Free When Dreams Come True (The Star Series Book 1) by M. Stratton Page B

into the house. As soon as she walked into the kitchen, there was Hannah, on the phone and scowling at her. Trying to play it light, Lissa set down the bags as she blew her a kiss and quickly walked back out to grab more groceries.
    When she came in with the second load and sat them down, Hannah stopped her. “I’ll get the rest and put it all away. You need to go video chat with Will.”
    “How pissed is he?”
    “Well, considering neither one of us knows exactly what is going on, but you’re all pale and shaking, I’d say not as pissed as he’s going to be.”
    “Great.” She turned to go to her office.
    “Lis, are you okay?”
    “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll fill you in after I talk to Will.”
    As soon as she walked into her office, she could see the light blinking on her laptop letting her know Will was calling. She hit a button and his face filled the screen. He was still in costume and very angry. “What happened?”
    “It wasn’t much of anything.” She went to her small refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water, taking a long drink of it. She didn’t want to sit down and have to look him in the eyes, so she turned the laptop around so he could see the rest of her office. She walked over and opened the wall of glass doors which led out onto the balcony, letting in the warm air. She must’ve been suffering from some kind of shock, because she was a bit cold.
    “Melissa Emily Loring, answer me now. Tell me exactly what happened.”
    “Fine, I just went to the grocery store.” She started organizing the files on the small table. “While I was standing in line at the checkout, someone recognized me. Before I knew it, I was surrounded by people yelling all kinds of questions at me and taking my picture. The store called in the authorities for crowd control and to help me get what I needed and leave.”
    She snuck a look at him from the corner of her eye. He was sitting there, his eyes narrowed at her and his arms folded across his chest. Her lips twitched as she thought he truly looked like the royalty he had played in movies, displeased and ready to lay down the law.
    “Why don’t you sit down?”
    His voice was calm, and she knew she was in trouble. The man was brilliant and could think faster than most people, so of course he’d seen through her and had already figured out what he was going to do. Knowing she couldn’t put it off any longer, she sat down and looked to the side, fiddling with the pen and paper she had left there.
    “Look at me.”
    Sighing, she looked right into the camera.
    “Damn.”
    “Will, I’m fine. Really.”
    “No, you’re not. Do you honestly think I don’t know your face better than my own? I can see you are most definitely not fine. You were scared, more scared than you’re letting on. I should have thought of something like this happening.”
    “Okay, yes, I was. I’d never been in a situation like that before. I never expected anything like that to happen. But now I know and I can be ready for it, try to do something to prevent it.”
    “Oh, you can bet your sweet arse nothing like that is going to happen again. I’m waiting for a reply to my email from my people. You’ll have a security team.”
    “Now, wait just a min—”
    “Yes, Melissa, you will have a security team. There is no way I’m going to leave you without someone I trust around to make sure you are safe.”
    “For all we know, this was a one-time situation.”
    “Do you really believe that? Think about it. What happens when we start spending more time in the public eye together? What happens when your movie starts filming? When it’s released? Then what? You still think this is just a ‘one-time situation’?” His voice shook with anger. “I will not allow you to be in that situation ever again.”
    “Whoa, wait, you will not allow it? Listen here, buster. I can take care of myself. I was caught off-guard today, but that won’t happen again. And if I decide to have a security