The word came out wobbly, more breath than sound, as a wave of sadness washed through her for the lost boy—and for George and Marie Bravo. If they actually were her birth parents, she would never know them now.
“Listen.” A look of concern had creased Jonas’s brow. “How about if I stay until you’ve had a chance to check everything over?” He tipped his head at her white-knuckled fist and the memory stick she clutched in it.
“No!” she replied much too sharply. She needed to be alone for this. She needed time to absorb it all and reject it—or to claim it in her heart, take it under her skin. “I, well, would you please thank Percy Valentine for me?”
“Absolutely.”
“Would you explain that you’ve spoken with me and given me all the information he sent you?” Her mouth felt so dry. She swallowed and forged on. “I’m going to need some time...”
Jonas Bravo understood. “You mean you want me to say that you’ll call him?”
The weird, constricted feeling in her chest seemed to loosen a fraction. “Yes, please. Would you tell him that I’ll be in touch as soon as I’m ready?”
“I’ll do that. Thanks for hearing me out. Percy will be looking forward to your call.”
A week after her life-changing visit from the Bravo Billionaire, Madison stood on the back deck of a cute shingled cottage on a pristine stretch of sand called Sweetheart Cove in Valentine Bay.
The sky was endless and overcast. Gulls wheeled and soared above the blue Pacific, filling the air with their drawn-out, plaintive cries. She could smell salt spray and a hint of evergreen from the tall trees on the cliffs that loomed behind the cottage and sheltered the private stretch of beach that formed the cove.
So far, she really liked it here, next to the ocean, on the Oregon coast. It was much cooler and wilder than in LA.
No, she hadn’t reached out to Percy Valentine. But she would. Eventually. When she was ready.
Which wasn’t quite yet.
To lie low, that was her plan. If she stayed incognito, the tabloid reporters wouldn’t find her. She could have a little quiet time for herself while she worked up the nerve to reach out to the family she’d just learned she had.
And yeah. She might not have outed herself to Percy Valentine yet, but she’d studied everything on that flash drive Jonas had given her. She’d seen all the pictures, read all the explanations.
And now she believed.
Her parents—whom she still loved with all her heart—were not her biological parents. She had five brothers, if you counted the one who’d vanished in Siberia years and years ago. Five brothers and four sisters, three by birth and also Aislinn Bravo Winter, the real Madison Delaney—or at least, she would have been if not for what Martin Durand had done.
Everything seemed strange and new and scary. And it would probably only get more so. But she was coping. She was doing all right.
Right now, in the interest of not being recognized, she wore a floppy, wide-brimmed straw hat and a terrific pair of Bvlgari Serpenti Gradient Square sunglasses—the black ones with the snake’s-head detail at the temples. It was just the kind of silly disguise she would never try in LA, the kind that wouldn’t fool anyone there for a second. But here in the Pacific Northwest, where no one expected to run into a movie star, dark glasses and a big hat did the job just fine.
Yeah, okay. There was no one around who might recognize her, anyway. The beach was deserted and there were only the two houses in the cove—her cottage and the larger house next door.
But so what if the hat and glasses were overkill? She wore them anyway, to be on the safe side and also because wearing disguises was fun. She felt like she could be anybody, some Valentine Bay local who’d rented a beach cottage just to stand out on her deck and stare at the waves lapping the sand, stare and smile and feel no pressure to do anything but simply be.
Too bad about the Bluetooth device stuck in her ear and the grating voice of Myra Castle, her agent, talking too fast and too loud, as usual.
“Dare to Dream,” shouted Myra. “Tell me you’ve had a chance to look over the script.”
“Well, Myra, I just got here two days ago and—”
“You need to decide on it and we need to lock it in. They want you, but they won’t wait forever.”
“Myra, I finally have some time off and I’d really like to enjoy—”
“Exactly. Wasted time. You can’t afford that. You’re not getting any younger. I know that’s a ridiculous thing to say to a twenty-seven-year-old woman, but that’s Hollywood. And you pay me to give it to you straight. If you don’t keep making the right choices, you’ll end up last year’s hot commodity. What about Devious Intentions?”
“No. Really. I’m not ready to—”
“Well, then get ready. I’ve discussed this with Rafe.” Rafe Zuma was Madison’s manager. “We agree, Rafe and I. It’s perfect for you, the exact right next step after Heartbeats and To the Top...” There was more. Lots more. Myra was a world-champion talker.
Suppressing a sigh, Madison tuned her out.
The cottage came with a nice pair of field glasses. Snatching them from a pretty cast-iron table as she went by, she strolled toward the back of the wraparound deck, interjecting the occasional “Um,” or “I understand,” whenever Myra paused for a breath or suddenly put a question mark at the end of a sentence. At the back corner, Madison leaned on the railing and traded her sunglasses for the binoculars.
In the past two glorious, peaceful days, she’d had plenty of time to study the occupants of the other house. In residence were her hunky landlord, his wife, a pair of cute kids and an older guy who was most likely the landlord’s dad.
She adjusted the binoculars, bringing the house next door into focus—the rear of the house, to be specific. In the last two days, Madison had been giving the field glasses quite a workout, mostly from her current vantage point.
And no, she wasn’t bird-watching. She was observing the landlord, who had a workshop area back there under his house, a workshop with a wide, roll-up door. Right now, that door was up. On the concrete slab just beyond the open door, the landlord was busy measuring and sawing and hammering.
Did she feel guilty for using his own binoculars to peep at him? Not really. Yeah, okay, it was invasive of his privacy, not to mention pretty juvenile, but what red-blooded, straight woman wouldn’t stare long and often at a guy who looked like that?
He was tall and sinewy and beautiful, with thick brown hair that tended to curl in the moist Oregon air and just the right amount of beard scruff. He was also very handy with a large number of manly tools. He even wore an actual tool belt, wore it low on his hard hips.
Right now, he had his shirt off, displaying a cornucopia of gorgeous, lean muscle, the kind a guy didn’t get at a gym. Lucky for him, he was married, or she just might consider asking hunky Mr. Fixit if he would do her a big favor and help her check off number one on her list of birthday goals.
Madison snorted out a silly laugh just at the thought. As if she’d ever make a move on a stranger, even a single one. She could work a room like nobody’s business and she had no false modesty about her talent as an actress or her pretty face and nice body. In public and on set, she was supremely self-confident.
But when it came to love and romance in Hollywood, who could blame a girl for being wary? Relationships imploded as fast as they began and it really was hard to know if a guy liked you for yourself or for what you could do for him. She didn’t need the potential