it. No matter what anyone said about me getting roles for my tits, ass, or the fact I slept my way to the top, my one talent in life was pretending to be anyone but who I was.
In my childhood, it was a survival tactic.
In my adulthood, it was my ticket to millions.
Right now, I was certain it spelled destruction.
But I didn’t have any other choice but to get out of the car and pretend to be Duke’s girlfriend.
So I got out of the car.
Duke was being let out of a hug with an older woman with long blond hair in loose braids, wearing faded jeans with a huge belt buckle, a rust shirt tucked in and turquoise necklaces slung around her neck.
The closer I was the more beautiful I found her. She wasn’t wearing makeup. She had lines on her face, although not as many as she should for the age I guessed she was. She had an aura about her. I had always rolled my eyes at people spouting that shit in LA, but it was the only way I could describe it. There was an energy that surrounded her, that bounced off her fricking pores.
Her gaze was a weight on me. I carried it over the dirt driveway, onto the cobbled walkway toward the house. She was smiling. Easily. But there was something else in her eyes. Not recognition. That was something I easily saw in people. No, not that. It was something I didn’t understand, because it wasn’t shallow or hostile, the only things I had true experience in.
Duke was doing the whole, handshake-hug type thing with an older man that was about his height, slightly less muscled and leaner than him and a good few decades older.
“Mom, Dad, this is Anastasia,” Duke said, extracting himself from the man hug and moving back toward me.
To my shock, horror, and secret pleasure, he moved to put his arm around me and kiss my forehead tenderly. Naturally. Like it was something we’d done about a thousand times. He smelled of simple, expensive, and classy cologne, slightly like the burger he’d eaten for lunch and something altogether uniquely him.
All of this was so jarring to me that I froze and stood there like a stumped, mute robot. This was the first time I’d ever frozen in front of people. From the second I decided I’d become an actress, any stage fright or shyness was impossible. That would hinder my goal. My goal was to get enough jobs to make money. My desperation was stronger than anything else. Maybe there was a natural talent to act in there somewhere, but it was mostly desperation. I’d always been confident. Articulate. I’d met some of the most famous and powerful people in the world, I’d been flawless in my interactions with them. But now, in front of Duke’s parents, I was a mute idiot.
To their credit, both were polite enough to ignore this and moved forward to greet me.
His mother smiled warmly, her gaze on Duke and his arm. “It’s so nice to meet you, Anastasia. I love you already since you brought my son home to me.”
And somehow, as quickly as I had been in Duke’s embrace, I was in his mother’s. She smelled like Chanel and the outdoors. She was warm, and a hugger, and I hated it.
I was not a hugger. I did not know how to give casual, genuine human affection. Nor did I know how to receive it.
I could fake it all day long. I could portray intimacy and love so well I’d made a fortune off it. Won awards for it. But that’s the only thing I could do—fake things. In LA, it served me well, because even when the cameras were turned off, no one wanted real.
This place, these people—even though they were strangers to me—were not fake. This was the furthest thing from it. It was impossible to be fake in the face of this kind of real.
So I stood awkwardly and stiffly in the hug until she let go. But she didn’t let all the way go; she held on to my upper arms in a strong grip and regarded me. “Now I could pretend I don’t know you from your movies, but I’m no bullshitter and I love them, so I’m not going to pretend. I am going to say, you are just as stunning in real life, if not more.” She paused. “Then again, it could be that beautiful blush you