Fade to Black

Fade
to Black

By
M. Stratton

Devlin
Cross is one of Hollywood's biggest stars. He has his pick of the scripts and
his pick of the women. While on a break from filming his current movie, he
takes a drive through the countryside and stops at a local art gallery. There,
the owner isn't star struck by having him in her shop.

Lily
Walker is a single mother who wants nothing to do with men. Her goal in life is
to raise her son to the best of her ability and give him the stable home life
she never had. With her failed marriage behind her, the last thing on her radar
is a relationship, especially one with a famous movie star.

Not
every breakup is mutual. Some ex-lovers never let go. Some will do whatever it
takes to have that person back in their lives.
Dead... or
alive.

Fade to Black

By M. Stratton

Copyright 2014 by M. Stratton

Smashwords
Edition
2014

All rights reserved. Except as permitted
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Fade to Black is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living
or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover Art by Book Covers by Kim
http://bookcoversbykim.weebly.com/

Dedication

To
one of the best angels in Heaven, Dory.
I miss you so
much.

I know if you were
still here, you’d be giving me such a hard time about my books and loving the
fact I put you in one of them.

I love you. Until
we meet again.

Prologue

Hayden
Dahl walked around the room and made sure everything was exactly as it needed
to be. She moved to the bed and adjusted the restraints to make sure they were
positioned correctly. She didn’t want him to get away.

The room was an exact replica of the
bedroom in the first movie she ever saw him in. She lost her heart to him that
day and vowed she would do whatever it took to be in his life, and stay there.
She’d taken a detour when she was a teenager, falling in love with someone
else, but she came back to him. Working hard for the past ten years, she had
moved up the ranks in Hollywood until finally she landed him. But he threw her
away. She couldn’t understand why. Everything she did was for him. Her only
purpose was to make him happy, to satisfy his every need.

When she opened the doors to the closet, it
was papered floor to ceiling with pictures of him. She twirled a lock of his
hair in her fingertips, bringing it up to her lips to suck on it. She had taken
so many things from their time together, and they were here for her to play
with.

Walking over to the window, she shook the
bars, testing their strength; he wouldn’t be able to get out. He’d be hers for
the rest of time, and if he didn’t like it, well, she would allow him to wither
away and then keep him here in this shrine to him.

Walking down the hallway, she stopped at
another door, which she hadn’t opened in a few years. Placing a hand on the
door, she remembered the high school boyfriend. The one who promised her he’d
always be there for her. The one she gave the love of her life up for.
The one who cheated on her.
The one who came out to visit
for ‘old times’ sake five years ago and never returned home. Taking a deep
breath, she opened the door. There was a layer of dust over everything, but
there he was, exactly where she’d left him. He was in a room, which looked like
the one he had when they were in high school. He lay on the bed with his arms
positioned perfectly for her to cuddle up with.

She went over to him and kneeled by the
side of the bed. She had done her research and had everything ready for when
the bastard had finally died. By using salt and adjusting the temperature and
humidity in the room, she’d been able to mummify him exactly as she wanted.

“Oh, Jimmy, why’d you do it?” She ran her
hand over his head. “We could have had a future together. You brought all this
on yourself. But you know what? I’ve gone back to my first love, my
real
love. After all of these years I’ve
finally, finally gotten close to Devlin Cross. Oh, you’d approve. I know you
always wanted someone to watch over me and protect me. Well, Jimmy, my darling
Devlin is like that.” She laid her head down on his rough stomach and looked up
at his shrunken face. “We’re going through a bit of a rough patch, but no
worries. I know he’ll end up seeing things my way. We love each other; I never
knew I could love someone so much. Truly, it’s a match made in Heaven. I’ve
even thought of having children. You remember, I never wanted kids, not after
how I grew up. How would I ever know how to be a good mother, considering what
my mother was and what she did? But now, now I’m starting to dream about having
his baby grow inside of my body. Yes, I can do it.”

She stood up and started spinning and
dancing around the room. “We’ll have the perfect wedding. I’m sorry you won’t
be able to attend. I don’t want anyone knowing where I came from. All the
A-list stars will show up. And they’ll all want to talk to me because I’ll be
Devlin Cross’s wife. Oh, it sounds so wonderful. And we’ll have a big house
with servants. How fun is that?
Me, servants!”

She spun so fast she lost her balance and
fell on the bed. “Oh, Jimmy, I never asked for much. I just wanted to be
your
everything.” She crawled up his body and gripped his
face in her hand. “You messed up, and I have a new man. Rot in Hell.”

 
Throwing back her head, she laughed until
tears ran down her face. Slowly, she looked back down at him. “Who am I kidding?
You’re already rotting in Hell.”

Chapter
One

Lily
Walker stood back and eyed the new window display she’d put together. It looked
good from the inside, but she had to see what it looked like from outside.
Standing outside on the sidewalk, she tilted her head to the side. She was
hoping to convey the serenity of the ocean with this side. Glancing to her left
at the stormy side, she felt they balanced each other well.

