Sighing, I shove the final piece of luggage into the back of the SUV and slam the door. “I know it doesn’t make sense, he just… Knowing he’s in the same town is comforting.” Even if he never loved me the way I loved him, he was my refuge and home when I was desperate to escape the outside world and its invasive attention.
“Okay. If you say so. I still think you should at least consider it. Don’t you still have his number saved in your phone?”
I do. Even after all these years, I can’t bring myself to delete it. “There’s no way he still has the same number he had when we were eighteen. I’m sure he’s had to change it several times, the same way I have. And he’s not simply related to a famous person, he’s famous in his own right.”
“Yeah, but you know your parents could hook you up with his current number if you wanted them to. Didn’t you say they always loved him?”
“They did.”
“Then ask. It’s the least they could do after throwing you into the shitstorm of their divorce and sex tape.” Lola pins me with her bestyou should listen to me because I know everythinglook as we climb into the car and buckle up. To her credit, she usually is right, but not this time.
“I know it may seem like I have a humiliation kink after my last couple of relationships, but I can assure you I don’t.” The soft hum of the wheels moving over the road fills the car, drowning out some of my quieter, more persistent thoughts. “Now, let’s stop somewhere for giant coffees because this is going to be a very long few days of driving.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me. Why can’t we fly, again?”
“Because we don’t want to have to rent a car for months.”
“I still think we should have made your parents pay for first-class flights and a rental car. Call it compensation for pain and suffering.” Lola grins at me and waggles her eyebrows.
And this is why I asked her to come with me. No one else can get me out of my head the way Lola Pierce can. And if I have any hope of finishing this current book and getting it to my publisher on time, I’ll need to stay out of my head. Stress does not help my creativity.
“I’ll treat us to massages when we get there and send them the bill.”
“Hell yeah,” she says, cheering. “Two hours minimum.”
I laugh. Full and loud and freer than I’ve laughed in months. “Deal.”
We should have flown.
“The knots in my back have knots.” Lola presses on her hips as she stretches her back, arching it to relieve the ache I know she must be feeling because I am too.
“Yeah, that was a very long drive.” Understatement. Why the hell is the US so big? We spread our drive out over four days, so we weren’t driving for ten hours at a time, but they were still long days.
I look around the neighborhood in Loring Park where our short-term rental is located. Cute houses line the snow-covered streets, and despite the skeletal barrenness of the trees, I can tell it will be beautiful when everything is in bloom. “We may have to stay here forever. We’re Minnesotans, now.”
“Girl, no. I am not built for this,” Lola says, her nose scrunched up as she waddles across the sidewalk, afraid to slip, even though it’s been shoveled and salted. “I thought snow was supposed to be pretty?”
I laugh because she looks so disgusted. But she’s also not wrong. The snow along the street is gray and grimy-looking, and the stuff on the grass is patchy and not nearly as fluffy as you’d expect. “It probably is when it’s fresh. I’m just glad we didn’t have to drive through it.”
“Me too. Now let’s get all of this unloaded, then find a Chinese restaurant that will deliver.”
We unload our suitcases and stack them in the entryway of the cute little two-bedroom house we’re staying in. It’s a short-term rental, so it’s fully furnished, and the owner knows we’re planning to stay for three months but may want to extend. There’s no way I’m going back to LA until everything blows over.
The house is a little bungalow with hardwood floors, tall ceilings, a small but well-laid-out kitchen, and a fireplace framed by large built-in bookshelves. The paint colors are light and airy—pale creams, light sages, and dove grays—and I’m happy to see that it’s as nice in person as it looked in the listing photos. I shouldn’t have any trouble writing here. And even if I do, there are plenty of coffee shops and public spaces close by.
And none of those spaces will have paparazzi hiding in the shrubs, waiting to harass anyone who may spark even the slightest amount of public interest. Even if that person is only the daughter of a couple of movie stars, who is otherwise uninteresting.
Luckily, my publishers have honored my need to keep my pen name anonymous. They don’t love it, and with every new release, they try to get me to change my mind and go on book tours, but I won’t budge. I don’t want anyone claiming my success as an author has anything to do with who my parents are. It’s already difficult to get widespread respect as a romance author, simply because so many people love to look down on romance as a genre. The last thing I need is to have my parents’ sex tape brought into the conversation.
To the paparazzi and media, I’m just the chubby, single, painfully average twenty-eight-year-old daughter of two über-famous actors. I don’t love it, but it’s better than them finding out I’m also the writer, Violet Quinn, who writes smutty contemporary romances that feature heroines much stronger and more interesting than I could ever hope to be.
Lola is the only one who knows my secret pen name. I never told Ryland or even my parents. They know I’m a writer, but they don’t know the scope of my success, and it’s easy to hide when my parents insist on paying for the bulk of my bills.
With Ryland, I never thought he’d be impressed or supportive. He was too focused on his own stuff. My parentswould be supportive, but it’s impossible not to compare my success with theirs, and while my books do well, I’m not a household name. Not the way they are.
I simply want my successes to be mine.
After we stuff ourselves with Chinese food, Lola pulls out her laptop and starts Googling. “We’re going to do something fun every day. You’ve spent too long cooped up because you’re afraid of being noticed. That’s not something you’ll have to worry about here.”
