“Why thank you. When is this baby due?”
“Several more months. They’re having twins. My sister-in-law is awesome. She loves movies too, but she doesn’t work in Hollywood. She’s a jewelry designer, and they’re madly in love. Even though it took my brother five years to figure out he needed to win her back after he broke up with her when she was eighteen,” she said then told me more about Kat and Bryan, then about Bryan’s cufflink company, Kat’s necklaces, and her own parents’ jobs. She lit up when she talked about them–she was a family girl, and that was so cool. No issues, no trouble, no bitching about her parents or how she was raised. She simply liked them; I was the same way about my family, and it warmed my heart to know we shared that.
I told her as much. “Have I mentioned how cool it is that you get on well with your family?”
“Thank you,” she said with a sweet smile. “Sounds like you do as well.”
“I do. Very much so. Tell me more about you. So far, I know you’re crazy about your family, movies, and photos, you’re going to be a doctor, and you do your own nails.” I wasn’t angling for information; I was simply enjoying talking to her. I lowered my voice as I asked the next thing, sensing she was a private person. “Do you do your own nails because you don’t want people seeing you do the things the people in your photos do?”
She was instantly tense.
Chapter Eleven
Jess
I straightened my spine. He was spot on. He’d read me like an open book left on the coffee table just for him.
Not wanting to admit he was right, I shook my head. “No. I do it myself to save money,” I said, because I’d rather play the money card than the uptight-in-public card. Besides, I was the observer. I wasn’t the observed. Even though I didn’t warrant being the subject of any shot, I didn’t want to even take the chance that someone might see me with my shoes off, or with my mouth open, or with my guard down. Avoiding a potential Nick Balloons moment of any sort was an abiding goal in my life.
“Ah, gotcha,” William said, and nodded. He seemed as if he understood. “Let me see those hands then.”
“My hands?” I asked, as the manicurist patted the white towel on the edge of the foot tub, a sign for William to place his foot there for drying. He did as instructed, reining in a laugh and she patted his foot down, then began filing his toenails.
“Yes, your hands, Jess. We’re in a nail salon. It’s totally acceptable.”
I held out my right hand, and he moved my fingers so they touched his palm, sending tingles down my spine. He pretended to inspect my nails closely. I pretended I didn’t care that his hands were on me. My body said otherwise though, as a shiver of want rolled through me. I made a note to smack some sense into myself tonight, because right now sense had vacated. It had a way of doing that when William got close to me.
“Navy blue,” he said, in his low and sexy voice that left an imprint of longing inside me.
“Navy blue what?”
“If I’d have picked out a color for you, I’d have picked navy blue. To go with your eyes. They’re dark blue,” he said, looking at me.
If I were in a movie, if I were that kind of a girl who was soft and sweet and eager, I’d gasp and say you noticed. Then, he’d nod once, and whisper “I notice everything about you.”
Instead, I swallowed the dry knot in my throat.
“Dark blue is my favorite color,” he said softly, then started to slide his fingers through mine. I never knew holding hands could be such a turn-on. But as he laced his fingers though mine, flesh against flesh, my skin sizzled with the first sparks of a darker, deeper desire.
My eyes floated closed for the briefest of seconds. This had to stop. I was dangerously close to soaring away on a cloud of borderline lust. I was in a nail salon of all places. I opened my eyes, desperate to grab hold of some kind of witty comeback. But anything and everything fell through my fingers with the way his dark eyes were hooked on me. I didn’t trust William as far as I could throw him, and seeing as I wasn’t terribly good at throwing guys, that wasn’t very much or very far.
Yet he was so hard to resist.
He made me feel so many things. From the way he talked with me, as if he truly wanted to know me, to his carefree ways, to these sexy little moments when he shifted from talking to touching, it was as if we existed in this private little bubble of connection. I didn’t want to leave this island of burgeoning heat either.
“Right now, gray is my favorite,” I said in a voice I barely recognized.
His lips curved up slowly as he grasped my hand. I didn’t even notice the manicurist anymore, and I doubt he did either, as we seemed to inch closer, to crave contact and meet in another kiss.
But the moment caved in on itself when my phone bleated loudly. Once. Twice. Three times. I let go of his hand to swipe my phone from my back pocket. My mother had texted, and her note popped up on the screen.
Just finished up with Sandy. Her assistant happened to mention while I was doing Sandy’s eyes that the bridesmaids are picking up their dresses late afternoon tomorrow in Manhattan Beach, and that the officiant should be there too to pick up the matching bowtie and cummerbund for her tux.
Forget kissing William. I wanted to kiss the screen. I wanted to kiss Sandy’s assistant. Maybe even my mom.
I tapped out a quick reply. Nice work. Happen to know where? What place? Did you get details?
As I sent the message, I spotted Lolanna Winifred, the sixteen-year-old daughter of a six-packed and strapping action star who’d been a fingerless mitten model before he made it big on the silver screen. Immediately, I went into stealth mode. I scrolled through my phone, acting casual, but keeping my eyes on Lolanna as she walked into Daisy’s Nails too. I checked out William, happily enjoying his pedicure. He didn’t so much as look up when Lolanna, who was designing a collection of mittens now too, walked past him, heading straight for one of the reserved chairs in the back. Lolanna scooted up on a chair, wriggled off her teal blue flip flops with a cloth flower on the toe strap, and settled into the chair, oversized sunglasses still on.