Hearts In Peril (Billionaire Romance)

by Kaylee Baldwin

  Chance Risk doesn’t talk to reporters. Not after the way he’s seen them destroy his brother’s marriage and career. Despite his better judgment, when Madelyn reaches out, he can’t resist the opening to figure out why she broke his heart eight years before, even if it means talking to a reporter. His only condition: she has to come on location with him and his crew to get a real sense of what the show is about.

  Swept up in adventure, they start to feel the chemistry from college rekindling. But the reason Madelyn left eight years before still looms between them. If Chance can’t convince Madelyn to take a chance on love, she’ll walk away again. This time forever.

  Chapter 1

  ◆◆◆

  Madelyn tucked her phone between her cheek and shoulder as she funneled her frustration toward her ex into twisting the tight lid off of the spaghetti sauce jar. “I can’t take Oliver to the Chance Risk event tonight for you. I have a huge article due in the morning,” she said, proud at how calm her voice was. The lid finally came off the top and sauce spewed out, splattering down the front of her favorite pink shirt. Great. She dumped what was left into the saucepan on the stove with a disappointed sigh.

  “Mads, this is a killer opportunity,” Jason said.

  “You promised him. He’s been packing his bag all afternoon.” With Jason, it was always a killer opportunity. Whether it was for his band to play at a bar on the outskirts of L.A. some big-shot music producer sometimes got a drink at, or a last-minute gig at a wedding for someone who might know someone else important, and on and on. She dabbed at the spill on her shirt with a rag, but only succeeded at making it worse.

  “He can still go to the show tonight if you’ll take him! And I’ll pick him up first thing in the morning, so he can spend the rest of the weekend with me like we’d planned.”

  Their five-year-old son, Oliver, was obsessed with MyChannel star Chance Risk. Chance had risen to fame through online videos of going on adventures and tackling risky activities. Madelyn had glanced at the screen here and there whenever Oliver watched the show—long enough to observe the bright-bleached hair above whatever safety mask he was sporting. His most talked-about stunt, at least in their household, was when Chance swam with sharks. She had watched several minutes of that episode—Chance was in full-protective gear, but still, Madelyn shuddered the entire time.

  Madelyn sat at the table, her shoulders heavy with the weight of all her responsibilities. She’d already put in a full day at the diner and still had several hours of writing ahead of her. At least her mom hadn’t called needing some kind of help yet, but the night was still young.

  “Is this how it’s going to be?” Madelyn asked. “You’re going to drop him every time you get a gig?”

  “That’s not fair.” Jason’s sweet, needling tone had disappeared, replaced with the more familiar sound of defensiveness that peppered most of their conversations.

  “This is the third time in six weeks you’ve had a something come up on one of your nights with Oliver.”

  “I always make up for those nights, but because they weren’t the nights you planned, they might as well not count.” He let out a huff of anger. “I’m willing to take your nights if you need me, but you’re determined to not accept my help.”

  She stood to turn down the stove when she heard the sauce boiling. The last thing she needed was this conversation again. Yet here they were, singing the song of their failed marriage. There had been a lot of reasons why they’d decided to get divorced, but most of their problems came down to these two factors: his unreliability, and her inflexibility—which she felt was just a negative way of spinning the fact that she was responsible.

  Jason’s tone softened. “Please take him for me, Mads. I’ve already committed to playing tonight, and Oliver’s been looking forward to seeing Chance Risk for months.”

  It took every bit of willpower Madelyn had to push down an angry retort. Of course Jason didn’t care she had a deadline tomorrow for the most important assignment of her career. He knew she’d never let Oliver down. “You owe me,” she said through her teeth. Already, she imagined the late night ahead of her.

  “Thank you! I emailed you the tickets. You’re going to have a blast.” He paused. “Oh, wait. You don’t know how to have fun.”

  “Haha,” she said dryly to cover the sting of his remark. He was the king of the painful zinger. And if she called him out, he’d claim he’d only been joking and that she always took things too seriously. “Someone has to be responsible. I’ll drop Oliver off at your house on my way to work tomorrow morning.”

  They got off the phone, and she tapped it against her forehead a few times as if she could knock the sound of his voice out of her brain. How in the world had she been married to him for three years? One phone conversation and she wanted to strangle him.

