Love in the Spotlight

by Olivia Jaymes

  LOVE IN THE SPOTLIGHT

  The Hollywood Showmance Chronicles

  Book Four

  By

  Olivia Jaymes

  www.OliviaJaymes.com

  LOVE IN THE SPOTLIGHT

  Copyright © 2018 by Olivia Jaymes

  Kindle Edition

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  LOVE IN THE SPOTLIGHT

  Sam Collins would do absolutely anything for his mother. As a single parent, she sacrificed so much when he was growing up. Now that he’s made it in Hollywood, he’s determined that she’s going to live like a queen and have everything she’s ever dreamed of.

  So when she asks him to pretend to date a pretty kindergarten teacher named Riley who has been dumped by her boyfriend he simply cannot say no. He’s on vacation after all and it’s only a few nights. He’ll make the other guy jealous and then head back home.

  There’s only one problem…

  Unexpectedly, Sam really likes Riley. A whole hell of a lot. She’s the kind of woman he could get serious about. If he was the kind of guy who got serious. But he’s not. So at the end of the week, he’s going to walk away and never look back.

  Well…he might look back a little.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Book

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  About the Author

  Other Books by Olivia Jaymes

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Son, I need you to do me a big favor. Have another piece of garlic bread.”

  Sam Collins didn’t get to see his mother nearly as much as he wanted to. His career took him all over the globe and he loved it, but somehow nowhere ever held a candle to his mom’s dinner table. That’s where he was tonight, being fussed over and spoiled a little. She’d made him lasagna – his favorite. No one balanced the flavors of tomato and garlic like she could. He shouldn’t be eating the carbs but for today, at least, he didn’t care. He’d work it off in the gym later.

  “Sure, what do you need? Some lightbulbs changed that you can’t reach? The lawn mowed? Some boxes moved up to the attic?”

  Paula Collins always had a few tiny chores whenever he came to Florida and he was happy to do them for her. The last time he’d visited he’d helped her shop and carry home a new artificial Christmas tree with LED lighting so she didn’t have to worry about light strands any longer. The damn thing was about eleven feet tall. He’d also boxed up all the decorations after New Year’s and stowed them in a spare bedroom of the house. He’d purchased the home for her when she’d retired from school teaching in Ohio, not long after he’d made it big in Hollywood.

  There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for this woman. She’d sacrificed so much for him when he was growing up. He adored indulging her now that he had the money to do it.

  “How about some more lasagna? Or maybe some wine?”

  Chuckling, he shook his head. He still had a full plate and she was already pushing a second helping on him. She loved to feed him up when he was home, teasing him that he was too thin.

  “I’m good, Mom. So what can I do for you?”

  “I have chocolate cake for dessert.”

  “I’ll save room, I promise. Now what do you need done?”

  Maybe it was something unpleasant like killing a nest of wasps. Or telling a neighbor they were too loud.

  Sitting back in her chair, Paula folded her hands together on the table. She was sixty-two to his forty-five, so they’d practically grown up together. She still looked young though and could easily pass for fifty. Her light brown hair didn’t have a strand of silver in it, but then she might dye if for all he knew. Her skin was amazingly unlined except for the smile lines that fanned around her eyes. He wondered not for the first time why she’d never remarried. He’d never asked out loud though because he had a bad feeling that it might be because of her dedication to him.

  “I want you to hear me out completely before you say yes or no.”

  Sweet baby Jesus, did she want him to wrestle an alligator or something? Wait…did she need money? Had she gambled it away at the casino in the next county?

  He reached across the table and patted her hand. “Mom, if you need money just tell me how much. There’s no shame in making a few bad decisions.”

  Her brows flew up in surprise and then she began to laugh, softly at first and then more loudly. “Son, you are a treasure. You’ll always be my baby, you know that?”

  He’d hit the jackpot in the mother department. His dad might have been a total loss, but Paula Collins was solid gold.

  “I do, although now that I’m over forty it feels a little weird to hear you say that. So I guess it’s not money.” He decided to tease her a little. “Do you want a new fancy sports car or maybe a world cruise? How about a date with Sean Connery? You name it, you got it.”

  Huffing, Paula gave him a look that would have had his teenage self shaking in his shoes.

  “Sean Connery is far too old for me, young man. Now that Idris Elba, he’s a looker. Can you get me his phone number?”

