Free Mandy Makes Her Mark by Ruby Laska Page A

guess I took him by surprise. Thanks for watching him for me. Although you might not need to watch him quite so closely .”
    Tad finally seemed to regain the use of his muscles, staggering to his feet. “What the hell are you doing here?”
    â€œOh, baby, I thought you’d be surprised,” Luna pouted, jutting out a hip and posing with her head tilted prettily.
    â€œI’m surprised all right. Since you said you never wanted to see me again.”
    â€œOh, that. I was a little miffed, that’s all. But I’ve had time to think about it. We just needed to give each other a little space. I’m ready to try again, aren’t you? Compromise, communication, blah blah blah – I’m game if you are, baby.” As if to show just how game she was, Luna smoothed the shirred silk over her hips. Mandy recognized the dress, a sample from the Donatello line Luna had shot in Milan three weeks ago. Its neck was so low-cut, and its skirt so short, that it had had to be taped to her skin for the shoot. Mandy idly wondered how Luna had managed to get it to stay on this evening even as she watched her fleeting bliss shatter into a thousand bits.
    Tad wasn’t what she’d thought. He was a man with dreams, and hopes, and plans, a man of depth, a man who’d actually noticed her. He’d somehow seen beyond the walls she’d put up, into who she was on the inside. And for one brief, glorious moment Mandy had truly thought they might make it work.
    But now, her sister was standing in front of her, displaying all the reasons why her hopes for a future with Tad were nothing but a doomed fantasy. Some of those reasons were on full display and others were draped in silk and coated with makeup, but the bottom line was that Mandy would never be able to compete with the glamor her sister could summon without even breaking a sweat.
    â€œI’ll leave you two to talk,” Mandy said stiffly. “Early shoot, and so forth.”
    â€œOh yes. How was that, anyway?” Luna asked, taking her place on the bench, practically sitting in Tad’s lap. Mandy noticed that he didn’t exactly protest, even when Luna slid her arms around his neck with the sinuous movements of a python. “Did everything go all right?”
    No thanks to you , Mandy thought. But out loud, all she said was, “We managed.” Lark would probably reject every shot, but Mandy wasn’t about to give her sister the satisfaction of knowing about the disaster with Jayde and her last-minute substitution. Perhaps Tad would fill her in later, after they had their reunion and made up from their lovers’ quarrel.
    Already the things that Tad had confided seemed like a dream. He was never meant to be a screenwriter, she was never meant to be a model, and they were never meant to be together. And now Luna had arrived to set things back to normal.
    Mandy was already a dozen yards down the path when she heard Tad call her name. Amanda .
    Then she heard her sister’s laughter. No one calls her that .
    Mandy brushed angrily at the tears dampening her eyes, and broke into a run.
    No one called her by her real name. And no one was coming after her.

CHAPTER NINE
    Morning arrived much too early. Mandy had taken three of the nighttime pain relievers she kept in her travel bag for emergencies. Usually one of the pills was enough to make up for time zones differences and nervous episodes, but this was one night when she didn’t want to take any chances. She couldn’t bear to replay the scene in the rose garden one more time.
    Now, however, with her phone alarm ringing on the nightstand and pink dawn light streaming through the plantation shutters, it all came rushing back to her. “Tad,” she whispered, her throat dry and her voice cracking. He’d been hers, for a span of moments. And now that he’d been ripped from her once again, it was too late to go back to pretending that she didn’t