They’d moved there together right out of college to pursue his dream of writing movies. But as much as Grant loved the hustle and bustle of the city, Abby never had clicked with the place. She’d yearned for the simplicity of their home island, and nothing he said or did could convince her to stay once she made up her mind to go home. They’d been living together nearly ten years by then, and he couldn’t imagine life without her. But more than anything, he wanted her to be happy. That she wasn’t happy in LA was clear to everyone who knew her there.

Something she’d said to him before she left had remained with him ever since. “You can write anywhere, Grant. Anywhere in the whole world. Why can’t you write in the one place where I want to be?”

Convinced he needed to stay where the work was, he’d let her go. They’d had a bicoastal relationship ever since and had been making it work—somehow—until last summer when he came home for Mac’s wedding and Abby issued an ultimatum Grant hadn’t seen coming.

She was all done waiting for him. Either he came home to be with her, or she was moving on with her life without him. He’d panicked, of course, and told her he needed one more year to turn things around in LA. Nothing had gone his way since the magical night he’d received the Oscar nearly three years ago—ironically right around the time Abby had left. Lately, it seemed, he couldn’t get a job flipping burgers in Hollywood.

As it turned out, winning the big one had been a disaster for his career. He’d become his own worst nightmare: a one-hit wonder. The latest blow had come a week ago when he’d been rejected for a job he’d been promised by a producer friend. “I couldn’t get it past the money people,” his friend had said when he called to deliver the crushing news.

It was another disaster on top of the one that had come a few days before—news from home that Abby planned to marry someone else.

Grant had been awake all night after the phone call from the producer. At about three in the morning, it dawned on him that he’d had enough of Hollywood. He’d had enough of living without Abby, of pretending he had any kind of life at all without her by his side.

If he had any prayer of convincing her that she was making an enormous mistake by marrying anyone other than him, he had to go home and make things right with her. So he’d packed most of his stuff into storage, put his place in Malibu on the market, left his car with a friend to sell and headed for LAX.