Our eyes met, and I swear to God, my lungs stopped functioning. My heart stopped pumping blood. At that moment, I both died and was reborn.
Chapter2
Bexley
The bridge hit,and I spun around the stage, singing about my power, using every synonym for snow there was. The blonde wig on my head itched as it held back my natural brown hair, threatening to distract me, but I knew this song inside and out.
Suddenly, my dancing stopped, and I stomped my foot. “I’m never going back …” I began to sing, leading into the final chorus when my eyes hit him. When I saw him earlier, I thought it was his doppelgänger.
What would the hottest music producer in the business be doing at a small mountain resort in Virginia? I knew he had kids, but with his money, I figured he would have taken them to Disneyland or Disney World. Somewhere fun like that, not this small place.
But as I finished the song, our eyes locked across the enraptured audience of children and lingering parents. I’ve stared at his picture on the company website enough to know this is no doppelgänger. That right there is Sebastian Lowe, and suddenly this shitty summer experience I was having seemed to be worth it.
As I finished, everyone clapped and cheered. Little girls screamed at me, their favorite character, to come down and give them hugs. The MC of the production stepped back on stage and thanked me for the performance, letting everybody know I would be back to visit right before dinner.
As for me, I reluctantly tore my eyes from Sebastian’s and swept off the makeshift stage back into the kids’ club. Once stashed inside the staff room, I pulled the costume off and removed the wig, shaking my hair and changing into my staff uniform. I was off the clock since I had to go back to work before dinner, giving me a small break between the two gigs, but I’d left my street clothes back at the staff cabins.
This meant I had to make a hasty retreat before even attempting to approach Sebastian Lowe and starting a conversation about my music because there was no way I was doing it wearing a name tag that read “children’s entertainer.”
Leaving the kids’ club, I made my way down the back steps, watching my feet to ensure I didn’t trip over them. At the bottom, a second pair was waiting for me, and I stumbled to stop, nearly careening headlong into Sebastian Lowe himself.
“Whoa,” he said, grabbing my shoulders and steadying me. “Easy.” That smile did something to my stomach because suddenly, I was floating. My heart leaped for joy inside my chest as I willed myself to get a grip.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I was looking for an employee of the kids’ club,” he said slowly like he wasn’t sure what he was trying to say. “I had a few questions.”
I glanced around, noting we were at the back of the building and nowhere near the crowd of kids and other kids’ club employees that had gathered at the front for my performance.
Had he sought me out deliberately?My heart fluttered with excitement—the idea of being discovered at this summer resort in the middle of nowhere captivated me. Sure, Mountain Ridge Resort was famous for a cult classic movie beloved by everyone in the world, but it wasn’t exactly the hotspot to come and find new talent.
My ears buzzed. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I’d had an agent for two years, who’d done nothing for my career, and now, here I was on the precipice of my breakthrough.
“Sure.” I smiled, playing along with his ruse. “What can I help you with?”
“I was wondering—” he began, rubbing the back of his neck, obviously searching for the next thing to say.
I smiled and nodded encouragingly, waiting for him to get to the good part. This wasn’t about kids, and it wasn’t about a club.
Please, oh, please, Sebastian Lowe, pick me.
“I was wondering if there is a cap on the length of time I can drop the kids off for?”
I blinked and swallowed my disappointment as everything inside of me deflated. I needed to make my hopes float again.It was still a ruse. Just keep playing along.
“Well, we close at dinner time for the evening, but we offer babysitting services at night if you need them. You have to sign up for those at the front desk, though.”
Sebastian Lowe continued to stare at me. The world around us stood still while the buzzing in my ears began again. I waited.
If he was going to discover me, this was the moment. He knew he couldn’t keep up the ruse. We both knew what was happening here. He just had to go for it, and if the look in his eyes was anything to go by, he knew it too.
Swallowing hard, he offered me another smile that made my stomach turn with excitement. “Well, actually, I was wondering if I would have to sign up at the front desk to take you out for a date?”
You could have knocked me over I was so off-kilter. It would’ve only taken a light breeze to knock me sideways. I blinked a couple of times, still staring at him with no response. He probably thought I’d died if not for the flutter of my eyes.
Sebastian Lowe was asking me out.
I didn’t know if this was better or worse than being discovered by him. He was easily the sexiest man I had ever seen, not that I had a plethora of boyfriends behind me to compare to him. There was the guy I dated in high school, and we tried to make it work in college before I dropped out and moved to Nashville to find an agent. My whole life revolved around my career, not my sex life, which was going about as well as my career. But I tried not to think too much about it.
At least one was about to improve drastically in the next few minutes. I just had to open my mouth and say yes because a date with Sebastian Lowe could be a turning point for my career. If it wasn’t, at the very least, I could go back to Nashville after this stupid summer and say I had Sebastian Lowe under my belt.