Page 50 of Me and Mr. Just Right

“I’m going to batten the hatches,” Rose said. She rushed around to every window, shutting it and closing the blinds, while Lia shook sand out of her hair and looked around. Colorful art in various mediums covered every available space. It was chaotic and full of life and worked together with a symmetry Lia never could have imagined without seeing it for herself.

Rose then turned on lights so they weren’t in the dark, and double-checked windows before turning to Lia with a fiercely protective expression. “No one saw you. I’m sure of it.”

“I really can’t thank you enough, Rose.”

Rose collapsed onto a couch and flung her hands out to her sides. “NowI’m going to lie down and contemplate my life and how Aurelia Halifax knows my name.”

Lia took a seat at the table across from the couch as her heart rate gradually slowed to normal. She’d never get used to having no privacy, no matter how many years of fame she experienced.

Rose sat up just as quickly as she’d lain down. “Okay, it’s processed. My brothers got to spend the week with you? They’re so lucky. What did you think of them? Be honest. I can take it. Jules is a little annoying, right? Kind of know-it-all? But Bennett’s a total cinnamon-roll sweetie. And Haydn is, like, the best, which you know, since I saw you kiss. Wait! My brother kissed Aurelia Halifax!” Again, her voice squealed at the end. “Never mind, I’m not done processing.” She lay back down with her arm over her eyes.

Lia laughed. She was learning that Rose liked to ask a lot of questions at once, and that she spoke really fast. And she was just as loyal and trustworthy as the other Forresters. How lucky was Lia to have met them—even if things didn’t end with Haydn how she’d hoped.

“How did they find out you’re here?” Rose asked. “Did they GPS-track you somehow?”

Lia shook her head. “I have no idea. I didn’t even have my phone on all week.” Bo or Gwen wouldn’t have added a tracking app to her phone—that seemed like it would be going too far, even for them. She searched through her bag and pulled out her phone to turn it on.

Rose peeked out the curtains. “There’s got to be at least thirty of them out there. This is nuts. Petersburg hasn’t seen this much action since … well, ever.”

Lia didn’t see any new apps, and her location sharing was turned off. She typed her own name into her search engine, and an image popped up. It looked like a screenshot from a social media post from theAlaskan Ridges Magazine.

In it, she was lying on her back on a rock, her face in profile, but she knew her fans would have recognized her instantly. Photo credit: Haydn Forrester. Her heart sank.

She clicked over to theAlaskan RidgesInstagram page and saw a more recent post, saying that Haydn Forrester would be doing a feature for their magazine later this year, with more pictures in this series. Nearly every comment asked if she’d be in more pictures, and whoever ran the Instagram page was vague and teasing, leading the reader to believe that she probably would be.

So he got the feature. At her expense.

How could she feel both happy and devastated at the same time? Had it all been fake? A lie?

“What? What happened?” Rose asked.

Lia flipped her phone around so Rose could see the original post.

Rose’s face went from interested to clouded in seconds, and she threw her hands on her hips with a huff. “Did I say Haydn’s my favorite? Because he’s the worst. Ugh. Worse than landlocked served halibut.” She paced back and forth, shaking her head. “No, no one’s that bad. But he’s worse than my last commissioned painting, which is saying something, because they wanted me to do a wedding-style painting of their cat and dog as bride and groom. Can you imagine? I wish I couldn’t.” She shuddered.

Lia understood why Rose had wanted to lie down to process things. Her head felt like it was swimming. It didn’t help that Rose’s constant state of motion and talking was making her feel dizzy. Yeah, she was going to rest her head for just a minute. She placed it on the table and tried to practice her deep-breathing exercises.

Could she have been so wrong about a person? Again?

Rose groaned and sat on the floor next to Lia’s chair. “Lia, I’m soooo torn, because I want to hate him for you, but I can’t. Haydn wouldneverdo something like this. He’d never use someone to get ahead.”

“People can change when it comes to fame.” She saw it all the time. She’d once thought Gwen would never betray her, but the minute she’d had the chance to make it big—if she had to stomp on Aurelia to get there—she’d taken it.

“Not Haydn,” Rose insisted. “He would tank his career to help someone before he’d ever manipulate them to get ahead. There’s got to be an explanation.”

“Like what?” Lia was grasping for hope. She wanted to believe Rose. Wanted to believe Haydn wouldn’t do this.

“Did he know it was you—Aurelia Halifax and not Lia Hall—when he sent the photo to his publisher? I know that’s a long shot, but—”

Lia snatched her phone, hoping despite herself, and scrolled to look at the date of the original picture. It was from five days ago. He’d sent it the day they’d gone to look at the starfish and have a picnic. “I hadn’t told him who I was yet.” She looked at Rose. “He acted so surprised.” Angry, even. Her heart clenched. “He couldn’t have been faking that, right?”

“No,” Rose said fervently. “He’s a terrible actor. Like, the worst. He gets all stiff and awkward and does this weird thing with his hand like he’s smoking, but he’s never smoked in his life, and he says that’s just how he holds his hand, but he doesn’t.”

She demonstrated the weird hand waving near his mouth, and despite all the stress, Lia giggled. “I didn’t see him do that at all.” She definitely would have remembered. It was ridiculous.

“See? An honest mistake.”

Just as quickly as she’d been giggling, though, her stomach turned to stone. Maybe it had been a mistake, but it was just more evidence of how different their worlds were. How they didn’t belong together—no matter how much she wished it were different. “What am I going to do? My flight leaves in two hours.” She’d never be able to get out of this marina without being noticed.

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