Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
S he was completely covered in dust and sweat when she stepped into the house later that night, but she was happier with her accomplishments than she had been in years.
“Mom? Dad?” she called out.
“Back here,” her dad called out from their back deck.
Her parents were sitting in the swing that her dad had built a few years ago. Her dad’s arm was wrapped around her mother’s shoulders, and they each held a beer.
“You look like you got into trouble today.” Her dad chuckled when she sat across from them.
“We demolished a kitchen,” she said with a smile. “It was probably the most fun I’ve had in years.”
“We’ve been watching the progress online.” Her mother leaned her head back against her dad’s shoulder. “It’s going to be beautiful once it’s done. You’ll have to persuade Max to have a grand opening so everyone in town can see what has been done.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” she agreed, her mind racing with new ideas.
Technically, Max owned the lighthouse and the land it sat on from the beach below it to the hillside that overlooked the property. But just beyond the fence line, the property bordered the national park. On the other side was the Ocean View property.
Still, enough people stopped and took photos of the lighthouse that it was easily one of the biggest draws for tourism in the area. At one point the entire property had been owned by the park, and they’d turned it into a museum of sorts. When funding ran out, it had been sold, which is how Max had gotten his hands on it.
He had told her that he wished to preserve its heritage. Yet he hadn’t explained exactly how he intended to do so. At least not yet.
“Well, I’m going to head up and shower.” She kissed her dad on his forehead and squeezed her mother’s shoulder gently. “Good night.”
“Night, sweetie,” her parents called after her.
She climbed the stairs and ran through plans in her head as she stripped to shower. When her phone chimed, she glanced at it and then stilled as she scanned the article that Sophia had just sent her.
Sophia’s message sat above the newspaper clip. “I didn’t want to be the one to show you this, but figured it would sting less coming from me. Don’t pay attention to the trolls. Love you.”
Hollywood Heartthrob Max Wilson: Hiding Out in Small-Town Oregon with a Nobody?
Is Max Wilson, the award-winning screenwriter behind some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters, really spending his days knocking down cabinets in the middle of nowhere? According to his recent social media posts, it sure looks that way.
Wilson, once engaged to A-list actress Gabriella DeLuca, has taken a sharp turn from the red carpets and high-end parties of the Hollywood and Broadway elite to flannel shirts and budget renovations. Fans were shocked to see him getting his hands dirty—literally—on a rundown lighthouse project in the small town of Pride, Oregon. Even more shocking? The unknown woman he’s been spotted with in his videos.
Sources say Wilson was last seen in New York a few months ago, where he brushed off questions about last year’s breakup with Gabriella. It appears that the industry golden boy has gone off-grid to lick his wounds and cozy up to a local nobody.
His latest social media posts show him shirtless, flexing his muscles while playing handyman—a far cry from the high-profile world he once ruled. And who’s behind the camera? Some mystery woman, grinning up at him like she just won the lottery. Insiders speculate that she’s a small-time waitress, though no one seems to know much about her.
The real question is: What is Wilson doing with her? Is this just another short-lived escape before he returns to Hollywood? A PR stunt to shake off the engagement scandal? Or has Max really lost his mind and fallen for a small-town fling?
One thing’s for sure—his fans aren’t buying the whole blue-collar romance act.
“Max Wilson remodeling a lighthouse? Please. He probably doesn’t even know how to hold a hammer,” one commenter wrote.
“Gabriella and Max were perfect for one another, no one can convince me of anything else. Wait and see, he’ll go running back to his perfect woman soon enough,” another joked.
As speculation grows, so do the theories. Is Wilson just lying low, waiting for the Gabriella drama to blow over after her parents’ death and her younger sister’s rehab stint? Or has Hollywood’s most sought-after screenwriter really downgraded his leading lady?
Stay tuned—because if we know anything about Max Wilson, this fairy tale won’t last long.
She read the article three times as she sat on the edge of the bathtub, her eyes burning and her heart breaking.
She remembered all about Max dating Gabriella. They’d met during the filming of Never Enough . The movie had made Gabriella a household name and had been Max’s third hit.
They’d been spotted around town together, and rumors had turned into an official engagement announcement. Less than three months later, rumors swirled that they had called the wedding off in a mutual agreement. The drama started when Max moved to New York and started teaching at the New York Film Academy. Gabriella’s younger sister had been placed in a rehab facility and their parents had died in a skiing accident shortly after. Then Gabriella had started posting that Max had dumped her for some other woman in New York and, after everything she’d gone through, everyone took pity on Gabriella and shunned Max.
At the time, she hadn’t believed the rumors. She’d been in close contact with Sophia and cheering on whatever relationship would come of their friendship. Now, however, she wondered if there was something they had missed.
“Let’s talk tomorrow,” she texted back to her friend.
“I’m here. Just…” There was a long pause between messages. “Don’t listen to anything they say. Trust me on this. There is more to the story about Max and Gabriella. Night.”
Juliette sent a thumbs-up emoji, then stood under the shower spray until all her worry and fears disappeared.
