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Crestfallen, Cecilia persuades Connor that they can find the thieves themselves. The lure of the finder’s fee is real, and Connor agrees. They stake out the most likely bank on the night of the festival of San Marco and catch the culprits in the act! The police establish that the capo killed his son because he was about to betray him, and he’s going to jail for life.

Connor collects his finder’s fee, and it’s time for Cecilia to return home. They share atearful goodbye at the airport and Connor leaves. He’ll join her in LA in a few weeks.

But then Cecilia makes an impulsive decision: She returns to the hotel to find Connor and Naomi together! Naomi Rogers isactuallyNaomi Smith! This was all a long con—they identified Cecilia as an heiress and had a plan to defraud her of her inheritance.

More than that—they were behind the robberies in the first place! But now Eleanor is an accessory to their crimes, whether she knew it or not, and she can’t go to the police. She can, however, pay blackmail to Connor and Naomi for the foreseeable future.

The moral of the story: Don’t fall for con men when you’re on vacation.

CHAPTER 2

Does Being #1 on the Call Sheet Mean You’re Famous?

They do seven more takes of the scene I interrupted before Simone’s satisfied, and I keep my mouth shut through each of them except for when I’m required to deliver my line.

I can’t help it if my thoughts are visible on myface.

I’m not an actress, just a writer.

Besides, I’m fixating on the note Emma slipped me, a sick feeling in my stomach. Is it serious or just a joke? People in the public domain get crazy messages all the time, even writers. Emma’s had plenty of stalkers over the years, and I have one, too. Crazy Cathy is more silly than scary, but that doesn’t mean I don’t take her threats seriously.

But this note is from someone who knows there’s about to be a wedding.

And that’s been a closely kept secret.

I try to find a way to speak to Emma about it, but every time I get close to her between takes, Shawna beetles me away with an apology. Harper tells me to behave, so I tuck the note into my pocket and resolve to talk to Emma when we wrap for the day.

But that’s not how it works out.

Instead, when the scene is done, they shoot another scene Harper and I aren’t in, and then the crew breaks the set down while everyone’s taken to their trailers to get changed for the wrap party.

Since we don’t rate trailers, I resign myself to catching up with Emma later, and Harper and I walk down the boardwalk to our house in Venice Beach. Then I go for a quick swim in the brisk, choppy ocean.

I spend a minute treading water, looking into the horizon. The sky is that perfect, clear blue washed in sunlight I associate with coastal California. It always calms me, making my brain more logical and less prone to overreacting.

The note is probably nothing. Despite what I do for a living, danger doesn’t lurk around every corner. And the threat wasn’t specific to Emma—it saidsomeonewas going to die at the wedding. If she was a target, they’d name her.

I release a long, slow breath and tell myself to relax. The film is done, and all there’s left to do is celebrate.

I think the official term for this moment is “the calm before the storm.”

I swim back to shore, dry off, and change into a sage-green silk dress with Harper hurrying me along like she always does, though no one will notice if we’re late or even if we don’t make it to the party.

But Harper hurrying me is kind of our thing, even though I’ve been her surrogate parent since our parents died when I was eighteen. I had to grow up overnight and becomein loco parentis, but you can’t stand in for your parents.

I’m not sure exactly when we switched roles. It was probably not long after I crushed her dreams by publishing a novel shedidn’t know I was writing, making it patently obvious I was no longer putting her first.

Harper was supposed to be the writer in the family. And while me publishing a book didn’t make it impossible for her to do so, it didn’tnotmake it impossible either. Then she took a job as my assistant, which I offered her because I thought it would give her enough time to writeandmake money, but it didn’t work out that way. Instead, she took five years to write a book no one wanted to buy and she’s given up writing. She says she’s over it, and I hope, rather than believe, that’s true.

All this to say, she finally gets me out the door, and when we’re halfway there, we run into Oliver Forrest, my on-again boyfriend. We had four good years until I fucked it up, but we reconciled this summer in Italy. Which I’ve just realized probably wouldn’t have happened but for the fact that someone organized an entire book tour to kill me.

I should thank them, I guess?

Oliver is standing under a tall palm tree that’s perfectly framed by the setting sun with the Santa Monica pier behind him, the Ferris wheel’s blinking colored lights visible against the fading sky. He’s wearing a light beige suit and a white shirt with the collar open, and with his curly brown hair and tanned face, he looks like Jonathan Bailey with a literary bent.

“Why does Oliver always look like the hero in a romance novel?” I say to Harper.

She shrugs but smiles. She likes Oliver almost as much as I do.