Chapter 1
Excerpt: Two Wrongs Don't Make a Playwright
My tires squealed as I turned into the restaurant parking lot for Grace and Alex’s engagement party.
Running so late I’d have to park valet, I calculated the smallest tip without being a stingy asshole and grabbed the gift bag containing the hand-carved map of the Adirondacks with a heart where they fell in love.
Paul had called twenty minutes ago—thirty minutes after we were supposed to arrive—saying he was stuck in a client meeting. “Somebody has to pay for your wedding, Kate. So unless the gallery can make up the budget surplus…”
Never mind that the inflated budget was because his mom doubled the guest list. The overage was obviously the fault of The Bride.
A pimply teen knocked on my car window. I lifted a trembling finger and searched the center console for my favorite burgundy lipstick, but found only the ‘presentable’ nude Paul’s mom gave me.
Spreading it on thick, I vowed to stop at a drugstore soon and get the deepest, bloodiest red in stock.
One with a name like Blood Lust Bordeaux or Vampire Vixen.
The valet impatiently tapped the window again, probably annoyed at driving my rusty hand-me-down Ford Escape into a lot filled with Audis and Acuras. As I handed over the keys, I considered asking him how I looked, but knew the answer: technically presentable, with an air of wild anxiety.
Pearls couldn’t cover for panic.
I smoothed my frizzy hair, cursing the misty September evening, and entered the restaurant, treading on the balls of my feet to soften the click of my knock-off heels.
Unfortunately, Alex’s mom Helen monitored the entryway, squealing in delight: “The final bridesmaid is here! The party can officially begin!”
I quashed my annoyance at the honorific, like my bridesmaid role was my most important identity, knowing she’d waited 35 years to declare proudly, ‘I’m Mother of the Groom!’
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she murmured while pulling me into an aggressive hug. “Your friendship means so much to Grace.”
Right, that’s who I was here for: Grace, the Bride to Be and the sweetest human alive. She deserved this happiness… even if she inexplicably found it with Captain Arrogance, Alex Clarke.
Helen pressed a wrinkled photograph into my hand. It featured the entire Clarke family on the stairs at their Adirondack cabin: Helen and her husband Bruce, plus their three children, Alexander, Dominic, and Mallory. “Can you believe it? This is the last time we were together, eight years ago.”
Nine years, I almost corrected as I looked closer: a tearful Helen and impatient Bruce stood behind Alex, who shot a judgmental look at his little sister, Mallory.
Slightly apart from the chaos stood Nick, the middle child, blue eyes looking through his black-rimmed glasses straight at the camera. Through the camera, really, to where I stood taking the picture.
That’s where I belonged: Behind the lens, behind the canvas, behind the scenes. Nowhere near the spotlight where Nick had resided since I took this photo nine years ago, having won two Emmys for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
I forced the photo back into Helen’s hands as her husband Bruce traded my gift bag for a glass of Cabernet—he knew me too well—and placed a hand on his wife’s back, steering her away.
As the Mother of the Groom departed, the Bride-to-Be approached for an incredible hug, her chestnut hair clinging to my lipstick.
I wondered if she had a bolder shade in her purse that I could borrow…
but she probably wasn’t carrying a purse tonight, instead storing her stuff in Alex’s suit pocket, like couples do.
I tucked my clutch tighter under my armpit.
“No Paul tonight?” Grace asked, hazel eyes wide with concern.
“Stuck at work.”
Grace’s brows rose in surprise. Not that Paul would ditch me for a client—that shit happened frequently—but that he would leave me here alone, tonight of all nights. Grace knew why I was anxious, even if Paul didn’t.
As the overzealous gulp of wine hit my stomach, a server passed with bacon-wrapped shrimp. All I’d eaten today was coffee and a protein bar, so I shoved one into my mouth. Fuck yes.
Clocking the speed-eating, generous alcohol consumption, and the lack of details in The Case of the Missing Fiance, Grace scanned the room and made the universal sign of tipping a glass back. My best friend Mallory arrived with a glass of water and a mischievous smirk.
I spoke first to dodge her inevitable question. “Your mom showed me that picture.”
“Ugh, why’d you let me dye my hair like that?”
Despite going to different colleges, Mallory believed I should have intuitively prevented her bad hair decisions from 200 miles away. She definitely didn’t want me to remind her how much she loved it then.
I lifted my hands in a solemn vow. “I’ll never let it happen again.”
“I don’t know why they invited half of these people.
The party’s technically for Alex and Grace, but you know my parents…
any excuse to show off their kids’ success.
” She flicked her wrist in an uncanny impression of her mother.
“Alex’s law firm tripled its billings, Nick won his 28th Emmy, and Mallory, well…
” she feigned an exasperated sigh. “Did I mention Alex is getting married? Mallory’s in the wedding. ”
Mal started another impression when her dad’s voice rang out for his family to join him on stage for a toast.
I scanned the room for the server, ready to house that bacon-wrapped shrimp, and my gaze snagged on the majestic gold hair of Dominic Martin.
He looked like he’d just climbed down from the Parthenon—fitting, since he played the Greek God Apollo on The Twelve, an award-winning dramatic TV series based on the 12 gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus.
After watching him on screen for seven years, I checked for a quiver of arrows strapped over his tailored suit.
In a previous life, my fingers would have grabbed charcoal to memorialize the shadows playing across his chiseled cheekbones.
In a previous life, he would have written sonnets to my beauty and left them on my pillow every morning.
Because in a previous life—before becoming Hollywood’s most eligible bachelor using his stage name, Dominic Martin—he’d been Nick Clarke, my best friend’s brother and the most generous lover I’d ever known.
The Nick I met 12 years ago had been shy, pale blue eyes hidden behind glasses and poetry books, body lanky from spending more time in the library than the gym.
But that Nick was gone, replaced by the muscular golden god that graced the covers of every major publication—mostly the gossip sections, photographed with the hottest rising actresses and models.
The wine glass felt slick in my sweaty palms, so I downed the last dregs and placed it on a nearby cocktail table, ignoring the ache clawing around my chest.
That was ancient history. I couldn’t spend forever panting after someone who’d moved on minutes after I walked out.
Yet my gaze involuntarily tracked back, cataloging his golden hair, chiseled jaw and bold cheekbones as if I was assessing one of his many ad campaigns for cologne, luxury cars, and top-shelf tequila, each branding him as the unattainable bachelor.
He slowly tilted away from his father’s speech. Our gazes locked. Could he read the lustful thoughts from my mind? Because his brows rose, lips parted and eyes dropped to half-lidded.
Laughter erupted and people raised their glasses as Bruce wrapped up his speech… but I couldn’t make out his words over the blood whooshing in my ears.
My vision tunneled. The walls pulsed with the weight of unpaid invoices and mounting debt. My chest tightened with ricocheting loneliness, shoulders locking up. The room felt too hot, then suddenly cold against my skin. My lungs felt tight yet empty, even when gasping for breath.
Shit, not now. Not here.
Not in front of him.
Not again.