And though neither of us said the word, I was certain as Jace held me fixed with his hands, his cock, his eyes—that what passed between us was the culmination of a year of quiet confidence and a couple weeks of building trust. It was the outcome of quiet nights sharing truth and long days spent believing in one another. It was something more than employment or protection and it lived outside the complications that lay between us.
Jace loved me. And I loved him.
And it wouldn't matter what ridiculous charade we had to go play for the world to see.
Love was strong. I was sure of it.
Chapter Eighteen
Jace
Juliet and I packed, my efforts taking about fifteen minutes before I went in to watch her struggle to decide what she needed over the course of several hours. When she’d finally finished, she had several hard suitcases and an overnight bag.
“Think you forgot anything?” I teased.
“I’m terrible at packing,” she moaned. “I know it.”
We'd be gone four days, but she was bringing half her closet.
"The weather in Maryland is unpredictable. And I don't know how I'll feel," she added.
"My clothes never seem to care how I feel," I told her, laughing.
"I mean I'm not sure what I'll feel like wearing," she said, poking me in the chest and then dropping another hand low to give me a teasing squeeze.
"Don't start something you can't finish," I warned her.
In the past few days there'd been a lot of finishing. For both of us. But I'd begun to see that the more I had of Juliet, the more I wanted of her. Every time I held her in my arms, my mind started working through future scenarios, ways we might be able to make this thing between us work in the long run, while my heart just hammered out words that echoed inside my skull relentlessly. Words like: Forever. More. Love. Mine.
She'd smiled up at me then, the smile that made my heart melt and my dick into a steel girder at the same time. "Soon. We'll find a way, I promise."
I carried her things downstairs, and we waited for Ryan to arrive.
When Chad radioed that McDonnell was there, the warm intimacy between us stilled. And when Juliet pulled open the front door and her movie star “boyfriend” gave her a casual hug, I took a step back, physically and emotionally. This weekend would not be easy. I would need to hang back, stay in the shadows. No matter how much it hurt.
We took two cars to LAX Thursday night. Jack and Christian had taken an earlier flight to Washington DC so they could arrive at the house in Maryland a couple hours ahead of us. They'd need to check the property, identify security risks and set up the patrol and response plans before Juliet and Ryan arrived.
McDonnell left his car at Juliet's house, and the two of them rode together in the back of a dark Town Car one of the other guys from the firm drove. A second car waited just behind it, this one for me and Chad.
"Ready for this?" Juliet had asked McDonnell when he'd arrived, black bags slung over his shoulder and a shit-eating grin on his face. Of course he was ready. All you had to do was look at Juliet to see that any man with blood in his veins and two brain cells to rub together would have been ready in a heartbeat. My blood raged inside me and I found myself needing to count to ten and take calming breaths more than once in the fifteen minutes we spent packing up their car.
And as I packed her into a car with Mr. Perfect Hollywood, Ryan McDonnell, Juliet's promises were all I had to keep me from going Hulk on the car and ripping the roof off to get to her. I forced myself to keep my eyes away from the windows because if he touched her—if I saw him touch her—there was a chance I'd kill him.
I took small consolation from the fact that Elvis was currently in Brentwood with my mother, undoubtedly being spoiled rotten. It was ridiculous, but the fact that my mother had Juliet's dog—it was like part of her was being kept by part of me, and nothing between us could break as long as a narcoleptic pug was with Mom.
Grasping. Straws. Yeah, I knew it. It was all I had.
* * *
Juliet had dressed casually, but had refused the baseball cap and shades I'd suggested would help stave off attention, telling me the whole point of the farce with her and pretty-boy was to be seen.
Still, I wasn't quite prepared for the crush of paparazzi already gathered at departures when we arrived. There were always crowds around Juliet, but this was excessive—someone had tipped them off. Chad and I had to play offensive line, holding back the crowd and directing luggage handlers as the movie stars made their way through the terminal.
"Keep moving," I growled at McDonnell at one point, when he looked around, acting surprised to see all the people focused on them, and then he stopped to stare at Juliet.
He didn't keep moving, and my skin tried to crawl right off my body as I watched in horror while he put his hands on her and she rose up on her toes to kiss him.
This was not a peck.
This was not chaste.
Movie-star-asshole-douchebag McDonnell had his hands all over Juliet and his tongue in her mouth, and I swear to God, I could not hear for the sound of the blood rushing violently inside my head. My skin was burning and if I clenched my fists any tighter, I was pretty sure every bone in my hands would actually break.
Flashes were firing, and reporters were calling out questions as passersby took video of that asshole groping Juliet like she belonged to him. Like he had the right.
Fury was suddenly my new religion and I was ready to throw myself on its altar and use McDonnell for a human sacrifice.
As they broke apart, Juliet's eyes found me, and she held my gaze for a long second. When her eyes met mine, the searing want and need I felt for her leapt up to join the jealousy spiraling inside me and I actually felt sick. Like I might need to sprint off to find a potted plant. Maybe I could just vomit into McDonnell's suitcase.
Steady, Jace, I told myself. They're acting. That's what they do.
