Listen. I have news. Big news. The kind of news that makes you want to call your best friend, except your best friend is currently fake-commuting to a job he doesn’t have, so he’s a little busy.
The Boys on Film series has officially left Kindle Unlimited and is now available at ALL the major bookstores — plus my very own direct store, where I would love you forever if you shopped. Like, Lola-just-gave-you-a-perfect-wax levels of love. (More on Lola in a second.)
Here’s what’s waiting for you.
📽️ The Money Shot (Boys on Film, Book 1)
Friends to Lovers | Forced Proximity | MM Romantic Comedy | Explicit
New York was supposed to be Liam’s fresh start. Instead, his roommate got arrested, his job vanished, and he’s been fake-commuting downtown like a functional adult. He is not a functional adult.
Desperate and creative, Liam signs up for an adult content site. The plan: make some cash, tell absolutely no one, and survive. The problem: Jack — his best friend and human lie detector — found out. And then, in the most chaotic act of solidarity in the history of friendship, Jack joined him.
It’s strictly professional. Obviously. Except it doesn’t feel professional. Not even a little.
The Money Shot is the book that started it all — a hilarious, hot, deeply chaotic love story about two best friends who accidentally film their way into feelings.
Grumpy/Sunshine | Workplace Romance | Second Chance | MM Romantic Comedy | Explicit
I got out of jail. That’s the good news. The bad news is that my former roommates — yes, the ones whose apartment I accidentally turned into a crime scene — now run a successful adult content company, and they’ve got a job opening.
In front of the camera.
My first day on set is not the sexy experience I was hoping for. But then I meet Nico Steele: quick-witted, infuriatingly hot, and deeply committed to making me blush at every opportunity. Nico is cocky. Nico is relentless. Nico might be my second chance at everything.
The Casting Couch brings back all your favorite faces from Book 1 — including the incomparable Tessa Martinez and her ever-loyal sidekick Moira, the legendary Laura (yes, that Laura — the dominatrix, mind your business), and Lola, the beautician whose waxing technique has made grown men weep and beg for mercy. She does not accept mercy requests.
❄️ The Fire Beneath the Frost (A Boys on Film Companion Novel)
Gay Historical Romance | Soviet Union | Forbidden Love | Emotional & High-Heat
Some of you met Dimitri in the main series — the elderly man with sharp eyes, careful words, and the particular stillness of someone who has survived things he doesn’t talk about. This is his story. And it is not a comedy.
The Soviet Union is crumbling. Petyr has lived his entire life by one rule: don’t give anyone a reason to notice you. Then he meets Dimitri — all sharp edges and quiet strength, with a hunger in his gaze that neither of them can afford to name.
In a country where men like them are erased, wanting each other is reckless. Loving each other could be the end of everything.
The Fire Beneath the Frost is a deeply emotional gay historical romance set during the final days of the USSR. It’s a standalone companion novel — you don’t need to have read the main series, but if you have, this one will hit differently.
The Boys on Film series is a collection of MM romance novels and companion fiction set in and around a New York adult content company. Books 1 and 2 — The Money Shot and The Casting Couch — are explicit MM romantic comedies with high heat, sharp banter, and the kind of found family that will ruin you for other series. The Fire Beneath the Frost is a serious gay historical romance companion novel for readers who want something emotionally devastating to go with their smut.
The series features a vibrant ensemble cast, including:
Tessa Martinez — the chaotic good best friend energy the universe needs
Moira — Tessa’s ride-or-die sidekick
Laura — dominatrix, icon, no further questions
Lola — the beautician. The legend. She will wax you and she will feel nothing.
Dimitri — whose quiet presence in the comedy books becomes the heart of the companion novel
Written by Ian O. Lewis, published by Cruz Publishing.
Looking for steamy MM romance with heart, humor, and a cast of characters who will live in your head rent-free? The Boys on Film series is your next obsession — and now you can find it wherever you buy your books.
Every election cycle, the headlines run on a loop. A high-profile champion of traditional values, a politician who built a career preaching about the sanctity of the nuclear family, gets caught in a streetlight, a text thread, or a DC hotel room. The mask slips, the resignation is filed, and the internet moves on to the next downfall.
But if you want to see the real data behind the hypocrisy, you don’t look at the cable news tickers. You look at the digital grid.
It is an open secret among tech observers and journalists alike that whenever a massive, conservative political or religious gathering rolls into a city, the local Grindr grid immediately grinds to an absolute halt under the weight of thousands of new, localized, anonymous users. The hypocrisy isn’t just an anomaly—it’s an entire ecosystem powered by a massive, multi-million dollar corporate machine.
And that exact pressure cooker is the backdrop for my brand-new contemporary MM romance thriller, Original Sins, releasing June 18.
The Inspiration: Turning Up the Heat with I’ve Had It
People often ask me what sparks a new book project. For Original Sins, the lightning bolt hit me while doing something I do every single day: listening to Jennifer Welch and Angie “Pumps” Sullivan on the wildly popular I’ve Had It podcast.
If you listen to the show, you know Jenn and Pumps have absolutely, officially had it with the systemic absurdity, the control tactics, and the relentless hypocrisy of the modern political right wing. They dismantle the performance with the kind of razor-sharp, progressive, mid-southern wit that makes you want to cheer.
While listening to them dissect the utter theater of these focus-grouped political machines, a question started knocking around in my head: What happens to the human being trapped inside that performance?
What happens when the pristine, anointed prince of a billion dollar conservative empire—a man built by his family to be a king in the light—steps into a dark hotel room on the twelfth floor just to find an hour of peace with another man? And what happens when the anonymous stranger holding him in the dark turns out to be a fiercely independent investigative journalist paid to tear his entire world down to the studs?
That is the high-friction, high-heat dynamic between Pastor Harrison Cole and investigative reporter Alec Friedman. It’s an alpha/alpha, enemies-to-lovers romance about the terrifying, liberating cost of radical honesty.
🌶️ The Tropes
If you are looking for your next mm romance obsession, Original Sins delivers maximum stakes and intense emotional payoffs. It is the perfect addition to your shelf if you love:
Forbidden Institutional Romance: A megachurch pastor and a cynical political reporter crossing lines that could destroy them both.
The Adhesion Dynamic: Two dominant men who know they are a catastrophic danger to each other, but whose gravitational pull collapses them right back into bed every time they try to walk away.
High-Heat & High-Stakes: The physical chemistry is explosive, raw, and deeply psychological—used as a battlefield where the public armor gets violently stripped away.
A Hard-Earned HEA: No tragic endings here. A powerful, authentic, and completely free Happily Ever After.
🚀 Pre-Order Information & Wide Availability
As part of my commitment to reaching readers everywhere, Original Sins is releasing Wide across all digital platforms. You don’t have to be exclusive to one store to read my books—you can secure your copy right now at your favorite digital storefront before the June 18 release date. Added bonus- The preorder price for the ebook is only 2.99. The price goes up on release day so preorder now and save a buck!
As many of you know, I’ve been deep in the writing cave working on my upcoming MM romance novella, Original Sins. This book is incredibly close to my heart. It dives deep into the lives of two men caught between who they are forced to be for the world, and who they are when the lights go out.
Today, I wanted to share an exclusive, unedited chapter excerpt with you.
To set the stage: Pastor Harrison Cole has lived his entire adult life divided in two—the holy shepherd on the pulpit, and the man who hungers in the dark. He lives by a strict set of self-imposed rules to survive. Feel nothing. Get dressed. Leave immediately.
But tonight, in an anonymous hotel room twelve floors above a quiet Midwestern town, a stranger is about to break every single one of his rules.
