The Star Who Forgot His Little Balloon

Chapter One

Once again, Chloe Moore had broken her word.

Three years ago, at Ethan Moore’s new-movie launch, Chloe was at the height of her fame when she announced she was giving up the female lead and quitting the industry for good. Three years later, when that shelved project finally came back to life, the official heroine was still her.

At the press conference, reporters packed the room. In an industry flooded with pretty faces that flare for a moment and vanish, she was still hot property. The strange thing was that the whole event was almost over by the time its star finally showed up.

Chloe had been out of the public eye for a long time, yet she was still effortlessly elegant and beautiful. The only real change was her eyes. The sparks that used to dance there had turned damp and shadowed, her whole presence wrapped in a cool distance.

Her agent Ryan Reed stood off to the side of the stage and tugged at the corner of his mouth at her, hinting that she should smile for the cameras. She did as he asked, pulling up the corners of her lips until the proper red-carpet smile slid back onto her face.

When it was time for questions, every mic and camera turned toward her.

“Chloe, can you tell us why you decided to come back?”

She paused for a beat. A reason?

“Because I met Lily,” she said after thinking for a moment. “She’s a really gifted actress. The moment I saw her, she drew me in. I just couldn’t stand the idea of missing the chance to act with her.”

As she spoke, the dullness in her gaze suddenly brightened.

A day earlier, no one but Ethan, the man who had made the deal with her, knew the truth. She had only agreed to take the role because she wanted to work with a completely unknown rookie. A day later, everyone knew.

The cameras swung away from her and zoomed in on the girl named Lily. She looked seventeen or eighteen, about the age Chloe had been when she first came into the business. She was soft and round all over, like whipped cream trying to spill out of its container, her presence making the lively, noisy air around her feel heavy and sticky.

No star quality whatsoever.

The reporters glanced at the faces in their preview screens and sighed. The press conference, which had been buzzing a moment ago, cooled at once. Nobody really wanted to ask more questions. They were already busy figuring out how to spin those two wildly different faces and that puzzling answer into a headline that would blow up online.

After the event, in the parking garage, Chloe walked straight into a back that looked like it had been waiting there for her.

“Ms. Moore, you shouldn’t have talked about how much you admire Lily in a setting like that. She just debuted, and you…”

The man spoke in a calm voice without turning around.

Chloe knew what he meant. He was worried her attention would bring Lily the wrong kind of talk, that people would say she only got her chance because some big star liked her. She had done it anyway.

“She’s going to blow up,” Chloe said.

“Maybe she doesn’t want to blow up that way.”

He did not want Lily turned into some star’s pet project by gossip reporters who loved to stir the pot.

“You’re not Lily. You don’t get to decide for her.”

“As her manager, doing what is best for her is my job.”

Her heart had been pounding hard the whole time. After a long stretch of silence, it finally began to calm. She drew in a slow breath and told him quietly, “No, you don’t. You don’t get to decide someone else’s life for them, Miles Harper.”

The man she called Miles Harper froze. After a long moment, he slowly turned around and stared at the famous actress standing in front of him.

“You know me?”

Chloe stood there in a daze, letting his posture and his expression spin and overlap in her blurred mind until they lined up perfectly with the boy in her memories. Only the face was completely different. Just like Ryan had said, he was unrecognizable now.

He even asked again, “You know me?”

The world inside Chloe went silent. The stars, the sun and moon, all the years she carried in her eyes went dark at once.

Ryan had been right about one more thing. Miles really did not remember her.

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