by Reiss, CD
“I’ll be down in a minute,” he said and got on his knees.
“Fine!” She stomped off.
Justin ran his fingers down my chest to the edge of my pants.
“Where were we?”
“You told her you’d be right out.”
“I did.” He bent down to kiss me and slid his hand under my waistband. I reached under his shirt to the sides of his rib cage, grasping hard muscle and velvet skin, digging in and wiggling my fingers until he twisted away, laughing.
“Stop!” he cried, trying to tickle me back. I ran away, downstairs, taunting him all the way out to the courtyard, where early guests had started arriving.
“Kayla!” Dad said. “What’s that on your finger?”
“We’re getting marri—”
Justin picked me up, knocking the wind right out of me, and jumped into the pool.
I had a split second in his arms before we hit the water together, and that was all the time I needed to realize that I was happy. I had arrived at my destination.
No matter what the future held in store for me, I was home.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This is where I usually acknowledge not only the people who made this book possible but the long list of things I don’t know, facts I fudged, and places I fell short.
In the case of Kayla’s profession, I stuck to an area of expertise. I was a garment designer and technician in New York, London, and Los Angeles for twenty-five years. I was not a costume designer for film, however, so if I missed a bit of lingo or a part of the process, let me know.
There’s not a book I’ve written since 2015 that hasn’t gone through my legal fact-checker, Jean Siska. No matter the story, there’s always legal content, and Jean always sets me straight. If there are legal or contractual maneuverings that aren’t appropriate for the State of California in the 2020s, it’s probably my fault for changing something I shouldn’t have.
I’d like to thank my editor Lauren Plude for being able to support this story in its nascent five-sentence form, and then continuing her support when it came back totally different.
Krista Stroever, my developmental editor, was gentle, kind, and patient, prodding me to do better when I got too loose with the stets and laughing when I freaked out about the identity of “the reader.”
Amy Tannenbaum deals with me in a way I always hoped an agent would.
I don’t usually use beta readers, but when I told Jana Aston that the hero was a cross between Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes, she demanded to see it immediately. This was how I got one of the best set of early notes I could have asked for. Jana’s a goddess. Read her books.
My family is awesome, and they know it, especially my husband, who keeps me honest and organized so I have the space to work.
Everything is cool here. I hope everything is cool with you too.
If you’re troubled or sad, if things in your life are confusing or bleak, I hope this book gave you a few hours of peace.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2017 Liz Lippman
CD Reiss is the New York Times bestselling author of Only Ever You, Iron Crowne, Bombshell, Bodyguard, The Edge series, and The Games Duet. Born in New York City, she moved to Hollywood, California, to get a very expensive master’s degree in screenwriting from USC. In case you want to know, that went nowhere. She started writing novels in 2013, and though that went better, her student loans still aren’t paid back. If you ever meet her in person, bring dark chocolate and call her Christine. For more information, visit www.cdreiss.com.