I’m skipping past the heat of the encounter today to show you what happens afterward—in the quiet, terrifying vulnerability of the wreckage.
Read the excerpt below, and let me know what you think in the comments!
EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT: ORIGINAL SINS
Afterward, we lay in the wreckage of the bedding, not touching, both of us breathing like men who’d run a never ending race. The room was dark. Outside the window the prairie night was enormous and black, and the only light was the red eye of a smoke detector.
And I did what I always did, afterward. I reached for the rule.
I cannot feel anything.
That was the rule, the one that had kept me alive. My body could have its fever, once or twice a year, in the dark, with strangers—my body was an animal, and even animals must occasionally be fed—but my heart stayed locked. My heart was not permitted at the table. I took the fleeting thing, the encounter, the hour of mercy, and then I got dressed, got out, and I let the door shut behind me. I would not, could not look back, and above all, I felt nothing.
It was a good rule. It had never once failed me.
But it was failing me now.
I lay in the dark beside this man whose name I would never know, and I made the mistake of turning my head to look at him—the profile of him, the unafraid line of him, the rise and fall of a chest that had a real face attached to it—and something moved through me that had no business in my chest. It felt so vast and so warm and so far past the borders of anything I’d ever been allowed to feel that I, who made my living and my lies out of words, couldn’t find a single lie to hold it.
This wasn’t lust; lust I understood. It was not even the worship; I’d survived it. This was quieter and infinitely more dangerous. It felt like a door I’d kept locked my entire life, swinging open onto a room full of sunlight.
This is all I get, I reminded myself. One night, with a stranger in the dark and then the long flight home and the lights and the countless lies. These few moments are all a man like me is allowed—a fleeting thing, a sensual communion taken in secret and then a lifetime of standing in front of my congregation pretending I’ve never felt a thing for another man. I should get up, get dressed, and go.
I didn’t get up.
And then the man turned his head on the pillow, and in the dark I felt more than saw him close the last few inches between us, and he kissed me—softly, this time, with nothing in it of the appetite that had wrecked us both. Just his mouth resting warm and certain against mine, unhurried, asking nothing. A kiss like an absolution. A kiss like being told, without a single word, that I was permitted to exist.
No one had ever kissed me like that. Not in thirty-five years.
And the seawall, which had held against the flood and the fevers and the breaking, did not hold against that. Against tenderness it simply gave way, and I felt my eyes sting hot in the dark and was grateful he couldn’t see the tears sliding down my cheeks.
Maybe, I thought, and the thought was so forbidden it frightened me worse than anything we’d done. Maybe I could let myself feel something. Just for a little while. Only for tonight, in this dark room where no one knows my name and the rules can’t reach me—maybe I could let the door stay open for a little while longer. A single, fleeting, unrepeatable taste of the one thing I’d never once let myself desire.
Freedom.
I kissed him back, letting the tears flow, and for the length of that kiss I wasn’t Pastor Cole, or my mother’s son, and I was not lying to everyone I knew.
We lay like that a long while, and I waited for the shame to arrive the way it always did. It didn’t come. What came instead was his voice, low in the dark, pitched soft so as not to break whatever it was we were lying inside of.
“Can I tell you something stupid?” he murmured.
“That depends entirely on how stupid.”
He huffed a small laugh, and I felt it more than heard it, a warmth against my shoulder. “We’re never going to know each other’s names. Right? That’s the whole arrangement. Two gray squares in the dark.”
“Um, I guess. That’s the arrangement.” Even saying it cost me something I hadn’t expected it to.
“So here’s the stupid part.” He shifted, and I felt him turn toward me on the pillow. “That means I could tell you anything. Anything true. The realest, ugliest, most honest thing in me—and tomorrow you’ll be a stranger, and it would be like I’d never said it at all. I could finally tell the truth to somebody, because you’re the one person on earth who can’t use it against me.”
I lay very still. He had no idea—none—how close that came to my own truth. “All right,” I said, and my voice was not quite steady. “Then tell me something true about yourself.”
A long pause ensued, and I wondered if he’d chickened out. Finally, he took in a deep breath and began to speak.
“Somebody tried to love me once,” he breathed. “Really tried. And the whole time, I was just—waiting. For the catch. For the day he’d figure out I was a bad investment and leave. So I kept one foot out the door for both of us. I made sure he could feel it, too.” Another deep breath. “And when he finally left, you know what I felt? Relief. Because being right hurt less than being left.”
He was quiet a moment.
“I’ve told myself ever since that wanting somebody is the stupidest thing a person can do. It’s the easiest way to get destroyed there is. And I’ve built a whole—an entire life out of not needing anyone, and I wear it like it’s a fucking virtue.” His voice dropped, almost too low to catch. “And then you opened that door tonight, and I’ve spent the last few hours terrified, because I don’t want you to leave. Jesus, I don’t even know your name.”
It landed in the dark between us and sat there, and I understood that he’d handed me something real, and that the only decent thing—the only honest thing—was to hand him something back.
“My turn,” I said, and I told him a true thing about myself.
“I’m fake, like, the fakest man you’ll ever meet. It’s a version of me that stands at the front of a room and every person in that room would tell you they know exactly who I am. But not one of them has ever met the true me. Not a single one. I’ve been performing this character for so long I’ve forgotten where he stops and I start.” My throat closed. “You’re the first person in longer than I can say who’s touched the actual me. Whoever that is.”
In the dark, his hand found mine.
He didn’t make anything of it. Didn’t squeeze, didn’t lace our fingers like a vow. He just slid his palm over the back of my hand where it lay between us and let it rest there. And I—who had been preached at, prayed over, photographed, fundraised upon, and managed by my own mother for thirty-five years—could not remember the last time anyone had simply held my hand in the dark for no reason at all except that I was there and they wanted to.
I had to look at the ceiling and breathe.
“You should know,” I said, when I could, “I don’t do this part.”
“What part?”
“This. After.” I made myself say it. “I leave. Always. The second it’s over I’m dressed and gone before the other man’s caught his breath. I don’t—” the word came out cracked, “—I don’t get to stay.”
I felt him take that in. And then, instead of arguing, instead of wheedling, he did the only thing that could possibly have undone a man like me: he made it easy.
“Then don’t stay,” he said gently. “Just—don’t go yet. There’s a difference. You don’t have to decide to stay the night. You just have to not get up in the next minute. And then not the minute after that.” He turned, and drew my arm over him, and settled his back against my chest as though it were the most natural arrangement in the world, fitting himself into me. “See? Nobody stayed. We just didn’t leave.”
And God forgive me, I didn’t leave.
I wrapped myself around this stranger in the dark and held on, and the rightness of it was so total, so foreign, that for a moment, I genuinely did not know what to do with my own body. I’d held people before—congregants weeping at the altar, my mother gripping my arm for the cameras—but I had never been the one allowed to simply close his arms around a warm and willing thing and hold on.
His heartbeat slowed under my forearm, then his breathing went long and even. And I lay there in the dark feeling something I had no precedent for, no scripture for, no sermon that had ever prepared me to survive it: happiness. Real, unbearable, doomed happiness. And grief, exactly equal to it, riding alongside it. In a few hours the sun would come up over Nebraska and I’d become Pastor Cole again, and this man would become a stranger. The door would slam shut, and I’d carry the memory of one held hand to my grave like a stone in my shoe.
This sweet man was now asleep. I could tell by the weight of him. My own eyes were going heavy at last. As I slid down into the warm dark after him, with his heartbeat under my arm and his hair against my mouth, one last thought followed me down into slumber.
What would it cost me to feel like this for the rest of my life? And—the more dangerous question, the one I fell asleep still holding—was there any price on earth I wouldn’t pay to keep feeling this?
