Hollywood and Ivy Sneak Peek!

I’ve been busy working on the second book in my Rich and Famous series which should be coming out around Thanksgiving time. It’s been so much fun to write so far and I’m excited to share the first two chapters of it with you today!

Chapter One

“The tree will be ready to decorate in just a few minutes,” my boss, Miss Hazel Burton said from behind me as I sat at the dining room table with my lunch, breaking me away from the social media feed that I’d been browsing through.

“Okay, I’ll be done with lunch in just a sec.” I glanced over to where Hazel was straightening the branches on the nine-foot artificial tree just a few feet away. 

We’d been working all week to get the bed-and-breakfast Hazel owned ready for the holiday season.

We’d already set up the Seaside Themed tree in the Cape Cod room this morning, and I’d finished decorating the tree in the Enchanted Forest room that I was staying in last night.

We just had the North Pole tree to set up today and then we’d be done with tree decorating for the year.

“Is that your old roommate Kate and her new baby?” Hazel asked after I went back to finishing my lunch.

I swallowed the bite of my grilled cheese sandwich. “Yeah. Isn’t he so cute?” I held my phone up so she could see the screen better.

“He’s adorable.” Hazel smiled.

I nodded. He was adorable—the perfect mixture of Kate and her husband Drew.

I scrolled through the rest of the newborn photos Kate had posted and tried not to think about the twinge of jealously that formed in my stomach as I thought about how lucky she was to have the perfect husband and baby while I was still single.

Not just single, but utterly single.

After I finished scrolling through the photos, I noticed that she had just shared the new trailer for the movie based on a screenplay she’d written.

Yes, my awesome roommate hadn’t only married the famous “Billionaire Bachelor”, Drew Burrows, but she also was becoming a famous screenwriter in her own right.

It was hard not to be jealous of her success when the gossip blog I’d created in college, that had once been thriving, was now as stale as the package of potato chips sitting in the backseat of my car. 

Sure, my life was much better now than it had been all growing up. But I just thought things would be different when I turned twenty-six. I thought I’d at least have my life a little more figured out by now.

I turned on the sound for Kate’s movie trailer and decided to focus on that instead of my failed dreams. On the screen was a man walking out of a foggy darkness. We could only see the bottom half of him at first. His black suit pants and jacket were tattered and dirty like he’d just been in a fight or disaster. But even with the disheveled look, I knew he was hot and trim. Kate always wrote her characters to be that way at least.

The camera panned up to the man’s torso. His dress shirt was ripped at just the right place for us to see that he must have a great upper body workout routine. But before I could drool too much over the actor’s abs or the perfectly sculpted chest, it moved up to his face.

And that’s when I choked on the sip of water I’d just swallowed.

Not because the guy was unattractive, but because for those few seconds I had allowed myself to be attracted to him!

How had Kate let this happen? How had she allowed the director to cast Justin Banks—the guy who had turned me into the laughing stock of my high school—as the lead in her movie?

Had she completely forgotten everything I’d told her about him?

I didn’t care if he was one of the most famous actors in the business or that almost every movie he starred in turned into an international blockbuster.

“She must have shared the wrong movie trailer,” I mumbled as I watched the character Justin was playing knock on the front door of a run-down house.

“Did you say something to me?” Hazel asked.

“No.” I shook my head and held up my phone for her to see what I was watching. “I’m just mumbling about my old roommate Kate.”

Hazel furrowed her brow like she still didn’t understand what I was talking about.

I sighed and paused the video. “You remember when I told you that Kate was having one of her screenplays turned into a movie?”

Hazel nodded. 

“Well, I thought she just wanted to be mysterious about who they had cast for the lead. I hadn’t realized she was actually just keeping it a secret because she knew how much I hate the actor.”

“Oh.” Hazel nodded as understanding showed on her face. “I’m guessing that Justin is starring in another movie?”

Justin.

She said his name like they were old friends. Like he wasn’t the guy who made me bawl my eyes out on the night that I should have been attending my senior prom.

Hazel must have seen my grimace because she said, “Do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive him? You graduated from high school so long ago. Don’t you think it’s time to move on? You know what they say…”

“That holding a grudge is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies?” I finished for her.

She may have said that quote to me once or twice before.

