Prologue Julia was staying at the Ritz. Always the Ritz. Only the Ritz. Like a lot of women, Julia reserved a special place in her heart for the elegant restaurant where a man had popped the question that had changed her life. But instead of a Tiffany ring, Julia walked away that day with a two-book deal, and from that point on, Julia James could afford to buy her own diamonds. Five years later, Julia had climbed fourteen stories from the hotel restaurant to a luxurious suite where the lights of the city shone through sheer curtains onto her unadorned hands. She flew quickly through a deck of cards and grew lost in the familiar motion, as her mind drifted back to the day Candon Jeffries had told her she was going to become a star. At the time, Julia had nearly laughed at him. Ten pounds overweight and self-conscious about it, she considered herself to be a perfectly ordinary single woman. But Candon had worked side by side with Julia in the trenches of the publishing world, and he knew that she didn't sit at home on Friday nights, waiting for a boyfriend to ask her to the movies. She didn't live on microwave popcorn and bad takeout. Instead, Julia went to the movies alone. She froze individual servings of homemade lasagna and chicken Kiev and never thought twice about the phone that didn't ring. Julia James wasn't just another single