I took a deep breath, telling myself this was just for show, it was fake, and we continued moving through the airport, finally coming to the gate just in time for boarding to begin.
Chad didn't seem to mind the excitement or the fact that McDonnell kept a possessive hand on Juliet's waist. He even leaned into me when they were finally done searching for one another's tonsils for the cameras and said, "Shit, I've got a chub just from watching that. I'd like to give her a little boink some time. Did you hear her tell him to put his hand on her tit? Maybe she's some kind of domme, huh? Into kinky shit, you think?" He moved away to push back a photographer who'd stepped too close, and it was a good thing because I'd been about to shove my fist down his throat.
On the plane, Juliet and Ryan sat side by side in first class, and Chad and I sat right across the aisle from them where we'd be close enough to intervene if needed. I was relieved to see Juliet pull out a little pillow and go immediately to sleep while McDonnell flipped through a magazine he produced from his bag. I couldn't help eyeing him, trying to understand more about the man who'd just had his hands all over the woman I was pretty sure I was falling in love with. He seemed completely unaffected by the kiss they'd shared. Not that I'd expected him to pass out or anything, but the dude did not look like a guy getting ready to score. He wasn't paying much attention to Juliet really; his focus seemed totally absorbed by the—was that a cooking magazine?
We landed at Dulles and repeated the LAX scenario almost to a tee. McDonnell groped Juliet again while I struggled to keep myself from murdering him, and soon we were back in two town cars, driving south for what felt like centuries before finally pulling up in front of a huge white house lit up by spotlights where it perched on a riverbank looking like something out of Gone With the Wind.
"Who. Is. That?" Chad asked in an appreciative voice as we peered out the windows. There was a woman standing on the front steps, gazing out toward us. Chad let out a low whistle as he took in what had to be Juliet's sister. Annoyance flared in me. We were here to work, not to ogle Juliet’s
sister. Or Juliet, for that matter. The woman on the steps had long dark hair and a pretty face, and she smiled as Juliet emerged from the car and moved to embrace her. Jack stood on the porch just behind her, and there was something moving around at his feet, flapping and jumping. Was that a chicken?
Once introductions had been made, and Jack had explained that the chicken was a pet who had taken a liking to him, Juliet's sister Tess waved us into the house. "I've set up a few rooms this way for your security," she told Juliet.
Juliet glanced back at me with those big green eyes, and I thought there was some kind of apology there, though it was hard to see in the low light of the front parlor. McDonnell stood at her side, and I stopped myself from cringing visibly as Tess motioned to a stairway, telling them their rooms were that way. We wouldn't even be sleeping in the same part of the house, I realized, disappointment landing like a stone in my gut.
"Perimeter security is non-existent," Jack said, stepping close. "I did a check of the house, and the structure is secure enough, no vulnerable ingress points as long as we keep watch front and back. The night of the party will be a little more complicated, but I've got the CONOPs set up here." He handed me a sheet of paper as Juliet and McDonnell disappeared up the stairs, leaving us in the front room.
"Yeah, okay," I said to Jack as the chicken I'd seen on the porch let out a loud shriek, making me jump.
"What the fuck is this?" Chad asked him, pointing to the bird, which was now standing on Jack's shoe.
Jack sighed and rolled his eyes, rubbing a hand through his hair. "Dude, I don't even know. This bird like adopted me or something. It won't leave me alone."
Chad burst out laughing and I elbowed him in the ribs. It was pretty late, and I knew Juliet's grandmother was probably sleeping somewhere nearby.
"Did you set up a watch schedule?" I asked Jack.
"Yeah. Chad and Christian on first watch," he said.
"Thanks a lot," Chad muttered.
Jack ignored him. "You and me on second."
That meant I'd have a couple hours sleep, which I was glad for, though I wasn't sure sleep would be possible, given the furious rush of my blood at the moment. Jealousy didn't look good on anyone, I knew, but I couldn't stand the fact that Juliet had just disappeared up the stairs with McDonnell. Were they sleeping in the same room? How far were they going to take this farce?
"Yeah. Good."
"I'll show you the rooms," Jack said, leading us into the east wing of the house, the chicken dancing at his feet as he moved.
Chapter Nineteen
Juliet
I followed Tess up the stairs with Ryan, every tiny cell in my body screaming to go back down, to go wherever Jace was going instead.
But we were basically onstage now, and I needed to follow through with the plan. We were here for a reason—to offer the press something besides my messy divorce and scandalous sex tape—and if we pulled it off, it would work well. But if we screwed it up and somehow revealed that this was actually a ruse, it would just give the media more fodder to use in their efforts to paint me as a sad, desperate star on her way to financial ruin, rehab, mental collapse and cinematic obscurity. We'd raised the stakes by taking on this act. And now we had to go through with it and do it convincingly.
And that meant staying away from Jace for the weekend. My heart surged in protest as I thought about it.
As Tess pointed us to our (thankfully separate) rooms, Ryan said he was hungry, and Tess agreed to help him find something to eat. But before she'd gone downstairs with him, we'd had a few minutes together as she helped settle me in my room.
