Reality Blurred

by Aven Ellis

  REALITY BLURRED

  AVEN ELLIS

  Reality Blurred

  Copyright © 2018 Aven Ellis

  Cover Design by Becky Monson

  Formatting by Polgarus Studio

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under the 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 prior written permission of the copyright owner. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Connect with Aven

  Also by the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to CeCe Carroll, you once again did a brilliant job copy editing this book. Thank you for your dedication and guidance in taking my work to the next level.

  Thank you to Paula and Joanne for proofreading and polishing my work.

  To Alexandra, my assistant. Thank you for being you on a daily basis and always being my calming center.

  To the SJFC-thank you for reading, debating, and supporting every step I take. I love you girls to pieces!

  Thank you to my Beta Baes. Thank you for always giving me what I need, and not just with the writing process. Thank you for reassurance, for reading, for being a part of my life every day. None of these books happen without you.

  Amanda and Claudia-Your love, friendship and support is always a given. I love you so much!

  Alexa Aston, thank you for always providing your thoughts and your feedback. You are the best.

  To my Twinnie, Holly Martin- Thank you for always reading my work, offering suggestions, helping me be a better author. But it is your friendship I value about all else. I love you.

  Thank you to Jennifer and Mary, who run the Aven Ellis reader group on Facebook (Kate, Skates, and Coffee Cakes.) You both are such amazing women with such a passion for books. I love you ladies so much!

  The Aven Ellis ARC Team-thank you for wanting to read my words and review my books. I’m so lucky to have such an amazing group of readers with me, no matter what adventure we take!

  A big huge thank you to Maryline Van Puymbrouck, my Belgian native, for all your help with creating Maxime. You brought him to life.

  Kayla, thank you for the insightful read and for helping me find solutions to problems. You are the best!

  I’m also grateful to Janel Amador for Maxime’s translations. Thank you for all the back and forth to get it just right!

  Finally, thank you to all my readers. None of this happens without your support. I’m truly blessed.

  Prologue

  Brussels, Belgium

  The previous July

  I absently glance around the café, working my long, honey-blonde locks into a single braid. It’s a habit of mine, something I do when I’m anxious. I work the strands in a rhythmic motion—up, over, underneath—as I sit on a terrace surrounded by leafy green trees and vibrant blooming flowers. It’s a beautiful summer evening in Brussels, and the surrounding tables are filled with people talking, reading, working on laptops, or typing on phones.

  Nobody has noticed me. Not one cell phone has been aimed in my direction.

  I’ve never been so grateful for anonymity in my entire life.

  “Votre café au lait,” the server says, interrupting my thoughts as she places a white ceramic mug in front of me.

  “Merci beaucoup,” I murmur, grateful that my photographic memory can still recall greeting lessons from my high school French class.

  If only it could forget everything else.

  She smiles and leaves me alone.

  I glance down at my latte and see the foam has been artfully designed into a beautiful heart.

  My throat grows thick at the sight of it. If this latte art were to reflect my life right now, that heart wouldn’t be perfect.

  It would be in fragments all over the cup.

  A chill runs through me even though the evening is warm. I wrap my hands around the mug, trying to regain some warmth.

  If you had told me last March that I’d be sitting alone in a café in Brussels, regretting every decision I made over the past six months, I would have laughed. I, Skye Reeve, would have smiled and said, “Impossible.” Fate had led me in the right direction. Okay, maybe fate with the help of my agent, Charlotte, but I was meant to go on Is It Love? and meet Tom Broaden on a reality dating show. The plan was to get onto the show, appear for a few episodes as the fresh-faced California girl who wanted to open a cupcake shop—

  I cringe. Anxiety rushes through me, and I begin unbraiding my hair. I should have refused that idea the second Charlotte suggested it. I have no interest in owning a cupcake shop. I can’t even bake. The idea was to portray me as sweet and memorable, and it would help me land a lifestyle-reporting job, which is my dream. Cupcakes were hot, Charlotte assured me, and who wouldn’t love a sweet cupcake shop owner? After all, hadn’t a million chick lit books been written about heroines like that? We’d get the audience behind me, and when all was said and done, I’d move to my TV career and say I was putting the cupcake shop on hold while I pursued “new opportunities.”

  So, to increase my odds of being cast for the show, I had lied.

  I work the hair faster, my fingers shaking as embarrassment and regret roar back to the surface. I remember parts of me dying every time I talked about cupcakes on the show. But after week one on Is It Love?, I didn’t have to talk about them anymore, because Tom took an interest in me and that became my story.

  Silly me. I didn’t realize I was playing a part in Tom’s fictional love story.

  I blink back tears. I’m not in love with Tom anymore. It didn’t take me long after I was dumped on a beach in Seychelles to realize what I’d thought was love wasn’t. But my life has shattered into tiny pieces because of how I handled everything.

