Prologue

Ally Pearson looked over the glittering lights of Los Angeles and wondered how long it would be before she saw this view again. She loved her Los Feliz home on the hillside. When the realtor had brought her here, she’d known in an instant she would buy it. It wasn’t nearly as luxurious as her parents’ place in Santa Monica. That was a mansion. This was a really nice house, but it felt like home. When she’d stepped over the threshold, it had felt like a new beginning.

It had felt like she was leaving the past behind and concentrating on her real work, her real self.

The past, it seemed, wasn’t finished with her.

“Hey. I brought you some tea.” Her mother stepped onto the terrace. It was attached to the primary bedroom and overlooked the pool and the hillside.

Some mornings she sat out here and drank coffee and thought about how good it was to have a safe place.

It wasn’t safe anymore.

She took the tea from her mom. “Thanks.”

Her mother was silent for a moment. It was how Ally knew she was steeling herself for a talk. They always cut those long moments out of the reality TV show they’d starred in for years. When her mom had one of her mom talks with her, they would cut away from that long moment before she began. The producers wanted her to look more assertive, but there was something intimate about that moment. Her mom rarely had a filter. She said what was on her mind and didn’t care what anyone thought. Except when she paused like this, Ally knew it was serious. Whatever her mother said next meant something.

She was glad they did those cutaways because this moment was meant for her and her sister and her stepdad. Not for the fans of Match Made in Hollywood . She’d loved the show and sharing it with her mom and stepdad, but it had been a relief to shut down the day-to-day production. She’d bought this place when she’d moved out of their mansion in Gillette Regent Square. Los Feliz had been her new start, and she loved it because it was full of accomplished people and up-and-comers. She fit in here better than her parents’ old-money neighborhood.

But she had the feeling she wasn’t staying here for long.

“Your stepfather and I have been talking,” her mom began. “Sweetheart, this can’t go on. Do you know what could have happened tonight?”

She took a deep breath and then turned her mother’s way. “I think murder could have happened. At least that’s what the cops think. Maybe if the guy had cut my head off they would do something about him.”

She strode back into the bedroom, stubborn will settling in even though she knew she would give in eventually. But damn it, she should be safe in her own home.

Her mom walked right behind. “Don’t talk like that. Allyson, this is the third time we know that he’s been close to you physically. It’s one thing to troll you on social media. It’s another thing to follow you to events. This is getting serious. He’s escalating.”

Ally kept walking because if she didn’t involve her stepdad, she would have to have this talk twice, and she didn’t want to. “I’ll get a dog. I’ll get a big mean dog who loves me and no one else, and if this guy shows up again, puppy will eat him and I’ll bury the bones in the garden.”

She made it to her kitchen, which rarely was used to do more than heat up the meals she had delivered once a week.

“A dog is not going to solve the problem.” There was her stepdad. Gavin Jacks had been a journeyman actor for forty years. At sixty, he could still play leading men with actresses in their twenties. Ally’s contemporaries.

It was gross, and she was happy when he’d told his agent he wouldn’t act in any production where his character’s romantic partner was younger than forty.

“I put in the security system. I’m careful about coming and going. I have a gun, and I know how to use it.” She kind of wished her stalker had still been in the house when she’d come home. Then the problem might be over.

“You need round-the-clock security,” her stepdad said gravely. He was more casual than normal, but that was probably because he’d been pulled out of bed at one in the morning when the cops called him.

He had friends in the LAPD because he’d played law enforcement characters so often. Those friends did not care about her privacy. She could have handled the situation, but no, her parents had come flying in to save the day.

Could she handle the situation? Damn, but she was tired.

When she’d seen what he’d done to her living room, she’d stood there for a moment, and it hadn’t been fear that had risen up inside her. It hadn’t been anger at her safe place being violated.

It had been genuine confusion. She’d stood there and looked at the dead birds he’d lain out on her living room floor like some offering and wondered what she’d done to deserve this. All she’d ever wanted was to do what she loved and make a living. She’d wanted to entertain people.

She’d wondered where he’d gotten the birds from and if they’d suffered and why he’d needed to use them to spell out the word WHORE on her coffee table. She’d wondered why he couldn’t have sent her a note instead.

All those poor birds dead because one man hated her.

A man who didn’t even know her.

Then she’d heard a car screeching down the street and realized it was probably him, and that was when the anger hit.

“He got around the security system,” her stepdad pointed out. “I don’t know how, but I’m going to find out. I’m hiring a security team to go over everything. Until then, your mother and I think you should spend the week with us in Santa Monica, and you should think about pulling out of the project you start next Monday.”