The moment she opened her eyes the next morning, however, they were all back. Rolling over, she sent a text message to Sophia to see if she wanted to meet her for breakfast.
“Great minds think alike,” Sophia shot back. “Sara’s Nook in half an hour?”
“I’ll see you there,” she replied and quickly got dressed.
When she walked into the bakery, Sophia was sitting in a corner booth, sipping a cup of coffee.
“I already ordered for you,” she called out, waving her over.
There was a second cup of coffee sitting across from her.
“Thanks,” she said as she sat down and took a sip of the latte macchiato. Her friend knew her well.
Sophia’s eyes ran over her face quickly. “You don’t look like you lost sleep over the article.”
“I didn’t. I was too tired after yesterday’s work, but with the sunrise the worry is back,” she admitted.
Sophia reached across the table and touched her hand. “There are reasons Max left her. They’re not my secrets to tell. You’ll just have to trust me on this. Remember, first and foremost, Gabriella is an actress.”
Juliette nodded and took another sip of her drink. “I’m not a nobody.” She was appalled that tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Oh sweetie.” Sophia surprised her by jumping up and rushing to her side of the booth and hugging her. “Compared to the Hollywood elites, we’re all nobodies.”
“It’s just…” She shook her head and rested back in the booth. “I’ve never really known what it was that I wanted to do in life. I’m not like you.”
“No one is.” Sophia chuckled and nudged her ribs lightly before sobering. “You have such amazing talent for seeing the whole picture. When I struggled putting my scenes together, you thought of every background detail, the right angle for the cameras, those extra edits you did that brought everything together. Nothing I did had felt fully finished until I met you.”
“Okay.” She realized she was starting to feel better about herself. Maybe it was the caffeine? Or maybe it was the friendship. “So self-pity trip is almost over.”
“Look,” Sophia started but stopped when Brook delivered their biscuit sandwiches and cinnamon rolls. She moved back over to her side of the table before she continued. “Compared to Gabriella, I looked like a rejected doll in a potato sack.”
“That’s not true,” Juliette broke in.
“It is, we both do. And you’re fucking sexy as hell.” She took a bite of her food. “Trust me when I say, what’s pretty on the outside can be rotten on the inside. Remember Leslie Timons?”
Juliette nodded. “She was a bitch.”
Sophia chuckled. “Still is.”
Juliette took a bite of her breakfast sandwich. “I think I was just hungry and in need of caffeine.”
“There is one thing I want to warn you about.”
“Shoot,” she said, straightening her shoulders and bracing herself.
“Max comes with some… baggage. No matter what he does, he will always be in the public eye. There will always be articles like this, filled with hate towards anyone he gets close to.”
Juliette nodded slowly. “I get it.”
“Good, because I think it was the number one reason that he moved so slowly with me. Looking back, I realize that he had a reason for trying to keep what was between us a secret. I thought that it was due to him being with someone the press would see as his student. After all, he was there to teach us.” She shrugged. “Now I realize it was to protect me from things like that article.”
“I can be strong,” she said, to assure herself more than her friend.
“Oh, I know it.” Sophia smiled. “Now, let’s change the subject to something good. Like, my wedding plans.”
Juliette laughed and relaxed into the conversation as they planned her best friend’s wedding.
Now that she was helping Max out every day, her work schedule at the restaurant had slowed way down. She spent most of the day at his place filming and most of the evening editing and uploading the videos to social media platforms.
When she finally drove up to Max’s, she was in a slightly better mood than earlier. Planning her best friend’s wedding had cleansed her soul.
But then she saw the rows of media vans camped just outside his gate. As she drove by, cameras flashed and people screamed for her to stop and answer questions. She didn’t.
When she parked next to Palmer’s truck, Max was there waiting for her.
“I see you met the press,” he grumbled. “Thankfully, they’re too far away to get a clear look.”
“Yeah.” She shut her car door. “I guess after the article yesterday, they made the trip from Portland to spy on the bunch of nobodies you’re hanging with.”
He frowned and then touched her elbow to stop her from walking away.
“Not a single word of that article was true.” His eyes scanned hers.
“You weren’t engaged to Gabriella?”
He shifted slightly. “I never proposed to her.”
“What does that mean?” she asked, but just then Parker walked over with a bunch of questions he needed Max’s attention on.
Now that the weather was warmer, the men had been able to finish up the exterior work. They had been working inside for the past few days, mostly on electric or plumbing upgrades. They were replacing all the light fixtures and checking every outlet’s wiring.
Today, if all went well, they were going to start work in the kitchen. Boxes of cabinets had arrived a few days before. First, however, she was told they had to patch some spots on the walls—like the hole she’d made—build a new wall, and tear one out.
She was eager to watch and film the process and, since Max was busy, she headed inside to gather the equipment and set up.
When she stepped into the house, the scent of sawdust and fresh lumber was already thick in the air, and she sneezed. The kitchen was a disaster zone—exactly what she had expected. Boxes of new cabinets lined the far wall, stacks of drywall leaned precariously near the back door, and the plans for the room were taped up on a bare wall.
