My Charming Rival Read online

  My Charming Rival

  Stars in Their Eyes Duet (book one)

  Lauren Blakely

  Contents

  Copyright

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  About My Charming Rival

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  MONDAY

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  TUESDAY

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  WEDNESDAY

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  THURSDAY

  Chapter 22

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  Contact

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2014 by Lauren Blakely

  LaurenBlakely.com

  Cover Design by © Helen Williams

  * * *

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. This contemporary romance is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with, especially if you enjoy romantic comedies. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  Big Rock Series

  * * *

  Big Rock

  Mister O

  Well Hung

  Full Package

  Joy Ride

  Hard Wood

  * * *

  One Love Series dual-POV Standalones

  The Sexy One

  The Only One

  The Hot One

  * * *

  Sports Romance

  Most Valuable Playboy

  Most Likely to Score

  * * *

  Standalones

  * * *

  The Knocked Up Plan

  Stud Finder

  The V Card

  Wanderlust

  Come As You Are

  Part-Time Lover

  The Real Deal

  Unbreak My Heart

  Far Too Tempting

  21 Stolen Kisses

  Playing With Her Heart

  Out of Bounds

  Unzipped

  Birthday Suit (2019)

  Best Laid Plans (2019)

  The Feel Good Factor (2019)

  All Night Long (2019)

  Satisfaction Guaranteed (2019)

  * * *

  The Heartbreakers Series

  Once Upon a Real Good Time

  Once Upon a Sure Thing

  Once Upon a Wild Fling

  * * *

  The Caught Up in Love Series

  Caught Up In Us

  Pretending He’s Mine

  Trophy Husband

  * * *

  Stars In Their Eyes Duet

  My Charming Rival

  My Sexy Rival

  * * *

  The No Regrets Series

  The Thrill of It

  The Start of Us

  Every Second With You

  * * *

  The Seductive Nights Series

  First Night (Julia and Clay, prequel novella)

  Night After Night (Julia and Clay, book one)

  After This Night (Julia and Clay, book two)

  One More Night (Julia and Clay, book three)

  A Wildly Seductive Night (Julia and Clay novella, book 3.5)

  * * *

  The Joy Delivered Duet

  Nights With Him (A standalone novel about Michelle and Jack)

  Forbidden Nights (A standalone novel about Nate and Casey)

  * * *

  The Sinful Nights Series

  Sweet Sinful Nights

  Sinful Desire

  Sinful Longing

  Sinful Love

  * * *

  The Fighting Fire Series

  Burn For Me (Smith and Jamie)

  Melt for Him (Megan and Becker)

  Consumed By You (Travis and Cara)

  * * *

  The Jewel Series

  A two-book sexy contemporary romance series

  The Sapphire Affair

  The Sapphire Heist

  About My Charming Rival

  A sexy and swoony contemporary romance...

  * * *

  Celebrity photographer and college senior Jess Leighton desperately needs to crash the wedding of the year. Snapping just one pic of the A-list Hollywood couple tying the knot will pay her way through grad school. But with security tighter than the bride-to-be's corset, she'll need more than her camera and smarts, she'll need help from her biggest rival—hot, British, motorcycle-riding William Harrigan, whose sexy accent can melt the panties off any woman. He’s the last person Jess should trust, but he's her only ticket in.

  * * *

  William Harrigan wants one thing—to stay in L.A. past college graduation. With a student visa set to expire, the clock is ticking. When he lands a gig that pairs him with the beautiful blond spitfire Jess, he’s scored his best shot at living out the American dream. Winning her trust would be a whole lot easier, however, if he didn’t have ulterior motives...

  * * *

  But there’s no faking the intense attraction between them. Try as they might to resist each other, soon sparks are flying, as they devise a plan to sneak into the ceremony. But when Jess's new celebrity client raises the stakes, she starts to smell blackmail, and soon she and Will are chasing down cheating directors, staking out clandestine trysts, and making fake IDs, all while sneaking scene-stealing kisses and hot nights together.

  * * *

  The audience loves a happy ending, but in a town where everyone's acting and no one's playing by the rules, can Jess and William find their own ever after in time?

