Chapter One
Before we start... Be sure to – you’ll get three free stories right away, and you’ll be the first to hear about new releases, special deals, and exclusive bonus content.
* * *
Hailey smoothed her hands over the silky contours of her dress and frowned into the full-length mirror.
Her mother tapped her shoulder. “Don’t make faces, honey. It will give you wrinkles.”
Hailey’s frown deepened as she looked down. “I thought only the bride was supposed to wear white at a wedding.”
“It’s cream,” her mother insisted.
Hailey squinted into the mirror. Was that a trick of the bright overhead light? “It’s still too close.”
Her mother shrugged. “It’s Isabelle’s wedding, and if she wants her bridesmaids in cream, she can have them. Besides, it brings out the blue of your eyes.”
Hailey turned this way and that. The dress looked good. Almost too good, what with the way her long, golden hair flowed over the silky fabric. But she was just a bridesmaid, for goodness’ sake. A reluctant one, at that, because she barely knew the bride. On the other hand, Isabelle was known for having quirky tastes.
“I think she just made me a bridesmaid to be polite.”
“Nonsense, honey. She likes you. Her future sister-in-law.” Her mother winked.
Hailey just about stamped her foot. “Would you stop that? Just because I’ve seen Jonathan a few times doesn’t mean I’m marrying him.”
She nearly added, In fact, it’s been more about him wanting to see me. Their brief, long-distance relationship had barely given them time to talk in person, and it seemed impolite to break up on the eve of his sister’s wedding. She didn’t want to jinx Isabelle.
Her mother made a vague, mmm-hmm sound and tugged the shoulder strap of Hailey’s dress to one side.
Hailey tugged it right back. “Mom…”
Her mother huffed. “You know, you didn’t use to fuss so much.”
Hailey nearly blurted, That was when I was a kid and I had no choice. But that only would have gotten her mother started on her whole How can you be so ungrateful when I’ve done so much for you speech, so Hailey held her tongue and swung her jaw from side to side instead.
“Don’t do that. It’s not pretty.”
Her mother didn’t used to get on her nerves this badly. But lately…
“I’m not on the clock, Mom.”
“People will still be watching you.” Her mother smiled like that was a good thing.
Hailey made a face. People were always watching. Commenting. Sneaking pictures and whispering, It’s her! It’s her! Hailey Crewe! She’d had to live with that for the past three years, ever since her modeling career took off.
An accidental career she kept meaning to end, a lot like her relationship with Jonathan. She just had to find the right time to break the news. Hailey looked out the open window at surfers bobbing in the water off Waikiki, waiting for a perfect wave. They looked so relaxed, so free. So spontaneous. Everything she couldn’t be.
Not in her current life, anyway. She fingered her necklace and let her gaze drift to the craggy crown of Diamond Head. Hawaii might be just the place to make that break and start something new. She closed her eyes, picturing it.
It was getting to be a little fantasy with her — making her career-ending announcement, then kicking up her heels and turning her back on it all. Make that, running away from it all. The intense schedule. The constant dieting. Sexist producers. How superficial it all was.
Of course, if Hailey did that, her mother would have a heart attack — or fake one. Her agent would flip, and the media would whip themselves into a frenzy if she didn’t time it exactly right. Maybe when another top model hit the news with a record-breaking deal or shocking news, like a bombshell divorce or a drug arrest. Hailey didn’t wish any of that on anyone but, heck. If one of those things did happen, she’d grab the chance for a quiet exit, stage right.
She must have been smiling at the notion, because her mother chuckled. “Ah, I see you’re dreaming of your own wedding.”
That snapped her out of the fantasy with the force of a car slamming into a brick wall. “Marriage isn’t my major goal in life, Mom.”
“Which I can’t understand, not when you have a good man like Jonathan.”
Good meant rich, Hailey knew. As in, billions. She hadn’t even realized at first, but the more she’d gotten to know Jonathan, the more she’d realized how much money ruled his life.
“He’s only a few years older than you,” her mother went on, extolling his virtues. “He’s in good shape, and you look great together…”
Hailey rolled her eyes. Was that important?
Her mother sighed. “Would you stop fiddling with that ugly thing?”
