She sat next to me and quirked her eyebrow. “Stolen wine?”
“Declined credit card.”
She made an exaggerated grimace.
“And it turns out that I was the one pitching to him. Justin totally threw me to the wolves.”
“What?” She sat next to me, sloshing the wine in her glass.
“I threw out a few random ideas. Maybe he picked the dating one. Maybe I get to date guys all over the world.” That might not be so bad, come to think of it. My dry spell had been so long, my body felt like the Sahara.
“Maybe you get to cook all over the world.”
“God, let’s hope not. I can’t cook.”
“All the more reason to do it . . .”
Marina continued to throw out ideas, each one crazier than the last—including herself in each of the scenarios, of course—until the doorbell rang. I looked at the security-camera app on my phone. There was a woman in a trench coat on my front porch, and she looked pissed. Great.
“Reporter?” Marina asked.
I opened the door a crack, hoping she was a reporter, because if this was the producer, she looked even more intimidating than Scott Schapiro. “Can I help you?”
Trench-coat woman glared. “Let me in.” She stood nearly a foot taller than I was in her three-inch heels. It didn’t help that I was standing on my bare feet.
She started to walk in, but I blocked her path. “You’re not coming in until I know who you are and what you want.”
Trench-coat woman barely rolled her eyes, but that half gesture was enough for her to get her point across. I got the impression that she was used to getting her way without pushing for it.
“Lauren Chapman. I’m apparently the showrunner of your new show, so you better let me in or I’ll make your life a living hell.”
Holy crap. And here I’d thought this day couldn’t get any worse.
I backed out of the way, and Lauren stormed past me.
“Summer!” photographers shouted from the street. “Why’d you hit your fan?”
“Summer! Is it true you’re entering rehab?”
I grunted and slammed the door shut.
Lauren stood in the center of my living room, glancing around. “Not bad. You’ve got a great view of the ocean.”
My house was incredibly small but ridiculously expensive because of its location. Right on the Malibu shore. It was going to kill me to lose it, but eight years of little income had taken their toll.
Then it hit me. They would probably expect to use this place for the show.
Lauren sat in my midcentury-modern Mies van der Rohe Barcelona original chair—another must-have according to my pushy decorator—and plopped a folder on my coffee table. “Just sign these and let’s make it official so we can get started.”
“Justin said I had to be on location within seventy-two hours. But he didn’t say what the premise of the show would be.”
Lauren groaned and shook her head. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
I just stared at her. To my surprise, Marina, who stood behind me, remained completely silent. That was so unlike her.
“You’ll be a PI, solving real cases.” She opened the folder and slid a stack of papers toward me. “Now sign on the dotted line so we can proceed. We have a lot to do between now and Thursday morning. I want to get an early start.”
“Wait.” I held my hands up in protest. “What?”
“Schapiro said it was your idea,” she said, winging a brow up. “Now sign.”
“I wasn’t serious,” I protested. “It was supposed to be a joke.”
She gave me a look so dry it would make a cactus thirsty. “I don’t joke.”
That much was obvious.
“Look,” I said emphatically, “I’m not really a private investigator.”
“No shit,” Lauren snapped, crossing her legs and looking at her phone. “Why do you think we’re scrambling? We’re trying to work out the PI-license situation. So, ticktock, Summer. You’re wasting many people’s valuable time, especially mine.”
I picked up the multipage legal document and quickly scanned it, surprised to see a “Created by Scott Schapiro and Summer Butler” listed. I couldn’t see Schapiro adding that, so maybe Justin had done something to earn his percentage. “It says the location is TBA.”
“As I said, we’re working out the PI license. Schapiro insists you have to do this on your own and not shadow someone, but there are conditions that need to be met in order for you to get a valid license. They don’t just let anyone with bad-acting experience get a license.” One side of her mouth tipped into the hint of a smile.
Marina’s head jutted back, and her typical attitude finally reengaged. “Bad acting?”
“Really, Marina?” I turned toward her. “That’s what you pick up on?” Still, I couldn’t ignore the warmth of gratitude spreading through my chest.
Lauren stared my friend down. “Why else has she gone a decade without a major project?”
“Hey!” Marina pointed her finger at her. “Just a few weeks ago, she was offered Dancing with the Stars!” It was a lie, but a flattering one.
“Trust me,” Lauren said, her tone dripping with disgust, “I wish she were dancing her little heart out, but here we are.” She turned her deadly gaze on me. “Sign the damn papers and stop wasting my time. Schapiro insists we have something ready to air in three weeks, which means we should have started this three months ago, not three days from now.”
“But a real PI?” I asked. “I don’t have any real-life experience.”
Lauren pushed out a sigh so loud and long it could have inflated a bouncy castle. “I heard you weren’t bright, but I’d hoped you were at least a little sharper than a Popsicle stick.” She leaned forward and widened her eyes. “I know you don’t, but don’t you worry your pretty little head about that. We’ve got it covered.”
“Excuse me? Who says I’m not bright?”
“Everyone.”
I gave Marina a bewildered look, but she just shrugged. What the hell?