“I just wonder if there’s something we don’t know about that night.” She shrugged and finished straightening the branch she was working on. “Justin always seemed like such a sweetheart to me.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Yeah, well. I thought that too until he stood me up and made me feel like an idiot.”

All the girls at our small high school had told me I was crazy to drop hints about him taking me to the final dance of our senior year, but I hadn’t listened to them. Justin had always been kind to me, unlike all the other guys who had made fun of me for being forty pounds overweight.

When he did ask me to the dance, I’d thought that my dreams of having a high school boyfriend could possibly come true.

But he was just like every other guy at our school who made fun of the nerdy fat girl. He may not have said the insults out loud, but I’d gotten the message loud and clear. I wasn’t any boy’s type.

Well, if only Justin Banks could see me now.

It had taken a few years, and it had been one of the hardest things I’d ever done, but I’d finally shed all that extra weight during college. Sure, I had stretch marks here and there, but I looked pretty dang good if I didn’t say so myself. I was finally a healthy weight for my five-foot-nine-inch frame.

I’d even grown out my black hair and learned how to apply makeup to help compliment my new look.

Not that Justin would be that impressed. He did work with and date some of the most beautiful women in the world.

Plus, in order to see my transformation, he’d have to actually come back to Sutton Creek. And he hadn’t been back since we’d graduated high school. He was out of here and off to California almost as soon as they’d handed him his diploma.

“Are you about ready to grab the ornaments from the basement? Or would you like to finish your video first?” Hazel eyed my phone which was still paused on the image of Justin standing on the front porch of a house.

“No. I’m good.” I darkened the phone. “I’ll go get the North Pole ornaments from the basement.”

Justin didn’t need to be on my screen for a moment longer.

So after setting my dishes in the kitchen sink, I went to the basement of the inn and retrieved the box of Hazel’s special Christmas ornaments.

***

Decorating the tree took two hours with Hazel focusing on the lower half since she was barely over five-feet and me focusing on the upper half.

“Did the guy who reserved the whole place ever let you know what time we should expect him?” I asked Hazel, hooking a sparkly white bulb on a high branch.

When Hazel had told me about the odd reservation several months ago, I had been intrigued since we’d never had one person book the entire bed-and-breakfast before.

But when she’d told me that the reservation hadn’t indicated any other guests, I’d been confused.

What kind of person needs five rooms for himself?

Did he plan to store his luggage in the Cape Cod Room, take naps in the Island Paradise Room, shower in the Safari room and then alternate nights sleeping in the Victorian and Mediterranean rooms?

I’d tried looking him up online, to see if he looked as high maintenance as I imagined. But there were way too many guys named Tyler Smith for me to get very far in figuring the mystery guest out.

“Do you think he’s like a spy or something?” I asked, trying one of my theory’s out on Hazel. “Maybe he’s planning to swear us to silence and make sure no one ever knows he came to Sutton Creek on a top-secret mission.”

Hazel’s peach-colored lips quirked up into a half-smile. “That would be something, now wouldn’t it?”

But she said nothing else.

She had to be at least curious about this guy.

“Do you really not know anything about our mysterious guest?” I grabbed another ornament out of the box. “I mean, for all we know he could be some sort of serial killer and reserved the whole place to insure that no other guests are around to witness our murders.”

Hazel chuckled. “I think I’ll take my chances. I’m already seventy-five, I doubt anyone would see anything fun about killing an old woman.”

“She’s correct.” A deep voice said from behind us, startling the crap out of me. “I much prefer taking out my serial killer tendencies on people closer to my own age.”

I whipped my head around, my stomach jumping into my throat as I looked to see who had snuck into the inn without either of us noticing.

And in the next moment, I was gaping at the last person I ever imagined coming face to face with again.

I blinked my eyes a few times, not certain I wasn’t hallucinating. But when my eyes focused again, they saw a guy with the same tall frame, same chiseled jawline and same golden-brown eyes that I’d seen in Kate’s movie trailer at lunch.

It was indeed my biggest regret turned Hollywood royalty standing ten feet away.

Justin Banks

What the heck was he doing at The Sutton Creek Inn?

Was he lost on his way to his next filming location?

Really, really lost?

Chapter Two

“Justin!” Hazel called, her voice covered in warmth and excitement. “We weren’t expecting you for a couple more hours.”

Wait, what? 

The way she said it made it sound like she was more surprised about the time he arrived more than about him being the mysterious guest.

