Seven Minutes In Heaven Read online

  Because each day that went by meant she was one day closer to her wedding.

  I should call it off. She thought that every night, when she tossed and turned, sweating, half-sleeping, and smacking her tongue against the dry roof of her mouth. She often awoke naked, because she had stripped her clothes off in the middle of the night and pitched them across the hot room.

  The morning of her audition, she woke up wanting to hurl.

  “No breakfast, thanks,” she said to her family’s cook. “I’m afraid I’ll vomit all over the casting directors if I even look at a cup of yogurt.”

  “Oh, my,” the cook said. “You really don’t look good, Ms. Finn. You sure you’re all right? I hear the flu is going around.”

  “I’m fine.” She had to be. This audition was too important to miss or fuck up. She would have to put on her big girl stockings and drive to the audition with a mind over matter attitude that kept her food – and bile – in her stomach.

  She arrived fifteen minutes early. The producers and casting directors were still in session with the actress scheduled before her. Claire filled out the last of her paperwork and sat down in the waiting room, going over the lines one more time.

  Nope. That rumble in her stomach had her storming down the bathroom door, in time for her to unleash last night’s dinner all over the porcelain throne.

  “Ms. Finn?” the casting agency’s secretary called from the waiting room. “Are you all right? Should I call someone?”

  “No!” Claire braced herself against the toilet as another wave of nausea controlled her nervous system. And digestive system. And probably the skeletal system, if given the chance. “I’m fine! Be right out!”

  The nausea left as soon as she finished purging. Claire cleaned everything up before going back into the waiting room and touching up her makeup so she didn’t look like a wraith.

  It was certainly a first. While Claire had her share of butterflies before auditions, throwing up was on another level of sad. Makes sense, I suppose. She had a lot on her mind. The wedding, her career, the strange familial dynamics about to clock her in the side of the head once she was legally related to Jake…

  God, Jake…

  The last person she should be thinking about right now! Talk about a renewed wave of nausea! Claire held her head between her hands and tried to block out the memory of Jake Carter kissing and touching her as if she were the sweetest morsel to cross his lips.

  She popped a mint five seconds before she was called into the other room. The actress who had auditioned before her gave her a little wave and wished her luck. How old is she? Twenty? Is she even old enough to drink? That was the kind of body only twenty-year-olds could get away with. Claire had been fighting the battle of the twenty-five-year-old bulge for the past several months. Her personal trainer and nutritionist both told her she would be lucky to ever see another carb again.

  “Ms. Finn?”

  Scott Lee, the head casting director for the film, motioned for her to enter the room. Claire patted down her hair and straightened out her dress before entering.

  More people here this time. The table was filled with people. Casting people, producers, the director of the film… half of them were people Claire had met during the first round of auditions. The others were newcomers.

  Except for one.

  There, sitting on the far end of the table with a label that said “SCREENWRITER,” was Jake.

  Chapter 6

  Oh, my God. Do I say anything? Claire stared at him, gobsmacked. She didn’t recall seeing the name Carter anywhere on the production company’s roster!

  Maybe she was seeing things. She had thrown up, after all. Maybe it hadn’t been nerves. The flu? Why not have a hallucination right before her audition?

  “Uh, hi…” Claire ignored Jake and focused her attention on Scott. They nodded to one another before Claire gave the shakiest wave she could manage. “Thank you so much for calling me back for the second round. I’m looking forward to showing you what I can do.”

  “Pleasure to have you, Claire.” Scott briefly introduced the other people at the table, including Jake, who desperately avoided eye contact with his future stepmother. He must have known I was auditioning… why is he here? Did he really write the lines I’ve been memorizing for the past month? Unlikely. It may have been his story, or he might have typed down the final words in the script, but most major motion pictures went through at least three or five different hands before the final draft was produced. Okay, so this isn’t major, and he’s known for writing indie films, but… really?

  A man tapped her on the shoulder. She realized that she had been spacing through the introductions and totally missed the male lead ready to begin the chemistry test with her.

