Also by Delancey Stewart
Mr. Match
Scoring a Soulmate, a Mr. Match Novella
Singletree
Happily Ever His
Happily Ever Hers
Shaking the Sleigh
Second Chance Spring
Falling Into Forever
Watch for more at Delancey Stewart’s site.
Happily Ever His
Singletree, Book One
Delancey Stewart
Prologue
Ryan
I’ll say this here because it’s important.
I’m not the kind of guy who believes in fairy tales. Or happy endings, unless they’re in the movies. That’s just not the way my life has gone.
I’m the action hero, the guy who takes the role and does his own stunts, the hard-working actor who just hasn’t quite managed to get his star to stick. But I’m working on it. Because honestly? I need the money.
Of course, most of the public remembers me for my role in an epic television drama called Charade of Stones. And after the writers wrecked the whole series in one fiery ending episode full of rampaging elephants and flying monkeys? Well, I was still getting questions about that.
Flying monkeys, for fuck’s sake.
But actors don’t write the shows. You know that right?
I was scrapping to make it in Hollywood, doing whatever it took. That’s why I never thought I’d find the role I’d been made for so far away from the Sunset Strip. And I never thought real life would be the most important role I’d ever play.
And I definitely never believed in love at first sight.
Until I saw Tess Manchester.
Chapter One
Ryan
A voice rang out as I stepped into the terminal at LAX with my arm wrapped around the waist of America’s most famous movie star. “How long have you two been seeing each other, Ryan?”
Here we went.
Juliet Manchester pressed herself against my chest, her arms around me lightly, turning to me to smile up into my face and laugh as if she didn’t have a care in the world. At this moment, I was Mr. It. I was the guy almost every red-blooded American man wanted to be. And maybe the only guy who didn’t care much about being here. I was doing this because I was supposed to. It was a job.
“Juliet! Juliet!” The assembled reporters and photographers called out to us as we turned and made our way through the terminal.
Juliet’s hand snaked down to my butt and she pulled me to a stop again, her other hand coming to my chest. She looked up at me, blinking the big blue eyes and turning up her pert little nose, her lips in a pout.
Man, she was good at this.
I glanced around at the cameras, and angled my head in for a kiss.
Hell, that was why I was here, after all. I met her lips with mine as flashes lit the terminal area. Our carry-on bags made the embrace awkward, but I did the best I could to make it authentic. Juliet played her part too, her hand gripping my butt as she pushed herself into me. It probably looked pretty hot. I hoped it did at least. We were actors, weren’t we?
I mean, I was a struggling actor maybe, but I hoped that said less about my talent and more about my opportunities so far. And this right here? This was an opportunity. I needed to maximize it, no matter how wrong it might feel on a human level.
I hoisted my bag to my shoulder, freeing my arm, pulled her small frame closer to me and moved my lips softly against hers, deepening the kiss after a moment. When her tongue met mine, I braced myself for the explosive sparks I was expecting—not that I’d ever made out with Juliet before—we’d actually barely had coffee together. We made that one movie, of course, which was how we ended up here.
I wouldn’t say I’d made out with lots of women either, but I’d been with enough to know what I liked. And I generally liked kissing. A lot. But Juliet and I were new at this, and there was a fair bit of external pressure—considering the mob surrounding us and the hard-eyed security guard at my back, the one who never let Juliet out of his sight.
It was important to make this kiss searingly hot. Blazing. But it wasn’t working, and I worried it might be obvious.
My body—all the parts of my body—stayed nonchalantly relaxed, evidently unaware that I had one of the hottest women in America in my embrace. I gave a soft nip to Juliet’s bottom lip and felt her soften in my arms, and . . . there it was. That did it. Not a rocketing surge of excitement, but at least I had confirmation that I wasn’t actually dead.
And I guess that was something I already knew about myself. For me, it was usually less about what I wanted and more about making someone else happy. Not just in sex—in life. But when a woman showed me I was making her happy? That was the Holy Grail for me.
Still, Juliet might have made me believe I was having an effect on her, but she was also one hell of an actress. And it didn’t matter what I believed. What mattered was what this rabid crowd of paparazzi thought.
“One more for the cameras!” Someone called as we broke apart.
Juliet stood on her tiptoes to nuzzle against my ear as the crowd hooted.
“You’re doing great,” she murmured. “There hasn’t been a single question about my divorce. Grab my boob.”
“Grab your …?” Shock pumped through me.
She tilted her head back and pressed harder into me, and instinct led me to plant a lingering kiss on the column of her throat as my hand found her breast through the thin sweater she wore. She lifted her head to meet my mouth again as my thumb brushed across the upright pebble of her nipple, flashes lighting the stale airport air around us.
If this didn’t convince the cameras, reporters, and random tourists we were a hot new item for them to examine, inspect, and tear apart, then nothing would. This was some of the best acting of my career.
A little part of me wished I did have a thing for Juliet, though if I were actually hoping for an actual relationship, I might be more upset by the ironclad terms of the contract I’d signed with her, stating that this entanglement would extend only through the duration of this weekend getaway with the potential for a short extension on the other side as deemed necessary by Juliet’s “people.”
