked up in his Phoenix apartment for the first time.

That’s weird.

“Is this all right?” Ren asks her as he buries his face in her neck.

Isn’t that what he said to her the first time?

As he finally eases Marsh onto the bed beneath him, still locked in a passionate kiss, one of the sleeves of her dress slides from her shoulder, revealing the edge of a fancy bra beneath.

Even though it’s just the corner, and even amid the intensity of the scene, she recognizes the familiar lace pattern at once.

She’s wearing a Sharp Purple Le Fascination.

“Yes, it’s all right,” Marsh manages to say back to him, trying to remember her lines.

She’s so mixed up, she can’t focus.

“It feels so good, Dyl—”

She sits bolt upright.