  “Oh!” Claire placed her purse and sweater down on a chair and shook the actor’s hand. Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes? She recognized Wes from a few other movies that had come out over the years. He was the kind of hot, semi-talented actor who was casted for his growing star power more than his ability to win awards for his acting skills. I mean, he is hot. Look at him. Chiseled chest in a V-neck, cleanly shaven face, and a coif of jet-black hair that made him look more rugged than he would ever be. Don’t know about you, Wes, but I think we have some chemistry here.

  Claire glanced at Jake, who had his nose deep in his script.

  “Claire Finn.” She offered him a genial grin. “Looking forward to it, Wes.”

  “Are you Ronald Finn’s kid?”

  “His granddaughter.”

  “Damn. This is Hollywood royalty here, Scott!”

  Scott smiled. “Let’s start with the meet-cute outside of the mechanic’s. I know it’s hard to pretend when he looks like this right now, Claire, but pretend Wes is covered in car grease and wearing baggy overalls that haven’t been washed in a month.”

  “Remember,” the director jumped in, “you’re a spoiled heiress who would never give Wes a second look on the street. He’s repulsive.”

  “Thanks,” Wes said, garnering a few chuckles in the room.

  They got into position as soon as a casting assistant pointed to a chair meant to be Claire’s car. She pretended to drive it while Wes tossed a plastic wrench into the air and looked as aloof as possible.

  “Go,” the director said.

  Claire spent ten seconds pretending to be fed up with her tampered car. The script said that a female rival of Claire’s had fucked with her car so she would be late to a soiree. Like I don’t know how to act like a pissed off heiress! Claire merely had to tap into her own childhood experiences going to private school in Beverly Hills and dealing with the other children of Hollywood royalty. Gag! If nothing else, she would nail the character.

  Could she nail the male lead?

  Since she wasn’t in an actual car, Claire had to pantomime getting out and slamming the nonexistent door shut. That stuff’s added by Foley later, anyway! She played up her foot-stomping, shawl-tossing, and tantrum-throwing while whipping off her sunglasses and marching up to Wes and his plastic wrench.

  “Are you the mechanic?”

  He stopped playing with the wrench, looked past her, and eyeballed Claire’s chair. “Are you the one with a broken-down car?”

  “There’s something wrong with it. There’s something wrong with everything!” Boy, wasn’t that the truth? Claire could already feel the second wave of nausea ready to ruin her day. “Can you fix it? I don’t care how much it costs, I…”

  Wes shoved her out of his way. “Is that a 1973 Corvette?”

  “I guess. I don’t know. Who cares? Can you fix it?”

  “Who… cares? Lady!” Wes’s soap opera bit parts came out in full force when he looked like he had been personally offended by Claire’s betrayal. “This is a delicate machine that must be taken good care of. Doncha get it? You’re up here driving it like it’s your common car!”

  “Can you fix it?” she demanded through gritted teeth.

  “You’ll need to
fix your attitude before I can do anything for you.”

  They had a small face-off, Claire’s nauseated countenance going up against Wes’s furrowed brows.

  “Cut!” the director called. “That was good. Now let’s see the first kiss scene.”

  That was the news that finally got Jake sitting up at his end of the table. “Is that really necessary?” he asked the director. “We can figure out their chemistry from the first two scenes.”

  “Are you kidding? That was the deciding factor for the last…”

  “It’s not necessary,” Jake reiterated.

  “Hey, Jake,” Scott piped up, “just because she’s your dad’s fiancée doesn’t mean she gets out of kissing in a movie that calls for it.”

  Wes held up his hands. “Whoa, wait? You’re Arthur Carter’s woman?”

  “I’m not anyone’s woman, thank you very much.” Claire crossed her arms. “I’m perfectly capable of handling a kissing scene. I think Arthur would understand that this is a part of the job. I mean, we all know he’s wining and dining starlets at all hours of the day, don’t we? You dare to tell me I can’t kiss for my job?”