  Make that mishandled.

  I comb my fingers through my hair, letting the waves fall past my shoulders. I take a quick glance around because I swear I can feel someone watching me. There’s a young couple to my right, holding hands and kissing across the table. I turn to my left, and there’s a group of teenage girls laughing and showing each other their phones.

  My gaze lands on the table diagonally across from me.

  There is a man with a baseball cap, reading a vintage book. I can tell it’s an antique copy
from the cover. I peer closer. It’s The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien. He reaches for his coffee, his eyes not leaving the pages of the fantasy world he’s in. He begins to lift his head, and I quickly look away, not wanting him to catch me staring.

  I’m losing my mind.

  Ha. I’d have to have a mind to lose it, and apparently that went out the window as soon as Tom started telling me I was different from all the other girls he was dating on the show.

  Ugh.

  Little did I know he was telling the same thing to the other finalist, something I discovered while painfully watching the show back this summer.

  But no, I’d fallen in love. I was special.

  We were special.

  I close my eyes and relive a magical date we had sailing on a yacht in Monaco. We sipped the finest champagne, dipped into the gorgeous blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea, and shared salty sea kisses as the cameras rolled around us.

  I studied for a career in broadcasting at UCLA, so I was used to cameras. They never bothered me on dates, which allowed me to quickly become lost in Tom. So lost that on a picnic in Napa Valley, I told him he was my first love and I wanted nothing more than to love him forever.

  Oh, how America has mocked me on social media for being such an idiot.

  As they should.

  I reach for my coffee cup again, simply using it for a hand warmer as my stomach is too jittery to drink anything. I fell for all his lines, every damn one of them. He told me he admired my intelligence and sweet nature. He said nobody made him laugh like I did and he saw forever when he looked into my blue eyes. He even promised we could celebrate our anniversaries in all the exotic spots around the world where we had started our journey.

  I’m going to throw up.

  I push the latte cup away, and as I do, the heart in the foam sloshes and breaks apart.

  Perfect.

  I bring my fingers to my mouth, trying to hold back my retching stomach. My face flames as I remember the way I’ve been lit up on social media for how I kiss. People said I used too much tongue and I was too eager to shove it down Tom’s throat.

  And that’s just the tip of the iceberg as far as my public humiliation goes. People have judged my eyebrow shape and the way my body looks in a bikini. They said I was there for the wrong reasons. And while some were “Team Skye,” others thought I was an immature idiot.

  Those who chose “immature idiot” won the office pool.

  Ugh.

  I’ll never get another date for the rest of my life.

  After the finale, I was slammed with interview requests and plastered on tabloid covers. I abided by the contract I signed and said nothing negative about the show or the producers who’d fueled my love for Tom by telling me “he’s only into you” and insisting if I “shared all my feelings” it would let Tom know how much I cared and only strengthen his feelings.

  I start to section my hair again. Oh, I fell for all that crap. His crap, the show’s crap, all of it. I got sucked into a vortex of romance and Tom and, being the stupid fool that I am, fell in love.

  I don’t know what love is.

  My hands shake as I work my hair back into a braid. Watching it back on TV was torture. Why didn’t I see I was being swept up by the production, not the man? Exotic locations with Tom, doing utterly romantic things? It was a dream, but it was fluff. Despite spending hours on dates together, Tom hadn’t shared much with me.

  I glance back at the guy reading the book. Does Tom even like to read? I have no idea. Would he read fantasy like this guy in the baseball hat?

  I close my eyes, swallowing hard.

  I’m so lost.

  I slowly open them, shifting my gaze down to the tabletop in front of me. My agent has some TV offers she wants me to consider, but I can’t discuss them now, not when I’m a mess like this. All the opportunities involve discussing the show.

  Or talking about falling in love.

  You know, the one topic I obviously know nothing about.

  I’ve said no to everything. Charlotte is furious, but I don’t care. I can’t do it again. It was too painful to hear from my friends, their voices full of excitement as the show started to air, and have to smile and play dumb. I was contractually obligated to lie. As the episodes aired, their excitement shifted to horror as Tom was shown saying duplicate things to the other finalist. My family was confused by my newfound passion for cupcakes and mortified by the things coming out of my mouth. Oh, God, where do I go from here?

  I feel awful about how I let down my family. My parents both work in the entertainment industry, and Mom, who is a reporter, was so mad she insisted on writing a reality dating show exposé until I begged her not to out of embarrassment and fear of a lawsuit. Dad is a TV sports executive, and while he supported me going on the show, I know he’s taken crap for it. I know people are talking about their daughter behind their backs, and that hurts, too.

