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at her, their eyes locked. Trystan was completely screwed. He couldn’t hide it much longer, and telling her would only make it worse. Ironically, she was sitting there telling Trystan to confess, but she didn’t understand. She didn’t know it was her.
    Trying to put some distance between them, Trystan stretched and looked up at the ceiling. Mari’s gaze was burning a hole on the side of his face, but he’d kiss her if he looked at her again. His heart raced inside his chest. He couldn’t slow the frantic pace. She was too close.
    When he spoke, his voice caught in his throat, “If she realizes it, I won’t deny it, but I can’t tell her.” He managed not to look at her as he said it. He knew she had a puzzled look on her face, like she didn’t understand, especially since she could tell how miserable he was. Nothing slipped past Mari. At times Trystan thought she could see right through him, but right now she was blind. And he intended to keep things that way.
    The thought of her rejecting him after confessing how he felt about her made him feel sick. He couldn’t bear it. As it was, he could barely bear this. Thank God Mari didn’t date a lot. If she did, there’d be no way to hide his feelings. They’d come rushing out.
    Trystan looked at Mari again, resisting the urge to run his finger across her cheek. He blinked, clearing the thought from his head and sat up. “Come on,” he sighed. “Run lines with me. Help me forget about her for a while.”
    But running lines didn’t help him forget about her. When they started, Trystan was acting like his character, seeing his lost love. But as they got into it, as they headed toward the end of the act, all he could think about was Mari’s lips on his.
     
    CHAPTER 5
     
    ~MARI~
     
    Trystan knew his lines. He sat on the edge of the couch, facing me. Everything from the tone of his voice, to his inflections, to his expressions was perfect. Trystan had a way of looking at a girl that took her breath away. He used every skill he had in the scene, making it difficult to remember that it wasn’t real—that the words weren’t his. Before I knew what was happening, our eyes locked. Every muscle in my body tightened. While we were practicing, he moved closer to me. His knees faced mine. He was close enough to touch me, but he didn’t.
    Still running lines, he continued, “Then when I saw you again, I couldn’t believe it was you. I watched you that night, trying to get up the nerve to talk to you. After everything that happened, after everything ended the way it did, I—” he breathed in and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he lowered his lashes and looked up at me, “I couldn’t risk ruining that moment. But it was a mistake...”
    “ Why?” I said the line, unable to look away. My pulse was racing even though I knew it wasn’t real. Trystan was so intense, and when he looked at me like that it was impossible to notice anything but him.
    His eyes were dark as sapphires. They drifted to my cheek and a moment later, his hand was there touching me lightly. “Because it haunts me. Every moment of every day is filled with regret. I wonder if I said something, if we could have had another chance…” his voice trailed off. He brushed my cheek lightly with his thumb before pulling his hand away. Looking down, he breathed, “But I didn’t. I was a coward.”
    Our gazes locked, and Trystan was so close to my face that I felt the warmth of his breath on my lips. My voice barely came out, “If you had it to do over again, what would you do?”
    This was the spot where he messed up yesterday. The scene had no passion and he totally bumbled his lines. There was no connection with the actress. But today it felt so intense, so real. Heat flushed my body. I wondered what he would do, when he would stop. The scene ended with a kiss and Trystan didn’t break character. Instead he leaned closer to me, slowly, hesitantly. His lips were a breath from mine.
    He