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to

  Violet Duke, who gave me the keys to

  unlock the true heart of the story.

  Author’s Note

  Author’s Note: This book was originally released as Stars in Their Eyes in 2014. It has been revised and repackaged into a duet for a new readership. If you previously read Stars in Their Eyes, you don’t need to read this book.

  * * *

  All the celebrities, movies, and TV shows in this story are made up. The entertainment references are designed to be a send-up of Hollywood culture. I hope you enjoy the clues. Also, this is a mystery. You will meet many characters, so come along for the ride…

  MONDAY

  Weather: 70 degrees, Sunny

  1

  Jess

  * * *


  He would be here any minute.

  I was ready for him.

  I wore my dark blue skinny jeans, a gray V-neck T-shirt, navy-blue lace-up sneakers, and a pair of cheap black plastic sunglasses I’d picked up from the dollar store on Wilshire. My mission was to blend in, so I was mascaraed and lip glossed, but no more than that since I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. In short, I was everything a good twenty-one-year-old paparazzo should be, and I was scoping out a playground shot to show that stars are just like us.

  This was an easy assignment and the pay would reflect it as well as the company. Plenty of us got the every-Monday-alert, and the park was teeming with shooters. Nearby was the soul-patched and jaded former wire photographer who moved on to playground and shopping shots when news services stopped paying well, and the big, bearded, leather-jacketed guy who worked for the foreign tabloids.

  Parked on a bench with my chem homework open, I whipped through formulas, glancing up every few seconds to see if Range Treadman had arrived. He was due any minute. He was clockwork. He was the cog that kept the trains running on time, and every Monday afternoon at three fifteen he arrived at this playground with his two kids. The pride of Australia, Range was a top-notch, triple-threat, singing, dancing, and acting star of stage and screen who’d headlined a big superhero flick a few years back, and aspired to live a life scandal-free and be known only as a family man. Which is why I wasn’t the only paparazzo here. I’d high-tailed it straight out of advanced chemistry class the second the bell rang, having scheduled my senior year pre-med classes precisely so I could make my regular star stakeouts.

  My bank account was a hungry thing. It needed to be fed regularly, and photos were its primary food source.

  Twenty seconds later, Range arrived in his red, fully electric car with tinted windows. The guy who snapped shots for the Australian papers moved quickly, snagging the first picture of the superstar unbuckling his precocious three-year-old son from the car seat. Next came Range’s seven-year-old, and she wore a cherry-red beret with a pair of dove-gray capris. I grabbed a quick picture of the girl, but I didn’t need that shot for my boss. I needed it for my best friend and roomie, who could use it for her Burn Book.

  Range reached for his daughter’s hand, then laughed with his mouth wide open and perfect straight white teeth showing. Give credit where credit’s due—that man knew how to work the cameras he pretended he didn’t see. I clicked more as Range and his little girl ran the final few feet to the jungle gym in a kind of deliberate slow motion that ensured his well-muscled arms could be seen in any shots of the doting dad and young daughter. No wonder half the female population in the United States over twenty-five had a crush on the hunky actor.

  Range’s little boy had already gone up and down the slide, and now helped himself to a swing. As if it had been scripted, the megastar put his big hands on the chains of the swing and began to push his young son. Range leaned his head back, straightened up his spine to make sure the full breadth of his gym-sculpted pecs from beneath his sky-blue T-shirt could be made out from even the most distant lenses, and flashed another bright and posed smile.

  Another click. Another shot. Another afternoon at the playground.

  I placed my top-of-the line Canon inside my backpack, hopped on my black scooter, and snapped on my helmet. I headed to my boss’s office to show him the afternoon take. The whole lot of them would net me maybe a hundred bucks. But that was a hundred bucks I didn’t have before, and medical school wasn’t even close to free.

  2

  Jess

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, I pulled over to the curb in front of a one-story office building, rolling past a scratched-up silver motorcycle that looked like it had seen its share of years. I bumped my scooter up on the sidewalk, jamming it into bike parking, then slid a thick and heavy lock through the tire and the pole and headed to J.P.’s office at the far end of the building. A trip to his office translated into cash, and cash fed those ravenous bills on my kitchen table.