Had she known all along that it was him?

Had she just put some random guy’s name on the computer so I wouldn’t know Justin was coming?

When she went to hug him like he was an old, and welcome friend I wondered if I’d been transported to some alternate universe.

How could this be happening?

First, Kate betrayed me by not telling me he was starring in her movie and now Hazel was welcoming him back to Sutton Creek with open arms?

Did no one remember what he’d done to me?

Justin brushed the snow from his blond hair before bending over to embrace my short friend.

“I wanted to surprise you,” he said, pulling her into his arms like he too thought they were on a hugging basis. “I hope it was a good surprise.”

“It’s a wonderful surprise,” Hazel said, her voice muffled against his coat.

And all I could do was just stare, with my mouth hanging open, at the old woman hugging Hollywood’s golden-boy. 

Since when did Hazel and Justin even know each other?

Sure, I had dragged her to the spring play our senior year where Justin played the lead. And, yes, anyone who watched movies would know who Justin Banks was.

But that didn’t explain how Justin knew Hazel. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would randomly hang out with an older woman back when we were growing up. He hadn’t been a homeless eighteen-year-old in need of a job and a place to stay since she’d aged out of the foster care system halfway through her senior year like me. 

And it’s not like they were family. Hazel had never married or had any children of her own. I had been the closest thing to a daughter she’d ever had to my knowledge. So it wasn’t like he was a grandson or anything.

None of this added up.

When they pulled away from the hug, Hazel gestured to me with a smile. “And of course you must remember Ivy Evans.”

Justin’s gaze went from Hazel to me, his eyes scanning over me from head to toe. As he inspected me, my heart pounded in my chest. We hadn’t been face to face in so many years.

Did he even remember me?

I did looked different from the last time he’d been in town. My hair was longer, my skin was clearer and my body finally had the curves of an hourglass instead of the Pillsbury doughboy.

When he finished his slow scan and his eyes met mine again, there was a look of curiosity but not full-on recognition.

“It’s been a long time,” he said, rubbing his thumb and forefinger against his chin. “But I did know an Ivy Evans back in the day with dark hair.  Is it possible that the girl I graduated with turned into this beautiful woman in front of me who fantasizes about serial killers coming to the inn?”

I probably should have been flattered that he’d just called me beautiful, but the way he said it only reminded me of how unattractive he must have found me back in high school. And that just reminded me of my miserable senior prom all over again.

“Yes, we did go to high school together,” I said, my tone coming out icier than it should have as Hazel’s employee. “And while you may have overheard me talking about serial killers, I am not obsessed with them.”

“Sorry?” He held up his hands and gave me a look that told me he didn’t understand why I’d snapped at him. 

I wanted to say that if anyone in here was obsessed with serial killers, it would be him since he’d played one a couple of years ago.

But saying that would just make him think I was still obsessed with him and actually cared about his career.

Which I didn’t.

I just cared about movies. And he happened to be in too many of them.

Stupid natural talent and other-worldly good looks of his.

“Anyway,” Hazel said, breaking the awkward tension in the room. “I bet you’re worn out from the long day of traveling and would like to get settled in your room.”

“That would be great.” He looked back at Hazel with a grateful smile. “I do have some business to take care of later on so it would be nice to rest up before I go.”

“Ivy?” Hazel looked back to me. “Will you please help our guest get checked in and find his room?”

What? Me?

“I, um…” My mouth went dry as I tried to think of a way out of this. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather help him? You two seem like you have a lot of catching up to do.”

Hazel shook her head. “I have a doctor’s appointment that I need to be getting to. So if you could take care of our guest that would be wonderful.”

She had another doctor’s appointment? Hadn’t she just gone last week?

Was she just making stuff up to force Justin and me together?

She had made that whole comment at lunch about how I needed to get over my grudge. Was this her way of forcing that?

“You’ve checked in hundreds of guests before,” Hazel said when I didn’t make a move to help. “The tree will still be there for you to decorate later.”

Well, I guess I didn’t have a choice then, did I?

I hung the snowman ornament in my hand on the branch nearest me and smoothed my palms along my jeans. 

Then in my most professional voice, I said, “Let’s get you checked in then, Mr. Banks.”

I strode past him quickly, eager to get this over with. This was Hazel’s inn and Justin was paying good money to stay for the week. I wouldn’t give him a reason to leave a bad review or ask for a refund so he could stay with our competition across the street.