Lauren groaned. “Look, Dumpling—”
Marina lifted up her hand in a halt sign. “Darling.” The producer shot her a stern look, but Marina held her ground. “Darling. Not Dumpling. America’s Darling.”
Lauren narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure?”
Oh, for God’s sake. “Yes!” I shouted. “I’m America’s Darling! And I realize I’m supposedly not very bright, but I’m smart enough not to sign this contract until I know what’s going on.”
Lauren’s back straightened, and she gave me an icy glare. “Fifty K an episode is insane for someone who hasn’t proven she can bring in the ratings, but Schapiro has sharp instincts. He thinks this opportunity is so golden he’s offering you a one-hundred-K bonus if we hit a one-point-oh rating or higher in the eighteen-to-forty-nine demographic. They’re talking about putting us on Thursday night, typically death row for most shows, but Schapiro thinks he can pull in your previous viewers from Gotcha!—especially since you trashed your squeaky-clean image this afternoon—and I know how to do that. But to make a dent in the ratings, we have to bring our A game, and damn it, I plan on bringing it, Summer.”
Stunned, I asked, “One hundred thousand?” It wouldn’t help me save my house, but I could save the farm. I could do one thing right.
“That’s right, Darling, keep up. I know what I’m doing, but I need to make sure you’re willing to take direction, because that’s the only way this will work.”
I bristled. “Of course I’m willing to take direction!”
“Then we’ll get along just fine.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Because, Summer, I don’t let anyone get in my way. You need to reinvent your career, and I want my own show, which means it’s in our best interest to work together. I can either be your best friend or your worst enemy. It’s all up to you.”
I narrowed my eyes. I had a feeling that statement would be tested.
“Do the smart thing,”
Lauren said in a patronizing tone. “Sign the damn papers.”
Part of me wanted to shove the papers in her face and tell her to jump into the ocean that was right outside my windows. Justin had told me the same thing about Scott Schapiro’s instincts, which meant I was probably worth a lot more than this hastily thrown-together offer, but I was desperate enough to forgo negotiating. No need to be greedy.
I grabbed the pen, flipped to the back page, and signed my name.
Lauren snatched the papers out of my hand, and a Cheshire-cat grin spread across her face.
Shit. Why did I feel like I’d just signed a deal with the devil?
“Great. My assistant will handle your flight arrangements, but plan on flying out Wednesday so you can be at your new office bright and early Thursday morning to start shooting.” She started walking to the front door.
“Wait!” I called after her, her long legs outpacing me. “Flying out? I thought you didn’t know where we were filming yet?”
She burst out the door and I followed, immediately accosted by a barrage of questions from the reporters.
“Is it true you have a drinking problem?” one of the photographers asked. “Witnesses say they saw you drinking heavily at Magnum before the incident.”
“She’s a lush!” Marina shouted over my shoulder. “Check her trash! You’ll find more wine bottles than you can count!”
“Marina!” I protested.
“What? Just trying to help with your new bad-girl rep.”
But I was more interested in where we were filming. I grabbed Lauren’s forearm just as she reached the driveway. She tried to pull loose, but I dug my fingers in and held tight.
“Where are we going?”
Her grin turned devious. “You’re right, we have settled on the place, as it happens. It’s somewhere you’ll recognize. Sweet Briar, Alabama. See you Thursday morning.”
Horror washed over me. How could they have put all this together in only a few hours? If they knew where I was from, then they obviously knew about the fire and my cousin’s juvenile conviction. They were probably planning to play up the notoriety, and now that I’d signed the damned contract, there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
I’d just cursed them to save them.
“I am not going to Sweet Briar,” I insisted.
“Too late, Darling. You already signed the contract.” She jerked free and then walked around the hood of her car in the driveway, cool as could be.
“Did you see her attack that woman?” a photographer called out to the others. Their cameras kept snapping away.
Dammit!
Lauren opened her car door, then shouted at me over the top of her car. “Congratulations!”
Congratulations? There was nothing to congratulate. I couldn’t go back to my hometown. My mother and stepfather were there, along with my grandmother, who’d forbidden me from darkening her doorstep, and my cousins, who probably believed the reason I hadn’t been back since I was seventeen was because I thought I was better than they were.
Add in the boy whose heart I had broken, and I was walking into a real-life reality TV drama.
Just like they were counting on.
CHAPTER THREE
Two days later, the production company put me on a red-eye from LA to Atlanta. Marina had pouted big-time when she’d realized she couldn’t come with me, but I’d promised to call her often and fill her in on the details.
My plane was supposed to land around six in the morning, and Lauren’s assistant, Karen, was scheduled to pick me up on the curb at six thirty. Instead, my plane had mechanical issues that delayed our takeoff, and Karen picked up my two bags and me at seven thirty.
She gave me a strained glance when I got in the car. “Lauren’s going to be pissed.”
“She can’t be angry over something that was out of your control,” I said, fastening the seat belt as she punched the gas pedal and tore away from the curb.
“She’s not going to be angry with me.” Her sympathetic look told me all I needed to know.
“I presume we’ll start filming soon after we get to Sweet Briar,” I said, leaning my head back on the seat. I’d barely gotten any sleep on the plane.
