As if on cue, Preston turns to bestow on me the most sensual smile known to mankind. The man should really come with a warning label plastered across his forehead before he gives some poor old lady a stroke.
“Sir?” A high pitched voice interrupts my thoughts as I squint to see whose is addressing Preston as “sir”. Wincing, I see it’s one of the girls from the lobby. She has on a bikini which looks like it’s been shrunk three times before being worn, and her eyes are hidden by too big sunglasses. She’s chewing her gum so hard that my jaw hurts, and to top it all off, she’s looking at Preston like he is Brad Pitt. Which, maybe according to this girl, he is.
“Yes?” Preston asks dumbfounded.
“Can I have your autograph?”
“My autograph?” He asks, looking back at her.
She nods her head and smiles, “Well, both of you guys’ autographs. I swear, nobody is going to believe me when I tell them!”
“Tell them what, exactly?” I ask. Now I’m curious. Who does she think we are?
She shrugs and answers as if we’re the slow ones. “That I met Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie on vacation. So where are your kids? Are they, like, back in the states?” We are in the states, is what I want to say, but I can’t, because that would make Angelina Jolie look bad, not me.
“You think we’re–” I begin to say, but Preston cuts me off.
“Sure thing! Do you have a marker, pen, or something?” Preston asks looking at the girl with indulgent eyes.
“Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it. This is like so cool.” She pops her gum as she pulls out a sharpie then hands us headshots of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Now I see why she thought he was Brad Pitt. The picture is one from his last movie where he dyed his hair dark, no wonder she thinks he looks like Brad Pitt, the resemblance is almost creepy. While I’m not built like Angelina Jolie, a girl could get used to being compared to her.
Signing my—or rather Angelina’s name, I say a silent prayer that I’m not doing anything illegal. Preston smiles as she runs away, probably rushing to tell her friends. Then to my horror I realize she’s pointing at us and talking rather loudly to the hotel staff. Well, maybe they’ll upgrade us.
I shake my head in disbelief as I look to Preston. He just smiles and nods as if to say, “yeah I get that a lot”. Wow, humility is his strong suit; or not.
“You need to be brought down a few levels.” Snorting, I open up my magazine and try not to be violent toward his arrogant smirk.
Preston leans over close to my chair. “Are you offering?”
I meet his gaze, yet all I can think is how he’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen up close.
“Did you have plastic surgery? Because you know you can only do so much to the outside, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.” Wow, if that isn’t me channeling Grandma Ned. I feel like a Sunday school teacher.
“Aw, you’re too sweet. You mean you’d like me just based on my personality?”
“No!” I yell a little too loud. “Your personality is narcissistic and selfish.” I shake my head and wonder when this guy will get a clue.
He grabs my hand and begins caressing the top of it. I tell my body to pull my hand away, but instead it just stays there; even my own body is a traitor. “Challenge—”
“If you say accepted, I’m throwing you in the pool,” I snap.
“Okay.” He shrugs.
Leaning back in my chair, I close my eyes then I feel the sun being blocked from my body. As I pull off my sunglasses, I see Preston hovering over me like a lion does to a zebra before it pounces.
He leans in too close for comfort and whispers, “Accepted.”
I throw down my magazine and lunge for him. Unfortunately, I’m quite small, and compared to him, I never stood a chance. But being the good sport he is, he decides to jump in after he pushes me into the pool. Then I notice a few cameras go off, and to my ultimate embarrassment, I realize people still think we’re stupid celebrities. Please, Lord, help this not make the papers.
Bringing myself back to reality, I grab a towel before lying down again. “Exactly what,” I ask as I towel dry my hair, “have you accepted as a challenge?”
“To woo you.” Preston answers without looking in my direction.
“Woo me?” I repeat. This ought to be good.
“Yes woo, as in I’m going to knock you off your feet. I can tell this whole witty banter thing going on between us isn’t enough for you. My, my, you are needy. So I’ll also woo you. You’ll be begging for me to kiss you by the end of this trip.”
“Overconfident?” I laugh.
“Not at all.” He smiles.
“There you guys are!” A female voice exclaims.
I look up to see Brad and Kristin approaching. Giving them a weak wave, I take off my sunglasses to fully glare at my best friend. She owes me coffee for life, then again I do get to stare at Mr. December for the rest of the week, so it won’t be too bad. Except he infuriates me and makes me want to cut off parts of him and feed them to Mrs. Butterworth. At least I didn’t say that out loud.
Kristin mouths a “Sorry” my way before sitting next to me. “You’ll never believe what we heard.” Her voice is high pitched and airy, it’s obviously good news.
“What?” I ask equally excited.
“Get this!” Her hands are in front of my face as she tries to show me with her body just how big of a deal this news is. “Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are staying at our hotel.” She puts her hands over her mouth in shock as my eyes widen in something entirely different.