Hailey bristled. Her pearl was a family heirloom, but since it wasn’t the round, shiny type — just an oblong, bumpy pearl — it wasn’t good enough in her mother’s eyes.
Her mother tugged the shoulder strap down again. “You have such nice shoulders, honey. Nothing wrong with showing a little skin.”
“At a wedding?”
“Gotta make a splash.” Her mother grinned.
No, she didn’t. When would her mother get that? She’d had her lucky break and made it big. Modeling had lifted her and her mother out of poverty. Why did her mother always demand more?
“This a wedding, Mom. Not a publicity event.”
“Everything is a publicity event.” Her mother practically beamed.
“It doesn’t have to be. I’d really like to go to this wedding as myself, not as someone else’s vision of who I should be.”
Her mother gave a theatrical sigh. “If I let you do that, you’d go in ripped jeans and a T-shirt. And your hair would look like you’d skateboarded to the event.”
Hailey snorted, not because her mother was wrong, but because the astronomical insurance policy her agent had negotiated didn’t allow anything fun. No skateboarding, no horseback riding. Nothing. All the simple fun she’d had as a kid was suddenly off-limits. Heck, she couldn’t even go out on the beach and rent a surfboard for an hour. And anyway, she’d be mobbed if she did.
“Making it big is supposed to let you live the way you want to live,” she murmured.
Her mother shook her head. “You have another ten years — at best — in this business. You have to milk that time for all it’s worth.”
An apt description, Hailey thought. She was the golden cow that had to be milked for every penny. How much would she need to earn to satisfy her mother?
“Now about your hair…” her mother said before Hailey could snap those words out.
She pursed her lips and counted to ten. A woman really ought to have shown her mother the limits by the time she hit twenty-eight. But the first years of Hailey’s whirlwind career had been like falling into a shark tank, and her mother had had her best interests at heart. For every success, there had been another step of the ladder to climb, and Hailey had been too focused on her part of the equation to battle her mother.
But now… Hailey sighed. She was going to have two difficult conversations soon. One with Jonathan and one with her mother. She appreciated her mom — she truly did — but it was time to carve out space for her own life on her own terms.
She turned away from her mother, covering her hair. “I can do it.”
“You want it to look good for the wedding, dear.”
“Not my wedding.”
“You never know,” her mother said under her breath. “I mean, when the great day might come.”
Hailey gave her mother a side-eyed stare and started forming a twisted chignon.
“Needs more volume,” her mother said.
Things pretty much continued in that vein until they left their penthouse suite for the hotel lobby, where Jonathan waited. Or rather, where he spoke on his phone. He flicked his fingers up in a little salute then turned his back on Hailey to finish the call.
“Yes, twenty-six. And verify the ETFs.” He checked his hair in a pair of slanted mirrors that threw back an infinite number of images of him. “What are the numbers from Nagoya?”
Hailey gnashed her teeth. What had she ever seen in him?
She looked toward the fountain bubbling cheerily in the lobby of the beachside hotel, but her thoughts were a thousand miles away. She’d first met Jonathan near his hobby ranch in Montana, and he’d been different then. More relaxed, more outdoorsy. Sporty, even, with hair that hadn’t been blow-dried just so. Had that all been a show? Maybe she’d been desperate to see him in a better light — or desperate to get away from her mother, who guarded against men like a hawk. When Jonathan came along, however, her mother had been all fluttering eyelashes and happy coos.
Three reporters rushed across the lobby to snap pictures, making her mother wind an arm through Hailey’s elbow and beam.
“Miss Crewe! Miss Crewe!”
Hailey tried not to frown. Why did reporters always talk at the same time?
“What are your thoughts on this big day? Are you excited? Nervous?”
It was only a wedding. What was the big deal?
“Back up. Back up.”
Lamar, Jonathan’s head of security, stalked over with his usual glare and pushed them all back, but that didn’t improve things much. Lamar made Hailey cringe, even if she couldn’t explain why. His low bark of a voice and permanent scowl made her imagine all kinds of evil deeds, like he’d come straight from strangling someone in the woods. Which was a terrible thing to think of someone, but somehow, that’s what always came to Hailey’s mind.