Original Sins is a forbidden, emotional, high-stakes MM romance about breaking the rules to find out who you really are.
If Harrison and his stranger grabbed you by the chest, you can lock in your copy right now. Preorders mean the absolute world to indie authors and help give a book the best possible start on release day. It’s available at all major online bookstores including Amazon, Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play, Nook, and Smashwords. Preorder Your Copy Today!
A man looks at muscular male profiles on a gay dating app
They say truth is stranger than fiction, but in the world of political reporting, sometimes the truth is just… hilarious.
If you’ve kept an eye on the news during major conservative conventions, you know the drill. A few thousand “family values” advocates descend on a city, and suddenly, Grindr starts sweating. It’s a digital stampede of faceless torsos and “discreet” profiles so intense that the servers eventually just throw in the towel. It’s a phenomenon so predictable you could set your watch by it—or in the case of my new book, you can set a plot by it.
That specific, chaotic intersection of public piety and private “Looking?” was the spark for Original Sins.
The “Glitchy” Meet-Cute
Imagine you’re a reporter. You’re at a conservative political conference to find a scandal, not a boyfriend. You’re scrolling through a sea of “Headless Torso #402” and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” profiles when you finally find a connection that feels real. You’re mid-sentence, heart doing a little flutter, and then—poof.
The Grindr Crash.
The app dies. The servers have surrendered to the GOP. You’re left staring at a spinning loading wheel, wondering if your soulmate is the guy in the “Traditional Values” tie at the coffee cart or the one currently shouting about “the sanctity of everything” on the main stage.
The Holy Mess
In Original Sins, that crash forces my protagonist to do the unthinkable: actually talk to people in person. When he finally tracks down his mystery connection, he doesn’t find a fellow jaded journalist. He finds a man whose entire career depends on nobody ever seeing that profile—a megachurch pastor who is essentially the poster boy for the movement the reporter is trying to dismantle.
It’s a story about what happens when the digital mask slips and you realize the “enemy” is actually the guy you’ve been dreaming about—even if he does have a lot of explaining to do to his congregation.
Preorder the Chaos
I can’t wait for you to dive into this one. It’s got all the secrets, scandals, and “oh no, he didn’t” moments you expect from my stories, with a healthy dose of “why is this app like this?” energy.
Original Sins is available for preorder now!Grab your copy before the servers—or the characters—have another meltdown. The preorder price is 2.99, but the price goes up to 3.99 on release day. It’s available at all major online retailers. Lock in your savings now!
‘ll be honest — I wasn’t sure what to expect when Grant Moss agreed to talk to me. The host of Irreverent — the podcast that has made three sitting congressmen sweat through their suits — is exactly as advertised. Sharp. Funny. Slightly dangerous. And absolutely not sorry about any of it. We met virtually, and he showed up exactly on time, coffee in hand, looking like trouble in the best possible way.
So Grant. Conservative conventions. You’ve been to a few.
More than I’d like to admit. My therapist calls it a compulsion. I call it content.
What’s the elevator pitch for people who’ve never been?
Imagine your most insufferable uncle’s fever dream brought to life in a convention center. American flags everywhere. Men in suits that cost more than my rent talking about the working class. Women smiling so hard their faces must ache by Tuesday.
Sounds exhausting.
Oh it’s exhausting AND illuminating. That’s the thing people don’t understand. These events are fascinating precisely because of the gap between the performance and the reality.
The gap.
(he smiles over his coffee cup)
Let’s just say the agenda and the after-hours activities don’t always align.
Meaning?
Meaning the same men thundering about moral decay at two in the afternoon are absolutely unhinged at the hotel bar by ten at night. I’ve seen things. I have receipts I’ll never use because I actually have a conscience, which frankly puts me ahead of most of the speakers.
Give me something. Anything.
(laughing)
Okay. Without naming names. I once watched a very prominent advocate for traditional marriage spend forty minutes at a hotel bar buying drinks for someone who was emphatically not his wife. And when I say emphatically I mean demographically, structurally, and in every conceivable way.
Oh my God.
And that’s a Tuesday. That’s not even the interesting stuff.
What’s the interesting stuff?
(pause)
That’s what I’m going back to find out.
Wait — you’re going back? To another one?
The Turning Tides USA conference. Next month.
Are you covering it for the podcast?
I’m going undercover. No press credentials. Just me, a hotel room, and a very open mind.
Undercover as what exactly?
(that smile again)
An attendee. A true believer. Someone who belongs there.
You. A true believer.
I can be very convincing when I’m motivated.
And what’s motivating you this time?
There’s a keynote speaker. Very prominent. Very polished. Very… vocal about certain issues that affect people I care about. And I have a feeling — call it journalistic instinct — that there’s a story there.
What kind of story?
The best kind. The kind where everything is not what it seems.
Should this keynote speaker be worried?
(long pause, something shifting behind his eyes that wasn’t there before)
Honestly? I have no idea anymore.
That sounds like there’s more to this than a podcast episode.
I think I’ve said enough.
Grant —
Order your copy. You’ll find out what happened.
Grant Moss’s story — and what really happened at the Turning Tides USA conference — is told inOriginal Sins: A Divine Gay Romance(Divine Temptations Book Five) by Ian O. Lewis and Luke Jameson.
This chapter has everything: sweeping English countrysides, deep-seated family drama, and two men who are definitely not just talking about horses.
In this sneak peek of Making It Royal, Bryce and Arthur trade the stiff collars of the embassy for the rolling hills of Strathmore. But as the conversation shifts from riding techniques to the realities of growing up in the spotlight (and out of the closet), the air between them starts to spark.
Check out the full scene below, featuring a very competitive race, a centuries-old oak tree, and a moment that was this close to being perfect—until the rest of the world decided to crash the party.
The first thing that struck me was the smell—clean grass and loam and the faint, peppery sweetness of crushed clover. It lifted something in me I hadn’t realised was heavy. The embassy smelled like toner and coffee grounds, while London smelled like rain-slick pavement and someone else’s cigarette. But Strathmore smelled like childhood Saturdays, like the ring at Fairview Stables back in Richmond, like a part of me I’d filed away under before life got complicated.
The second thing was the sound: hooves in soft rhythm, two horses breathing like bellows, birds tick-ticking in the hedgerow. No sirens. No phones. No clatter of staff with agendas. Just the countryside and the slow pulse of two fine animals who didn’t give a damn that I was an ambassador.
Arthur took the lead at first, his mare—an elegant dark bay with a glossy neck—moving like a metronome under him. He sat tall, shoulders back, hips loose, hands steady—textbook, frankly, but not stiff. The kind of form you couldn’t fake if you tried, and it made me overly aware of his body inside those cream breeches and navy hacking jacket.
I let my gelding fall in a few lengths behind. He was a golden chestnut with sensible eyes, and a personality that said I have seen absolute nonsense and survived it, sir. Each step loosened the knot at the back of my skull until I could almost pretend I had nothing waiting for me on Monday—not the briefing book with a spine like rebar, the inevitable memo from the Foreign Office about “expectations,” nor the delicate dance with a government that loved tea, tradition, and plausible deniability.
My eyes kept drifting to the line of Arthur’s back, to the clean angle where jacket met waist, to the way his calves gripped the mare’s sides. I was fifteen again, sitting astride an ill-tempered pony while my heart jump-started over Ben Morrow’s two-point position. My first crush, who had hair the colour of dark honey and a laugh that made me think of summer thunder. Nothing ever came of it, and after he started dating Caroline Fischer from the swim team he stopped noticing me completely.