 
Walking back inside, she adjusted a vase less
than a quarter inch to the right. She’d always loved working with different
mediums. Now with her own gallery in the bottom floor of her home on Main
Street, which went through the small town of Arundel, Maine, she could do
whatever she wanted. And this was what she wanted to do. Looking around at the
perfectly white walls she had painted herself, along with building the white
pillars stationed throughout the two large rooms, gave her a sense of pride,
and sadness, to see what she had accomplished on her own. Well, she did have
some help from her eight-year-old son, which made it more special to her.

The reason she was able to finally open her
gallery was the money her stepfather had left in a trust for her when she
turned thirty-five. She hadn’t had contact with her mother since she was
eighteen. After she’d graduated from high school, she left home and never
looked back. Her mother kept trading up in husbands; none were the best of men,
but lucky for her, one of them was a great guy and she’d hit it off with him.
He was the closest thing to a father she’d ever had. He was the one who was
always there for her, even after her mother had divorced him. She’d lost him
way too young, before her son was even born. She wished he could have met her
son and seen all of this. She had no idea if her biological parents were alive
or dead. With as much interest as they’d shown her growing up, she couldn’t
care less what had happened to them. Their first priority was never to see to
her well-being.

Walking to the counter where the cash
register was, she started flipping through her calendar knowing her busy season
was going to start soon and everything had to be perfect. With her son Leo
getting out of school soon, it was going to become crazy around the gallery,
but it was something she loved, which made it all worthwhile.

When the ding of the bell above the door
sounded, she turned and froze for a split second when she saw who it was. She
walked over to greet him while trying to control her emotions.

~^~

Devlin Cross was taking a much-needed break
from his current political action movie filming in Boston. Taking a drive up
Route One heading north, he ended up in Maine and his head started to clear
from all the bullshit, which seemed to be piling up. The latest was a delay,
which the studio was pissed about because someone had broken into one of the
houses they were using as a set and destroyed everything. It was going to take
time to make it look like it did before, or they’d have to reshoot everything.
Either way, the heads were out money and they were making sure everyone’s lives
were a living hell until they were back on track.

Part of him missed the carefree days of his
youth. Sure, he’d been hungry to make it big, but when he hadn’t been so well
known, there wasn’t as much responsibility on his shoulders. As the ‘star’ of
the movie, if it tanked at the box office, it wasn’t as big a deal for him. But
to the cast and crew who were just starting out, one bad movie could break
them.

With the top down on his Maserati Gran
Turismo
convertible, the cool spring air made him feel more
alive than he had in years. Too many movies had been shot on sound stages, too
many interviews given in stuffy hotel rooms. As his foot pushed down on the gas
pedal, a smile spread across his face at the roar of the engine. The further
north he went, the lighter he felt. Taking a deep breath of the clean air made
him feel more at peace than he had in years. This was something he should do
more often. The thought of buying something remote in a small town appealed to
him. Since he was getting older, issues which didn’t matter to him when he was
young mattered to him now. He’d started choosing his roles more carefully, not
just going for the one that would hit number one, but the one with more heart,
more purpose, and more thought. This might be the time to start being even more
selective and spending more time off the set than on it.

He knew Hollywood relationships didn’t work.
Well, almost all of the time they didn’t work, there was the small percentage
who did make it. Why would you commit to someone if you couldn’t or wouldn’t be
there for them, or if all you cared about was the next movie and your next
co-star? Let alone bring children into the relationship. Someone was always
getting hurt and it normally ended up being the children.
Which
is why he had a rule
never
to date
anyone who had kids.
He liked kids, he just didn’t want the complication
and to be the one who hurt them. Nope, marriage and kids were not in his
future.

On a whim, he took an exit ramp off of the turnpike
and slowed down as he headed into a small town. Typical New England small town,
there was something about it which made him smile. It reminded him of the
stories his grandparents used to tell about life moving slower and neighbors
looking out for each other. He had plenty of time to slow down his car as a dog
chased a cat across the road. Deciding to take a look at the shops along the
street, he parked his car and got out. He was enjoying the carefree feeling of
not having a schedule and not having to check in with someone all the time.

As he wandered down the street while
licking an ice cream cone, he was stopped by the window display at a gallery.
Looking from one window to the other, something about the two of them pulled at
him. Finished with the cone, he dropped it in the trash bin before opening the
door. He was greeted by the soft ding of a bell and an absolutely beautiful
woman, who froze for a split second before walking over to him. He appreciated the
sway of her hips and her curves, which filled out her jeans and sweater. She
was all peaches and cream with pale skin, green eyes, and deep red hair in wild
loose curls which hung past her shoulders. She couldn’t have been more than an
inch or two over five feet tall, and for some reason, he felt the need to
protect her. She looked like she’d be at home in a mythical forest in Ireland.