Page 16 of Cast to be Mine

This was my shot, and I wasn’t going to let anyone take it away from me.

I wondered if the Blackwell family felt the same about my father. If Micah Blackwell found out who I was, would he fire me? Gah. He can’t find out.

I climbed the stairs to my second-floor unit, my legs protesting after Becky’s workout. Tomorrow I’d be sore as hell, but that was a problem for future Grace.

The moment I stepped inside my apartment, I dropped my gym bag by the door and made a beeline for my laptop. Loretta had said she’d email the contract details. I opened my inbox and there it was.

Three new emails from Loretta.

The first was the contract, which I’d need to read carefully tomorrow before signing. She was my agent and the entertainment attorney she worked with would have already looked at it. There would be language in there I didn’t understand and had to trust them.

The second was a detailed breakdown of the shooting schedule, locations, and key dates. My eyes widened as I scanned through it.

Holy shit. Ambitious.

The third email made my heart skip.

“Script attached. Memorize as much as possible before table read tomorrow at 10 a.m. Address below. Don’t be late. This is your moment—own it.”

Tomorrow. The table read was tomorrow.

I clicked on the attachment and watched as the PDF loaded. 127 pages. My character appeared on nearly every one of them.

I was going to need a lot of coffee.

I changed into my most comfortable pajamas and settled in. I had to get at least six hours of sleep. That was the sweet spot. I couldn’t show up looking like death, but I was the last person added to the project. I was the one that had to work twice as hard to get caught up.

I started reading, and the world around me disappeared.

This was the role I’d been waiting for my entire career.

I read through the entire script once, just to get a feel for the arc. Then I went back to the beginning and started breaking down Elena’s scenes. Her motivations, her fears, her strengths. I grabbed my highlighter and started marking my lines, making notes in the margins about delivery and emotion.

By the time I looked up, it was past midnight. My eyes burned and my neck ached from hunching over my laptop, but I couldn’t stop. Not yet.

The table read was in less than ten hours. I needed to know this character inside and out. I needed to walk into that room tomorrow and prove that Micah Blackwell’s instinct to cast me wasn’t a mistake.

I needed to prove to my father that I didn’t need his name or his approval.

But more than that, I needed to prove it to myself.

6

MICAH

Iarranged the pastries on the platter and I had no idea why. I didn’t know how to be a hostess. Didn’t want to know.

“Dude, they’re just going to eat them,” Toby said, watching me with barely concealed amusement. “You don’t need to make them Instagram-worthy.”

He was right. I was fussing. “Fine. Whatever. How’s the coffee?”

“Fresh pot just finished brewing.” He checked his watch for probably the twentieth time in ten minutes. “Jack Montana is going to be in your house. In like fifteen minutes. Do you realize how insane that is?”

I couldn’t help but smile at his enthusiasm. “You know my mom’s been in three movies with him, right? He’s been to family dinners.”

“That’s different. That’s your family. This is work. This is us being professionals working with Jack freaking Montana.” He practically bounced on his heels. “And Buzz Coleman. I’ve watched every single one of his movies. The guy’s a comedic genius.”

“He’s good,” I agreed, moving to check the living room one more time. I’d pushed the furniture back to create space, set up a long table with enough chairs for everyone. The script pages were laid out at each seat, names written on cards so nobody had to awkwardly figure out where to sit.