Free Explosion of Love (The Armstrongs Book 6) by Jessica Gray

that the beach was a place for old people and kids.
    Grant might have felt that way during his wild years, but she knew he now thought different. They’d often discussed how cool it would be to live at Sandy Beach full-time. And now he’d bought the beach house.
    Her thoughts drifted further off, and the lack of sleep and the stress from the grueling pace she’d kept in New York caught up to her. The warmth of the sun shining down on her and the sound of the waves lulled her into a place where she was floating along, not asleep, but not awake either.
    How long she was in that state, she didn’t know. The unmistakable chirping of her phone startled her from her peaceful place. Her initial reaction was to ignore it, and then it stopped.  Great! Now I can… It has stopped only to start right back up. When that cycle continued for the third time, she sighed and reached into her bag for her phone.
    “Hello?”
    “It’s about time you answered the phone. Where in the hell are you?”
    Samantha’s calmness fled. Madison Delacrux’s grating voice told her the woman was on a tear and Samantha was firmly in her sights.
    “Good afternoon, Madison.”
    “Don’t good afternoon me! Where are you?”
    “I’m out of town,” Samantha replied, not wanting to give her agent her exact location. Madison wasn’t above hopping on a plane and making Samantha’s life miserable.
    “Out of town. Well, that’s just great, Sam. You had an important photo shoot that started, oh…about thirty minutes ago!”
    Samantha froze, having totally forgotten about the shoot in her anger at Craig and the need to get away from New York. “Oh my gosh. I completely forgot about it.”
    “Well, get your ass back to New York now. I’ll see if I can…”
    “Madison, I’m not anywhere close to New York.”
    The line fell silent with a lengthy pause and she could almost see Madison counting to ten, and then twenty, in her head. The woman’s face would be red by now, heading towards purple, and Samantha cringed when she heard her deadly quiet voice ask, “Where are you, exactly?”
    Samantha thought about not answering, but knew she owed her talent agent more consideration than that. Sighing, she told her, “Sandy Beach. Outside Chicago.”
    “Illinois? You’re in Illinois?”
    Make it Wisconsin. But who cares?
    “Sam, get your ass back here immediately. These people do not take being stood up lightly.”
    Samantha knew that, but after the little episode she’d had at the Silueta event, she was as good as dead anyways.
    “Sam? Do you hear me?” Madison screamed through the phone. “When are you going to be here? I can claim you were ill or something, but I need to tell them when to reschedule the shoot.”
    Samantha didn’t want to leave Sandy Beach. It was the perfect getaway and for the first time in a long while, she actually felt good. Physically. Emotionally. Mentally. I don’t want to leave my little paradise. Not just yet.
    With Grant by her side, and their lovemaking the night before, her life was perfect. But then reality reared its ugly head and if she wanted any chance of salvaging her career, she needed to leave for New York. Now.
    She felt an acute sense of loss when she told Madison, “I’m on my way. I’ll hop on the first flight back.” After a glance down at her watch she said, “I’ll be back tonight. Tell them I can shoot first thing in the morning.”
    “Fine. Text me your flight number and I’ll pick you up from the airport.”
    “Okay.” Samantha waited to see if Madison would say anything else, perhaps some scathing remark about how she’d blown it with Silueta, but all she heard was an empty line.
    While she sat there for several minutes, thinking about the phone call from Madison, her mood veered to anger. In a few short seconds, she was fuming about the mess Craig had created in her life.
    Her ability to think reasonably had long gone up in smoke when Grant appeared at her side and leaned over,