Oh, that was not happening. “Absolutely not. Do you have any idea how hard I had to fight for this chance? I’ve starred in every rom com that’s come my way because I’ve tried to build some kind of a box office record that erases my reality star past.”

“That show is the reason you have this house.” Her mother always got defensive about the show. Probably because it had been her idea. She was a momager of the highest order and had been since Ally’s sister starred in her first commercial as a kid.

Her sister, Brynn, was out of the business, but this was Ally’s dream. “I know. I wouldn’t take it back, Mom. It opened a lot of doors for me, but it’s closed some, too. This is a great part. It’s a dramatic part, and with a director who has three Oscars under his belt. I’m not walking away because some asshole left dead birds all over the place. Besides, it takes me out of LA for three whole months.”

“I think he followed you to New York,” her stepdad reminded her.

“That was a press tour. I’ll be on set most of the time.” She’d been dreading the three months on set in Dallas where she knew no one and would likely be an outsider in the cast, but now it seemed like a haven.

And she would show all those snobs that she had talent, too.

“And when you’re not?” her mother asked. “When you’re in a hotel room alone at night?”

“I won’t be alone. I’ll call Greg.” Greg had been her driver for the last couple of years. She’d met him in small-town Louisiana where he’d started his own golf cart limo business he called Guber. She was his only client, and her being driven around LA in a tricked-out golf cart had been one of the fans’ favorite things about the show.

“His daughter had a baby,” her mom reminded her. “That’s why he moved back in the first place.”

Tears pierced her eyes. She hated crying, hated how open and vulnerable it felt. “I worked so hard for this part.”

Her mom hugged her. “I know, baby. I know.”

“How do I just give it up?”

Her stepfather sighed. “You don’t. You’ll come to Santa Monica with us tonight. I’m hiring the security firm my friend Jared and his wife recommended. McKay something. I have a conference call with the owners in the morning. As luck would have it, they’re based in Dallas and also offer personal security.”

A deep sense of relief spilled over her. This didn’t have to be over. “A bodyguard?”

“I know you said you didn’t want…” her mother began.

She shook her head. She knew when being stubborn had crossed the line into too stupid to live. “I’ll take it. I’ll be a good girl and do whatever the bodyguard says.”

Her mother frowned. “No, you won’t.”

She probably wouldn’t. She was something of a free spirit. “How about I’ll tone it down and try to follow the rules.”

“You do that,” her father said. “Now get some clothes, and we’ll try to have all of this sorted out by the time you finish the shoot and come home.”

Ally set the tea down, feeling better than she had before.

This would all work out. They would figure out who was trying to scare her, and she would hang with her bodyguard in Dallas. Her parents would be happy she was being watched over. Yes, it would work out for everyone.

Except the birds…

* * * *

West Rycroft looked down at the file on his desk and then up at his brother because he had to be kidding. “No.”

Wade Rycroft rolled dark eyes and sat back in his chair. He occupied the only actual office on this floor, the one the rest of the company called the “Man Cave,” despite the fact that there were several women who worked as bodyguards, too. Beyond being his brother, Wade was also his boss. “Is there any particular reason you’re telling me no to this assignment?”

“Come on, man. I just came off entitled-princess duty.” He’d glanced through the file on his potential client, and it hadn’t taken long to determine what kind of gig this would be. “I had to spend three weeks with an actual princess, and I now know why the French Revolution happened. I am one peasant who is sick of putting up with their shit.”

Princess Amelia of the small European country whose name he’d already forgotten had been the worst. She’d tried to ditch him three times. He’d caught her with a pharmacy of drugs she didn’t need. And she liked to shoplift. He’d had enough of celebrities to last a lifetime.

And she’d treated him like he was her beck-and-call boy. He’d had to firmly explain to her that servicing her sexual needs wasn’t part of his job. She’d had eight hands, that one.

“You do know that you’re a personal bodyguard, right?” His brother was looking at him like he was the biggest dumbass in the world. “You signed up for this gig. Please, Wade, I don’t want to punch cows for the rest of my life. I want to see the world. Well, this is seeing the world, buddy. I’m sorry we don’t have a bunch of blue-collar workers who need bodyguard services. We’re kind of stuck with the wealthy and famous.”

That was where his brother was wrong. He actually liked his job. It was simply one class of clientele he had a problem with. “I don’t mind businesspeople. I can handle most of them. There was that writer fellow. He was nice. He only got mean when someone tried to tell him lingonberries were the same as cranberries. He was serious about his juice. I could work for him again. I learned a whole bunch about history.”