  The room fell silent. The one woman on the panel looked around as if she hadn’t believed what came out of Claire’s mouth.

  “No, I suppose not,” Jake said. “I wrote the kiss, after all. If my father has a problem with it, he can take it up for me.”

  We need to talk, Jake. Claire wished she could say that. Yet when she slyly asked to see a copy of the script to check who wrote it, she encountered the name “J. Dominguez.” Wasn’t Dominguez his mother’s maiden name? Damnit. A pen name! Foiled again by the various names men and women in the industry used.

  “I’m ready,” Claire informed the panel. She turned to Wes and said, “Don’t worry. Nobody’s gonna kick your ass because you kissed me in front of these nice people.”

  “Let’s take it from the top of the scene,” the director said.

  Wes blew air into his cheeks; Claire prepped herself for a kiss scene. Glad I popped that mint. Not so glad that she still felt like shit. She had hoped that the nerves would have abated now that she had a read of the room, but… no such luck. It must have been Jake’s presence that made her feel so shitty.

  The director counted down to begin the scene.

  “Look here, Andy!” Claire threw herself right into it, jamming her finger into Wes’s chest. “I’m not playing your games any longer. Do you like me or not? Because I’m not spending every night of the rest of my life wondering if we have something going on here. Do you hear me? Because I refuse… I refuse!” The fake waterworks began. Think of your dead cat from childhood, Claire. That usually did the trick. Tears fell down Claire’s cheeks as she sobbed in frustration. “I’m willing to give up everything for you! I don’t care about the money or my family’s connections, if it means I can be with you for the rest of my life! Well? What do you have to say about that? Are you going to say anything at all?”

  Wes hesitated. This isn’t in the script… The character Andy was supposed kiss Claire right away.

  “For the love of God, do it…” she murmured. Then, louder, “Are you going to say anything at all, Andy?”

  “I ain’t got anything to say,” Wes finally said. “Not when you never listen to my words.”

  Claire was pulled into Wes’s arms and kissed with such ferocity that she almost forgot where she was, what she was doing, and how the hell she ended up kissing one of the biggest up and coming stars in Hollywood. He didn’t go for the tongue, but the intent was there. It didn’t help that half a dozen people studied them and took notes. This was the kind of kiss that could make or break her career.

  So, she kissed him back. For the sake of her career – and because she knew Arthur wouldn’t give a shit.

  What she didn’t intend, however, was for Jake to give a shit.

  “We got it, thanks,” he said. “You can stop now.”

  Claire clasped her hands on Wes’s cheeks. Not because she was so enthralled with this man’s kiss, but because she was afraid to move.

  She was on the verge of vomiting again.

  It was Wes’s damned aftershave. Something about it was so unappealing, so unnatural that it dragged up the nausea and threatened to spew.

  “Cut!” the director called.

  Wes tried to pull away. Claire clung to him, attempting to muffle a harried cry that said it was dangerous for him to move.

  She lost the battle. As soon as Wes got his way and turned around, Claire unleashed the small bit of vomit that had burst up her esophagus and demanded attention.

  At least it didn’t get on Wes? The floor was much easier to clean up, even if she had lost every bit of shame she had in front of the casting panel.

  “Wow.” Scott turned around, attempting not to laugh. “You do realize this is a romance, right, Claire? Not a teen horror film?”

  She stared at the puddle of vomit in front of her and wiped her mouth, mortified.

  Chapter 7

  “You know what?” Jake splashed more water on Claire’s face before wiping his hand with a paper towel. “I’ve seen way worse auditions. One time an actress straight-up shat herself in front of us. That doesn’t count all the ones who come in high out of their minds.”

  Claire groaned into her sweater, wadded up in her hands and offering to suffocate her so she didn’t have to deal with the cruel world. “So embarrassing! It was going well, too, right?”

  Jake offered her a clean towel. She begrudgingly took it. “It wasn’t bad.”