As she walked over, her gaze swept across the changes. The wall separating the living room was set to be torn down, while a new one would go up at the back of the kitchen. An exterior door in that space which led out to the back of the house and was close to the stairs that descended to the beach. This new room would function as a mudroom, providing a place to store boots and wet clothes after coming in from the shore. That room would also connect to the walk-in pantry, which housed the door leading down to the cellar—soon to be Max’s new wine cellar.
This was going to be fun.
The camera, tripod, and light were right where she’d left them in the dining room, and she arranged them for the best angles, well out of the way of the work.
Juliette had just set up the first shot when Max strolled in, but he wasn’t alone. Palmer and his crew followed, their presence instantly filling the space with an air of efficiency and controlled chaos.
Palmer glanced around and nodded towards her after spotting her cameras. “I’ll let you know if you need to move anything,” he told her. “Everyone else, let’s get to work. Parker’s team will start on tearing out that wall. My crew will focus on prepping the walls for the new cabinets.”
Juliette quickly adjusted the camera to capture the action as the men got to work. Within minutes, the sounds of drills, hammers, and the occasional curse word filled the space. Parker’s crew used sledgehammers to knock down the old dividing wall, and dust turned the room smokey.
Palmer’s guys measured and marked where the new walls would go and started hauling in lumber that had been cut to size outside. She could hear the saw working every so often between the crashes of the sledgehammers.
Max eagerly helped when asked. Currently he was using a crowbar to loosen part of the window frame while trying not to damage the glass.
She filmed as Max pried the piece free, grinning as he wiped the sweat from his brow. “Not bad for a screenwriter, huh?” he called over to her.
Juliette smirked. “I’ll admit, you look pretty convincing. But let’s be honest, we both know Palmer’s crew is doing most of the real work.”
Palmer let out a chuckle as he walked by. “That’s what we get paid for. We’ll make sure this place doesn’t come crashing down around him.”
Max rolled his eyes good-naturedly and went back to pulling nails from the frame. Juliette found it endearing—the way he threw himself into something so outside his usual world of scripts and glamour.
She kept the camera rolling, capturing the transformation of the kitchen piece by piece. The wall came down, leaving a wide-open space that immediately made the room feel bigger. The patched-up spots on the drywall started to take shape, and the stack of new cabinets waited for their turn to be installed.
At midday, Max ordered pizzas from Baked Pizzeria in town for everyone, and the crew took their lunch outside, leaving Max and Juliette alone to eat their own lunches inside.
“So, how does it feel to get your hands dirty?” she asked, pretending her soda bottle was a microphone.
Max stretched his arms, wincing slightly. “I feel like I’ll need a long soak in the tub later. If I had a tub.” He laughed. “But honestly? It’s kind of fun.” He shot her a grin. “Maybe I should quit writing and take up construction full time.”
Juliette snorted. “Please. You’d last a month before running back to Hollywood.”
He smirked, leaning in slightly. “That depends. If you were here keeping me entertained, I might last longer.”
Her cheeks warmed and then she remembered the article for the first time since earlier.
“Sophia hinted that there was more to the story between you and Gabriella,” she said, taking a sip of her soda.
Max shrugged. “What did she tell you?”
“Nothing, other than that.”
He nodded. “I went out on three dates with Gabriella. Most of them were arranged by her agent and my people.”
“You have people?” she broke in, trying hard to sound shocked, then shrugged when he rolled his eyes.
“I had people,” he corrected. “After what went down, I fired them.”
“What did go down? Exactly?” She took another bite.
He glanced around, almost as if he was making sure no one was filming or overhearing them. Then he leaned closer to her and lowered his voice.
“Gabriella arranged to publicly trap me into marriage. For almost three weeks, she convinced the media that we were engaged. She even purchased a ring for herself.”
“Seriously?” Juliette was shocked. “It was all fake?”
He nodded and leaned back. “It took a while to figure out my next move. We had several more events to attend together for the premiere of Never Enough . I was told to let it ride until all the hype for the movie died down.”
Juliette thought for a moment, trying to remember the timeline.
“Two weeks after the movie was out, I circulated a statement that she had called the wedding off. I figured it would be best for her reputation and hoped that she wouldn’t come back and act like she was the victim of some sort of…”
“Abuse?” she offered.
He nodded and took another sip of his drink.
“Then word got out about her little sister going into rehab. I hadn’t met her.” He shrugged. “When her parents died, I thought I was off the hook. But then she started posting all that stuff about how we were getting back together. I was in New York and she was still in California. Honestly, I had moved on.”
“With Sophia?” she asked with a smile. “She told me you kissed.”
He nodded. “Now that you know the truth, do you understand why articles like the one yesterday don’t faze me?”
She nodded and avoided his eyes. “Surely you’re going to do more interviews in the future?”
He shook his head lightly. “I moved to New York since I had committed to teaching the class for a friend. Once that commitment was over, I purchased this place.” He smiled suddenly. “Sophia had gone on and on during one of our dates about her hometown. When my real estate agent told me about the lighthouse, well, I was hooked.”
She chuckled, but before she could respond, Palmer came back inside. “Break’s over! Let’s get this place ready for the cabinets.”