Free Unmasked (New Adult Romance) (The Unmasked Series) by Anya Karin Page A

always be worse."
    Alyssa lifted her shirt halfway off when a
momentary panic shook her.
    "What if he does look though? What if he's really
thin and svelte and wants someone like that? What if – what if he isn't coming
here for you at all? What if it's just a job offer or something. Won't you feel
like a jackass, getting all gussied up?"
    She turned back to the mirror and smoothed her
shirt down on the front of her thighs, then down the sides.
    "You just said 'gussied', Alyssa," she couldn't
help but laugh, "are you Granny Barton now?"
    Across the room she opened the baggie in which she
kept her necklaces and selected one she'd always thought was interesting, but
hadn't worn much, a big thing with a large, tear-drop shaped tiger's eye for a
pendant. At least she thought it was a tiger's eye. She never was too sure
about that.
    The stone's fat bottom hung an inch above her
cleavage and when she pushed her breasts together, she laughed at herself
again. "If nothing else, Alyssa, you got these to be proud of." She grinned.
"Bret always liked 'em. Even if he never got to see 'em."
    She was done. Everything in place, as much
self-doubt as possible buried. Alyssa looked herself up and down, trying to
find things to criticize.
    "Hair sucks."
    The pony tail holder flew across the room and she
grabbed a brush, furiously working to remove the kink where the rubber band
squeezed. Carefully crafting locks of hair to fall on either side of her face
and frame it, she pulled the rest back. Even in her present, half-panicked
state, Alyssa couldn't find anything else to obsess over.
    Checking her watch, she saw that eight o clock was
creeping up quick. Only three minutes left, maybe four. It was hard to tell.
    She sat down on the end of her bed, for the first
time in about four hours, and let out a long, excited exhale.
    "What the hell are you so worked up for?" She
said, not able to help the grin that was plastered across her face. Just
smiling like that made her feel good. "He might just be here to offer you an
odd job, thinking you need the money like dad does."
    Somehow, she doubted it.
    Her thoughts drifted back to those days in the
forest, and the old man who taught her about mushrooms. Even though she knew
now who he was, back then she had no idea. Every so often, she and Libby or
another of her friends went out to that little patch of forest, and rarely –
maybe once every ten or twenty trips – they'd see him. He'd always smile really
big, wander over and give them each a few of the mushrooms he'd collected and
check all of theirs to make sure they never made any dangerous mistakes.
    "Gotta be careful about these things," he said.
"Even though they're fun...guys!" And then he laughed at his own joke. Every
time was the same, he told the same joke. Strange thing about that old man,
thinking back on it, he never said his name, and never seemed dirty or
anything. She shrugged it off with a smirk and let her thoughts turn back to
Preston.
    When she looked up at that window each time she
got brave enough to come out of the forest and sneak a peek at the mansion, she
hoped he'd be there. A time or two, he actually was. Tall, slender, she
imagined him to be beautiful – if that was actually Preston at all.
    "It had to be him," she told herself, "it just had
to be. Who else could it have been? Who else would stand in a window like that
except a bored guy hoping to see something exciting? And it must be boring to
live in a place like that. After a while anyway, if the stuff my dad says is
true about him never leaving the place. I just don't know though. Maybe it
wasn't."
    She sighed, and scrunched her nose, and looked at
the clock on the nightstand.
    Seven fifty-nine.
    Alyssa took a deep breath and looked down to see
her hands shaking a little.
    "You are a mess!" She laughed. "Everything's going
to be just fine. Really. Worst thing that happens is a guy doesn't like you.
Who cares? The end of the world, it ain't."
    "Alyssa! Someone's here