Jonathan, on the other hand, had a serious man-crush on his head of security. “All set to go, man?” He thumped Lamar on the arm like they were close buddies instead of boss and hired gun.
Lamar gave his usual pissed-off nod and growled. “All set to go.”
Jonathan turned to Hailey, beaming as if she’d only just walked up. “Honey, you look beautiful!”
Hailey turned her cheek before Jonathan’s lips could hit hers. Did the man ever notice anything other than her appearance? No I’ve missed you or How was your morning?
Jonathan turned to her mother. “Mrs. Crewe. You two look like sisters.”
Her mother ate that up, but Hailey rolled her eyes. No, they didn’t look like sisters. Her mother looked every bit a woman who’d struggled most of her life to make ends meet. A woman who’d spent years at the stove of a diner, grilling burgers and fries because that’s what you did to pay the rent, especially if you were widowed young and left with a kid, a crippling mortgage, and a car that barely ran. To Hailey, the wrinkles and stooped shoulders made her mother beautiful, not the styled hair or designer clothes she’d cloaked herself in ever since Hailey’s modeling money had started to roll in.
Hailey sighed at her own train of thought. God, she really was in the wrong industry, wasn’t she?
“You look great, Jonathan,” her mother cooed.
Jonathan flashed his country club smile, smoothed a hand over his perfectly straight tie, and winked. “It’s the big day.”
Hailey’s mother winked back, making her pause. Those two were up to something. But what? Jonathan did look good, she had to admit. Of course, it was his sister’s wedding, and his family had spared no expense. Kind of a rushed wedding, but whatever. That wasn’t Hailey’s business, so she’d never really asked.
“Shall we go?” she asked.
Jonathan grinned like she was one of the adorable little flower girls who skipped by and not a grown woman who could think for herself. “Soon.” He gave Lamar a cryptic signal and let him bustle ahead. “Let’s make sure everyone is ready to go.”
Jonathan loved making an entrance — another thing he hadn’t revealed in Montana. When Hailey had seen him in California between jobs, she was shocked at the cheap thrill he got out of limos and red-carpet events. Sometimes she wondered whether he only supported charitable projects for the publicity.
The fountain bubbled quietly, providing an oasis of calm and tranquility Hailey didn’t feel in the least.
At least she’d never slept with Jonathan. Thank goodness for that. She’d kept it to dinners out and a quick kiss on the doorstep of her Brentwood condo.
Not going to invite me in? Jonathan had asked with a glint in his eye every time.
She’d blabbed about going slow and forming a meaningful relationship before taking the next step and a bunch of other nonsense that had held him at bay. So far, she’d kept it at that. And that was as far as it was going, because she had no intention to continue seeing Jonathan. He’d booked a suite for Hailey and her mother across the hall from his own, and across the hall was where she planned to keep him until she found the right time to break it off gently.
“One more thing,” Jonathan said, reaching into his pocket. “I brought you a gift.”
Hailey looked on, mortified, as he held out a jewelry box with a magnificent pearl necklace. There were at least twenty pearls in it, each pink, shiny, and perfectly round.
“Oh, it’s lovely.” Her mother pressed a hand to her own chest as if picturing them there.
“Yes, they are.” Jonathan grinned.
Hailey bit her lip. “Thank you, but I couldn’t possibly accept.”
Jonathan frowned. “Of course you can. They’re beautiful.”
As if beauty was all that counted. Hailey sighed then ducked away before he could loop them around her neck.
“I don’t understand why you don’t want them. They’re much better than yours.” Jonathan’s eyes narrowed.
She could have thrown out any of a dozen answers, starting with Because they’ll make you feel like you own me and moving on to Because my grandfather gave me my necklace and I love it. But Jonathan wouldn’t listen, and he’d never understand.
He stared at her through icy eyes until her mother intervened. “Please forgive her, Jonathan. It must be all the stress. She’ll come to her senses before long.”
Hailey gritted her teeth. If only her mother knew.
Jonathan pocketed the necklace, slowly composing himself, then spoke in a strangely flat tone. “Oh, I’m sure she will.”
I already have, Hailey was dying to say. But that would just get Jonathan worked up and make it harder to have a calm, sensible conversation when the time came. The sooner, the better.
