Nine Months to Redeem Him by Jennie Lucas

Author:Jennie Lucas
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

“WOW. YOU’RE NOT looking so great.”

The girl sitting beside me on one of the plastic chairs lining the hallway had a concerned look on her beautifully made-up face.

“I’m fine,” I replied, trying to breathe slowly, fervently trying to believe it. It had been two months since we’d arrived in London, and I’d felt strangely queasy, almost from the day we’d arrived here. I’d thought it was from fear, and also the guilt of lying to Edward about how I actually spent my days. But today, I’d finally faced my fear. For the first time, I was actually forcing myself to stay through an audition, rather than chickening out and fleeing for Trafalgar Square like a safely anonymous tourist.

For an hour, I’d sat here in the hallway, practicing my lines in my head and waiting for them to call my name. Shouldn’t the queasy feeling have gone away?

Instead, it had only increased as I waited backstage at a small, prestigious West End theater, surrounded by beautiful, professional-looking actors, who were loudly practicing their lines and doing elocution exercises, and taking no notice of me whatsoever. Except for the American girl sitting next to me.

“Are you feeling sick?” she asked now.

“Just nerves,” I said weakly.

“You look like you ate a bad curry. Or else it’s the flu.” Wrinkling her nose, she leaned away from me ever so slightly. “My sister looked like that the first three months she was pregnant....”

“I’m fine,” I repeated sharply, then swallowed, my head falling back as another wave of nausea went through me.

So much for my acting skills. Clearly not fooled, the girl looked nervously from side to side. “Oh. Good. Well. Um... Please excuse me. I have to practice my lines...over there.”

Getting up, she left in a hurry, as if she’d found herself sitting next to Typhoid Mary. I couldn’t blame her, because I felt perilously close to throwing up. Leaning my head against the wall, I closed my eyes and tried to breathe. I was so close to auditioning now. In a moment, they would call my name. I would speak my lines on the stage.

Then the casting agents would tell me that I sucked. It would be hideous and soul-crushing but at least I could slink home afterward and no longer be lying when I told Edward that while he was working eighteen-hour days at his office in Canary Wharf, I’d spent the day pursuing my dreams.

Just a few minutes more, and it would be over. I tried to breathe. They would probably cut me off halfway through my lines, in fact, and tell me I was too fat/thin/old/young/wrong, or just dismiss me with a curt Thank you. All I needed to do was speak a few lines and...

My lines. My eyes flew open as I slapped my hand on my forehead. What were my lines? I’d practiced them for two days, practiced them in the shower and as I walked through the barren garden behind Edward’s lavish Kensington townhouse. I knew those lines by heart.

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