The day Ben showed up at the stables with Caroline’s class ring on a chain around his neck, I learned two things at once: one, that my father would rather I focus on the family’s legacy—the Lewis name, the diplomatic tradition, the path that had been laid for me since birth—than dwell on whatever was happening in my chest; and two, that boys tilted my world in a way girls never would. After that, the barn was never just a barn. It was a place where adrenaline muddled with desire, where the sound of a boy’s laugh could set off fireworks in my heart. I hadn’t ridden much since I threw myself into the diplomatic corps. But the wiring I’d laid down as a teenager still hummed.
It was humming now.
Arthur slowed and glanced back, his smile easy. He half-turned, bringing the mare to a lazy trot until we drew shoulder to shoulder. The fields rolled away around us—green after green, stitched with hedges and drystone walls, the sky an old china plate. We moved as a pair without thinking, matching strides. My gelding blew softly, approving of this new arrangement.
“It must be lovely,” I said after a minute. “Having a mother who loves the same things you do. Mine never did. She wanted me to be a certain kind of man, you know? The kind who marries the right girl from the right family and produces two children she could spoil at Christmas.”
Arthur gave a little huff of laughter, very unprincely and therefore charming. “Mummy and I share horses and the family, certainly,” he said. His voice had that peculiar royal clarity—like a bell rung softly—but his tone was warm. “Beyond that, we diverge violently. She will tolerate a good, practical coat; she does not understand a bias cut. Fashion leaves her completely unmoved.” He tilted his head, lips quirking. “And as for women—”
He stopped. Not dramatically. Not with any flourish. But something caught in his voice, a tiny snag, and I felt my attention sharpen as if the whole field leaned toward him.
He resumed, carefully, almost wry. “Mummy knows they will never be a part of my life.”
I nearly fell off my horse.
My gelding flicked an ear back in my direction as if to say, Sir, perhaps not an ideal moment for theatrics. I re-centred my weight and found the reins again, heat flooding my face under the helmet.
Arthur’s eyes darted to me, concern flickering. “Are you quite all right?”
“Mm?” I tried for casual and landed in mortified. “Yes. Yes. The horse and I just had a small philosophical disagreement about gravity.”
“Good,” he said, amused, then—softer—“Mummy knew before I did, you know. About… what I wanted. Girls, beyond friendship, never looked like the answer.” He cut me a quick look. “I was dreadfully slow to admit it even to myself.”
“I wasn’t slow,” I said, and heard the old bitterness and tried to sand it down. “I was just… supervised. My mother—she wasn’t cruel. Just single-minded. Cotillions, Hunt Club dances, the right girl on my arm. When it dawned on her that I had no real interest in girls, she did what she always does when reality conflicts with her plan: she tried to manage me like a project.” I smiled. “And then I entered the diplomatic corps and she threw up her hands. Now she pours all that energy into my brothers’ wives. Poor women. They get smothered with monogrammed home accessories.”
Arthur laughed, music to my ears.
We rode in silence for a stretch, the horses content to follow the curve of a hedgerow. The sunlight came slanting in at that hour where everything looked briefly like a painting. I felt unravelled and stitched back together all at once.
“How did your family take it?” I asked carefully, because we were stepping onto something tender. “Your… preferences. Considering your family is the most famous one on Earth.”
He drew his mare to a halt so smoothly the animal seemed to pause mid-breath. I reined in too, and we faced one another. Arthur’s expression shifted; the humour slid away. “It hasn’t always been easy,” he sighed. “There were seasons that felt like weather one could not ride out—wind in one’s face, rain from all angles. But Mummy has been a rock. She kept me out of sight when she could, shielded me where she could not. I am not like my cousins. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Sussex were born to be looked at. I was born to be useful. I’m not a working royal; the spotlight is not my occupation. It’s only by a string of accidents that you and I ever met.” He tipped his chin up. “Had Mummy not been ill on the night of your reception, I might have stayed home, and you would still be a photograph in the paper to me.”
Something went warm and ridiculous inside my chest. “Well,” I said, and heard the rush in my voice, “I am—ridiculously—grateful for Princess Anne’s ill health.”
Colour rose along Arthur’s cheekbones, quick as a match-strike. We sat there looking at each other, and I felt the moment gather itself the way the air gathers before a summer storm—pressure combining with searing heat.
It occurred to me—absurdly—that if I leaned forward and bridged the few inches between our horses, I could kiss a prince. The thought made my pulse leap. Then the more absurd thought followed, brighter and funnier: my father would die. Not of outrage—no, he’d be split perfectly down the middle, bursting with pride that his son was consorting with actual royalty and horrified at what the neighbours back in Richmond would say.
A laugh slipped out, undignified and juvenile, and I pressed my fist against my mouth. My gelding flicked his ear again.
Sir, please control yourself.
Arthur arched his brow. “What, pray, is so amusing?”
“Nothing,” I said, which was a lie, and looked wildly around for cover. Far across the field, a tree rose enormous and inviting, a knotted old oak with a shadow like a dark lake beneath it. “Except,” I blurted, “that tree is begging to be raced to, and I’m prepared to bet you a hundred pounds I can beat you to it.”
His lips parted, and then he laughed, pure delight. “A hundred pounds?” he repeated, teasing horror creeping into his voice. “Ambassador, you are shockingly American.”
“Stars and stripes, baby,” I said before my brain could strangle my mouth. “Well? Do you accept?”
He gathered his reins one-handed, mischief lighting his eyes. “Very well. But when you lose—and you will—you may pay me in suits from Clarence, not cash.”
“Deal,” I said. “On three?”
“One does not shout numbers across a field like a farmhand,” Arthur said, primly, and then ruined it with a grin. “We go on now.”
He touched his heel to the mare and shot forward, the bay launching with a power that made me swear. My gelding took half a heartbeat to realise what was happening, then surged after him. The oak swelled as we thundered toward it, and I measured distance and angle and the way his mare drifted left when Arthur asked for speed. I moved to the right, a clean line, the gelding stretching out the way horses do when they remember they were built for it.
We were neck and neck at the last, and we tore past the invisible finish line with a whoop that startled a flock of birds from the hedgerow. We eased down from our horses together, breathless.
“I protest,” he said between gasps, cheeks flushed, and eyes shining. “You had a superior line.”
“You had a superior horse,” I countered, grinning, and patted my gelding’s sweaty neck. “He’s just competitive. Won’t let anyone beat him.”
“Then we are three of a kind,” he returned with a wink.
We walked the horses in wide circles to cool them, the oak’s shade a relief from the unseasonable heat.
“You ride beautifully, Bryce,” Arthur said after a moment, eyes on his mare but his voice turned to me. “You don’t fight the horse. You persuade. That’s the mark of a gifted rider.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” I said, too briskly, because my heart had overreacted to the compliment. “And thank you. It’s been a long time.”
Arthur eased his mare a step closer until our stirrups almost kissed. Leather creaked; the bay flicked an ear. He looked at me the way sunlight looks at water—direct, unhurried, a little dangerous.
“Persuasion suits you,” he said, voice low. The corner of Arthur’s mouth tipped. “Competence is terribly attractive.”
My heart did a drum solo against my ribs. Shit. Is he flirting with me? What the hell do I say now? “Oh,” I managed, then added, “Well—good. I’m… wildly competent.”
Something like laughter shimmered in his eyes. He leaned in the smallest degree, a breath closer, and his gaze dropped to my mouth. He ran his tongue across his lower lip, quick as a cat tasting cream. I felt the ground tilt. Arthur was going to kiss me under a tree on a late-September afternoon and my mother would sense it from another continent.
Oh God, I’m about to kiss a fucking PRINCE.
