Page 17 of The Love Rematch
Jake looked to the side.
Everything stopped.
Like a perfect shot in a film, the sort that didn’t exist in real life, a cloud parted outside, sending a single beam of light through the window. It landed directly on her face as she ducked her head, covered her mouth, and laughed softly into her fingers. The yellow polka dots on her dress shifted with her mirth. Auburn waves fell over her shoulders as they shook, partly shrouding her features. He was distantly aware of the twin two steps ahead, drawing everyone else’s attention with her sweeping gestures, but he couldn’t look away from the first girl. Her introversion had him intrigued. What would it take to see behind that secretive smile? Like a fly that had already flown too close to the trap, he was stuck in the tape, unable to do anything but wait for the inevitable doom.
Gone.
That’s what he was.
Gone before he ever even arrived.
“Cut,” Fred calls, and Jake returns to the present. He pulls himself away from the camera and stumbles back on unsteady feet before tripping over some wires. A strong hand grabs his forearm to steady him, then pats his back in friendly camaraderie. Fred returns to his chair. “I wasn’t rolling,” he says into his mic. “We’ve got to film the entrance again.”
“Hold on, Fred,” Nina shouts across the courtyard, forgoing the comms. “I want to make a few introductions first, get Emily acquainted with the crew before we officially start the show. It’s been a hectic week and she hasn’t gotten a chance to meet everyone yet.”
“Just tell me when,” he calls back as he fiddles with the buttons, making adjustments.
“Jake!” Nina says upon seeing him at Fred’s side. “Come here.”
Emily’s head whips around.
They stare at each other for a heartbeat, a glance he feels all the way in his toes. She doesn’t look surprised. Her lips purse, and even though it’s been seven years, he knows exactly what’s going on inside her head.
She’s pissed.
“Jake!”
He marches over on autopilot. The funeral procession blares in the back of his mind. Emily doesn’t take her eyes off of him. They’re like lasers, digging into his skin. He wants to look away, but he can’t. On some level, he loves the burn.
“Jake, this is Emily,” Nina says, oblivious to the fact that the woman by her side is tattooed on his heart.
He’s spent the last seven years trying to erase her and never realized until this very moment, standing close enough to smell the citrus on her skin, that not a single goddamn trick worked.
“For future reference, it’d be a good idea to introduce yourself to the leadbeforethe first night of filming,” Nina continues, then turns to Emily. “And Emily, this buffoon in a suit is Jackson Moore, aka Jake.”
Emily arches a brow. It doesn’t take much to decipher the look in her eyes.Jackson Moore? Is that who you are now?
He straightens his spine and proudly draws his shoulders back.Yes.
Jacob William Henry III died the night he crawled out of her bed, got into his pickup truck, and drove until there was no road left to drive on. Thirty-six hours passed in a blur of gas stations and tears. The first thing he did when he woke up to the view of the Pacific Ocean with hardly any memory of how he’d gotten there was change his name. The boy she knows is gone.
“Nice to meet you,” Jake says, his voice cold, too hard to recognize.
Emily flinches. Hurt flashes over her eyes, but she catches herself at the last moment and drops her gaze to his outstretched hand. A silent beat passes before she slides her fingers between his. They’re warm and soft and everything he tried not to let himself remember. It’s over too soon. She abruptly jerks her hand away. When her arm drops to her side, she flexes her fingers as if they’ve been burned.
He doesn’t want to notice, but he does.
Emily catches him watching and shoves her hands behind her back.
“Nice to meet you, too,” she says, her voice a bit too sickly sweet. It resonates with an undercurrent he can’t quite place.
“Jake here is in charge of all the suitors,” Nina says before leaning in and dropping her voice conspiringly. It’s a move he’s seen her use before, to make the lead comfortable, to get past their guard. “I know we can’t give too much away, but what do you think? Anyone with husband material in those limos?”
Bile stings his tongue. He forces out a gruff reply. “Sure.”
“That’s convincing.” Nina rolls her eyes and hooks her arm through Emily’s. “Don’t mind him. Come on, let’s go find you a glass of champagne to cut the first-night jitters.”
Guiding Emily away, Nina glances subtly over her shoulder with a frown. Her gaze is hard, the best-friend mask gone and the producer back in full force.