Finally, she stepped back and smiled at me, and I got an up-close demonstration of why Juliet Manchester was considered America’s hottest young actress.
She was good.
Her face was flushed, and those green eyes sparkled as she shot me a look that could have been read by others to mean we’d shared secrets and whispers, late night trysts and early morning snuggles.
If I’d seen only the look, I’d almost have believed she was interested in me, except I was the one she’d been kissing, and I knew better.
“We’ve got a plane to catch,” she called to the crowd, pulling me along next to the two burly security guards whose job it was to see us to the plane and beyond.
We pressed through the crowd and checked in. Once we were at the gate, I looked at her as she looped her arm through mine. “I thought the whole point of taking the late flight was to avoid the cameras. You tipped them off, didn’t you?”
“My agent did,” she confirmed. “You’re doing great.” She leaned her head into my shoulder and then looked up at me again. “That grope will be all over the Internet by the time we land. We just need to keep it convincing through the next couple days, and we’re both golden.”
Golden. Right. So why did this all feel so wrong?
Chapter Two
Tess
“How was the movie, my love?” Gran swiveled her head to greet me as I came in and dropped my keys into the bowl on the table next to the door. I crossed the room, planted a kiss on her cheek and slid into the chair across from hers with a sigh
.
“Juliet’s famous for a reason.” I shrugged. I’d never get used to watching my big sister on the theater screen, but there was no question her star had risen and was continuing its meteoric upswing. “The movie was cute, and sappy, and a little bit predictable. But it was good.”
Gran made a face, her nose wrinkling and her brows lowering behind her round glasses. “Sounds about right.”
I wasn’t about to tell Gran about the other video I’d seen Juliet in tonight, the one where Ryan McDonnell was groping her breast in the airport. Gran was no prude—the opposite really. Letting Gran in on that little nugget would only lead to her demanding I pull up the clip and play it for her. And then we’d be analyzing it, Gran critiquing Ryan’s kissing prowess and speculating about his abilities in other areas. I wasn’t up for it tonight.
Personally, I thought it was a little much, especially considering my sister’s divorce wasn’t yet final. And because Ryan McDonnell was my all-time movie-star crush, and I was pretty sure I’d confessed that to Juliet before.
She could have anyone she wanted … the whiny jealous little sister part of me wondered why it had to be him.
Gran clucked at my assessment of my sister’s acting. “I told her I’d go see one of her films when she gets to carry a gun and kick some ass.”
I grinned at her and sighed. “She does mostly romcoms, Gran.” She had done one pretty serious film—it had gotten an Oscar nomination, even. But most of Juliet’s movies were light.
“Maybe it’d improve the plots if she had a gun in one of ‘em.” This comment was followed by a cackle and a snort. “Or some kinky sex!”
I thought again about the airport grope video. If Gran wanted to see Juliet having sex, that was probably about as close as she’d get. Also, ew.
“I’ll tell her you said so.” I laughed. Gran never bothered to disguise her thoughts, no matter the topic. And she liked movies with explosions and sex. It was part of her charm.
“You better not tell her.” Gran’s faux-angry expression changed to a quizzical look, her soft wrinkled face softening beneath the trucker cap she wore pulled over her curly white hair. It said “I’m Fancy” on it. I had no idea where she’d gotten it.
“I still don’t understand why you like going on your own to the show, Tess. Why not find a friend to go? What about Tony? He’s always had a thing for you, hasn’t he?” Her eyes searched mine.
“Which is a really good reason not to go to a movie with him.” Tony was a friend. Nothing more.
I thought she’d given up suggesting that movies were made for dates. In the small town where we lived, there weren’t many prospects for me, and I wasn’t really looking, anyway. “I like going alone. I don’t feel any pressure to react a certain way and I don’t have to share snacks.” I leaned my elbow on the arm of the chair, dropping my chin into my hand. “I actually really like being alone. I guess that makes me weird.”
“Makes you lonely.”
I sat up straight. “Why? Are you lonely?”
She shook her head. “I’ve got you, don’t I? And don’t forget Chessy.” At the sound of her name, Gran’s house chicken let out a squawk from the little dog bed at Gran’s feet.
I rolled my eyes at the chicken and then smiled at Gran. “And I’ve got you.”
“Tess, I hate to point out the obvious, but there’s an expiration date on that deal.” Gran was turning ninety, but I didn’t like her to remind me of her mortality. When she was gone, I definitely would feel alone. Since I’d moved back in to look out for her, she was kind of my world. Gran and my job. And I was fine with that, though I guess that made me pretty unusual in the under-thirty set. Most of the friends I’d had in school had moved north to DC or Baltimore, and most of those who’d stayed here had two or three kids by now.
“Don’t talk like that, Gran. You’re only ninety.”
“Not yet, I’m not!” She reminded me. “Not until Saturday.”