My gelding stood like a saint. The world went silent, all the sound tunnelled into the space between us—the soft rush of his breath, the faintest click of his swallow—until, from across the fields, came the unmistakable thunder of hooves.
Both horses snapped their heads up. We pulled back instinctively, the spell shredding. Arthur’s jaw tightened.
“If that is Mummy,” he muttered, “we are going to have a very long talk.”
It wasn’t. A rider in Strathmore livery came pounding across the field. He reined in neatly beneath the oak, the horse blowing hard, and swung down in one fluid motion.
“Your Royal Highness,” he said, bowing to Arthur, then turned to me with crisp deference. “Mr. Ambassador—apologies for the interruption. A call just came through from the house. It’s the embassy. They said it’s an emergency and you’re needed at once.”
Making It Royal is available for pre-order now! Grab your copy to see what happens when the emergency call ends and the real games begin. The Preorder price is 3.99 but on release day the price goes up to 4.99, so lock in your savings today at your favorite online retailer. Click here to reserve your copy now.
Darlings, clutch your pearls and pour a stiff gin.
We always knew diplomacy could be messy, but the whispers coming out of the Court of St. James suggests that Anglo-American relations have gone from “cordial” to “downright scandalous.”
Sources close to the Palace have been working overtime to bury rumors of a completely inappropriate, highly combustible entanglement between the stoic new US Ambassador and everyone’s favorite bachelor Prince.
They tried to keep it quiet. They failed. We have the photos.
The truth finally comes out on March 19th, but because I love you, here is an exclusive sneak peek at the scandal that’s about to rock the monarchy.
THE PLAYERS
On one side, we have Ambassador Bryce Fielding Lewis. The face of American dignity… or a man desperately trying to hide a secret?
He arrived from Washington with a reputation as a serious, no-nonsense crisis manager. Lewis is all duty, lineage, and stern looks that say, “I’m terribly disappointed in you.”
On the other side, Prince Arthur Phillip.
The royal with the devilish charm. He spends his time looking dashing at the front row of fashion Week and charming foreign dignitaries. He is everything the Ambassador is not: open, beloved, and entirely chaotic. They are oil and water. Gasoline and a match. Protocol dictates they should barely tolerate each other. But “sources” say the tension between them isn’t political—it’s primal.
THE INCIDENT
The rumors started swirling last Tuesday. At 3:17 AM, a black diplomatic SUV was spotted peeling away from the side entrance of Kensington Palace—an entrance usually reserved for high-level security clearances and midnight trysts.
Who was inside, looking suspiciously disheveled and shocked to see a camera lens? None other than the esteemed Ambassador Lewis. The Palace issued a terse “No Comment.” The US Embassy claimed it was a “late-night strategy session.”
Darling, please. We know a walk of shame when we see one.
THE SMOKING GUN
If you thought the late-night exit was damning, wait until you see what my sources sent over this morning. These images, taken by a concealed camera at an exclusive Soho club just 48 hours before the palace incident, show a very different kind of “special relationship.”
THE FULL STORY REVEALED
What really happened? How does a rigid American Ambassador fall for a chaotic Royal Prince without causing an international incident?
The Palace tried to kill this story. But the truth is too delicious to stay hidden.
These photos are just the beginning. The full, uncensored, entirely scandalous story of Bryce and Arthur drops on March 19th. Be the first to get the full exposé before it’s banned in both countries! Preorder Making It Royal now from your favorite online bookstore! The Preorder price is 3.99, but the price goes up to 4.99 on release day so lock in your savings now.
I stared at it from my spot on the couch, trying to remember if this was my second bottle tonight or my third. The label blurred when I squinted at it, which probably meant third. Or maybe I just needed new glasses.
Or maybe you need to stop drinking yourself to death.
I ignored the thought and poured what was left into my glass. The cheap red sloshed over the rim, staining my fingers, but I didn’t care. Caring required energy, and I’d run out of that weeks ago.
The apartment was dark except for the glow of the TV, some late-night talk show I wasn’t really watching. Dishes were piled in the sink. Laundry overflowed from the hamper in the corner. A stack of ungraded papers sat on the coffee table, slowly being buried under takeout containers and empty bottles.
Sheila would have been appalled.
The thought hit me like a knife to the chest, the way it always did. I took a long swallow of wine and tried to push it away, but it clung to me, sharp and insistent.
Sheila.
Two months since she died, and the grief hadn’t gotten any smaller. It had just… changed shape. Settled into my bones like a cold I couldn’t shake. Some days I could almost function—teach my classes, answer my emails, pretend to be a normal human being. On other days, like today, I couldn’t do anything but sit in the dark and drink until the edges of the world went soft.
I’d stopped going to Epic. Stopped going to any clubs, actually. The thought of being in one of those places, surrounded by strangers and noise and the memory of that night—
No, I couldn’t do it.
I’d been to the police, of course. The day after… after everything. I’d walked into the station on shaking legs and told them what I remembered.
Well, almost everything.
Two men. One short with brown hair, the other skinny and tall, both wore designer clothes. Names I couldn’t quite recall. Drinks that tasted wrong.
The cops had been sympathetic but not hopeful. Without a clear description, without evidence, without witnesses willing to come forward, there wasn’t much they could do. The case went unsolved.
And the men who killed Sheila walked free.
I took another drink, letting the bitterness coat my tongue.
Mario could have helped.
The thought was a betrayal, and I knew it. He’d asked me not to mention him. Warned me it would get us both killed. And I’d kept my promise—hadn’t said a word about the mysterious stranger who’d pulled us out of that club, who’d carried Sheila to the hospital, who’d taken me home and made me breakfast and kissed me like I was something worth wanting.
I’d kept my promise, and he’d disappeared.
Except… not completely.
I’d seen Mario. Glimpses mostly. A shadow at the edge of my vision, a familiar silhouette across a crowded street. At Sheila’s funeral, I’d felt eyes on me and turned to find him standing at the tree line, watching. Our gazes had locked for one breathless moment, and then he’d vanished like smoke.
After that, I started noticing him everywhere. A figure in a parked car outside my apartment. A shape in the shadows near the café where I got my morning coffee. Always watching, never approaching.
At first, I’d thought I was imagining it. Grief was playing tricks on me, making me see the one man I desperately wanted to see. But it kept happening. Week after week, glimpse after glimpse.
Mario was still out there. And for some reason, he couldn’t stay away.
I didn’t know how to feel about that. Part of me was furious—how dare he tell me to forget him and then haunt my life like a ghost? Another part was pathetically grateful. At least someone was watching over me, even if he refused to come close.
And a third part, the part I tried not to think about too much, still remembered the taste of his lips. The strength of his arms. The way he’d said, you’re different, like it meant something.
I drained my glass and reached for the bottle, only to find it empty.
“Fuck.”
I should go to bed. I had classes tomorrow, papers to grade, a life to pretend I was still living. But the thought of lying alone in the dark, staring at the ceiling, waiting for sleep that wouldn’t come—
The TV caught my attention.
A news ticker scrolled across the bottom of the screen: BREAKING NEWS – TWO BODIES FOUND NEAR RIO GRANDE.
I frowned, reaching for the remote to turn up the volume.
“—discovered early this morning on the Mexican side of the river,” the anchor was saying, her expression appropriately grave. “Authorities have identified the victims as Scott Burnside and Zack Davis, both residents of El Paso. Sources say the men had significant levels of cocaine and fentanyl in their systems, and their bodies showed signs of severe trauma consistent with a prolonged and brutal attack.”
The wine glass slipped from my fingers.
