Chapter 26 Dean W. Seely #2
“Say nothing and get back to work!” April smiled; she got weird around too much emotion. “I just wanted to hand these to you in person. But I should get going. Have a great casting, Sasha.”
And then she was gone. With a thud, Sasha sat back down in her seat. There wasn’t enough time to read through the emails now, but one caught her eye. It was from Maxi Morgan, the Fiorello Airport manicurist.
. . . I made a small mistake. I remember telling you that you’ll experience a chance meeting that’ll set off a chain of events that’ll end in happily ever after .
. . But I’m now realizing that the “chain of events that’ll end in happily ever after” is referring to *other* people.
You’re going to meet a man, and somehow, that meeting will bring love to strangers.
Many, many strangers. I don’t know how I messed that up!
Her jaw dropped. Understanding slowly dawned on her.
It was just another drop in the bucket of reasons the entire Seat F debacle was an utter misfire.
At the time, it was fun to believe Maxi’s prediction.
It gave Sasha an (admittedly shaky) excuse to embrace such an unlikely love story.
Turns out, Maxi’s prediction was never about Sasha’s love story—it was about everyone else’s.
Which was lovely. In such bizarre, fractured times, the world needed a romance epidemic.
But Sasha hoped Maxi was working on upgrading her palmistry skills.
Because, damn. That was the Cadillac of errors.
The videographer, a guy named Abe wearing muttonchops and circa-2009 hipster overalls, cleared his throat.
She looked up and he asked, “Is everything okay?” She nodded quickly and called the next actor.
But now she was distracted. All she wanted to do was call Wes.
She wanted to tell him about the emails.
She wanted to read them with him. God, she just wanted him.
Why hadn’t he called her? Why didn’t she have the nerve to call him?
The rest of the auditions flew by. By 2:55 p.m., Sasha was 99 percent sure she’d found the right talent for the commercial.
The Seraphina execs were nibbling on leftovers from the lunch spread and packing up to go.
Just then, a studio manager rushed over to her, explaining that she had one person left to see.
A latecomer, a name she didn’t recognize.
Dean W. Seely. This was odd, as she had handpicked all the actors, herself.
Had she forgotten to add this person to the call sheet?
“Sounds like we have one more,” announced Sasha, on the mic. “Dean W. Seely, you’re last but not least. Come on down.”
Tapping the pencil against her cheek, she quickly rifled through her papers, searching for this person’s info. Hearing Dean walking onto set, she looked up. And then emitted a gasp heard round the world.
“Hi,” said Wes, looking equal parts thrilled and nervous. And then, unnecessarily, he added. “It’s me.”
“Omigod. Omigod. Am I hallucinating?”
Her heart was thundering. Her soul was shaking. Her core was quivering. It was Wes, looking so unnecessarily rugged and casually sexy in boots, denim, and a navy knit tee. His eyes were twinkling under the professional lights. She’d never seen such an exquisite man.
What the hell was he doing here? She hadn’t realized she’d asked the question out loud, until he answered.
“You’ve been trying to get me to audition since forever. So, here I am. Also, you’re bad at anagrams.”
She gasped again, frozen in her seat. “Dean W. Seely is . . .”
“Wesley Dane.” He shot her a small, lip-biting smile. “It’s good, right?”
“It’s good,” she said, her eyes welling up. “It’s damned good. Get over here.”
He walked up to her desk, hands in his jeans pockets. His face was a bashful, exhilarated, dimply vision of perfection. She wanted to kiss every inch of it.
“Why are you here, for real?” she whispered this so the videographer and execs couldn’t hear. “Because I know you’re not auditioning.”
“You’re right,” admitted Wes. And then, he dropped the friendly pretense—and looked at her with a soul-stirring, heart-stopping earnestness so intense she could barely hold his gaze. Her pulse raged under her skin.
“I’m not here to audition,” he repeated, his voice hitching a little. “I’m here because I love you.”
The world seemed to sharpen around Sasha, then. No shadows, no vagueness, nothing dull. The room went incandescent.
“I’ve loved you since you showed up in my office, bossing me around in wrecked pajamas.
I love your thoughts, your strength, your bottom lip, your laugh, the wildness of your brain.
I crave you so badly, it’s like . . . I see now why I’ve never felt truly at home in my life.
Because I needed you. And I wanted to tell you, before.
But your attention was . . . elsewhere, and I didn’t want to get hurt.
But in the end, I don’t care. I don’t care that you didn’t choose me.
I don’t care that you loved him, first. I’m fucking yours, Sasha.
I—” Wes stopped, looking down at the table. He zeroed in on the pencil.
“That’s . . . the one from that night?”
Sasha nodded, eyes blazing and welling up. “I told you I kept it.”
Wes looked at her with wonder, blinking in silence. His mouth opened, as if he was going to respond, but he shut it.
“Wes, I never said I loved him.”
“You did.” He sounded emotionally wrecked now, like he was barely keeping his cool. “I heard it through your earpiece at the gala. You said you were in love with him, but the odds were against you.”
A tear rolled out of Sasha’s eye, but she let out a laugh. “Did you hear the rest of it? I was talking about us, dummy! I said I was in love with you!” Her chest was rising and falling rapidly. “I am in love with you.”
“You are? Me?” A slow smile brightened his face. He reached across the table, wiping her tear with his thumb. “You’re in love with me.”
“Yes, you, Dean W. Seely.”
A slow smile of relief melted the intensity in his face. “Thank fucking God. Get over here.”
And then, she flew out of her chair and into his arms. They stood there forever, in full view of the heart-eyed Seraphina execs and the frustrated videographer, sealed together in an impassioned, airtight embrace.
At some point, Wes pulled back a little.
Gazing at her with wide-open worship, he slipped one hand in her hair and cupped her jaw with the other.
His face was one kiss away from hers.
“You realize I’m at work, right?” she murmured. “It’s rude to ambush me here.”
“Oh, so now you care,” he said with an amused chuckle. And then, he kissed her. As she lost herself in the soft, sensual drag of his mouth against hers, she had a thought.
In a way, Maxi also predicted Wes. Her chance meeting with Seat F hadn’t just brought romance to the world. It worked for Sasha, too.