  I stopped near his door when I heard a voice I didn’t recognize.

  But one I instantly responded to. Delicious and British. The twin combination sent a zing down my spine.

  “Right. I should be able to get you something, no problem.”

  Damn accents. They nearly obliterated all my finely-tuned control. And I was the kind of gal who liked being in control. All. The. Time.

  “Get me something good and I’ll have more for you,” J.P. said to him.

  “A challenge. I’ll take it,” sexy-accent-guy said with a confident tone to my boss.

  Please let him be ugly. Let him be a hideous troll.

  I walked in as he stood up.

  Damn. He wasn’t ugly from behind. He had a fantastic ass, and the perfect kind of jeans to show it off. Nice back, too, firm shoulders, and hair that clearly needed to be touched.

  I took a deep breath to steel myself. I prayed that he had bad teeth. Crooked, yellow, snaggled teeth that would make me run for cover.

  But when he turned around I was greeted by one of my favorite, and most frustrating, sights on the planet—a hot guy about my age. He wore jeans that hung nice and low on the hips, scuffed-up black boots, and a blue T-shirt that showed off toned arms. A pair of gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses hung on the neck of his shirt. He had dark hair, a whole mess of it, and eyes like a very angry sky.

  Eyes that caught me surveying him from top to bottom.

  If I were a blusher, I’d be beet red. Fortunately, the blushing gene skipped me, so no one ever knew when I was embarrassed.

  He tipped his forehead to me. “Hey.” Then he gave me a quick once-over, and a small grin.

  Thank God I wore my best jeans and had a touch of that casual, wind-blown look from my scooter ride over here. Plus, I was thin and trim—something I’d always worked hard at being. Whether through exercise or other means.

  Wait.

  Why did it matter if I looked good? I definitely didn’t care if he was checking me out. I didn’t have the time to admire the opposite-sex scenery these days. I had loads of work and school and bills begging for attention, so I issued myself a few firm and sharp instructions: His accent will not melt you. His eyes will not hook you.

  “I’m William,” he offered, and I forced myself to barely acknowledge him, instead silently cursing the universe for dropping a too-fine specimen into my day.

  “Hey,” I muttered, brushing past him into the office.

  “Thanks for the biscuit, J.P.,” he said, and I stole a quick look as William held up a half-eaten chocolate-covered biscuit that would ordinarily be served with tea. He took one more bite and rolled his eyes to indicate it was scrumptious. My mouth watered slightly; it was probably a delicious biscuit indeed. It was also an indignity, as far as I was concerned, that guys could eat treats with such careless abandon. I wanted to eat with that kind of attitude. I longed not to be tempted by food.

  He finished, then flashed me an irresistible grin that was one part cocky, one part lopsided, and one part devil-may-care insouciance. “You should try the biscuits. They’re fantastic,” he said to me as he picked up his backpack and slung it over his shoulder.

  “Thanks for the tip,” I said drily, because wouldn’t it be nice if I could just try the biscuits and eat only one? Alas, that was not my strong suit, so I practiced abstinence with sweets. And other things.

  He left, and I turned around to shut the door, hoping that it would shut him out of my head, too.

  But as I was closing it, he stuck his boot in the door.

  “I can recommend cookies, too, if you’d like. Chocolate cake. Brownies. Tarts. Pies,” he offered, rattling off all sorts of sugary concoctions, each word playing on his lips like a tantalizing treat, as if he were trying to win me over. Or perhaps gain the upper hand. But upper hands were my stock in trade, so I turned things around on him.

  “When I’m in the mood for a huckleberry pie, I’ll track you down,” I said, giving him my
best red-carpet smile. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  As he walked down the hall, I spotted a strong and sturdy motorcycle helmet strapped to his backpack. He must be the owner of the scratched-up silver motorcycle.

  Hot. British. Rides a motorcycle.

  If he turned out to be a smart one, he’d be all my weaknesses.

  An errant butterfly bounded through my chest. Damn fluttery thing.

  But I had no time for weaknesses, or butterflies, in my life. I pulled hard on the door, snapping it shut and leaving him behind.

  * * *