It hit the carpet with a dull thud, the dregs spilling out in a dark stain, but I barely noticed. My eyes were fixed on the screen, on the two photos now displayed side by side.
Smug smiles. Designer clothes.
I knew those faces.
Scott and Zack.
The names I couldn’t remember at the police station came flooding back. Scott, with his charming grin and his wandering hands. Zack, tall and lanky, laughing at his friend’s jokes. The drinks they’d pressed into our hands. The way the world had gone fuzzy and wrong.
“Investigators believe the attack was personal in nature,” the anchor continued. “Anyone with information is encouraged to contact—”
I grabbed the remote and muted the TV.
For a long moment, I just sat there, my heart pounding against my ribs. The faces stared back at me from the screen—frozen now, immortalized in death.
They were dead. The men who killed Sheila were dead.
And I knew—with a certainty that went bone deep—exactly who had done it.
Mario.
I thought about the glimpses I’d caught over the past two months. The shadow at the funeral. The figure in the parked car. He hadn’t been watching me just to watch.
A sound escaped my throat—something between a laugh and a sob. I pressed my hand over my mouth, trying to contain it, but the tears were already coming. Not grief this time. Something else. Something I didn’t have a name for.
Relief?
Gratitude?
Justice?
I stared at the silent TV, at the faces of the men who had taken Sheila from me, and I waited to feel horror. Revulsion. Some appropriate moral response to the knowledge that Mario had kidnapped and killed two human beings.
It didn’t come. All I felt was savage, bone-deep satisfaction. They deserved it.
I picked up my wine glass from the carpet, set it on the table, and walked to my bedroom on unsteady legs. For the first time in two months, I didn’t dread the darkness waiting for me there.
Mario had made things right.
And somehow, impossibly, it made me want him more.
I slept better than I had in weeks.
When I woke, the sun was streaming through my curtains, and my head was pounding—a reminder of last night’s wine—but underneath the hangover, something felt different. Lighter. As if a weight I’d been carrying had finally been lifted.
I showered, dressed, and forced down some toast and coffee. Then I grabbed my messenger bag and headed out to catch the bus to campus.
The day felt almost normal. The sky was blue, the air was warm, and for the first time since Sheila died, I didn’t feel like I was drowning.
After work, the bus dropped me off a block from my apartment complex, and I walked the rest of the way with something almost like a spring in my step. Students passed me on the sidewalk, laughing and chatting, and I found myself smiling at them instead of glancing away.
Maybe I was going to be okay. Maybe—
I stopped.
There was a van parked across the street from my building. Old. Nondescript. The type of vehicle you wouldn’t look twice at under normal circumstances. But I’d spent two months noticing things I never used to. Learning to watch the shadows. Searching for signs of him. And something about that van made my pulse spike.
I stood there on the sidewalk, my messenger bag clutched tight against my hip. The van’s windows were tinted, too dark to see inside. But I felt it—the weight of someone’s gaze. The same sensation I’d felt at the funeral, at the café, in all those moments when I’d turned and glimpsed a familiar silhouette.
Mario.
He was in that van. I knew it the same way I knew my own name. Before I could think, I was moving. Not toward my apartment—toward the van. My feet carried me across the street, my heart hammering so loud I could hear it in my ears.
The engine roared to life.
“No!”
The van pulled away from the curb, and something inside me snapped.
I ran.
I hadn’t run in years—not since college, not since I’d decided that exercise was for people with more energy than sense. But I ran now, my messenger bag bouncing against my hip, my lungs burning, my legs screaming in protest.
“Mario! Stop!“
The van picked up speed. For one horrible moment, I thought he was going to drive away. Leave me here again, the way he’d left me two months ago.
Not this time.
I pushed harder, my feet pounding against the pavement. The van was only a few yards ahead now. I could see the back doors, could almost reach them—
My hand closed around the handle. “Mario, stop!“
The van jerked, rolled a few more feet—
And then the engine died.
I stood there, gasping for breath, my hand still wrapped around the door handle. My legs shook. My heart felt like it was trying to escape my chest.
Slowly, the driver’s side door opened, and there he was.
Mario.
He looked the same as I remembered—broad shoulders, dark hair, jaw sharp enough to cut glass. But there was something different in his eyes. Something tired. Something hungry.
Our gazes met across the distance, and the world fell away.
All the words I’d rehearsed in my head over the past two months—the accusations, the questions, the desperate pleas—vanished. I couldn’t speak. Could barely breathe. All I could do was stare at him, drinking in the sight of his face like a man dying of thirst.
Mario shook his head slowly, his lips pressing into a tight line. Then, without a word, he pushed the door shut and started walking.
Not away from me.
Toward my apartment.
I followed.
We moved in silence, up the stairs and down the hall. My hands trembled as I unlocked the door—but this time, I managed it on my own. I pushed it open and stepped inside, holding it for him. Mario walked in without hesitation. The lock clicked shut behind us.
And then he was on me.
His mouth crashed into mine, his hands gripping my waist, pulling me against him with a force that stole my breath away. I gasped into the kiss, my fingers clawing at his jacket, his shoulders, anything I could reach. Spanish spilled from his lips between desperate kisses—words I only half-understood, but the meaning was clear.
Want. Need. Finally.
I shoved him backward, slamming him against the wall, and climbed him like my life depended on it. My hands roamed everywhere—his chest, his arms, the hard planes of his stomach. He groaned, spinning us around, pressing me into the wall, his mouth never leaving mine.
The kiss deepened—urgent, raw, two months of longing exploding between us.
Mario pulled back just long enough to cradle my face in his hands. His dark eyes burned with something fierce, something desperate.
“Nunca he querido a un hombre como te quiero a ti,” he breathed.
I’ve never wanted a man the way I want you.
I didn’t hesitate.
I grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the bedroom.
The first two episodes of Prisoners Of Sodom will be dropping at the end of January 2026! Mario and Austin’s love story is a project I’ve been working on for the last year and I can’t wait to share it with you. Until then, happy reading!
I’m so excited to share a sneak peek of The Naughty List with you! This book has been an absolute joy to write – it’s got all the holiday chaos, sizzling chemistry, and laugh-out-loud moments that I love packing into my rom-coms.
If you’ve been following along, you know this is my holiday gift to you this year. A Christmas rom-com releasing on December 26th? Yes, please! Because who says the romance has to end when the presents are unwrapped?
I wanted to give you a taste of what you’re in for, so I’m sharing an entire chapter right here on the blog. So grab your favorite holiday beverage (mine’s a peppermint mocha, thanks for asking), get cozy, and dive in. And if you love what you read – and I really hope you do – you can preorder The Naughty List right now so it’s waiting for you on release day.
Happy reading, and happy holidays!
xoxo, Ian
I stared at my reflection in the oversized vanity mirror, still wearing Dr. Brock Blaze’s signature white lab coat—now artfully splattered with what the props department swore was raspberry jam but looked disturbingly like arterial spray. My hair had gone slightly flat under the stage lights. My jawline, which Soap Opera Digest had once called “chiseled by the gods themselves,” looked as sharp as ever, but my eyes told a different story. They looked tired. Haunted, even.
I’d just filmed the season finale’s climactic scene—the one where Dr. Brock Blaze performed emergency heart surgery on his ex-lover’s current husband while confessing his undying love. To a mannequin. Because the actor playing the husband had food poisoning.
“The only heart I can’t save,” I’d intoned, staring intensely at the plastic torso on the operating table, “is my own.”
The director had literally applauded. “Emmy-worthy, Sam! Emmy-worthy!“
I wanted to die.
