Trapped With My Stalker (Sweet Temptation Bay #3)

Chapter One

Stellan

I’ve just finished shooting my latest action film, which will come out next year. There is a lot to do for it when the time comes, but until then, it’s vacation time. I’m in the middle of gathering my laptop and organizing the documents on my desk while my assistant taps her heel on my expensive floors. I stared at them, wondering why I bought this place. This isn’t me. I hate the ostentatious place and the coldness of the four thousand square feet with wide open beige space and nothing in it. Everything looks sterile. I’m an action star, for fuck’s sake. It should appear dirty and manly, but it’s like a floor model for a bland magazine.

“You’re leaving?”

“Yes, I’m going to Sweet Temptation Bay for a while,” I answered without looking up.

“Sweet Temptation Bay?” Felicity asks, sounding surprised as if I hadn’t gone there before. “Why are you visiting her again?”

“It’s not your business how often I visit my Nana. Just keep it quiet. It’s your job to keep my whereabouts a secret and keep everyone off my trail. I want the stalker to lose all traces of my location for good.” It’s wishful thinking until the woman is apprehended.

“Understood, Stellan.” Felicity has been my assistant for ten years, and I can’t imagine how my life would be without her. She’s cleared the path for the past decade. When I first came to Hollywood, it was pure luck that I landed a movie role, and since then, I’ve gone from a bit role to pure stardom, needing someone to help me. She’s been there to keep everything organized and scheduled. She’s even kept the crazed fans at bay. Sometimes, too much. I don’t think I’ve had a date in years, and I’ve never…

Still, there’s one part of my life I’ve kept a secret from the rest of the world—that is my nana. She lives in a small town called Sweet Temptation Bay and has lived there her entire life. I moved in with her for a time after my parents lost custody of me. They had a substance abuse problem that eventually caught up with them. Thankfully, I managed to keep my history a secret and my past phony.

It’s been hard to see her without being recognized, but Nana doesn’t need the press digging into her life, so I make it happen as often as I can, traveling in disguise and my trips brief. With my stalker invading my life, I haven’t been able to see my Nana frequently, but I make sure to call her, or she’ll tan my hide when she sees me.

“Stellan, I’ll do all I can to ensure she doesn’t find you,” Felicity offers.

“Good. I’ve kept my visits to Temptation a secret all these years. I expect it to stay that way.”

“Yes, Stellan,” she answers with a choke.

“You okay?”

“Yes, sorry. I think the air is a little dry in here.” It’s been so hot that the air is at full blast. This is nothing compared to when I arrive in Temptation, where it will be that sticky wet heat that makes your clothes adhere to your skin, and bugs hit your skin all day.

She needs to de-stress as well. I’m not the only one who has been working hard. “While I’m safely away, enjoying my extended break. Take time with your boyfriend.”

“We broke up six months ago.”

“Sorry to hear it. It will give you time to find a new one.”

“When will you be back?”

“I don’t know. A month? A couple of weeks. Since I don’t have anything in the works, I plan to take some serious time off.”

“Okay.”

“Should I start looking for another job?” Felicity asks.

“Maybe,” I tease. She gasps. “I’m kidding, Felicity. I’m kidding. Besides, we know damn well that after shooting a movie, there’s more to do. We have reshoots, press tours, junkets, and much more before the movie is even released.”

“Don’t scare me like that. It’s not that easy to look for another job after getting fired.”

“You wouldn’t get fired if I suddenly retired.”

“I suppose, but then I wouldn’t have the same role, and it wouldn’t last a long time afterward. You don’t have a reason to retire, anyway.”

“I’m getting kind of old and not going to be hip with the market anymore.”

“Stellan, you’re in your prime, and you’re not even dating anyone.” Like, I don’t know. The media is constantly reminding me and making assumptions about me, talking shit about my lack of experience and claiming that I have a little dick or into men and having secret trysts.

If I was insecure, I’d whip out my cock and show them that I’m a fucking giant among men. And I already threatened to sue a guy who claimed he had an affair with me. He retracted that statement in a heartbeat, but the damage was done, and the rumor mill ran wild. Dates were hard to get.

“I meant with the movie market.”

“Please, you’re a man. You could be in your nineties and be the lead actor.”

“Good point. Well, thanks for stopping by, but I have to get ready to leave and catch a flight.”

“You don’t need a ride to the airport?”

“No, I’m going to take a service there, but thanks.” I give Felicity a hand with her things and walk her to the door. Once she’s gone, I prepare my bags and then load my Jaguar for the trip. I might have said I was taking a flight, but I didn’t want to worry her by saying I was driving all the way to Temptation Bay, which was halfway across the country on the East Coast.

The road is clear for a while, so I don’t see anyone following me, which is fantastic. Hopefully, that means the crazy stalker doesn’t have any idea where I’m going, or so I believe. She’s been a menace. It started about five months ago when I received my first gift with my favorite meal delivered to my home.