"So this thing with Ryan," she said, smoothing the duvet as she talked. "Is it pretty ... uh ... serious?" Her voice was a little bit unsteady, and I wondered if she could possibly still be entertaining the crush I knew she'd had on Ryan a few years ago, when Charade of Stones had just begun and he'd been in some silly movie called Meet me in Manhattan that Tess had loved.
I hated having to lie to my little sister. It definitely wouldn't do anything to help us close the distance that had grown between us over the past few years. "I don't know," I said, a nervous laugh escaping my mouth.
She was giving me a look like she was trying to figure something out, tilting her head to one side and squinting at me. "What aren't you telling me?" she asked.
Oh shit. I’d been here five minutes and Tess was about to figure it all out. "There's nothing to tell, Tess," I said, forcing my voice to be light. "Zac was a shit, and now I'm seeing Ryan." I turned away from her, unzipping my bag. "I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed. We'll talk tomorrow."
I wanted her to stop asking questions. My mind was churning over how I might be able to go to Jace without the rest of the security team catching me, but I didn't even know which room he'd be in, and Chessy seemed to be hovering around the security team that had come earlier. She wasn't a quiet house chicken and I didn't need her throwing up some kind of alarm if I went down there.
"Good night," Tess said, leaving my room and shutting the door behind her.
I picked up my phone and texted Jace.
Me: Top of the stairs. Second door on the right.
Him: Your sister and McDonnell are up. Too risky.
I sank onto the bed, a deep disappointment mixing with the exhaustion in my bones and making me feel heavy and hopeless. What had I gotten myself into? How could I possibly be around Jace for four days without letting on the way I felt about him? My body was magnetically drawn to him, my heart aligned to him like he was my true north.
That night I slept fitfully, tossing and turning. I was in an unfamiliar bed, in a house I hadn't slept in for years—one that creaked and moaned with the slightest breeze. One in which I couldn't be myself, where I'd always felt the weight of my parents' deaths like a physical pain inside me.
This was the place we'd come to live after they had died. And I loved Gran. But she wasn't my parents. And I knew that Tess had gotten over their loss more easily—she was younger when it had happened, after all—but for me, the emptiness I'd felt when Mom and Dad had died had never really filled back up. From that point on, I had always felt like I was looking for something to replace their love, to soothe the gnawing emptiness I felt inside.
For a while, the excitement of Hollywood had been a good distraction, but once I'd settled into my success, the hole had opened up again. It was a gaping cavern just as wide as ever. I'd married Zac thinking a family of my own would be the answer, but Zac didn't want kids. And the hole gnawed itself even bigger inside me.
The thing was, in the last few weeks, as Jace and I had spent more time together, I hadn't noticed it as much. The pain had faded. It might have been the distraction of something new, but I thought it was more.
And now, being here, being away from Jace, I was empty again.
* * *
The sun was bright in the morning, and I got up early, thinking I might go down to the river and stretch a little bit. Southern Maryland did offer some benefits over my home in Los Angeles, the biggest one being the fact I could actually go outside alone, go for a walk without worrying about being accosted or swarmed by photographers.
I pulled on some yoga pants and a long tank top and went downstairs, carrying my flip flops in my hand. The house was quiet, and as I passed the entrance to the east wing, I wondered where Jace might be.
I hated that we hadn’t gotten a chance to talk after the scene at the airport. I hated that I didn’t even know which room he was sleeping in. Had he tossed and turned all night too? Was he still okay with everything or might he be thinking this was all just too much?
I went into the kitchen and brewed a pot of tea, standing in front of the counter and staring out the window at the big sprawl of the yard, the slope of the bank down into the lazy river below. My eyes swept the dominating green of the landscape, finally coming to rest on the incongruity moving over the lawn. A black-shirted man in jeans, walking near the back porch.
My heart hammered in my che
st.
Jace.
I made two cups of tea and carried them out to the back porch. "Hey," I called softly down the steps, drawing his attention.
His face had been stony and serious, but when he turned to look at me, a smile spread over those full lips that made my heart clench inside my chest.
"Hey yourself," he returned.
"I made you some tea," I said.
He glanced around, as if looking to see if anyone was nearby, and then came up the stairs and onto the porch. "Thanks." He accepted the mug I held out to him.
"No one else is up," I told him, setting my own mug on the table.
He stood a couple feet from me, around the curve of the big table. He seemed to think about my statement for a minute, then put his own mug down and stepped closer, scanning the yard and peering into the kitchen through the screen door as he did so. "Is that an invitation, Ms. Manchester?" he asked, his voice a growling whisper that made my stomach drop because it made me think of the other times he'd used that voice.
"I miss you," I whispered back, stepping closer to him.
We both glanced around, but there was no one nearby to see anything they shouldn't.
Jace reached a hand to me and I took it. He tugged gently and I was in his arms a second later, the vacancy in my heart suddenly full again, my mind calm and my body screaming for him. I pressed myself against him, loving the warm solidity of him, the smell of him, the way he held me exactly right. I took in a few deep breaths, assuring myself he was there, this thing between us was real. And then I tilted my head up to look into his serious face with the high cheekbones, the full lips, those dark dangerous eyes I loved.
Happily Ever Hers: Movie Stars in Maryland, Book Two Page 11
