Jay Crownover LLC.
www.jaycrownover.com
Copyright © 2020 by Jay Crownover
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.
A letter of copyright has been applied for through the Library of Congress.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Jay Crownover LLC 1670 E. Cheyenne Mnt. Blvd. Box #152, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80906.
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Cover design done by the incomparable Hang Le
Source: istockphoto.com
Credit: Ranta Images
Stock photo ID: 943267908 “Portrait Of Tattooed Young Man stock photo”
Credit: jm1366
Stock photo ID: 1067044670 “Empty abstract concrete room”
Editing and Formatting by: Elaine York, Allusion Publishing
Copyediting by: Bethany Salminen, Bethany Edits
About A Righteous Man
Author's Note
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
Coming Soon
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Other Books by Jay Crownover
Salinger Dolan.
You know his name.
You’ve seen his face.
You’ve spent money on the endless amount of useless crap he endorses.
Of course, you’ve heard the stories.
You know the ones…
The one that claimed he was hard to work with and totally unprofessional on set.
The one where he got caught doing drugs on the set of the most popular, family-friendly show in America.
The one where he ruined the reputation—and career—of America’s sweetheart.
There’s more truth to those stories than his fans want to believe because Salinger is the kind of thoughtless, careless, dangerous Hollywood bad boy the paparazzi and fame-hungry starlets can’t get enough of.
Eventually, the shine of his flashy lifestyle started to fade, and Salinger realized the only thing he’s famous for nowadays is his bad behavior and well-documented struggle with addiction.
The former golden boy is beyond tarnished, and the only person who can help him get his glow back is the one woman who wants absolutely nothing to do with him.
Maren Copeland.
You might recall her name.
It’s possible you vaguely remember her face.
You’re probably wondering where she went. After all, you’ve heard the stories…
The one where she exposed Salinger Dolan’s drug use all those years ago.
The one that said she tried to ruin his career because she was envious of his popularity.
The one about how she went from being everyone’s favorite to a pariah overnight.
Maren Copeland is now known as the comeback queen. After years of hard work and purposely avoiding entanglements with problematic heartthrobs like her first co-star, she’s on track to revitalize her career and rearrange her priorities after a very messy and very public divorce.
For the first time in both her professional and personal life, she’s the one calling all the shots.
Unfortunately, the path to get her where she wants to be leads directly to none other than Salinger Dolan.
He’s the one and the only person she swore she would never work with again.
Once upon a time, he cost her everything. He’s back to make amends and promised to give her anything she wants if she’ll just give him a chance to prove he’s grown up.
She doesn’t trust him.
She knows she’d be a fool to believe he’s changed.
After all, what are the odds that a spoiled, entitled brat like Salinger Dolan could become a righteous man?
Dedicated to those of us who are definitely old enough to know better about most things. And to those of us who are young enough at heart not to care.
Helloooooo....
I feel like it has been FOREVER since I got to sit down and write a little blurb for one of my books.
Everything in 2020 has been harder, longer, more arduous than normal. For me, that meant both reading and writing. I couldn’t find my flow with anything this year.
Usually, by winter, I’ve released anywhere from three to five books through self-publishing and traditional methods. That is the pace I’ve always been comfortable with, but in 2020, when I tell you it was a true struggle to get one book done and published, I really, really mean it.
I had a plan to write this super gothic, emotionally intense romance centered around revenge gone very wrong, but I could never find my footing.
Then one day, I was watching the movie Murder by Numbers starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Gosling, and I remembered the rumor that they were dating during filming. They have great chemistry in the movie, and I found myself intrigued, partly because of their age difference, but more so by the fact that it’s always an older man with a younger woman in romance, and rarely an older woman with a younger man.
Same thing with Kate Beckinsale and her trail of younger man friends. She’s one of the most beautiful women in the world and is drawn to these young, tattooed dudes, which you know I approve of. (Full disclosure: I heart Pete Davidson’s weird, quirky self, so I was rooting for him to hold onto her longer than he did.)
I knew what I wanted to write out of the blue, and it wasn’t something deep and dark or full of angst.
I wanted to write a slick, sexy contemporary that would be a great escape not only for me, but for my readers.
I wanted to write something fun and flirty.
Something that would make readers feel good.
The shift was magical, and for the first time in a rough few months, I felt like myself again.