“Everyone will be ready and waiting . . . in about an hour.” It would take two to get there.
“I didn’t purposely sabotage the armrest on row twelve,” I said. “I can’t help it if it took them so long to get the part.”
“Lauren won’t care.”
Karen didn’t say another word for an hour other than to refuse to go through a Starbucks drive-through for a much-needed cup of caffeine.
The lack of sleep, paired with the movement of the car, soon had me dozing. The next thing I knew, Karen was pulling into a parallel parking space in downtown Sweet Briar.
“We’re here,” she said. “Isn’t it quaint?”
I sat up, and a mixture of relief and anxiety washed through me. I’d lived in this town until my mother moved us out to LA when I was fourteen. It was funny that a lot of people born and raised in Sweet Briar were desperate to escape. I’d spent six years of my youth desperate to come back, but no amount of begging had swayed my mother. She’d insisted I was ridiculous to want to give up a very lucrative contract at a major kids’ network to return to a backward southern Alabama town that everyone else was dying to escape from. What she really meant was she didn’t want to give up my seven-figure income. How ironic that she’d run straight back home about two minutes after stealing most of my money.
What was I going to do if I saw her while I was here?
The chances of running into her were pretty high. Sweet Briar had a population of 2,731, as of the most recent census. Then again, last I’d heard, my mother had built a huge house out on Highway 10, halfway between Sweet Briar and the Alabama/Georgia state line. Maybe she wouldn’t come into town.
Who was I kidding? The moment she heard there were cameras in the vicinity, she’d be looking for the spotlight.
I got out of the car and breathed in the air. It smelled different here—fresh and clean—bringing on my nostalgia full force. It was the middle of April, and the tulip trees along Main Street were covered in pink blossoms. I sucked in a deep breath trying to put a name to the scent, only coming up with one:
Home.
I quickly stuffed that notion away. I suspected my return would be met with cool disdain. I wasn’t welcome here. Not by the people who truly mattered.
But if I could deal with Lauren, I could enjoy the two weeks I was here. I would let myself imagine a life different from the one my mother had forced upon me.
“Come on,” Karen said, gasping as she checked her phone. “Lauren’s furious.”
Great. But pissed or not, Lauren wasn’t going to rush my reacclimation. It was like jumping into a pool of freezing water. I was still trying to work up the courage.
Downtown consisted of one-and-a-half blocks of shops and restaurants, and Karen had parked at about the halfway mark, giving us a wide view of both ends. I stood next to the open car door, trying to steady my nerves as I studied the storefronts. Not much had changed. There were several new places—a coffee shop, a yoga/fitness studio, and a nice-looking restaurant, but everything else was the same—the beauty shop, barbershop, a vintage-goods store, a clothing store, a small pizza place, a café, and a pharmacy. The chamber of commerce had an office on the corner in what used to be the bank years ago, but it was the retail space sandwiched between the yoga studio and the pizza place that caught my attention or, more accurately, the sign over the space . . .
DARLING INVESTIGATIONS
She’d named it after that stupid nickname the press had given me a decade ago.
Oh, hell no.
Lauren might be furious, but she was about to face my own fury. I slammed the car door shut and marched up the sidewalk to demand she change the name.
“Summer!” Karen called after me. “Wait!”
There was a small crowd of people out front, and it
sounded like they were in a shouting match with a police officer who stood with his back to me. There was something to be said for the view. His broad shoulders stretched the fabric of his black uniform shirt, and his pants hung on his backside in a way that made me reconsider my usual apathy about men’s butts. His dark-brown hair was trimmed close to his head, and he was tall enough that he towered over some of the women in the small group carrying signs that read THE SUN SHINES WHEN SUMMER’S HOME and WELCOME BACK TO SWEET BRIAR, AMERICA’S DARLING!
“We have every right to be here!” a woman shouted, raising her sign. A Lab-mix dog sat at her feet, and each time she lifted up her sign, she yanked his leash tight. “And just because you don’t want them here doesn’t mean you can make us leave!”
“That’s right!” another woman yelled. “It’s our God-given right to assemble.”
“You’re blocking the sidewalk, Sonya,” the officer said with strained patience. “You can assemble, but Hugo’s pissed because people can’t get around you to the barbershop.”
Sonya’s righteous anger faded some. “Oh.”
He made a sideways motion with his hand. “Now if you’d just clear a path for the passersby, you would make my life a hell of a lot easier.”
His voice was familiar, and horror washed through me when I realized why. It just figured that the first person I’d run into was my old boyfriend.
This was not how I wanted him to see me again . . . in yoga pants and a T-shirt stained with coffee from when the plane had hit a pocket of turbulence. My hair wasn’t so bad, but I wasn’t sure my breath was ready to be up close and personal. Not that we would be getting up close and personal, of course.
The women had noticed I was standing to the side. Letting out squeals of excitement, they rushed at me, signs raised like they were going into battle. Luke spun around to face me, surprise filling his eyes, and the women pushed him toward me in their eagerness to greet me.
The dog had burst forward in excitement the second his owner joined the surge, and he ran around our legs, wrapping the leash line around them and pulling us closer together.
Deadly Summer (Darling Investigations Book 1) Page 5