Justin grabbed the handle of his luggage and followed me. Once I was behind the desk, I pulled up the page that showed his reservation information.

“Let’s see if we can find the right room for you to rest in,” I said, my fingers shaking as I worked on the computer.

Stupid nerves.

“That would be great.” He grabbed a lollipop from the basket on the counter. “Mind if I take one?” he asked in his smooth voice.

“Have as many as you like.”

And even though I knew better, my cheeks warmed when I glanced up at him. 

Up close and in person he was somehow even better looking than I’d remembered. I’d always loved his eyes—the golden brown color had always been my Achilles heel. But there was something about the way they looked today that caught me off guard. I didn’t know if it was because I’d just expected them to be dimmed or jaded looking after his years in Hollywood, but they were just as striking as ever. He still looked like he had the same magnetic personality that he’d always had.

He took the wrapper off the lollipop and I forced my gaze back to the screen. But when he seemed to look for a place to throw his wrapper away, I held out my hand and said, “I can throw that away for you.”

“I can see you’re a mind reader.” His lips quirked up into a half-smile as he placed the wrapper in my palm. And as my fingers curled around the wrapper, I tried not to notice the zap of electricity that shot through me with his brief touch.

I tossed the wrapper into the wastebasket at my feet and finished bringing up his check-in information.

“I see that Hazel put all of your information in wrong. Was that her idea or yours to use the name Tyler Smith?”

He pulled the sucker out of his mouth. “That was actually me.” He smiled, showing his perfectly straight teeth. “I didn’t want you to get too excited about seeing me again.”

“Since you barely remembered me and probably had no idea that I was working here.” I raised my eyebrows, not about to flirt with him.

He shrugged. “Fine, so maybe I didn’t know you worked here. But I do remember you.”

“Then I’m guessing that means you also haven’t forgotten why I probably won’t be asking for your autograph?”

He looked down and swallowed, his face ashen. When he spoke, his voice was lower than it had been a moment ago. “So I’m guessing you still haven’t forgiven me for that night then?”

“I’m surprised you remember,” I said.

I went back to typing on the screen, pretending like I wasn’t that interested in what he had to say about it. When really, everything inside me suddenly went on high alert as it hoped to finally have the answers I’d been waiting for eight years.

“It’s not likely that I’ll ever forget that night,” he finally said.

I waited for him to say more. To apologize or at least tell me why he’d done what he’d done. But he just put the sucker back in his mouth and pulled out his credit card.

Which I guess shouldn’t be too surprising. He hadn’t been able to give me any sort of reason for why he’d stood me up that night so long ago, he wouldn’t have any better answers today.

It was simple. I had been delusional to think he might have liked me. But in reality, he had only said yes to play a prank on the fat girl.

At least he’d looked a little remorseful about it. That was probably as much of an apology that I’d ever get.

I told him the total for his stay and swiped his card through the card reader. Then when the paperwork had printed, I handed him a pen. “If you could just sign here at the bottom, then I can show you to your rooms.”

He took the pen from my fingers, this time careful not to touch me. Once that was all taken care of I pulled out the drawer where we kept all the room keys.

“Would you like the keys to all the rooms now, or do you just want one for the room you’ll be resting in this afternoon?”

“All the keys?” He furrowed his brow. “I’ll only be needing one room.”

I looked back at the booking. Had the system made a mistake? Were we actually underbooked and needing to fill the rest of the rooms?

I checked the screen again.

“Is something wrong?” Justin asked.

I bit my lip and looked back at him. “Our system says you reserved all our rooms. But that can’t be right.”

“Oh, no that’s right.”

“It is?” I asked, relief filling me.

“I reserved the whole place so I could have some privacy.” There was a tiredness in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before. “I didn’t want the paparazzi getting tips about my whereabouts.” 

“So no one will know about your intent to murder Hazel and me in our sleep?”

A slight smile showed on his lips and his eyes brightened a bit. “That’s exactly it.”

“I thought so.”

And despite myself, I smiled for a second because the back and forth reminded me of how we’d always bantered in high school.

“Do you have a room with a king-sized bed that faces west?” He asked, bringing me back to the present.

“The Safari Room would fit that description.”

“Perfect. I’ll sleep in there.”