I peeled off the lab coat and tossed it onto the leather couch that dominated one wall of my dressing room. The space was nicer than my first apartment in LA—all modern minimalism with pops of color courtesy of the interior designer the network had hired three years ago. Chrome, glass, and tasteful abstract art that meant nothing to me. A mini-fridge stocked with overpriced sparkling water. A standing desk I’d never used. Plus, a closet full of designer suits for press junkets and award shows where I’d smile until my face hurt and answer the same five questions about Dr. Brock Blaze’s love life.
The face in the mirror looked like a stranger wearing my skin.
Twenty-four hours. That’s all I had to survive before my flight to Virginia. One month in a remote cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where hopefully nobody knew Dr. Brock Blaze and nobody cared that I’d been nominated for a Daytime Emmy three years running. One month of silence, solitude, and—
The door to my dressing room flew open with enough force to rattle the framed poster of last season’s promotional shoot.
“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?”
Chandra stormed in like a Category 5 hurricane stuffed into a blood-red wrap dress and six-inch heels. Her dark hair—usually in the soft waves her character, Dr. Sienna Castellano, favored—was pulled back in a severe ponytail that screamed I will end you. She clutched her phone in one hand, her acrylic nails painted the same shade of crimson as her dress, and thrust it toward my face.
“Look at this shit! LOOK AT IT!”
I didn’t need to look. I’d already seen the headlines this morning while stress-eating a protein bar in my car.
SOAP OPERA’S HOTTEST BACHELOR FINALLY OFF THE MARKET?
SAMUEL BENNETT AND CHANDRA REYES: THE ROMANCE WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR!
IS SAMUEL BENNETT SECRETLY STRAIGHT? SOURCES SAY YES!
The photos were everywhere: Chandra and me leaving Spago last night, her hand in mine because she’d been wearing those ridiculous stilettos and nearly face-planted on the sidewalk. We’d gone to dinner as friends—something we’d been doing for seven years, ever since she’d joined the cast and became the only person on set who didn’t treat me like a walking Ken doll. But the tabloids didn’t care about context. They cared about clicks.
“I know,” I said, slumping into my chair. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? SORRY?” Chandra’s voice hit a pitch that could shatter the champagne flutes in my mini-fridge. “Samuel, you’re gay. Everyone knows you’re gay! You came out when you were twenty years old! You’ve been to Pride! You’ve given interviews about being a visible queer actor in daytime television! But somehow, somehow, these assholes keep trying to make you straight!”
She waved her phone like it had personally offended her ancestors. “And now Danny—my Danny, who has the IQ of a decorative gourd—actually believes this shit! He called me this morning screaming about how I’m cheating on him with you! With YOU! I told him, ‘Baby, Samuel is gayer than a pride parade on Rainbow Island,’ but does he listen? NO! Because he’s a fucking idiot who gets his news from TMZ!“
Despite everything, I felt a smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. “You’re dating Danny and Mario, though. Technically, you are cheating on Danny.”
Chandra pointed a lethal fingernail at me. “That is an entirely different conversation, and we are not having it right now. Danny doesn’t know about Mario. Mario doesn’t know about Danny. And that’s how I like it, thank you very much. But now Danny thinks I’m sneaking around with you, which is—” She threw her hands up. “My life is a goddamn telenovela, and I don’t even get residuals!”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed—a real, genuine laugh that felt foreign in my throat. Chandra’s whole life was a soap opera. She’d been engaged four times, dated two of our co-stars (simultaneously), and once punched a photographer who got too close to her niece at Disneyland. She was chaos incarnate, and I loved her for it.
“This isn’t funny, Sam.” But she was grinning now, the anger bleeding out of her as she collapsed onto my couch. “Okay, it’s a little funny. But seriously, why do they keep doing this to you? You’re not exactly subtle about being into men.”
“I don’t know.” I scrubbed my hands over my face, feeling the residue of stage makeup under my fingers. “Maybe I’m too masculine for their narrative, or they think a gay guy can’t be the romantic lead unless he’s secretly bi. Probably they’re just homophobic assholes with a publishing deadline.”
“It’s the last one,” Chandra said flatly. She kicked off her heels and tucked her feet under her. “God, I hate this town. Remember when we got into this business because we loved acting?”
“Vaguely.”
“Yeah, me neither.” She picked up one of the throw pillows and hugged it to her chest. “At least you’re getting out of here for a while. Where are you going again? Some cabin in the woods where you can pretend to be a lumberjack?”
“Virginia. Blue Ridge Mountains.” I turned back to the mirror, starting to wipe away the makeup with cold cream. Dr. Brock Blaze’s face slowly disappeared, revealing the real me underneath—or whatever was left of the real me after seven years of this. “A place called Ashford Gap. Population four hundred, no paparazzi, no scripts, no—”
“No fun,” Chandra interrupted. “Sam, you’re going to lose your mind in the woods by yourself.”
“That’s kind of the point.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but the door opened again—this time without the dramatic flair. My agent Sabrina Winstead glided in. She was fifty-something, blonde, and terrifying in the way that only women who’d clawed their way to the top of Hollywood could be. She wore a cream-colored pantsuit that probably cost more than my first car and carried a leather portfolio that I knew contained nothing good.
“Chandra, darling,” Sabrina said without looking at her. “Out.”
“Excuse me?” Chandra sat up straighter. “I’m having a conversation with—”
“Out. Now.” Sabrina’s smile was all teeth, no warmth. “This is business.”
Chandra looked at me, and I gave her a helpless shrug. Picking a fight with Sabrina was like arguing with a shark—technically possible, but ultimately pointless. Chandra grabbed her shoes and phone, shooting Sabrina a look that could have melted steel.
“Call me when you’re back,” she said to me. “And Sam? Don’t let her talk you into anything you don’t want.”
The door closed behind her with a soft click that felt louder than Chandra’s earlier explosion.
Sabrina set her portfolio on the glass coffee table and settled into the chair across from my vanity, crossing her legs with practiced elegance. “We need to talk about your contract.”
“No.” I kept wiping away my makeup. “I told you, Sabrina. I’m not discussing this until after my vacation.”
“Samuel.” Her voice hardened, losing the honey coating. “You’re being offered three more years at double your current rate. Do you have any idea how rare that is? The network loves you. The viewers love you. You’re the face of Midnight At Magnolia General. You’d be a fool to walk away from this.”
“Maybe I’m a fool, then.”
She stood, her heels clicking against the floor as she moved closer. In the mirror, I watched her come to stand behind me, her reflection sharp and unyielding.
“You want to be a ‘serious actor,'” she said, making air quotes that I felt more than saw. “You want prestige. Film. Broadway. I get it, sweetheart, I really do. But you know what those things require? Leverage. And you know what gives you leverage? Money. Security. A fanbase that will follow you anywhere.” She leaned down, her hands on the back of my chair. “You can’t afford to be an artist if you’re broke and irrelevant.”
Something ugly twisted in my chest. “I’m not irrelevant.”
“Not yet. But walk away from this show, and you will be.” Her voice was matter-of-fact, almost kind. “Daytime TV isn’t a stepping stone anymore, Sam. It’s a career. And it’s a damn good one. You’re making half a million a year to memorize ridiculous lines and look pretty. Why are you so desperate to throw that away?”
“Because I’m miserable!” The words exploded out of me, louder than I’d intended. I spun in my chair to face her. “Because I spend eight hours a day pretending to be Dr. Brock Blaze, and I don’t know who Samuel Bennett is anymore! Because I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve never done real theater, never auditioned for anything that mattered, never—”
“Never what?” Sabrina’s eyes were cold. “Never struggled? Never waited tables while going to auditions? Never slept on a friend’s couch because you couldn’t make rent? You skipped all that, Samuel. You got lucky. And now you want to throw your luck away because you’re having some kind of artistic crisis?”