  “Is that the favor you want because I probably could get his number for you.”

  “No, that’s the not the favor.” She dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “First, answer me a question. That girl you were dating a few months ago…that was just a setup, right? It wasn’t real. What do you call it?”

  Yes, Tiffany Lawson. She was a nice girl, up and coming in Hollywood. She’d helped him keep his name in the press while he recovered from a torn meniscus in his knee.

  “A showmance,” he replied. “Just a PR relationship. It wasn’t real but she was a nice kid. I would say that we were friends, and we had some fun.”

  “So it doesn’t bother you?” Paula frowned as if trying to understand. “Pretending to care about someone, that is. You’re fine with it?”

  “It’s what I do for a living, Mom. A showmance is just another
form of acting. Besides, no one was getting hurt or anything. Tiffany and I both knew it was a business arrangement.”

  “But other people thought you were a real couple,” she pointed out. “You don’t think that’s kind of misleading?”

  Sam honestly didn’t know where this line of questioning was heading. He loved his fans and he owed them big for the wonderful career, but he’d learned early that he had to play the Hollywood games.

  “You think I’m not being ethical?” he asked. “I guess I just look at it as feeding the beast. If I didn’t give the press something to talk about they’d just make it up themselves. At least this way I have a modicum of control.”

  “Good, I’m glad you feel that way.” She clasped her hands together and her smile widened. “I want you to have a showmance with a woman that I know from the elementary school. It wouldn’t take much of your time. Just a few days but it would really help her out. You’ll do it, right?”

  Paula may have finally found the one thing he wouldn’t do for her.

  A showmance? Who was she? And why?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sam had listened to his mother’s explanation, but he needed a few clarifications. This wasn’t a run of the mill request like fishing out the Tupperware container from the back of the fridge where it had sat for the last six months growing fuzzy and disgusting. This was far different.

  “Let me get this straight,” Sam said, watching Paula’s expression closely. He was still in some sort of shock. “You want me to pretend to be some woman’s boyfriend because some guy dumped her for her best friend and they’re getting married? Does that sum this situation up?”

  She nodded eagerly. “That’s right. Riley is such a sweet young woman and that man is such a douche bag. She needs to get a little revenge and you’re perfect to help her deliver it.”

  “Mom, do you even know what a douche bag is?”

  He’d had his mouth rinsed out with soap in his youth and now his own mother was dropping insults like a foul-mouthed comedienne?

  “Do you?” she shot back with a sigh of exasperation. “Because if you did you wouldn’t be asking that question of a female. Really, son, I thought I taught you better than that.”

  He felt his cheeks go warm as he realized what he’d asked. Of course, she would know what one was in reality, but did she know what one was in the insulting sense?

  “Okay, okay.” He held up his hands in surrender. “It’s just that you normally are careful not to insult people, but suddenly this guy is a douchebag.”

  “Fine, he’s an asshole. Is that better? And I most certainly do have things to say about people but you’re rarely here to hear them. Maybe if you visited more often…”

  Cue the guilt. He should have known it was coming. He’d had a busy year and hadn’t seen her as much as he’d hoped.

  “You’re right, I’m a terrible son and you have a mouth like a sailor on a three-day pass. Happy now?”

  Paula smiled sweetly. “Ecstatic. Now are you going to do it?”

  Sam could deny his mother very little so he was probably going to eventually say yes, although he thought it was a terrible idea. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t make Paula work for it a little bit more, especially after the guilt trip she’d just packed his bags for.

  “Let me ask you a question. Is this her idea or yours?”

  His mother was already shaking her head. “Completely mine. Riley has no idea at all. In fact, she’d be mortified if she knew I was asking you. We might have to convince her to go along with it. She has her pride, after all.”

  That was good. This wasn’t some harebrained scheme put into his mother’s head by a woman that wanted to get closer to him. Point in this Riley person’s favor.

  “She was dating the douchebag, I assume?”

  “She was, and although I didn’t think much of him I never said anything to her because she seemed happy. But between you and me I never thought he was good enough for her. Too smug and a little too arrogant. Born into money and thought he was a big wheel, yet I don’t think he ever worked an honest day in his life.”

  That was a major issue with Paula Collins. When Sam had gained some notoriety as an actor he’d had to bring her out to the set so she could see that he actually worked and worked hard. She had thought that it was all champagne and caviar.

  “And he cheated on her with her best friend?”

