Fool Me Twice (26 page)

I blow the silver fringe from her pillow off my face. “Are you talking about Brett’s girl issues?” I ask. “Because, crazy enough, being a player only seems to
help
a guy’s career.”

“But it’s more than just that,” Rachel says. “According to insiders, Brett’s been a pain to work with on his last few films. He
misses call times and keeps the cast and crew waiting for hours.” Rachel sounds like a newscaster as she presents a tattered tabloid as evidence. “Critics say he’s lost his passion for acting, that he’ll be nothing but a washed-up child star if he doesn’t do something quick to redeem himself. So his management team must think television is his best bet. It’s worked for a ton of other actors.”

I’ve read some of this, but not all. “Everyone knows what a great actor Brett is—he’s been nominated for major awards since he was
five,”
I say. “He’s probably just burned out, and McGregor is smart enough to realize he’ll push through it.”

“Yeah, I guess I can see that. But back to the girl issues,” Rachel replies and tacks on a sly smile. “You know what Brett’s problem is? He just hasn’t dated the
right
girl yet.”

I toss a pillow at her. “The last thing I want to be is Brett Crawford’s next ‘throwaway party favor,’ so don’t look at
me,”
I say, then I make a silent promise to put soap in my mouth for quoting a tabloid. Reporters tell plenty of lies about my own life, so I question everything I read, but I’ve seen enough myself to know that every once in a while they’re surprisingly dead-on. In their pursuit of a quick, juicy story to sell, however, gossipmongers often miss the details that could
really
damage someone. “It’s just that this is all sort of sad,” I go on. “Brett has always been someone safe for me to crush on, but now—”

Rachel cuts me off with laughter. “Oh, please! You
know
what’s gonna happen. Brett will fall head over heels in love and change his whole life to be with you. So just flirt a little and see where things go.”

“No way,” I reply. She might understand if I told her how bad things got with Troy, but I can’t take the chance of Rachel telling
Trina, who would go straight to my mom. Then Mom would freak out even more about me living on my own in Arizona, which is something I’ve had to fight for every day for the past few months. “I just need to get over Brett before we start working together. That’s all. Or he’ll be … well, a bit of a distraction.”

“More like a tall, beautiful problem with a killer smile.” Rachel turns back to her wall to swoon over The Bod in a western-themed cologne ad for Armani. “I can only imagine how distracted I’d be if I ever worked with
my
dream guy. Distracted by his perfectly toned arms, and his amazing green eyes, and his luscious mocha hair, and … gosh, I better not talk him up
too
much, or you’ll want to start a collection of your own. But The Bod is all mine, got it?”

I probably sound just as ridiculous as Rachel does when I talk about Brett—I mean, when I
used
to talk about Brett—but I laugh anyway. “Yep, he’s all yours,” I reply. “Down to his last curly eyelash.”

I have to agree with Rachel on one thing, though: The Bod, whoever he is, makes leather cowboy chaps look seriously hot.

First published in Great Britain in June 2014

This electronic edition published in June 2014 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Copyright © Mandy Hubbard 2014

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

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