I may go back to the revenge-gone-wrong because I tend to favor the things I have to work the hardest for, just like most of my characters do. I appreciate all the challenges I have to face on this miraculous journey.
And just a little aside because I keep seeing it pop up in both reviews and reader conversations: this story is set pre-COVID but keeps pace with reality.
When I was writing, it was super weird to have big events on the page and scenes set in restaurants and bars since that hasn’t been our reality for so long. Especially since most of this book takes place in California. But the story does move us into modern times, very briefly, so I tried to be respectful of that without going overboard.
I hope this book helps you escape the same way it helped me. I hope you can breathe a little
easier for a few hours while reading it.
Also, a huge shout out to my awesome reader group, The Crowd, who encouraged me to follow my muse when I asked for feedback on switching stories mid-creative stream. I wouldn’t have jumped into this without your support.
Stay safe out there, folks.
Xoxo,
Jay
Maren - Ten years ago
“WHAT DO YOU mean they're going in a different direction?”
I stared at my agent like he’d suddenly started speaking a foreign language. In the five years since I’d signed with him and his agency, he’d taken on not only the role of agent, but also one as a surrogate father. He’d discovered me when I was a no-name-nineteen-year-old, fresh off the plane from rural New Mexico. I dropped out of college and decided to chase my dreams in big bad Hollywood, expecting nothing, but hoping for the best. The man seated across from me was a huge part of making those dreams come true. I trusted him with my career and my best interests but, at the moment, he was giving me the kind of news that felt like it might preface the end of the world with little sympathy. The expression on his face was stony and cold, far from his usual smile and encouraging words that he typically lavished upon me during our meetings.
“Since your contract is coming up for renegotiation, they’ve decided to write you off the show.” He said the words bluntly and narrowed his eyes in what appeared to be anger. “Everyone from the top down has agreed there is no more room for your character to grow. You’re dragging the show down, Maren. The ratings have been on a steady decline for the last six months. Advertisers have noticed the change.”
I put a hand to my chest where my heart was pounding furiously. I swallowed hard, trying to keep the rising panic at bay. “But I’ve been the main character for four years.” I honestly carried the entire show, but now didn’t seem like the time to point that out to him. “How can they let me go just like that?”
It felt like a betrayal. I was about to lose everything I’d been so fortunate to have handed to me as an untried and unknown actress all those years ago. I’d worked hard, constantly put my best foot forward, and became synonymous with the character I played. She was a bit naïve, slightly simple, and totally kindhearted. She was constantly in the middle of the villain’s evil machinations and often ended up the punching bag of the plotline. I had the same innocent, pushover image. I was the girl-next-door for most of America. I was their daughter. Their forever little sister. Their forever best friend. It didn’t make any sense that the world was suddenly sick of me.
While I liked to believe I was a decent, giving person in real life, there was no way I could ever live up to the expectations set by the beloved character who had defined my early twenties. I wasn’t as nice or as guileless as the girl I played on TV. But I made sure I presented myself in a way that wouldn’t conflict with the me everyone thought they knew. I couldn’t figure out what changed until my agent flatly told me, “In the future, you might want to make more of an effort to get along with your co-stars. You’d be surprised how far and wide the ramifications of creating a hostile work environment reach.”
I balked and wilted back in my seat.
He said things had been going downhill for six months. That was about the time he showed up on set. I should’ve known that anything bad happening in my life—and my career—was tied directly to him.
At first, signing Salinger Dolan on to the show had seemed like a major coup. He was one of the most sought-after young talents in the industry. He was right off back-to-back blockbusters of a popular book adaptation that had legions of teens, and some of their moms, in love with him. He’d been in the industry since before he started kindergarten, and his name and face were known worldwide. It was considered a miracle he was even thinking about doing a TV show, and the amount of money the studio threw at him in order to get him to sign the contract took my breath away. I might’ve been a household name, but he was a certified superstar.
He was also terrible.
He had no work ethic.
No manners.
No accountability.
And there were times he really had no talent.
At only sixteen-years-old, he was super jaded and cynical. He was rude to the point of being flat-out nasty, and the size of his ego was astronomical. We clashed from our first meeting, butting heads creatively and personally on almost every little thing. The situation had only gotten worse throughout filming together. We didn’t get along, but it was more than that. We downright hated each other. It was a problem, because on the show, we were supposed to be close. Inseparable, even.
