How could she work with a team that didn’t believe in her? Just because she’d started her career as a child actor in family-friendly movies and sitcoms, and then evolved into one of Hollywood’s most recognizable rom-com stars, did not mean she couldn’t act in other types of films. Unfortunately, she’d been pigeonholed, and every audition she tried to get for an action or drama or thriller came back with the same reply from studio execs: silence.

It was worse than hearing no. The fact that they simply ignored her attempts to do something different, as if they thought she was kidding, grated on her nerves.

“I have to get this,” Matt said when she made no move to get off him. He gently eased her body away and sat up straighter.

She took no offense. There was a time she had been a slave to her manager’s ringtone as well. “Don’t forget to tell him about the script,” she whispered as she climbed off the bed and he answered the call.

Picking up her copy again, she left the room and stepped out onto the large deck off her bedroom, which overlooked the ocean in Santa Monica. Palm trees and blue skies as far as the eye could see. A soft, warm breeze blew her short dark hair across her face, and she tucked it behind her ear. The new chin-length bob was part of her reinvention. No more long, romantic-looking, wavy beach hair. This style was professional and sophisticated. Slightly harder to style, which annoyed her since it didn’t quite stay in a ponytail when she worked out, but change took time to get used to.

A deep inhalation of the salty, warm September air calmed all her anxieties, and the familiar view gave her a sense of comfort. She’d lived in Santa Monica her entire life and there was nowhere else she wanted to be. The sun, sand, surf and vibrant, eclectic lifestyle California offered in the center of the bright lights was the only world Selena had known and the only one she needed to know—as long as she could hold on to it and still follow her own passions. The overseas film industry would welcome her with open arms, but she wasn’t quite ready to walk away from this world.

She sat on the plush lounge chair, tightening her short, silky pink robe around her waist and extending her legs out in front of her. She adjusted the large umbrella for shade, then scanned the opening pages of the script again. The screenwriter had an incredible voice, an amazing way of capturing a character’s essence with just a few short lines of descriptive writing, and by the end of the first page, she’d been drawn in.

This was going to work.