Page 41 of My Three Billionaire Rockstars

Dylan: Don’t ignore me, Gabe. We need to talk. You know that as well as I do.

I stop, not because of the message itself, but because of what sits underneath it. He knows. Or at least he suspects.

Gabe: Not now.

The three dots appear immediately, then disappear before the next message comes through.

Dylan: Come on, this is ridiculous.

My jaw tightens, just a fraction.

I lock the screen again, ending the conversation without replying, and slip the phone into my pocket as I continue down the stairs.

And then I stop, mid-step, because standing in the entrance hall, as if she’s taken a wrong turn into someone else’s life, is Willow Jameson.

She’s holding a delivery bag, staring around the estate with confusion dancing in her eyes, her attention catching on the high ceilings, the open space, the glass walls that reveal more rooms beyond, equipment, movement, people, understanding settling in piece by piece.

Then her eyes find mine.

And everything else drops out.

Hazel. Piercing. Alive in a way that cuts straight through the controlled environment around us. She doesn’t belong here… or maybe she belongs more than anything else.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she mutters.

SEVEN

Willow

Of course.

Of course the men half the town has been gossiping about are living at Hawthorne House.

I’ve heard the rumors for weeks. Everybody has. The old estate sold. Renovations happening day and night. Expensive equipment deliveries. Strange SUVs coming and going at all hours. Redemption Falls has basically treated the whole thing like a community conspiracy theory with better landscaping.

But hearing about it and standing in the middle of it are very different experiences.

I stand in the entrance of the estate with four takeout bags cutting angry red lines into my fingers and try very hard not to look as stunned as I feel.

This isn’t going well.

The drive up here should’ve been my first clue.

Nobody in Redemption Falls has a driveway that long unless they’re either old money, new money, or hiding bodies. The iron gates at the front were already enough to make me roll my eyes.

I remember this place from when I was a kid, back when people still called it Hawthorne House in that half-whispering way small towns do when a building gets old enough to collect rumors.

It used to look haunted from the outside. Not in a charming Halloween way, either. In a peeling paint, rotting porch, maybe there’s a woman in white upstairs kind of way. Now it looks like a magazine spread for rich people who want to “disconnect” while still having six bathrooms and imported stone floors.

I stand here in my diner apron with a pen tucked behind one ear, staring at Gabe Stockton on the staircase like maybe if I blink hard enough, he’ll turn into literally anyone else.

He doesn’t.

He just stands there halfway down the sweeping front stairs, one hand resting lightly on the banister, looking maddeningly composed in a dark button down with the sleeves pushed up. His blond hair is still unfairly perfect, his expression still calm in that deeply unsettling way that makes it feel like he’s already had three thoughts about me before I’ve even managed one coherent one about him.

His eyes move over me once, quick but thorough.

Then they flick to the bags in my hands.