For a moment, I almost smile.
That is, until the irritation comes barreling in.
She is here.
Willa is here, in Holly Ridge.
Apparently moving in.
Right next door.
I’m breathless.
I’m in awe.
I’m absolutely furious.
“Leo!” she says, moving my way. Her blonde ponytail sways from left to right as she walks in my direction. “I didn’t know you’d be here!” Her blonde hair is pulled into her signature neat ponytail, which she wears whenever she’s not on stage or at an event, but her eyes are brown rather than the captivatingblue magazines and tabloids talk about nonstop. She’s in a pair of shorts that are almost impossible to see beneath a worn, oversized Atlas Oaks T-shirt in a dark navy blue. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen her wear that color, but it suits her.
Or maybe it’s the genuine smile on her lips.
“Is this where you bought your house?” I continue to stare, unable to process her question before she continues.
“I can’t believe you’re also here! It’s like our own little crew is fleeing to Holly Ridge.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask, looking around.
“I came here to hide away for the summer.” Her words are filled with excitement, but all I can feel is dread.
I came here to escape, and now the exact life I’ve escaped has followed me here.
Even worse, it has to be fuckingWilla, a temptation who has always plagued me and a temptation I can never have.
“Why?” I ask, and she gives me another one of those stunning smiles, this one tinged in humor, before she explains.
“Well, I’ve been told I need to keep myself on the down low, and I was going stir crazy in my apartment. Adam suggested a change of scenery to deal with my—” She hesitates, the faintest blush blooming on her cheeks. “Boredom. I showed up yesterday, and Wren said she knew a place I could stay.”
“You came to Holly Ridge to avoid beingbored?”
Something crosses her face before it shifts behind her expert-level mask, gone as quickly as it came.
“Well, you told me I couldn’t be in the spotlight.”
Without meaning to, the stress-induced frustration breaks free from my normally cool demeanor, and I snap. “I meant go out to dinner without Jackie calling up the paparazzi, notmove.” There’s a momentary freeze, a shift that if I weren’t so frustrated, I might take better note of and ponder why she looks almost confused, but I’m not, so I don’t. “I meant stay away frompremieres. I meant don’t start dropping hints about your next fake relationship for a bit. I didnotmean to go to the small town; I came to avoid work, primarilyyou.”
It happens right before my eyes, in a devastating display of emotion on her face: the tentative excitement melting away and turning sour, a wall rising that I belatedly realize has always been there.
I don’t pay it any mind, continuing my accusations.
“Did Jefferson send you here?” I ask, trying to find an explanation for this, to understand what’s happening because fate can’t possibly have this fucked up a sense of humor, can it? To guide me to a small town to escape the stress of work, only to lead my biggest stressor right to my doorstep?
I’ve spent the last eight years maintaining a strictly professional relationship with Willa Stone and succeeding. I’ve done that for countless reasons, all of them sound and well-thought-out and incredibly important both for my career and my sanity, and yet here she is, standing toe to toe with me, confusion written clear across her face.
“What?”
“Jefferson. The owner of Perfect Image Publicity. My boss. Did he send you here? He knows I’m here, and he’s pissed I told you to take a break, pissed you’re my client and not his. Did he send you here to piss me off?”
“What? No. I don’t even know ifJackieknows I’m here.” A blush burns over her cheeks, and she bites her lip. “It was kind of a last-minute decision.”
