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I’m wearing a red T-shirt and a pair of jeans, and my hair is in a high ponytail. Not a lick of makeup is on my face and the jeans fit my curvier self from a year ago so they’re kind of saggy. Not the most flattering thing I own.
“Gee thanks,” I mutter.
“I’m being serious. The way you dress, the way you present yourself to everyone, it doesn’t feel real. It’s like you’re doing your best to hide.” Ivy contemplates me, her gaze roving over my face, and I almost want to squirm, she’s making me so uncomfortable. “You have a beautiful face.”
Oh, no. “Thank you,” I say uncertainly.
Ivy narrows her eyes, nudges Marina with her elbow. “Like, really beautiful. You could pass for Angelina Jolie. Don’t you think, Marina?”
“Please.” I’ve been told that once or twice. Usually by some lecherous, so-called director I’m reading a script for who’s hoping to get in my panties before he’ll give me the part. I don’t miss Hollywood at all. “I look nothing like her.”
Now it’s Marina’s turn to scrutinize me. “Yeah, actually you kind of do look like her.”
My appetite evaporates, just like that. I stare at my half-eaten sandwich, sad that I can’t enjoy it any longer.
“Where are you from anyway, Bryn? I don’t think you’ve ever told me,” Ivy says.
“I came here from southern California.” I shrug, being deliberately vague.
“And where did you come from before that?” Marina asks. “You have a slight accent.”
Crap. I thought I’d banished that twang for good. “Fine. I grew up in Texas,” I say with a sigh. “A little town I’m sure you’ve never heard of.”
“Now I’m dying to know,” Marina says.
I’d come to California to forget my past and start fresh. I want a new chance, to be a new me. Not sit over lunch and reminisce. “Cactus, Texas, population three thousand-two hundred. Right at the tippy-top of the state,” I say.
Ivy grins. “You said ‘tippy-top.’”
My cheeks are hot. “I guess I’m still a bit of a hick.” I am such a hick. And in this town full of rich people, where everything is beautiful, and lush, and green, I’m nothing but a simple girl.
“You are not a hick. You’re adorable.” Ivy smiles and picks up her glass of ice water, sipping from the straw. “Let’s finish lunch and go shopping before my mid-afternoon exhaustion sets in.”
“We’re going to Ross, right?” I ask weakly, knowing there wasn’t a Ross Dress for Less anywhere near St. Helena.
“Absolutely not,” Ivy says firmly, Marina nodding in agreement.
“There are a few boutiques nearby where I think we’ll find something. Something amazing to knock Matt’s socks off,” Marina says.
“Why are you two so determined to hook me up with Matt?” I shouldn’t even consider messing around with my boss. And I don’t get why these two women are so willing to set their friend up with his assistant—as in me. It makes no sense.
“He’s lonely. I swear, in all the time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him with a woman more than once,” Ivy explains. “He’s a bit of a serial dater. He needs to find a steady woman. One he can count on.”
Ugh. Well, that’s not good. That means he’s a commitment-phobe.
“He was a pro baseball player,” I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm because come on. “You’re telling me he had a hard time finding women?”
“No, certainly not. But he does have trouble finding a good one,” Ivy says.
“But he’s definitely the least cynical of the three,” Marina adds. “Which is to your advantage, Bryn. He’s not such a nonbeliever.”
My head is bouncing from one to the other, like I’m watching a tennis match. I have no idea what to believe, who to believe. It all sounds like dreamy, Cinderella-type stuff.
And I’m not one who believes in the fairy tale.
“Such a nonbeliever of what?”
“Why love, of course.”