Preston is the first to break the silence. “You don’t say? How do you know?” He’s now looking directly at me with a smugness that is so irritating I need to push him in the pool, again.
“Well,” Brad interrupts. “We heard they were out here just a bit ago signing autographs. Some teenage girl is running around the hotel showing everyone. I think she might've even called the local news, I can’t be sure though. She was talking way too fast.”
Almost choking on my spit, I try to digest the information. “So, reporters might be coming?” I croak out as I glare at Preston again. He shrugs his shoulders as if to say “no big deal.”
“Yeah, but I mean, I’m sure they are going to hear about it and switch hotels. We just thought we could catch a glimpse of them before they took off.” Brad puts his hand on Kristin’s knee and smiles.
“Hey.” he looks back toward us. “You guys didn’t happen to see them, did you?”
Just as I open my mouth to reply, Preston covers it with his hand.
“Nope,” Preston lies. “I did hear they were going to make an appearance at the same restaurant as us tonight though.”
My breathing becomes rapid as the understanding of what he’s saying becomes painfully clear. We aren’t going to dinner as Preston and Amanda. We’re going as Brad and Angelina.
Kristin and Brad exchange shocked looks as I mumble under my breath, “Challenge accepted.” And to my surprise I see Preston’s face light up into the most gorgeous smile I’ve ever seen. Maybe this isn’t such a bad idea after all.
Chapter Eleven
No way, I’m not wearing that! This I’m thinking to myself as my hand trails down the rough fabric of the dress. Preston had gone shopping earlier, and unbeknownst to me bought an Angelina lookalike dress. He did a pretty good job. The black leather dress somehow looks classy, and the neckline isn’t too low, but the slit up the side isn’t as modest. People could almost see up my dress.
“You ready yet?” Preston calls as he knocks on my bedroom door. My heart is pounding out of my chest. We lied to Kristin and Brad. We told them we were too tired to go to dinner, and they were more than excited to have a dinner date on their own. The plan is to wear sunglasses throughout the night so nobody suspects anything different. It should work, considering we’re eating so early.
I put on the dress and look in the mirror. It’s shocking how much I can resemble Angelina. She’s a lot taller, she also has tattoos, which Preston is convinced he can draw on me with a sharpie, we’ll see about that. But I could easily pass for her shorter twin. Oddly, this is something I’ve never noticed before today.
All in all, I feel like I look all right. I do my makeup as best I can and put on the strappy high heels Preston bought with the dress. As I open my bedroom door, I gasp. I’m face to face with Brad Pitt, and I don’t mean he kind of resembles Brad Pitt. No, he’s full on channeling celebrity right now. He’s done his hair in a sloppy fashion, let his five o clock shadow grow a little on his face, and don’t even get me started on the tan. He’s wearing a khaki suit resembling something I saw on Ocean's Eleven and is now holding his hand out for me.
Why am I shaking? There’s no way I’m going to be able to do this, let alone look at him all evening without letting my jaw drop. He has me do a little twirl before he smiles and kisses me on the cheek. My tongue goes numb, therefore speech isn’t an option right now.
He breaks the silence “You look absolutely stunning.” And I think he means it because there’s no smugness behind his eyes, but there’s something else I can’t identify.
“Stop overanalyzing me and sit down,” Preston says, breaking the moment.
I roll my eyes and sit. “What are you doing?” I ask as he pulls out a sharpie. There's a brief glimmer of hope that perhaps he had forgotten about the tattoos I needed to carry off the disguise.
“She,” he says as the sharpie touches my skin, “only has two visible tattoos when she wears dresses like this.”
I roll my eyes. “How would you know?”
“TMZ,” he answers before finishing off the first tattoo.
“I think I underestimated you.” I shake my head.
“You always have,” he says wistfully before starting on the next tattoo. Although I hate to admit it, this does feel kind of fun. He puts the sharpie down and looks at my slit. He lets out a big sigh before letting his hand run on the inside part of my knee. It makes me want to jump on him, and I don’t know why. Sometimes he has that effect on me; either I want to kill him, or I want to steal his virtue. That can’t be a good sign.
“What’s wrong?” Assuming he must think I look terrible or he wouldn’t have such an upset look on his face.
Preston leaves the room then returns within seconds with my heart.
Kidding, it’s actually a needle and thread, but close enough.
“We can’t have you walking around like that,” he points to the slit and begins sewing the top part of it down to make it less revealing.
“What do you mean?” My words sound a little choppy since his touch makes me so nervous.
“I mean.” His voice is now more intense. “I don’t want other men lusting after you tonight, or undressing you with their eyes, so I’m going to remedy the situation.” He finishes the last stitch and ties a knot.