But Ally Pearson would be a handful, and he needed some peace in his life. Three months of following after one of the most overprivileged and undertalented people in Hollywood was too much to bear.

Ally Pearson had been handed everything in life. Beauty, fame, money, a place in society.

It was a long assignment and would keep him away from his friends and brothers. The idea of giving up so much time for a woman who would treat him like a servant at best held little appeal.

Besides, he’d been starting to wonder if there wasn’t something else out there for him. He’d had specific goals when he’d joined McKay-Taggart, and he’d reached them.

He was getting restless again.

“I’m afraid Ms. Pearson is the client we have,” Wade replied. “If you actually read her folder, you would know she needs a bodyguard. She’s got an active threat to her life.”

He’d seen her show a couple of times. He’d had a girlfriend back in Broken Bend who’d been obsessed with Match Made in Hollywood . She’d even tried to dress like Ally Pearson and had ridden around in a golf cart stolen from the country club like a jackass. “Given how annoying she is, it doesn’t surprise me.”

“Fine.” Wade frowned at him. “If you’re going into the job and you don’t care if the client lives or dies, you’re not the man for this.”

He sighed. “I didn’t say that. I said I don’t want to deal with another Princess Amelia with the octopus hands. She’s not the only one. I hate it when the client is awful to the people around them. They act like the rest of the world is nothing but staff, and the staff is so far beneath them they aren’t human.”

“I get it.” His brother’s expression had turned sympathetic. “We all want to be treated with some dignity. If you’d told me about the princess, I would have reassigned you. I would have put Tessa on her, and if she comes back, that’s what I’ll do. No one at this company wants to set you up for sexual harassment.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t want to complain.”

“But you complain so well and so often,” his brother countered, a ghost of a smile on his face. “Come on, West. This isn’t a terrible assignment. She’ll probably ignore you most of the time. She’s here to work. She’s going to be rehearsing for a week or two, and then they’re shooting around the city. I think they’ve got a lot of time in a studio here, too. You can sit there and read or play on your tablet when she’s working. You would be her twenty-four seven guard for most of the week, and I’ll rotate in two other guards to make sure you have time off. If that’s too much, I’ll think about splitting it further.”

Whoa. Twenty-four seven for three months? It was insane because none of the married agents could do it. Most of the singles wouldn’t want the assignment either. He would get maybe two days a week off, and he would be on all the rest of the time. “How much?”

McKay-Taggart paid overtime for anything beyond forty hours, and they also had hefty per diems.

A brow rose over his brother’s eyes. “You really didn’t read it?”

He had to explain this away because now he saw the upside. “Look, you remember when I was going out with Rhonda?”

“The one who kept trying to get you to propose and take her away to the big city?” Wade snorted slightly. “She thought the big city was Harlingen.”

“Oh, she wanted to move to LA so she could be like her girl crush.” West pointed to the folder. “Ally Pearson. Have you ever had to watch that show? It’s mind-numbingly boring, and those people are so full of themselves. All they do is party and spend money like it’s water. I had this whole family thrown at me for a year and a half.”

“You could have walked away,” Wade pointed out.

He didn’t understand how hard the dating scene was in Broken Bend. There wasn’t a lot to do but work and hang out. “I liked her otherwise. But that show put all kinds of notions in her head. She wanted to be an actress, thought I was holding her back when I didn’t support her dreams. It got to be too much.”

“I find it ironic that you’re here in Dallas while she’s back in Broken Bend,” Wade pointed out.

“She went to LA for a while. She came back with an infant and not much else.” It was a sad story because it was one that happened a lot to people in Broken Bend. “She’s living with her momma again and working at the diner.”

Where she would probably be for the rest of her life.

“You do know that’s not Ally Pearson’s fault, right?” Wade asked. “She didn’t make Rhonda’s choices for her. She’s an actress playing a part.”

The part was her life. Reality TV blurred a lot of lines, but he did believe in personal responsibility. “I just wished Rhonda had been obsessed with someone else.”

“Well, now someone else is obsessed with Ally Pearson, and not in a fangirl way.” Wade tapped the folder. “Read it if you want to consider the assignment because she has a serious stalker. And the job estimate is over a hundred thousand. Her parents are paying the bill. Your part of that would easily be fifty K.”

Fifty thousand dollars. Between that and what he had saved up, he could get his own place. It was past time for him to move out of the condo he and his twin had bought when they’d come to Dallas. “All right. I’ll do it.”

It was probably a mistake, but it would be a mistake that paid.