At some point, I hoped to experience the kind of connection Morgan and Gage had, but those were thoughts for another time when I wasn’t wearing a designer dress that cost more than any other piece of clothing I owned. I was also rocking an insanely awesome pair of sheer mesh Louboutin heels with gradient crystal embellishments, which were surprisingly comfortable. My golden blond hair was piled on top of my head in a complicated updo the stylist who’d come to our room at the Four Seasons had spent about an hour on. The smoky look the makeup artist had done on my eyes made their color pop, made even more noticeable by the matching green satin dress. I wasn’t the focal point of any of the cameras on the red carpet, but that didn’t mean a girl couldn’t look her best the first time she went to the Oscars. Plus, it was good practice for the super slim chance that we might do this walk again someday but because I was up for an award too.
Gloria was a Hollywood icon, and I had a lot to thank her for because she’d pulled some major strings for me. While they’d been on set one day toward the end of their project, Morgan mentioned the script I’d finished a few months earlier. My bestie hadn’t wanted to get my hopes up, so she hadn’t told me Gloria had asked if she could read When the Rain Ends. It was a passion project I’d worked on for two years, but I knew it was a super long shot for it to be optioned, let alone actually filmed.
I’d been stunned when Dane Garrison, Gloria’s son and Morgan’s agent, had called me to ask if I had representation about six months later. It turned out that not only had Gloria read my script, but she’d also loved it so much that she’d raved about it to a bunch of Hollywood bigwigs, and there was talk of a bidding war.
I’d briefly considered turning him down because I didn’t want him to take me on just because his mom loved my script and my best friend was one of his clients, but I wasn’t stupid. Nabbing Dane as my agent was a major coup since his client list was full of A-listers. It also hadn’t hurt when he made it clear that signing me was a no-brainer because he loved to play studios off each other to get the most money for his clients, and my script had already garnered a lot of interest.
He’d more than earned his percentage on the deal he’d gotten me, and I was headed to Chicago in a week to start filming. Without Gloria’s support and Dane’s efforts on my behalf, there was no way When the Rain Ends would’ve been greenlit by a studio this quickly, let alone with Mason Cleary as the director. Dane was a very big deal in Hollywood, and when he stepped between Morgan and his mom, the questions went back to the usual Oscars red carpet fodder.
Our group, including Gloria’s and Daniel’s assistants, moved from reporter to reporter with each interview going about the same. There were a lot of questions about what Morgan and Gloria were wearing and if they were nervous. As awe-inspiring as the whole thing was, I’d started to zone out a little . . . until we neared Vaughn Corbett’s stop on the red carpet.
I’d watched him interview celebrities more times than I could count, but only on television. The Golden Globes had been the first award ceremony I’d attended, and he’d been oddly absent. He was even hotter in person, which shouldn’t have been possible when he’d already been a ten in my book. The whole tall, dark, and handsome thing he had going on hadn’t hurt his career, that was for sure.
I figured I’d be free to ogle him without getting caught because his focus would be on Gloria, Morgan, and Dane, but I was wrong. His dark brown eyes skimmed over them and stopped on me. I imagined that the expression on my face was similar to Morgan's when she bumped into Gage at the Golden Globes. But I wasn't about to run from my attraction to Vaughn the way she had with Gage. Then again, Vaughn wasn't looking at me like I killed his cat. Quite the opposite, in fact.
When his gaze slid down my body, lingering on my boobs for a long moment and making me incredibly grateful for the nipple tape that hid my physical reaction to him, I almost tripped on the steps up to his platform.
Vaughn started to take a step forward, and I thought he was the only person who noticed my faux pas until Dane gripped my arm to help steady me. “You okay?”