“Oh god,” she muttered in dread right as Chuck turned to Benny and twirled his finger in the air like Parker even though he was already filming. Olivia took it to signalthis is it.
Chuck cleared his throat and turned back to her with a huge grin. “I got the part!” he shouted, and threw out his arms.
Sheer shock—and then joy—crashed into Olivia. Her mouth fell open. “Wait, seriously?”
“Seriously! I told you the timing of your profile could change everything, and itdid. Izzy Ramírez gave me a callback and hired me on the spot.”
Olivia happily punched him in the shoulder. “Chuck! This is incredible! I’m so happy for you!”
He scooped her up off the ground in a bear hug, and she wrapped her arms around him. “Thank you! It wouldn’t have happened without you, and I mean that, so thank you for the profile, again.”
She cupped his face in her hands and kissed his lips. “I’m so proud of you.”
“And the best part is,” he blurted like he’d never stoppedtalking, “I can pay for everything now—my rent,yourrent, unless you want to move in with me—also, please move in with me?AndI can take care of Willow Grove too, so Grandma Ruby doesn’t have to go anywhere. And I—”
“Wait, wait, wait. Slow down,” she said, and loosened her grip so that she slid down his body back onto her feet.
He paused to catch his breath. “Sorry. I know that was a lot really fast. I just want to fix everything so that we can be together, and so you don’t have to worry about anything, and—”
“I’m not worried,” she said.
“And I— What? You’re not?” He finally stopped talking enough to let her get a word in.
“No, I’m not,” she said with a soft smile. “Not anymore.”
He picked up on her smile and slyly smiled back. “Okay, what did I miss this time?”
She placed her hand over his heart, which she could feel thumping hard. “Well, while you were out landing your big part, I was out selling the rights to my parents’ story.”
This time his mouth fell open in shock. “Seriously?”
“Yes. Turns out, they’re just as hot of a commodity as we always suspected. I got Astrid on board to tell the story with me, which obviously drove up the price substantially, and Parker wants to turn it into a documentary.Andwe already have four publishers interested in a book deal. That’s where I was this morning. With Parker and Astrid.”
Chuck’s mouth continued to pop open and closed as if he couldn’t figure out which words to form.
“You look like a really sexy fish right now,” Olivia said, and squeezed his face.
“I’m a reallyimpressedfish right now. Holy shit, Liv. This isincredible. How much—? I mean, what kind of payday—?” He cut off and cleared his throat, obviously wanting to know but not wanting to ask.
She smiled at him, still unable to believe the number herself. “Enough.”
He impishly squinted at her. “Likecover your basic needsenough? Or likelet’s buy a yachtenough?”
She laughed and leaned into him as he wrapped his arms around her. “Enoughenough, Chuck. But a yacht isn’t out of the question.” She quickly muttered the last part and buried her lips in his neck. He smelled so perfectly likehimthat she could have gotten drunk off it.
“So, what does this mean for us?” he asked, pulling back with an excited grin.
She pushed her hand through his tousled hair. “It means that money isn’t an issue anymore.” She looked over at the camera to make it clear that she was calling back to her declaration in the viral clip that instigated this whole journey and winked. Then she looked back at Chuck, the love of her life, and smiled. “And it means that I’ll be with you, always, for free.”
Epilogue
One bright, sunny L.A. dayin September—the obnoxiously gorgeous kind that people pay through the nose to live in California for—the time had come for Olivia Martin to do something she’d been running from her whole life. Give an interview about her parents.
She sat out on her back patio, a sweeping terrace with a swimming pool that edged up to a lawn that then gave way to a hillside tumbling over into the basin below. Her and Chuck’s house nestled like a jewel in the Hollywood Hills and had a view of the L.A. skyline, a distant, pointed tiara, from every room. A giant oak tree shaded half their yard. Olivia listened to its leaves rustle in the breeze, the birds chirping from its branches. As she gazed out at the spectacular, perfect day, she couldn’t help thinking that the city was nodding on in approval—that her parents were nodding on in approval.
She took a steadying breath, a rare quiet moment to herself that she’d learned to steal whenever she could, and smoothed her hands over her skirt. Her life had done a one-eighty overthe past two years, and although it still sometimes made her dizzy, she had a profound sense, a knowing deep in her heart, of being right where she belonged.
Thanks to the bombshell profile she’d written, the Izzy Ramírez film being a smash hit, and the endless offers that followed, Chuck had become a certified A-lister. A got-recognized-everywhere, paparazzi-followed-him-to-the-grocery-store, had-to-book-reservations-under-a-fake-name A-lister. He relished it. He ate up every moment of it and left no crumbs. But through it all, he always,alwaysput Olivia first. Making sure she was comfortable with any public appearance, shielding her from any attention she didn’t want, hiring her a bodyguard so people would leave her alone in public. When his name blew up and fans started camping out outside their apartment, which they’d identified from the viral breakup video, they bought a house in the hills behind a gate.