“Oh, this is so exciting,” her mother chirped, fanning herself.
Hailey peeked outside. The Royal Hawaiian was a Waikiki landmark that opened onto a golden beach with turquoise waters, all framed by a line of bright pink sun umbrellas.
Where would you have your wedding? Jonathan’s sister Isabelle had phoned to ask a few weeks ago. Somewhere in Hawaii, right?
Hailey had nearly said At home in Montana, but okay. Hawaii would be nice, too. Someplace small and off the beaten track, like one of those tiny missionary-era chapels she’d seen in the in-flight magazine.
Leave it to a member of Jonathan’s family, then, to stage an event in the middle of bustling Waikiki.
Sure, she’d told Isabella. It wasn’t her wedding, anyway.
Outside, a bell chimed, and the crowd bustled to the white chairs set in two long lines. Everyone hushed and craned their heads expectantly. Hailey looked around too. Isabelle must be on her way any minute now with her beau.
“Okay,” Jonathan said, puffing out his cheeks. They were pinker than she’d ever seen. Jonathan was all worked up about his sister’s wedding, which was cute. “They’re ready for us.”
See? she told herself. He did have some redeeming qualities. Not enough to want to stay with him, but enough to make her feel better about getting involved in the first place. She let Jonathan take her arm and guide her out onto the lawn.
“Nice,” she murmured, tilting her chin upward as they stepped into the sun. She’d only arrived late the previous night and had been cooped up in her suite all morning.
A ripple of excitement went through the crowd, which Hailey supposed was par for the course. Isabelle would be next — that’s what they were anticipating, right?
But everyone’s eyes were fixed firmly on her — hundreds of pairs, though few she recognized, because they were all Jonathan’s family, friends, and business partners. Her step faltered, and her stomach churned, because something felt off. Really off.
She touched her hair. Was it a mess? Or, God — she knew she shouldn’t have worn that dress.
Everyone was smiling, but there was a vibe in the air that made her want to turn and run. As if everyone knew something she didn’t. She reached up with one hand, touching her pearl for reassurance. Jonathan, on the other hand, was beaming like a man with four aces up his sleeve.
Hailey took three more steps, then stopped short. Isabelle, the bride, was sitting off to one side in the first row of seats, wearing a yellow dress, and her fiancée was nowhere in sight.
“Uh, Jon—” Hailey started, then stopped as Jonathan sank down to one knee and looked up.
Cameras flashed. Palm trees rustled, and her mother squeaked. The guests seemed to hold their breath, and Hailey did too. What was going on?
Jonathan cleared his throat and spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. “I know you love surprises, honey…”
She hated surprises — so much, she couldn’t speak or move. She stood like a deer in headlights, knowing doom was a split second away but still not processing exactly what it was.
The crowd chuckled on cue, and Jonathan went on, his clammy hands clasping hers. “The day I met you, I knew you were the one. My one. My only. My princess.”
Hailey wanted to tug him to his feet, but there were too many alarms going off in her mind for her to take action of any kind.
Jonathan held out a tiny black box and smiled at her. No, wait. He was smiling at the box in one of those Aren’t I awesome? looks he flashed from time to time. The crowd gasped when he opened the box, revealing a massive diamond ring.
“I know we haven’t known each other that long, but I don’t need any more time to decide,” he announced.
Jesus, Jonathan, she wanted to bark. I sure do. Or rather, she didn’t need any time to decide because she already wanted out. Really out.
“Are you nuts?” she hissed as quietly as she could.
The women in the nearest seats giggled. Isn’t that cute?
No, it wasn’t cute. It was appalling. Why would Jonathan put her on the spot like this?
He grinned like he thought it was cute too. “You said you wanted more spontaneity in your life.”
“I didn’t mean this.” She jerked her hand at the scene. “What were you thinking?”
Jonathan’s grin stretched. Obviously, it hadn’t occurred to him she might not go along with his crazy plan.
“I was thinking about forever, sweetheart. I was thinking about how much I love you.”
The crowd sighed audibly, but to Hailey, the words sounded stale and rehearsed.
“Hailey Crewe,” he continued. “Will you marry me?”