  Not much of a best friend, though. She needed to up her standards in friendship. Way up.

  “Yes, and now they’re engaged. Riley has been invited to the engagement party this weekend. I’m sure it’s just so they can rub her nose in it, that Monica is a real bitch now that she’s caught a man that can handle her expensive tastes. I think she was just using Riley to get to Chad.”

  Rubbing his chin, Sam had to concede that the story was messy and gossip-worthy. Just the way his mother liked them.

  “And you know Riley from school?”

  Paula had been an elementary school teacher before she retired and even now she volunteered, helping kids learn to read when they were struggling.

  “She teaches kindergarten and she’s the sweetest thing. Please say you’ll help her, Sam. She didn’t deserve this to happen to her.” His mother wasn’t going to give up. “It’s just a week or so out of your life. You’ll take her on a few dates and go to the party, act like she’s the most beautiful woman on the planet, and then she can tell people that it just didn’t work out because of the long distance. Please? You said that fake relationships don’t bother you.”

  Of course Paula had caught him with his own words. He had said that and he did believe it. It wasn’t a big deal. He’d kissed actresses that he barely knew. It was all part of the job and it wasn’t personal. This would be fine too, but what if Riley forgot the rules? What if she tried to make it personal? That would be a mess.

  Paula also hadn’t mentioned what Riley looked like, which was a huge hint that perhaps the young woman in question might be a little…plain. When described as the sweetest thing, that didn’t bode well for the beauty department. Not that a woman had to be gorgeous for him to be interested. She didn’t. He liked brains and a sense of humor more than anything, but somehow he usually ended up with a looker, too. Beauty was all too common in Hollywood. Brains and a good sense of humor were in short supply, sadly. Common sense was practically an endangered species.

  His mother was waiting for him to respond, a hopeful and knowing smile on her face. He was fooling himself if he thought for one moment that he wasn’t going to say yes. When was the last time he’d done that? He couldn’t remember it had been so long. If ever. But he didn’t have to make it an unconditional surrender.

  “Have you really thought this through, Mom? If she’s seen with me, her picture is probably going to go up on social media. She won’t have much privacy.”

  “She doesn’t now,” Paula shot back. “This is a small town, remember? Everyone knows everyone else’s business. They all know what happened with Captain Douchebag and of course they’ll see you two together. That’s the whole plan.”

  His mother wasn’t seeing the bigger picture.

  “Is part of the plan for her face to be plastered all over Twitter and Instagram? Because it will be. I can’t control if other people take our picture and post it. I also can’t control what the press writes about me.”

  That last part wasn’t completely true. His publicist had some power but getting photos or stories pulled down always had a price and it usually consisted of Sam giving the media outlet some sort of exclusive content.

  “I’ll warn her, but I doubt she’d be worried about that. A few pictures and then everything will blow over in time. If it were more than a week I might be more concerned.”

  No one cared about publicity until it was their face splashed across a tabloid with a lurid headline. If this woman had a lick of sense she’d run far away from one of Paula Collins’s outlandish ideas.

  Clearly, he was dumb as a bag of ha
mmers.

  “I’ll talk to this Riley,” he conceded. “If she’s amenable to the plan and understands that it is strictly business then I’ll do it.”

  Paula’s face lit up and she clapped her hands together with glee.

  “But,” he warned, holding up a finger of caution. “If she thinks that this is anything more than a charade I won’t do it. I won’t play with her emotions that way, Mom. It wouldn’t be fair to her.”

  Paula rolled her eyes. “Samuel Christopher, you’re starting to read your own press. You think every woman in the world wants you. Riley’s far too level-headed and down to earth to have her head turned by a little charm and romance from you.”

  Level-headed and down to earth? She didn’t sound all that exciting. But that was honestly for the best.

  He could only hope that Riley hated his guts and found him physically repellant.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Don’t forget your backpack, Alex,” Riley called out to her scampering six-year old charge. This particular child had a habit of forgetting things. Lunch, books, shoes, backpacks. Thankfully they lived in Florida, so he didn’t need to remember cold weather items like mittens, hats, and scarves.

  The little blond-haired boy came to a screeching halt and turned around, a grin on his slightly dirty face – a mixture of juice and grime from the playground. He grabbed the tiny Captain America backpack and slung it over his shoulder. “Oops. Thanks, Miss Bridges.”