  But the worst is the example I set for my sisters. Lizzie is a sophomore at Berkeley, and Ashlee is a senior in high school. What example have I set? That it’s okay to lie to get in the front door for a career? To throw caution to the wind and brazenly fall in love with a man you’ve just met, without even knowing what types of books he reads?

  And instead of staying strong in the face of adversity, I couldn’t cope. I drained my savings account and took off for Europe, wanting to disappear. I closed my eyes and tapped a finger on a map of Europe. I figured if I made crap decisions with my eyes open, making one with my eyes shut couldn’t be any worse. I’m spending the next few days in Brussels as I try to figure out who Skye Reeve really is. What do I want? How do I rebuild my life after making such a mess of it?

  Yet, while everything else in my life is in chaos, there is the one thing I know with certainty.

  I thought fate led me to that show for a once-in-a-lifetime career opportunity. Then, after my first solo date with Tom in New York City, I believed fate put me there to find my soul mate.

  I was all wrong. And now I know:

  Fate cannot be blindly trusted.

  Chapter One

  Celebrate Life With Sprinkles—The Blog

  New City, New Life, New Start

  I pull open the door to the donut shop, eager to get out of the snow. Okay, so only a few wet snowflakes have fallen from the gray sky, but I’m a Southern California girl. Anything below fifty is brutally cold.

  Correction. I was a Southern California girl.

  I tug off my gloves, and a sense of amazement fills me. As of yesterday, I’m a resident of Boulder, Colorado.

  I stuff my gloves into the pockets of my puffy black parka and pause in wonder over two things. The first is the endless array of gorgeous donuts in cases before me, their magical, wonderfully sweet scent filling the air and making me want all the donuts.

  The second is that I’ve landed a position as a new lifestyle correspondent for Boulder Live, my first official TV job.

  A blush fills my cheeks as a third thought hits me.

  No. That’s a lie. The last thought didn’t hit me but has been with me since I interviewed for my new job.

  I’m living in the same town as Maxime Laurent.

  I get in line, my thoughts shifting from donuts, rich with vanilla icing and a spectacular dose of sprinkles, to the Belgian hockey player that came into my life in the most unusual of ways.

  I met Maxime a few months ago through my friend JoJo Rossi. He is a teammate of her fiancé, Cade Callahan. When Maxime said he knew me, I was mortified. Of course he did, from my disastrous showing on Is It Love? But I was wrong.

  He was in the café in Brussels.

  I move up in the line, wrapped up in thoughts of Maxime. How could I have not noticed the gorgeous man with brown hair and golden highlights, and the most intense blue-green eyes I have ever seen? I couldn’t believe he’d remembered me. I was stunned, but when he brought up how I wrapped my hands around my latte cup and kept braiding my hair, I knew he indeed had been there.
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  Against what must be astronomical odds, we met again in Denver.

  Some would call this fate.

  But after what happened with Tom, I don’t believe in fate.

  I study the donuts in the case, my gaze falling on those made to celebrate the upcoming holiday.

  Valentine’s Day.

  I wonder if Maxime will be celebrating with someone special.

  I chew thoughtfully on my lower lip. Maxime and I talked that night in Denver, and I can’t deny I found him intriguing. He was intelligent. Quiet, but I could tell that was because he was really listening to those around him. He recalled everything I did in that café, so I knew he was extremely observant.

  He also happens to be the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen and has an oh-so-sexy French accent.

  We connected on social media, but Maxime rarely, if ever, posts anything. He always “likes” my stuff, so I know he’s actively following me, but that’s the extent of our communication.

  I wonder if he reads my blog.

  “May I help the next customer?” a woman behind the counter calls out.

  I move up, and there are now only two people ahead of me.

  I launched my blog last year with a specific purpose in mind. My life was broadcast on TV for the entire world to see, but that was a blurred reality, produced and manipulated. I wanted to show the world another side of me and share my real life. Today’s post was about celebrating a new beginning by moving to Boulder and starting on Boulder Live.

  As part of my branding, I celebrate everything with sprinkles. Therefore, I’m here to get heart-shaped donuts lavished with sprinkles. I’ll record a video for my Instagram story, and it’s something I can talk about when I’m introduced on Boulder Live next week.

  “Next, please.”

  I move up again, my thoughts drifting back to Maxime and wondering what he would do for a Valentine’s Day date. I picture something quiet and private.

  I shake my head. I’m thinking about him way too much.

  I actively pursued TV work in Denver after my friend JoJo sold me on the idea. I did a feature with her for Bake It! magazine, and she encouraged me to give Colorado a try, saying that a change of scenery might be what I needed. After spending time here, the idea of moving to Colorado felt right. I like the rugged beauty of Colorado and the change in the seasons. I felt I needed to escape the fishbowl of LA. The fact that I had JoJo and Sierra Crawford—JoJo’s friend and now my friend—here made it even more appealing.