  Claire furrowed her brows. “You’re kidding me, right? I killed it.”

  “Yeah, it wasn’t bad. You were better than the girl before you.”

  “Really?”

  “Didn’t you say you killed it? Before the barf, anyway.” Jake gestured to the bathroom door. “You’re not sick, are you?”

  “No idea. I felt fine until this morning. I thought it was nervous butterflies because of the audition, but then I threw up twice. That only happens if I get a stomach bug.”

  Jake kept his distance from her.

  “Very funny.” Claire dabbed her face with the towel and sighed. “Thanks for helping, though. No idea what I would have done if you hadn’t jumped in like that.”

  “Continued to look like a barf bag, I guess. Are you ready?”

  “In a bit…” Claire was still reeling from the embarrassment. She slid down the bathroom wall and buried her face in her sweater again. Jake didn’t leave, but he also didn’t offer to hug, pat, or console her. Sometimes, another person’s presence was the only thing necessary.

  She had almost been more mortified by Jake jumping up from the panel to come help her than throwing up. Wes was not going to help her. Scott was on the phone with a custodian to come take care of it. The movie director shook his head, and the woman on the panel texted something, body turned away from the scene. Jake insisted on taking her to the bathroom to clean her up and find out what was wrong. Nobody had questioned it, for the same reasons nobody had questioned them stealing away at the engagement party.

  “You’ll be okay.” Jake leaned against the wall. “Like I said, this is far from the worst I’ve seen. So what if you’re sick? If they liked how you tested well enough, they’ll give you a second chance.”

  “Thought you had something to do with the decision.” Claire snorted. Damn. It still hurt to snort. “Otherwise, why the hell are you here?”

  “Because I wrote the script and am one of the co-producers under one of my subsidiaries.” He shrugged. “They invited me to be on the panel, and I admit… I wanted to see how you tested after I saw your name on the shortlist. Congrats, by the way. I can assure you that neither my father nor I had anything to do with it.”

  Claire sighed again. “Were you shocked to see me here?”

  “Shocked? No. Slightly irritated? A bit.”

  “Irritated? What have I done to you?”

  He shot her a cold look. Oh, right.

 
; “Seems I can’t escape you, Claire Finn.”

  “The bathroom door’s right there.”

  “Are you going to be okay?” Ah, yes, she had given him the perfect opportunity to change the subject. “Because I can give you a lift home if you want.”

  “I’m fine.” Most of the nausea had finally left Claire’s body. “I’m starving, though. I haven’t eaten a damn thing today because I felt so gross.”

  “I could tell. That was pretty liquidy barf.”

  “Oh my God, you’re gonna make me vomit again.”

  “Tell you what…” Jake helped her off the bathroom floor, his soft hands warm and strong as he guided Claire toward the door. Damn you for being so comfortable, Jacob Carter. “Why don’t you come back to my place? It’s only ten minutes away. I’ll order us some lunch and you can decompress before going home.”

  “Don’t you have to do the other auditions?”

  “There’s only one more, and she couldn’t come in until later this afternoon. C’mon. I have some time to kill.”

  “But…” Claire hesitated. “Do you think we should?”

  “I don’t know, Claire.” He squeezed her hand in his. “Do you think we should? It’s an invitation to lunch. Nothing more.”

  It didn’t feel like nothing more when her hand sweated so much in his grasp. “I don’t know…” she bit her lip. “I really should get home.”

  “Well, okay…” Jake released her. “Okay.”

  He said it with such finality, that it was as if he released Claire from both his mind and heart. Don’t tell me he has feelings for me… Oh, no. That would make Thanksgiving dinners even weirder! Don’t be in love with me, Jake. It’s one thing if you have the hots for me after what happened at the party, but love? No, no, Claire was overthinking this. She needed to back off. Take stock. What the fuck ever.

  Yet how could she swear that when a man who looked as concerned as him turned his back on her? Let alone with such resolution that she could feel his oath radiating from his heart?