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Jake looked at a stocky, bearded man standing by the front counter. He froze.
What the hell was Conrad Birch doing in Bliss Cove?How had he even known Jake was there?
He stood slowly and dusted his hands off on his jeans before approaching the director. Conrad peered at him over the tops of his glasses, as if he were inspecting Jake through a microscope.
“Conrad.” Smothering a rush of nervousness, he extended a hand. “What brings you here?”
“You got a few minutes?” Conrad enclosed his hand in a meaty grip and slanted a wary glance at Sam, who shrugged.
“Go ahead but don’t expect to get paid for chatting,” he muttered.
“I won’t be long.” Jake gestured toward a small reading area set up at the back of the store.
Conrad followed him and settled into a wingback chair with a grunt. Jake sat across from him, wondering if the director knew about what had gone down yet.
“When my assistant called your agent, he didn’t seem pleased to hear from her.” Conrad rubbed his palms together and squinted.
“Rich and I had a falling out.” Leaning forward, Jake rested his elbows on his knees. “If you haven’t heard yet, I decided not to do a seventhFatal Glorymovie.”
“Oh, I heard. Everyone and their mother heard.” Conrad arched his eyebrows. “No wonder you and Richardfell out. You’re costing him a lot of money. Agents tend to get a bit upset about that, especially when they think a client is sabotaging his or her own career.”
Jake tightened his fingers together. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“It may not be what youintend, but it may be the end result regardless.”
Irritation prickled Jake’s spine. He wasn’t an industry neophyte. “I know.”
“So why did you take the risk?” Conrad leaned forward, scratching at his beard. “Why walk away from a cash-cow franchise?”
“To do something different.”
“What?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Ah. Like Tom Dillon walks away from the sure-thing of his factory job in search of something he hasn’t figured out yet.”
Jake’s stomach tightened. He met Conrad’s gaze. “Yeah. Like that.”
“Tom is a lost soul. Even an empty soul, looking to be filled. On his journey, bit by bit, the people he encounters make him rediscover his own humanity.”
“Because he wants to know what makes people live the lives they do,” Jake said. “Why they make the choices they make. And he learns that every life, every moment, holds something incredible. Like a seed. He wants to look at his own life that way.”
“Is that what you want?”
“Don’t we all?”
A smile formed on Conrad’s mouth. “Tell me why you’re living in this little town that most people pass right by on the way to San Francisco or LA.”
Jake studied his clasped hands, trying to formulate an answer to a question he’d been asking himself since the day he’d returned.
“When my management team told me I needed to disappear for a while,” he began, “I knew it was risky coming to Bliss Cove. There’s a better chance of people recognizing me here than anywhere else. I knew that, but I still came. This is home. I needed to reconnect with who I was beforeFatal Gloryand before fame drastically changed my life.”
“Did you succeed?” Conrad asked. “In thisreconnection?”
Jake shrugged, even as an image of Callie filled his head. He didn’t know if he’d reconnected with himself, but he’d connected withherin ways that blindsided him. Ways that felt like they existed beyond time, beyond all comprehension. All he knew was the aching pull toward her, the happiness he experienced when he was with her—and nothing in Hollywood had ever equaled the intensity of those feelings.
“Who’s the girl?” Conrad asked.