  “Mommy! Where’s my shark shirt?” Oliver called from his room down the hall of their apartment.

  “In your closet!” she called back. “Dinner’s almost done.”

  She stirred the sauce and drained the spaghetti noodles, wishing they didn’t have to eat the same meal for the second time this week. But it was fast and cheap, and Oliver didn’t seem to mind. If she could get a few more of her articles picked up by Verity News, she’d be making enough money for better food and maybe even a nicer apartment. One without sirens blaring by at all hours.

  Maybe she could even afford to replace her glasses. Oliver accidentally broke them when he’d jumped onto her bed to snuggle a few nights before. She’d taped the temple back together, but the black plastic glasses she’d purchased seven years ago now looked like something a nerd from an old sitcom might wear. She sighed. At least she only needed them for seeing distances.

  She finished dishing up their food as Oliver rushed into the room, wearing his Chance Risk shark shirt—a gift from Jason, of course—and a huge smile. “Is Daddy here?”

  Her heart softened at the innocent question. As if Jason could be hiding out somewhere in their tiny apartment, just waiting to pop out, which was something he would do. “Dad had something come up, so I’m going to take you to the show tonight,” she said with as much enthusiasm as possible.

  His excited smile melted, and he was once again her too-serious little boy. She pulled him into a hug and kissed the top of his blond head, marveling he was growing so big. If only she could give him all the things she wished he could have. “Is it okay if we go together to the show? And I’ll drop you off at your dad’s in the morning.”

  Oliver pulled back with a noncommittal shrug, staring at his shoes. “Daddy promised me a shirt.”

  She stifled her sigh. Of course he had. “I’ll get you a shirt.” And Jason could pay her back.

  He slipped into his chair and grabbed his fork. “And Daddy always lets me pick the songs in the car.”

  Madelyn sat in the chair beside him, and held up her hand as if making an oath. “You can pick every song we listen to tonight.” Usually she liked to listen to the news, partly to stay up to date on everything going on, partly to come up with story ideas, but for one night, she could let him listen to the country music Jason had gotten him hooked on.

  His lips twitched as if he was trying to hold back a smile, something he always did when he was trying to be sneaky. “And Daddy was gonna let me sit in the front.”

  “Hmmm.” She tapped her chin as if thinking about it, then shot her fingers forward in a flash to tickle his tummy. His little giggles filled their kitchen. “He was, huh? And was he going to let you drive the car, too?”

  “Yes,” he said through his laughing.

  He ate his spaghetti, the smile back on his face, and the weight she’d been carrying lifted a little. There were never enough hours or tips at the diner to completely cover her bills, much less any left over to go have some fun with. Her articles at Verity helped supplement, but they were too sporadic and the content too shallow to make a long-term dent in their finances.

  It was tempting to close her eyes and
dream of a different life, one where she was a reporter, traveling the world, writing about the most relevant, most important stories of the day. In that life, she might be free of her mom and an ex-husband who drove her up the wall, but she wouldn’t have Oliver. And since she wouldn’t give him up for anything, it was hardly worth thinking about.

  She leaned close to Oliver, matching his mischievous smile with one of her own. “Eat your dinner, and I’ll let you keep your window down until we get on the freeway.” It wasn’t sitting in the front seat of the car, but he still shoveled his food down with all the enthusiasm of a five-year-old boy about to see his idol.

  ◆◆◆

  Since she’d needed to change out of her pink shirt, they were running a little later than she’d have liked, and finding parking had been a challenge. They walked several blocks to the arena, and Madelyn ushered Oliver past the yelling Chance Risk protestors gathered at the corner. There were at least twenty of them, and they thrust an animal rights pamphlet at her, a great white shark dominating the cover.

  “Why are they so mad?” Oliver asked her as they passed the crowd.

  Madelyn stuffed the pamphlet in her back pocket. “They’re worried Chance is hurting the sharks by swimming with them.” It seemed to Madelyn that Chance should be the one more worried about getting hurt. Even with living close to the ocean her whole life, Madelyn hated the thought of what lurked beneath the surface and preferred to stay on the beach. Who knew there were such shark lovers?