I thought my assistant had surprised me even though I hate surprises because the last one I’d gotten wasn’t a pleasant one. She swore it wasn’t her, so I had her look into the matter with the restaurant. The person didn’t leave a name, and they paid in cash. What was worse is they didn’t have a camera, so they had no idea who the person was, but it was a male.

We soon learned that it was a female who was my stalker because of the emails that came in. The cops read them, and it was clear that a woman wrote the obsessive love, but they had been sent through proxy servers from around the world, and there was no way to trace it.

It was only two hours into my two-day trip when I received multiple calls from my assistant, who had many questions about mail or my utilities. Finally, I snapped off, “I’m on vacation, Felicity. Don’t call me unless it’s important. Understood?”

“Yes, Stellan.” I ended the call, getting more and more annoyed. There is no reason for her to be calling me because it’s stuff that is always handled when I leave town, and I answered during our first call. It’s as if she’s checking up on me. After that, I put my phone on do not disturb and made the long journey through the U.S. There’s just something peaceful about a long road trip that helps me clear my mind. I’m twenty-nine and frustrated as hell with my life.

As successful as I am, I’m not happy, and that’s a sad fact that would shock people. How could being rich and famous not make me fucking ecstatic? Well, I have no one to share it with other than my assistant, who I don’t even see as more than an employee. It’s strange, but we don’t bond. I like her as a person, but nothing more. Up until a few months ago, she was calling me Sir or Mr. Knox. Maybe I should call and apologize because I was so rude. I scratch that idea because it will give away the fact that I’m not at the airport.

Continuing my drive down, I turn up the music and let myself relax, taking the least traveled roads and cruising all the way there through the summer heat. Once I get tired or hungry, I find an out-of-the-way hole-in-the-wall town and stop in, hiding my face with a baseball cap, snatching a bite to eat, and using my real identification to get a hotel room for the night. Some people just assume that Stellan Barrymore looks a lot like Stellan Knox.

I rest my head on the pillow and allow myself to contemplate the next few weeks’ plans. So far, the only thing on my radar has been my nana and hiding from the prying eyes of my fans and that crazy stalker who wants to have my babies.

I don’t want to have babies until I find the one woman I can’t live without, and there hasn’t been a single female that has come close. Most dates end in disaster, with me getting the check and calling a cab. Hell, I haven’t been on a date in five years and never a second date, which is awful for a man of my fame and fortune. It’s one of the few areas in life where I’m a complete failure. Maybe it’s because I have terrible people skills or some shit, or because all the women I find are only after one damn thing, a ring and the bank account that goes with it.

Finally, I arrive in Sweet Temptation and the first thing I do is knock on my sweet Nana Louise’s door. “Hello Nana, miss me?”

“Always, my sugar. Come on in.” She smiles and opens the door for me. “I’ve got a lot of things for you to fix.”

“I expect nothing less. Well, I thought you’d con some of the young men to help you out around here, you old cougar,” I toss her a wink.

“I’ve got to save some chores for you, or you won’t have a reason to come back.”

“You’re my reason to come back, Nana. You and that Sweet Peach tea.”

“I thought you’d bring me a little woman with you this time. Maybe that assistant of yours?”

“No, no woman, and Felicity’s good at her job, but she’s not for me. I don’t know a single thing about her personally, and frankly, I never cared to learn more than the basics. Does that make me a terrible person?”

“No, as long as she doesn’t see it that way, you’re okay.”

“She doesn’t. She has had a long-time boyfriend until recently, so I’m not afraid of that. She’s just worried about losing her job. Hollywood’s fickle, and a hundred assistants are looking for an actor to hire them, so she’s got to keep on her toes. I’m taking a break, and she’s worried that I’m retiring.”

“Are you?”

“…I’m not sure.”

“And you wonder why she’s concerned. You might not know her well, but it’s her job to know you quite well.”

“Thanks, Nana. I can always count on you to remind me how much I’m being an ass. I’m going to give her a call by the end of the week to let her know if she should truly start looking for another boss.”

“Good boy. Now, I’ve got a clogged sink. The toolbox is in the garage. I’ll get your tea, and you can get to work.”

“I missed you too.” I kiss her cheek and take myself to the garage, only to spot a curly-haired redhead riding past the house on a pale blue bike. Our eyes meet briefly, and her mouth parts, but she goes riding on. I want to ask my nana where she came from and who she is, but then she’d ask too many questions.

“Ah, you’ve spotted the lovely Georgia King,” my Nana says, coming to stand beside me with a cup of tea.

“Is she a neighbor?”

“We’re all neighbors in Temptation, boy. Have you forgotten?”

“I don’t think I remember meeting her before.”

“You were gone before she even moved in with her grandparents.” Well, that’s a good thing because she was a little too young for me back then, but now…