My One and Only

Fake dating a hot baseball player—what could go wrong?

When aspiring actress Lucy Younger arrives on Hazel Island to film her first movie, she thinks she’s finally caught her big break. What could be better than spending her summer on a beautiful island while catching the attention of her mega-famous costar?

Enter Carter Roberts: baseball player, playboy, and the most obnoxious, arrogant, and sexy man Lucy has ever had the misfortune to meet.

Soon Carter offers her a role she can’t turn down: play his fake girlfriend and make her costar wild with jealousy.

Never one to turn down a dare, Lucy agrees. But when she starts to fall for Carter, suddenly what was just a game becomes all too real.

After a shoulder injury benches him for the season, star pitcher Carter Roberts is set adrift. When he travels to Hazel Island for work, he doesn’t expect to get anything out of it except an extended vacation.

Until he meets a pretty little spitfire who sets his blood aflame with every barb she throws at him. Lucy thinks she’ll be able to resist him after she agrees to their bargain, but Carter knows that when he kisses her, she’ll forget all about her costar.

Carter soon realizes he wants more than this made-up relationship. But unless he tears down the walls surrounding his heart, he’ll lose the only woman who’s ever mattered.

After ten takes that lasted throughout the morning and into the afternoon, Lucy Younger heard her stomach growl so loudly that she was pretty sure anyone within a five-mile radius would’ve heard it, too.


“Cut!” yelled the director, Jim Stanton. Jim had a swath of silver hair that tended to expand outward as the day progressed. Lucy wondered if it was from the humidity, or if Jim’s hair expanded as he got more irritable with every take that he inevitably hated. It was rather like watching a cat fluff out its fur, arching and hissing at some threat.


“That’s a wrap for now,” said Jim. “Go get some lunch.”

He shot Lucy a sardonic glance, and she had a feeling he’d heard her stomach growling. Well, if he let them have lunch breaks before three in the afternoon, she wouldn’t be so damn hungry!


Lucy had arrived on Hazel Island in the Puget Sound to film The Last Goodbye a week ago. It was her first movie, and although it was a smaller indie one, it was a huge opportunity for her. If she could stop doing small commercial bits or community theater… her heart did a little happy dance at the thought of becoming a bona fide movie star. Or at the very least, an indie darling.


Lucy grabbed a plate of food, the rest of the cast and crew milling nearby. They had filmed this scene outside, not far from the water, and Lucy inhaled the scent of salt and sand with satisfaction. Coupled with the clear blue summer sky and the warm day, it was impossible not to be happy. She couldn’t stop smiling.


“Lucy!” Erin White, Lucy’s castmate, grabbed Lucy by the elbow. “Did you hear that Hayden Masterson was cast?”


Lucy’s eyes widened. After the film’s original lead actor had dropped out suddenly, everyone had been on pins and needles, waiting to see who would be cast instead. Hayden Masterson was Hollywood’s biggest actor, and after an Oscar nomination this year for a widely acclaimed role, he was the talk of the town.


Lucy had gotten to meet Hayden in person a year ago at a cast party another actress had invited her to. Lucy had been tongue-tied and nervous, but Hayden had gone so far as to ask Lucy about her work and to buy her a drink.

He’d been so handsome that Lucy had almost swooned at his feet. When their fingers had brushed after he’d handed her a drink, she’d fallen head over heels for him.
She’d been crushing on him ever since. She even had his photo as her phone’s background, and she might also have bought herself a signed photo from his website for her birthday.


“Are you serious?” said Lucy.
Erin nodded. “I just talked to the casting director. Hayden is going to play Malcolm. He’s coming up here in a few days to start filming!”


Lucy almost staggered, her heart pounding. She clutched at Erin’s arm like Erin was a lifesaver in the middle of the wide ocean.

“Are you serious? Hayden Masterson? Are you sure it’s him?” she demanded.


“Yeah, I’m serious!” Erin grabbed Lucy by the shoulders. “Lucy Younger, you’re going to be playing opposite Hayden Masterson. You get to kiss him. This is really happening, girlfriend!”


Lucy’s piece of bread fell off her plate onto the ground, but she didn’t care.
She’d get to see Hayden again. She’d get to know him, to act right alongside him. He wouldn’t just be somebody she dreamed about every night. He wouldn’t just be a handsome man in a photograph, his scrawling signature in the corner of the black-and-white headshot. It’d really be him.

She couldn’t believe it.
She didn’t know how the producers had managed to get him to agree to star in this little indie film. Maybe they’d sacrificed a virgin to get him to sign on. Maybe he was bored with the bigger Hollywood movies and wanted something different. Maybe it was because Mercury was in retrograde, and wasn’t that supposed to make things weird in the universe?


“What am I going to do?” Lucy shot Erin a terrified glance.


Erin laughed. “Don’t look at him like you’re going to puke, for one.”


“Am I dreaming? Pinch me. Throw a bucket of ice water on me.”
Erin pinched her so hard that Lucy yelped.


“Okay, okay, it’s real! No more pinching,” said Lucy.


Erin flashed her a grin. A pretty woman with auburn hair and an exuberant laugh, Erin had become Lucy’s friend after they’d had one ridiculous conversation about their favorite cat memes. Erin had a smaller part in the film than Lucy, who’d somehow managed to get the lead role despite not having any movie experience.

Lucy’s resume, though, was as long as her arm, with parts in anything her agent could land her: commercials, plays, short indie flicks and everything in between.
Lucy had played everything from a woman dying of cancer to a crazy stalker ex-girlfriend to a dumb blond friend. If you printed out a list of stereotypical roles for women in Hollywood, Lucy had done them all.

She’d recently done a commercial where she was a woman suffering from irritable bowel syndrome and had found the perfect medication to treat it. That had been both a highlight and a low point in Lucy’s not-so-illustrious career.

It had taken her close to nine years—Lucy had just turned twenty-seven earlier in June—to snag a role like this.


“Ten more minutes and we’re going to start the next scene,” said Jim as he passed by Lucy. “Head over to wardrobe to get changed.”


Lucy wolfed down her food in record time. Checking the time, she realized that she had five minutes to change before Jim would yell at her for being late. She hurried to the costumes trailer without looking where she was going.


As she wrenched open the trailer door, she ran straight into a hard, muscular chest.


“Whoa there,” said a deep male voice, large hands steadying Lucy.


Lucy looked up—and up, and up—to see laughing blue eyes gazing down at her. Although the man wasn’t classically handsome, he was certainly striking with those eyes of his.

With his dark hair and cleft chin, he could easily be featured in the pages of a magazine as a fashion model, lounging around in clothing that cost more than Lucy made in a year. Lucy had done a few modeling projects in between acting gigs, and this guy fit the profile exactly. He even smelled expensive.

“I’m used to women throwing themselves at me,” the man drawled, his voice like velvet against Lucy’s skin, “but this is a bit much.” His gaze traveled from her face to her chest before taking a leisurely survey of her entire body.