  Madelyn pulled the tickets up on her phone and swiped them across the electronic pad at the arena’s entrance. Oliver tried to rush past the lady monitoring the door. “Just a sec, hon,” the lady said. She pulled two bright yellow lanyards out from a locked compartment and handed them to Madelyn and Oliver.

  “What are these for?” Madelyn asked. She hadn’t seen anyone else in line receive a lanyard.

  “For backstage access. Don’t lose it.” The door attendant gave Oliver a wink and a smile.

  They had backstage passes? How much did you spend on these tickets, Jason?

  Madelyn helped Oliver put his lanyard on, then took his hand to walk inside. She looked around in shock at the thousands of blurry people filling the seats. She’d made the last-second judgment call to leave her glasses in the car. Everything on stage would be a little smudgy, but she could see well enough.

  She’d had no idea Chance Risk was so popular. Oliver had discovered him one weekend while staying with Jason, and from then on, Oliver had been hooked. The arena was filled with the noises of excited people talking and laughing, carrying their nachos and slushies and enormous cookies past them to get to their seats.

  Oliver jumped in excitement. “Look!”

  She followed his gaze to the floor of the arena, where a shark swam back and forth in an enormous tank, water sloshing over the edges with each turn. Several people in wetsuits stood near the tank like shark bodyguards, while another person dropped several bucketfuls of fish into the tank for the shark to eat. Good. He won’t be hungry when Chance jumps in.

  Oliver tugged on her hand, pulling her gaze away from the sight of the shark devouring the fish. “Can we get one of those?” He pointed to where a vendor had a tray of plastic shark cups for nine dollars apiece. Her stomach churned. Jason would probably have bought it for him, but all she had was a ten to get her through the weekend until she got paid on Monday.

  “Not right now. We need to find our seats.” She found their seat assignment on her phone and navigated them down the stairs until they got their seats in row eighteen. She’d half-expected to have front-row seats, but they were tucked in the middle.

  “Ice-cold lemonade in a one-of-a-kind cup!” a man said from only a few feet away from them. Sure enough, it was the man with the shark cups she’d hoped to avoid.

  “Please, Mommy,” Oliver pleaded.

  Ten dollars. They needed bread and milk. And she wanted to put a gallon of gas in the car. But Oliver almost never asked for anything. She bit her lip, knowing it wasn’t smart, but unable to say no to one more thing. “It’s either this or the shirt,” she finally said. “You can’t have both.”

  “The shark cup!” He wiggled back and forth in his seat.

  She pulled the ten out of her wallet and used it to flag the vendor down. After a quick exchange, Oliver was happily sipping his cup of lemonade and watching a crew check the final details on the arena floor.

  Madelyn pulled out her phone to finish going through one of the research articles she’d been reading before Jason’s call earlier. The more she could fit in now, the earlier she’d be able to go to sleep.

  California’s newest senator had been caught in a bribing scandal that morning, and she’d been assigned to write a follow-up article on his personal and political background. It wasn’t the glamorous “Breaking News” article she dreamed about, but it was better than the clickbait filler stories about teacher’s salaries or children’s dangerous games she normally pitched.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t think those articles needed to be written—it was just that she didn’t get a degree in journalism so she could write those. But it was harder to break into serious journalism than she thought it would be, especially since she couldn’t move around the country following stories and tracking down new opportunities. Even if she could leave her mom, she wanted Oliver to have Jason in his life. Jason would never leave L.A. where he was always this close to his big break, which meant she needed to stay there too. But this new article was a step in the right direction. If she could prove herself, then maybe she could quit her job at the diner and Verity News would pull her on as a full-time staff writer instead of getting paid on spec.

  “Welcome to Chance Risk Live!!!” a deep voice boomed from the speakers overhead, echoing over the excited cheers that erupted. The lights got brighter and brighter before they shut off completely, and then a series of crisscrossing green laser lights cut across the stage in rhythm with the blasting rock song.

  Oliver bounced around in his seat and grabbed her arm. “It’s starting!”

  Despite herself, Madelyn felt excitement well up inside of her too. She slipped her phone into her purse and focused on the stage. Continue Reading...