Stardoom 2: Chick Lit/Romantic Comedy Series, #2

By Sophia Kingston

Lauralie Shaw is slowly recovering from her breakup with Colton Dixon. She has a new boyfriend, a new reality show, and a new appreciation for her fame. 

But just as Lauralie feels on top of the world, tragedy strikes and brings that world crashing down around her. 

As she stands accused of murdering a childhood rival, Colton pulls strings in the background, determined to clear his former lover’s name. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sophia Kingston
• Release date: Mar 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781530462445

Book preview

Book Description

Lauralie Shaw is slowly recovering from her breakup with Colton Dixon. She has a new boyfriend, a new reality show, and a new appreciation for her fame.

But just as Lauralie feels on top of the world, tragedy strikes and brings that world crashing down around her.

As she stands accused of murdering a childhood rival, Colton pulls strings in the background, determined to clear his former lover’s name.

Chapter 1

Rrrr......rrrrriiiiinnnnnnngggggg...............

Lauralie stirred lazily. She grabbed the nearest pillow and dragged it over her head to cover her ear in a bid to shut out the stupid alarm clock. It was as if by doing this, the ringing would automatically stop. Alarm clocks didn’t know they’re a nuisance, did they?

Rrrrrr......................rrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnngggggg..................

The alarm clock continued to scream furiously and relentlessly. The more Lauralie tried to shut it out by pressing the pillow hard on her ears, the louder the alarm rang.

Stupid clock! Lauralie muttered under her breath. She reached out for the alarm clock on the side table and was just about to fling it across the room when she decided against it. It wasn’t her property. If she flung it across the room, she would have to pay the hotel for damages caused to the alarm clock. And maybe the room as well — if the clock bounced from wall to wall before it landed on the floor.

She hit the snooze button and glanced at it. Eight o’clock. Lauralie placed the clock back in position and moaned. She yawned and looked around. The morning sun had shone through the windows of The Plaza hotel into the room. She plopped back down onto the big, cushy pillow. Just five more minutes... just five more minutes... And off she went back into her dreamland.

* * *

It was New Year’s Eve. Lauralie and Rachel had arrived in New York City the day before for the ball-drop in Times Square. They had a full afternoon of meetings planned today. The evening was not sparred, either; they would be meeting a group of families from the Lana Shaw Foundation. This was the plan: first, they would treat their guests to a gourmet catered banquet. After the banquet, they would then head to Times Square for the ball-drop.

Lauralie wanted to do something nice for the families who had suffered the loss of a loved one to cancer. Just like her.

She still remembered the day very clearly as if it just happened yesterday when she had lost her mom, Lana Shaw, to breast cancer. The expression of unbearable pain on Lana’s face was still clearly etched in her memory. She knew those feelings all too well. Her feelings were still raw and tears would well up whenever she thought about her mom every time.

Apart from meeting the families, Lauralie would be doing an on-air interview that Rachel arranged during the live coverage of the ball-drop. She wanted to do some publicity for the Foundation in the hope that the interview would bring in more money for the cancer patients and their families.

All of these events were a bid to soften her public image after the horrible incidence she had two months back.

It all started when those damn pictures of Colton Dixon and his dead brother, Paul, were featured on the front page of a national tabloid. The article accused Colton of being responsible for his brother’s death.

Just like most military families where younger siblings would follow the older ones into military, the Dixons were no different. The younger Dixon had followed in his brother’s footsteps to join the military. Knowing the risks involved, the tragic fact that Paul was killed in combat was totally unexpected. The blown-up version of the headline and the accompanying story that accused him and his family had enraged Colton. It had enraged him so much that he’d stomped out of Lauralie’s life. For good.

Lauralie was upset by Colton’s sudden leaving without giving much thoughts to her feelings. Colton left because he hated the press’s attention; how much more when his family was the target. He was hurt.

Lauralie was hurt too. Very deeply. And depressed.

Out of spite, instead of keeping her mouth shut that Colton would be grateful for, Lauralie had given details of the break-up when the paparazzi asked. She did not release a classy personal statement and respectfully ask for privacy. She had instead told the press that the relationship had ended because Colton hadn’t been ‘man enough’ to deal with the fame.

This sparked off another outburst. Was he trying to hide something that he was afraid the world would know? Everybody wondered. They suspected he might have deeper skeletons in his closet that he wanted to keep hidden.

In the weeks following the break-up, Colton became a national obsession. He was featured on the front page of national tabloids and magazines. He was even the number one search term in Google. Who was he? What was he trying to hide? Everybody wanted to find out more about him. Media outlets published outlandish, speculative stories about the former soldier. Journalists dug into his military history, his school records, and even his medical history.

Now that things had cooled off a little, their scandal no longer held the public’s interest. All thanks to another scandal of other celebs that hit the tabloids. But in the aftermath of the Colton-Lauralie scandal, some people began to criticize the way Lauralie handled the break-up. This led her to do what she was going to do today to save her public image.

Colton had not only quit their relationship, he had also quit as Lauralie’s personal pilot which was a double whammy. She hadn’t found a full-time replacement yet, but she had been lucky that she was able to hire Frank Cotton for this trip to New York City.

Frank had once served as a co-pilot with Colton when she had traveled home from Milan. He was a kind man with streaks of silver hair. He had a boyish face and didn’t look old at all. One would think that he’s in his late thirties. But in actual fact, he was in his fifties. On closer look, he was actually quite handsome by any woman’s standard. His warm smile was charming and always made Lauralie feel at ease. She hoped that he would eventually accept her request to become her full-time pilot.

Talking about getting Frank to fly her for this trip was annoying, to say the least. Lauralie had fret about finding a pilot after Colton’s sudden resignation. And she needed one urgently. Then she remembered Frank, the co-pilot. Rather than go through endless interviews with potential pilots which could take forever, Frank had mentioned he was just a call away if Lauralie ever needed a pilot. He fit the bill perfectly. But to get to him, she would have to get to Colton which she resisted.

Frank had given his contact information to Colton. Instead of calling him herself, Lauralie pleaded with Rachel to call Colton and request for Frank’s contact. However, Rachel insisted she make the call herself and encouraged her to work things out with Colton.

Lauralie was stubborn and refused to listen. Because of pride, she didn’t want to make the first move. She didn’t want to take responsibility for something she wasn’t at fault. She had warned Colton that the press could be brutal. Because of the media’s new found interest in them, Lauralie begged him to consider giving the media just enough of a story to keep them at bay before the whole thing blew out of proportion. This was the only way to stay in control. But Colton refused. The press subsequently dug up every detail of his family’s history and splashed it on the front page for the whole world to see. If he would have just listened to her, none of this would have happened. In Lauralie’s opinion, this was entirely Colton’s fault from the beginning.

Two days before they were scheduled to leave for New York, Rachel finally relented and called Colton as time was running out. At first, Colton was hesitant to give her Frank’s number. In fact, he’d been outright rude, commenting that he liked Frank too much to subject him to someone like Lauralie. But Rachel had a way of getting what she wanted. With a few choice words, she had put the snarky pilot in his place and got the information they desperately wanted.

You’re absolutely right. Rachel had called Lauralie to inform her that she’d got Frank.