Salinger played a young runaway with a terrible backstory whom my character kindly took in. She tried her best to heal him and set him on the right path. We shared a ton of emotional, intense scenes. There were days when I could admit he out-acted me. But more often than not, it was a struggle to get through any scene where we had to spend more than five minutes interacting. We rubbed each other the wrong way, but it seemed like everyone made concessions for Salinger because of his status.
No one cared when he showed up late for filming.
No one said anything when he didn’t know his lines or screwed up during a take.
No one criticized his wild behavior off the set or tried to control him.
He had free rein to behave however he wanted, and it was beyond annoying. It felt like I was the only person who treated him like the teenager he actually was. I was the only one who questioned some of his worst habits and the rumors surrounding him. I had expectations of him, as I would of any costar, and I let him know—often—he was not meeting them. We fought pretty much every single day, but I had no clue it was going to lead to my dismissal from the show.
It felt like a punch to the gut that all my hard work for the last five years meant nothing compared to a few months of having his name attached to the project. It made what was happening even worse than it already was.
My hands curled into fists and I tried to slow my ragged breathing. “They’re writing me off the show because of Salinger? Did he ask the producers to do that?”
I wouldn’t put the petty move past him. As much as I disliked him, he detested me even more.
“No, he didn’t. However, the fact you approached one of the producers directly with concerns about what Dolan is doing in his private life played a big part in the decision. I don’t know how many times I've told you that if you want to be successful in this industry, you know nothing, see nothing, hear nothing. Who are you to try to derail that kid's career? I can’t get my head around what you were possibly thinking.”
I blinked in surprise, honestly confused why I was the one being taken to task over expressing genuine concern for someone who was still so damn young. Even though Salinger often came across a lot older than he was, he was still truly just a kid.
“I caught him doing drugs with my makeup artist. He’s barely old enough to drive. Shouldn’t someone try and intervene before things get worse? I wasn’t only thinking about Salinger. I was also thinking about the show. If he gets caught up in a drug scandal, how’s that going to come across to the viewers?” Why was I the only one who had to keep a squeaky-clean image? Why was he allowed to run wild?
My agent sighed heavily and dragged his hand down his face. He looked disappointed; not because I was about to lose my first and only acting job, but because I’d dared to open my mouth about Hollywood’s current golden boy.
“I know you are not nearly as naïve as you want people to believe, Maren. What Dolan was doing is as common as traffic backing up on the 405. What you did is almost unheard of. You should have kept your head down and enjoyed the hype surrounding the show now that Salinger signed on. If word gets out that you’re the one who ratted on him to the higher-ups,” he shook his head and sighed, “booking you for anything else will practically be impossible. I really thought I taught you better than this.”
I scoffed and blinked rapidly to keep the tears gathering in my eyes from falling
. This was insane. I knew Hollywood was a whole other world, but the wellbeing of a child—because that’s what he was, even if everyone wanted to act differently—should still be taken seriously. Were they really going to let Salinger self-destruct for the sake of ratings?
I knew it was a ruthless industry before I ever stepped foot in the sunny Golden State, but this was my first experience with the cold reality of just how skewed the general priorities of the industry were. Everything was beautiful and glamorous on the outside, but the inside was dark and ugly.
“I can’t believe you don’t have my back. Did you even try to fight for me?” I watched my agent carefully, looking for any sign of the man I’d admired and relied on so much up until this point. His attitude was totally unexpected. He’d always been the first person to stand up for me and advocate for me. I thought it was because he was genuinely fond of me, not because he took a huge percentage of all my earnings.
It was almost like I was in the room with a complete stranger. “Honestly, this situation has made me reevaluate how well I can represent you in the future. I can’t help a client who won’t help themselves. We still have a year left on our contract, and I’ll do my best to salvage your career between now and then, but I make no promises. I really wish you'd had the foresight to speak with me first. We could’ve avoided this entire mess, Maren.”
Dumbfounded, all I could do was let out a bitter laugh, no longer able to keep the burning hot tears in check. “I did what I thought was right. I can’t believe I’m getting punished for caring about what happens to that stupid kid.”
“That stupid kid has more power than you and I combined. Not to mention the amount of money the producers invested in getting him to agree to be on the show. You think anyone is willing to risk losing that? After all, this is just a business.”
Logically, I knew that. However, I also thought it was about creating something special. Something that touched a lot of people and told stories that needed to be told. I thought it was about raw talent and an escape when one was needed.
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