“Not anymore!” Marie shrieked. “And you . . . You even think about setting foot inside my pub and I will beat you to within an inch of your life. Understood?”

I heard the girl mumble something.

“Good. I hope you two are very happy together. He’s a cheap bastard and a lousy lay and he’s all yours.”

And that’s when Tammy hung up on me, leaving me rattled and riled and hanging in the wind three thousand miles away.

“I was afraid of this,” Ryan said, staring at his laptop while waiting on a call of his own.

I was clutching my cell, chewing on the edge of it, wondering when and how everything started falling apart. “Afraid of what?”

He glanced over the opened screen, then went back to doing what he was doing. “Friends. Fights.

Anger. Jealousy. All of that shit.”

I was scratching my head, trying to figure out what he meant.

“I didn’t think that it would happen, though. I mean, one of the reasons I even considered pursuing you and pulling you into my crazy life was because I saw how tight you were with your core friends. I didn’t think that they’d break their bonds once we started getting serious. Guess I was wrong.”

Either he was speaking man mumbo-jumbo or I was still dazed from my call and missing the point. I squinted at him. “Um. Huh?”

“The fighting. It’s started. I used to have a huge group of friends, but once the first movie came out, one by one they started dropping like flies. Things get fucked-up. Same shit is happening to you.”

Ryan squatted down in front of me and leveled his eyes on mine. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? My friends are fighting, Ryan, not us. I don’t know what you caught of that conversation, but I just found out that the new girl that Gary is seeing is one of Tammy’s friends, who just so happens to be in my pub kitchen helping Tammy out right now. Marie went down to open up and ran right into the girl.”

Ryan frowned. “I thought maybe . . . Friends get weird and shit when all of a sudden you have money and they don’t, you’re traveling and they aren’t. I just know that the petty shit comes to the surface and the next thing you know you’re fighting and at each other’s throats. So many people want fortune and fame but what they don’t realize is that it comes with a ton of heartache.”

I rested my taxed brain in my hand. “I still don’t get where you’re going with this. My friends are fighting—”

“And you feel compelled to pick a side.”

“Well, yeah, to a certain extent. Especially when one is purposely causing hurt to the other. I’d take a stand regardless, and whether or not my future husband was über-famous shouldn’t be a factor.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Yeah, but what? You are who I’ve chosen to be with. If my friends have a problem with that—which I don’t think they do, but regardless—if they can’t be on board with my happiness and feel threatened by my choice, then they really aren’t good friends to begin with. And if they are jealous, then I’d hope they’d keep it to themselves, as I am certainly not flaunting anything under their noses. Tammy is under a lot of stress and she’s lashing out. I get that. We girls go crazy every now and then. I can even forgive her for keeping her nose out of other people’s marriage problems. But what I will not excuse is her knowing that her friend is banging another good friend’s husband and bringing that nonsense to my house.”

Ryan put his hands on his hips. “I love you.”

I smiled. “I know you do. I love you more.”

That earned me a trademarked lip smirk nose wrinkle. “You think Tammy hooked them up?”

I hated to think the worst of people, especially friends in my closest circle, but over the years I’d seen so many show me their dark side that I now knew even the sweetest, the kindest could turn horrid.

Speaking of people turning horrid, I was just about to shut the lid on Ryan’s laptop if I had to listen to another minute of his manager’s condescending bullshit during their online video conference.

I was having my own conversation with our publicist, Trish, over some changes to Ryan’s schedule when Ryan hammered his fist into the table.

“I lost forty-five grand in the last six months, so you can shove all of the ‘let Mercer handle that’

bullshit. Fucking people need a wake-up call that I am paying attention to my financial statements. If they are incapable of keeping me from losing money then I will find another firm to manage it.”

I was updating my master calendar when Ryan’s elbows hit the table. I heard him end his call and when I looked over, he was holding his head in his hands. He had so many people poking their noses into his business, telling him how to run his life, I wondered how long he’d be able to endure the constant pressure of it all.

I set my pen down and crossed the room. As soon as he looked up at me, I straddled his thighs, wrapping my arms around his warm, bare shoulders, and pulled him in tightly.

I closed my eyes and rested my cheek on his head, rubbing my fingers over his hair, his neck, while his arms cinched around me. We sat in silence for a long time, just breathing and being, chasing the insanity away as best we could.

Ryan’s eyes met mine and we softly kissed, reassuring each other with weary smiles.

“Change your mind yet?” he asked warily, locking his thumb through the belt loop of my jeans.

I shook my head, knowing what he was asking. “Never. You’re mine.”

That definitely pleased him. He gave me a crooked, unsure look. “Till death do us part?”

I gave him a soft kiss. “Maybe just a bit beyond that.”

“So, tell me. Tammy’s stressing out. Makes me wonder what we’ll be up against when we’re planning our wedding.”

I took a little breath. “Honestly? I really don’t want a big to-do, Ryan. I’m thinking sweet and simple.”

“Sweet and simple, huh?”

I nodded. “You know—family and friends. Romantic. Elegant. Maybe some twinkle lights in the trees.”

He wiggled his thighs, bouncing me a bit. “Twinkle lights. Okay, what else?”

I paused to think about it. “Outdoors maybe.”

“Like tents and stuff?”

That thought made me wrinkle my nose. “I don’t think I want the big, white tent thing.”

Ryan scratched his cheek. “You want to do the church thing or . . . ?”

I really had no preference. “I’m not set on anything and honestly, I haven’t been in a church since my dad died, so . . . What do you want?”

His noncommittal shrug was the easy way out. “Naked on a beach?”

I frowned and gave him a nudge.

“Really!” he went on. “I don’t know. Outdoors sounds good. Or inside somewhere. I’m completely open to suggestions.”

“I think we have time to figure it out. Maybe we should work on living together in sin first.”

Ryan slid his hands over my rear, tensing his fingers. “I like that idea. I started drafting some designs.”

Suddenly he was completely rejuvenated, as if he had a new fire burning in his gut. He flipped open the

sketchpad he always doodled in.

“All right, time to start designing our house.”

Ryan was back on set filming when I got to talk to my birth father again. We spoke on the phone for almost an hour, neither of us really minding the time. Joe was easy to talk to and although we kept the conversation light and informative, I could tell that his words were filled with regret.

While Ryan filmed, I stayed in his trailer, going over everything from our latest financial statements to picking out front doors for our future house.

Ryan’s set trailer rocked a little when he bounded in. “Hey babe,” he said, eying me over. “What’s going on?”

I watched as he set some papers on the counter. “Oh, where to begin? You sure you want to hear this?”

Ryan took a bottle of cold water out of the small refrigerator. “Not when you start off that way, Taryn.