LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter One

      It was the end of the world.

      Sophia Jackson strained to see something, anything that looked like civilization, but the desolate landscape was no more than brown dirt and scrubby bits of green plants that stretched all the way to the horizon.

      She might have been in one of her own movies.

      The one that had garnered an Academy Award nomination for her role as a dying frontier woman had been filmed in Mexico, but this part of Texas looked close enough. The one that had made her an overnight success as a Golden Globe winner for her portrayal of a doomed woman in a faraway galaxy had been filmed in Italy, but again, this landscape was eerily similar.

      Doomed. Dying. Isolated.

      She’d channeled those emotions before. This time, however, no one was going to yell cut. No one was going to hand her a gold statue.

      “Are we there yet?” She sounded demanding, just like the junior officer thrust into a leadership role on a space colony.

      Well, not really. She had the ear of an actor; she could catch nuance in tone and delivery, even in—or especially in—her own voice. She didn’t sound like a commander. She sounded like a diva.

      I have the right to be a diva. I’ve got the gold statue to prove it.

      She tossed her hair back with a jingle of her chandelier earrings, queen of the backseat of the car.

      In the front bucket seats, her sister’s fiancé continued to drive down the endless road in silence, but Sophia caught the quick glance he shared with her sister. The two of them didn’t think she was a young military officer. They didn’t even think of her as a diva.

      She was an annoying, spoiled brat who was going to be dropped off in the middle of abso-freaking-lutely nowhere.

      Her sister, Grace, reached back between the seats to pat her on the knee. “I haven’t been here before, either, but it can’t be too much farther. Isn’t it perfect, though? The paparazzi will never find you out here. This is just what we were hoping for.”

      Sophia looked at Grace’s hand as it patted the black leather which covered her knee. Grace’s engagement ring was impossible to miss. Her sister had been her rock, her constant companion, until very recently. Now, wearing a different kind of rock on her left hand, Grace was giddy at the prospect of marrying the man who’d encouraged her to dump her own sister.

      Sophia mentally stuck out her tongue at the back of the man’s head. Her future brother-in-law was a stupid doctor named Alex, and he’d never once been impressed with Sophia Jackson, movie star. Since the day Sophia and Grace had arrived in Texas, he’d only paid attention to Grace.

      Grace’s hand moved from Sophia’s knee to Alex’s shoulder. Then to the back of his neck. The diamond played peek-a-boo as her sister slid her hand through her fiancé’s dark hair.

      Sophia looked away, out the side window to the desolate horizon. The nausea was rising, so she chomped on her chewing gum. Loudly. With no class. No elegance. None of the grace that the world had once expected of the talented Sophia Jackson.

      Pun intended. I have no Grace, not anymore.

      Grace didn’t correct her gum-smacking. Grace no longer cared enough to correct her.

      Sophia was on her own. She’d have to survive the rest of her nine-month sentence all by herself, hiding from the world. In the end, all she’d have to show for it would be a flabby stomach and stretch marks. Like a teenager in the last century, she was pregnant and ashamed, terrified of being exposed. She had to be sent to the country to hide until she could have the baby, give it up for adoption, and then return to the world and spend the rest of her life pretending nothing had ever happened.

      If she had a world to return to. That was a very big if.

      No one in Hollywood would work with her. It had nothing to do with the pregnancy. No one knew about that, and she wasn’t far enough along to even begin to show. No, the world of movie stardom was boxing her out solely because of her reputation.

      A box office giant, an actor whom Sophia had always dreamed of working with, had recently informed a major studio he would not do the picture if she were cast opposite him. Her reputation had sunk that low. They said there was no such thing as bad publicity, but the publicity she’d been generating had hurt her. Her publicist and her agent had each informed her that she was unmarketable as is.

      Ex-publicist. Ex-agent. They both left me.

      Panic crawled up the back of her throat. They were all leaving her. Publicist, agent, that louse of a slimy boyfriend she’d been stupid enough to run away with. And worst of all, within the next few minutes, her sister. She was losing the best personal assistant in the world, right when she needed a personal assistant the most.

      There was no such thing as loyalty in Hollywood. Not even her closest blood relative was standing by her side. Nausea turned to knots.

      “Oh, my goodness,” her sister laughed. The tone was one of happy, happy surprise.

      Alex’s laugh was masculine, amused. “Just in case you needed a reminder that you’re in the middle of a genuine Texas cattle ranch...”

      He brought their car to a stop—as if he had a choice. The view through the windshield was now the bulky brown back of a giant steer. A thousand pounds of animal blocked their way, just standing there on the road they needed to use, the road that would lead them to an empty ranch house where Sophia would be abandoned, alone, left behind.

      Knots turned to panic. She needed to get this over with. Her world was going to end, and she couldn’t drag this out one second longer.

      Let’s rip this bandage off.

      “Move, you stupid cow!” she hollered from the backseat.

      “Sophia, that’s not going to help.”

      But Sophia had already half vaulted over Alex’s shoulder and slammed her palm on the car horn. “Get out of the road.”

      The cow stared at her through the glass, unmoving. God above, she was tired of being stared at. Everyone was always waiting for her to do something, to be crazy or brilliant, to act out every emotion while they watched passively. Grace was staring at her now, shaking her head.

      “Move!” Sophia laid on the horn again.

      “Stop it.” Alex firmly took her arm and pushed her toward the backseat. His stare was more of a glare.

      He and Grace both turned back toward the front. Sophia had spoiled their little delight at a cow in the road, at this unexpected interlude in their sweet, shared day.

      I can’t stand it, I can’t stand myself, I can’t stand this one more minute.

      She yanked on the door handle and shoved the door open.

      “Sophia! Stay in the car.” Grace sounded equal parts exasperated and fearful.

      Sophia was beyond fear. Panic, nausea, knots—a terrible need to get this over with. Once the ax fell, once she was cut off from the last remnants of her

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