So with that settled, I grabbed the key with the tiger key chain. “I’ll show you to your room.” 

As I stepped up the dark wood staircase, I briefly wondered why he specifically needed a king-sized bed if he was the only person staying in the room. Sure he was tall and muscular, but a queen-sized bed should have given him plenty of space to sleep.

He’d said he’d reserved all the rooms because he wanted privacy. Was he planning to do something here that he didn’t want the media knowing about?

An image of one of the tabloid articles I’d read at Lucy’s supermarket popped into my head. He was in the tabloids with a different girl every other week. Was he hoping to have a week-long fling while he was in Sutton Creek? Hannah Olsen, the girl he’d broken up with before the senior prom had just split with her fiancé. Maybe seeing her was his reason for coming home?

That would make quite the story.

If only my gossip blog was still going. This would be the exact type of story that my readers would have eaten up. And I’d be the first one with the inside scoop.

Plus, getting my own little revenge on Justin would be fun.

“Is this it?” Justin’s voice broke me from my thoughts. He was nodding toward the dark wood door that I’d just walked past with a placard that read “African Safari” on it.

“Yes, that’s it.” My cheeks heated as I turned back toward the door.

“Let me guess,” he said, his eyes bright with mischief. “You were trying to test me to see if I could read, right?”

“Sure.” My cheeks burned even more. “We’ll go with that.”

And before I could do something else that would make him think I was missing a few too many brain cells, I stepped between him and the door and turned the key in the lock.

“So, this is the room.” I stepped inside. Along the wall to the right was a beautiful four-poster bed with sheer, white curtains tied to the bedposts like the beds I imagined people stayed on when on an African Safari. The bed rested on a gorgeous zebra-striped rug that Hazel had gotten an amazing deal on at an estate sale last summer when she was updating the room.

The room had a very light and airy feel to it, with lots of whites and light browns. There were only a few decorations in the room that helped it feel more open and roomy. And the tree I’d decorated yesterday with elephants, lions, and giraffes sat in a corner, bringing a nice cozy feel to the room.

I looked to Justin to gauge his reaction to Hazel’s interior decorating. Did he think it was quaint since he was probably used to staying in high-end suites at the most expensive hotels in the world?

Or could he appreciate the attention to detail that Hazel had taken while creating her masterpiece?

It relieved me to see a smile on his lips when I searched his face. “This room is awesome,” Justin said. He rolled his blue suitcase in the rest of the way and set it on the luggage rack near the bathroom. “Are all the rooms decorated like this?”

“They all have different themes. But yes, Hazel made each of them unique and doesn’t have the highest-rated bed-and-breakfast in Sutton Creek for nothing,” I said, proud that even The Sutton Creek Inn could impress a rich star like him.

“I might have to look at those other rooms I reserved then.” He shrugged out of his coat, revealing a nicely fitting maroon sweater that clung to his chest and shoulders.

Dang, for all his faults, he knew how to wear a sweater.

When he turned back to me after hanging his coat in the closet I snapped my attention back to the task at hand.

“Anyway, I’ll just leave the key here for you.” I set the key on the hook by the door. “The bathroom should have fresh towels and anything else you might need. We usually serve breakfast from seven to ten, but since you are the only guest here this week, we can just have it ready whenever you like.”

“Since I’m on vacation I’d like to sleep in, so can we go with nine for breakfast?”

I nodded. “Nine o’clock it is.”

I paused, trying to think if there was anything else I had missed.

When nothing else came to mind, I said, “Anyway, I hope you enjoy your stay at The Sutton Creek Inn and if you need anything else, just let me know.”

“Thank you, Ivy,” he said. And I knew I’d deny it if anyone ever asked me, but a few butterflies fluttered in my stomach at the way he said my name. Like he remembered me and our friendship hadn’t been all pretend on his part.

I grabbed the door handle and stepped backward to leave him alone. “Enjoy your rest. I’m sure I’ll see you later.”

He nodded. “I’ll look forward to it.” And when I let myself meet his gaze, it actually looked like he meant those words.

So before I could say anything that would ruin the brief truce we’d seem to come to, I closed his door and walked back down the stairs to finish decorating the Christmas Tree.

As long as we kept our interactions to a minimum, I might just survive this week with Justin sleeping one door away from me.

Want to find out what happens next? Grab your copy here!