The air felt thin, like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.
“Why are you pushing this so hard?” I asked slowly. “You’re supposed to work for me. I tell you what I want, and you make it happen. That’s how this is supposed to work.”
Something flickered across her face—so fast I almost missed it. Guilt, maybe. Or calculation.
“I’m your agent,” she said carefully. “I’m supposed to guide your career in the right direction. And right now, that direction is signing this contract.”
“But I’m miserable,” I repeated, softer this time. “You know that. I’ve told you that. So why—”
“Because it’s good for you!” She cut me off, voice rising. “Because you don’t know what’s good for you right now! You’re burned out, you’re tired, you need this vacation. But when you come back, you’ll see things clearly. You’ll realize that walking away from this show is career suicide, and—”
“And what?” I stood up, facing her fully. “You’ll have convinced me to stay on a show that’s killing me inside? Great plan, Sabrina.”
She stared at me for a long moment, and I watched her decide something. I’d known Sabrina for eight years, and I’d seen that look before—the one that meant she was about to do something she’d regret.
“Fine,” she said, her voice dropping. “You want the truth? I’m the one who’s been leaking the stories.”
The words didn’t make sense at first. “What stories?”
“The tabloid bullshit. The ‘Samuel Bennett might be straight’ rumors. The photos of you and Chandra, the speculation, all of it.” She lifted her chin, defiant. “I’ve been feeding stories to the gossip sites for six months.”
The floor seemed to tilt beneath my feet. “You… what?”
“You’re more popular than ever, Sam! Your social media following has doubled! The show’s ratings are up fifteen percent! People are talking about you, and in this business, that’s all that matters!” She spread her hands like she was presenting me with a gift. “Controversy sells. Mystery sells. And a gay actor who might be straight? That’s catnip for the tabloids.”
I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. My mind was a blank white screen of rage and disbelief.
“I did this for you,” Sabrina continued, and she actually sounded like she believed it. “To keep you relevant. To make you valuable. To ensure that when contract negotiations came around, the network would be desperate to keep you. And it worked, Sam! They’re offering you double! You should be thanking me!”
“Thanking you?” My voice came out strangled. “You’ve been spreading lies about my sexuality. You’ve been—” I had to stop, had to take a breath before I said something I couldn’t take back. “Get out.”
“Samuel—”
“GET OUT!” I pointed at the door, my hand shaking. “Get out of my dressing room, and don’t contact me until I’m back from Virginia. Actually, you know what? Don’t contact me at all. I’ll call you when I’ve decided if you’re still my agent.”
Sabrina’s face went pale, then red. “You’re making a mistake.”
“The only mistake I made was trusting you.”
For a moment, I thought she was going to argue. But something in my expression must have convinced her I was serious. She grabbed her portfolio, tucked it under her arm, and walked to the door.
“You’ll change your mind,” she said from the doorway. “When you’ve calmed down, you’ll realize I was right.”
The door closed behind her, and I was alone.
I sank back into my chair, my reflection staring back at me—half Dr. Brock Blaze, half Samuel Bennett, and I wasn’t sure which half was real anymore.
My fucking agent had been sabotaging my personal life to boost my career, which coincidentally boosted her pay since she got 15% off my earnings. The tabloids thought I was a closeted straight guy. My co-star Chandra was having two secret affairs. And tomorrow, I was getting on a plane to hide in the mountains of Virginia like some kind of emotional fugitive.
I grabbed my phone and pulled up my email, finding the confirmation for the cabin rental. Ashford Gap, Virginia.
One month. Complete privacy.
The listing had promised a “luxurious mountain retreat with stunning views, modern amenities, and the perfect escape from the pressures of everyday life.” The photos had shown a sprawling deck overlooking misty peaks, a stone fireplace, and windows that seemed to bring the forest inside. It looked like paradise—the kind of place where a person could find themselves again.
One month to figure out who the hell I was when I wasn’t Dr. Brock Blaze.
One month to decide if I was brave enough to walk away from everything I’d built.
One month to find something real in a life that had become nothing but performance.
I stared at my reflection one more time, at the tired eyes and the fake smile and the face that belonged to someone else.
“What if I get there and realize I don’t know who I am without all of this?” I muttered aloud, glancing around my dressing room.
The question hung in the air, unanswered, as I reached for my jacket and prepared to leave the studio for the last time in thirty days.
What if the person I found in those mountains was someone I didn’t recognize at all?
The Naughty List goes live on the day after Christmas! Preorder your copy today for only 3.99. The price goes up to 4.99 on release day, so lock in your savings now. The Naughty List is available exclusively on Amazon.
If you look at the image above, that was basically me for most of my life. I wasn’t just indifferent to the holidays; I was a card-carrying member of the “I Hate Christmas” club. I was the guy rolling his eyes at the first notes of a carol, the one muttering under his breath while everyone else was roasting chestnuts. I genuinely despised the season. But if you know me now, you know that script has flipped. I’ve somehow crossed the line from “bah humbug” to actually humming along with the radio.
It wasn’t a random personality quirk; there’s a reason I hated it. Let’s be real: my family of origin was, to put it mildly, completely fucked up. It was a train wreck. Being gay on top of that definitely didn’t help matters; it just added a layer of isolation to an already volatile mix.
Then I spent years working retail as a makeup artist. If you’ve never worked a cosmetics counter in December, you haven’t seen the true face of humanity. I was trapped in a mall, drowning in a sea of aggressive shoppers demanding the perfect shade of red lipstick like their lives depended on it, all while the same five holiday songs played on an endless, maddening loop. The sensory overload of perfume, panic, and incessant jingling bells didn’t just annoy me—it completely wrecked the season. By the time I clocked out, the last thing I wanted to see was tinsel; I just wanted silence.
For a long time, the holidays weren’t a celebration—they were something I had to survive. But eventually, I escaped that hell. I got out, I built a life of my own, and most importantly, I met Ricardo.
Ricardo and I had a rollercoaster romance—off again, on again, spanning years—but through all the turbulence, he was undeniably the love of my life.
Then came my move to Mexico, and shortly after, the world fell apart. Ric passed away during the Covid epidemic, and I was absolutely gutted. The silence he left behind was deafening. But the following Christmas, sitting with that grief, I made a choice. I decided I needed to change my attitude, not just about the holidays, but about how I was processing everything.
I turned to the one thing that always makes sense to me: writing. I channeled that energy into a novella called Making It Glitter. The irony isn’t lost on me—after years of despising my time in retail, I wrote a romance about two guys falling in love while working at the mall, one dressed as an elf and the other as Santa. It was my way of taking the setting of my nightmares and turning it into a place of love.
Writing is what changed me.
Now that I’m away from retail and family drama, the holidays have become enjoyable for the first time. I even have a playlist of holiday music I’ve been listening to while working on my next holiday themed romance, The Naughty List.
I’ve been a huge fan of romantic comedies my entire life, and The Naughty series if a result.
First there’s The Naughty Professor, my gay version of The Nutty Professor. Coming the day after Christmas is The Naughty List, my first snowed in romance. This has been so much fun to write, and I daresay it’s much more romantic than I expected it to be. It kind of reminds me of one Christmas Ric and I were trapped in a cheap motel in Pennsylvania. We’d been driving back to Richmond from his family’s place in Ohio, accompanied by our chihuahua, Pepe. It was cozy, warm, and… I’ll keep the rest of that memory to myself. *wink*
Preorder The Naughty List now from Amazon, and lock in the sale price of 3.99. The price goes up to 4.99 on release day.
Ian O. Lewis and Luke Jameson 