“True. Well, I guess you can give Juliet your thoughts about her recent roles in person. She’s on her way, according to the Internet.” Most people learned of family travel plans via email or text. My sister mentioned offhandedly that she would “try to make a flight” a week or so ago, sent a one-line email saying she was working on it yesterday, and then starred in a tabloid video at LAX, confirming she was flying tonight.
“I miss that girl,” Gran said, in one of her fleeting sentimental moments.
“It will be nice to have her here for the party,” I agreed. But my mind was turning around other questions. Like, if that video was her on her way here, did that mean Ryan McDonnell was coming too? Or did they bump into each other at the airport? Juliet was barely rid of her losery husband. It was hard to believe she’d have moved on already.
“Did anyone else call to RSVP?” I asked Gran. “And did the caterer call?”
“Maybe.” She lifted a shoulder and I stifled my irritation. Gran had a bad habit of pretending to be deaf when the phone rang. It wasn’t that she couldn’t hear it ring, or that she didn’t know how to answer it. She just preferred not to, especially if she was gaming. She also made a stink about the fact we still had a house phone, telling me repeatedly how archaic it made us seem. She did everything on her smartphone and prided herself on how technologically ahead she was of the rest of the old folks she knew.
Gran was her own woman, that was sure. She wasn’t like any other almost-ninety granny I knew, though I didn’t know many.
I frowned at her, her veiny thin hand resting on the enormous ball of her gaming mouse. Everything in front of her glowed in neon green or blue, except the screen, where her warrior elf was standing, shifting her cartoon weight and waiting for Gran to come back to the game. “How long have you been online today, Gran?”
My grandmother turned back toward me with a guilty expression before swinging her head back to the enormous screen before her. “Not very long.”
I waited. She always confessed if I stayed quiet.
“What time did you go to work this morning?” She asked, already sounding guilty.
“Nine o’clock.” I’d gone off to teach my morning stand up paddleboard yoga class on the bay, and had been out most of the day since then.
“So …” Gran drew out the word as if she was doing math in her head, figuring out how long she’d been playing World of Warcraft. “So, only since then.”
“Gran!” I stood up, trying to remember that as ridiculous as she could be, Gran was a grownup and I didn’t need to lecture her about being irresponsible or lazy. “Did you remember to eat?” It was almost bedtime already.
Another shrug.
“Oh my God, log off right now.”
“I’ve got a guild raid in ten minutes. I’ll log off after.”
“Gran, the last raid took three hours.”
“Now you understand why I’m online for so long.” She said this as if I’d just answered my own question and should now be fine with the fact that she’d been playing Warcraft for twelve hours today.
“You remember what the doctor said last week. If it’s getting in the way of you eating, you have to stop.”
She didn’t reply.
“Gran.”
Still no answer.
I didn’t like to threaten her, but there had to be a limit to how much online gaming was healthy for an almost-ninety year old woman. Right? “I’ll get the Internet shut off.”
“Tess.” She turned in her chair and gave me a frank look, her blue eyes watery and pale but clear and lucid as ever. “It’s my house.”
“That’s low.”
“If you make some dinner, I promise to log off and eat with you. Especially if you bring me a Manhattan first.”
I sighed. So what if my grandmother had a teensy gaming addiction? And an affinity for rye whiskey? She was old. She’d earned it.
And it didn’t seem so bad, really. If I wasn’t going to be the marrying type, wasn’t going to raise a family, maybe I should look more closely at ge
tting into gaming. I tried not to hear the little voice in my head that reminded me that Gran had gotten married and had her family long before she became a whiskey-drinking online-gaming old woman.
I went to the kitchen to find something quick for a late dinner and to make Gran’s drink, staring out the window over the water of the Potomac sparkling in the moonlight as I ran water into the pot for pasta.
I was definitely not expecting the doorbell to ring at this hour, and it pulled me from my late-night dinner prep ruminations.
“Gran did you order something?” I called back to the office as I dried my hands and went to the front door. Gran didn’t answer but a raucous bout of flapping and nasal-pitched bawking came from the parlor as Chessy went scrambling for the door.
“Chessy, back,” I told her, earning me a beady-eyed glare from the fat hen, who nevertheless took a claw-footed step away from the door.
I peered out the side pane of the door onto the porch, surprised to see two extremely large men in black shirts standing outside.
“Gran,” I called, taking a few steps back to where she was undoubtedly immersed in her raid by now. “Gran, did you order football players?”
“Can’t hear you,” she called, indicating clearly that she could hear me fine. “Gun’s in the hall table drawer,” she added.
I hated it when she got that thing out, but part of me thought it wasn’t the worst idea. We were two women living alone on an isolated piece of land in an old and probably not completely secure house. I pulled the handgun from the drawer with a shiver and went back to the door. It was almost ten PM. Not the time of day when I enjoyed meeting huge visitors.
“Can I help you?” I called through the door, still not opening it.
“Juliet Manchester’s security team. Here to check the property in preparation for her arrival.” The voice that came back was deep and resonant. And a little bit scary. And super serious.
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