by Hazel Parker
“Jessica, darling,” Jace introduced, tugging her out of her thoughts, “this is—”
“Sharon, I know,” Jessica interrupted, “I’m a big fan.” Sharon smiled wide and condescending, the exact opposite of the roles that she usually played, which were always kind and sweet. Her voice was harsher when she spoke to Jessica than with Jace.
“Always nice to meet a fan,” she drawled, reaching out to squeeze Jessica’s hand in fake camaraderie.
“I’m actually Jace’s fiancée,” she corrected, suddenly self-conscious about her place here. “I’m an actor, too.”
Sharon’s face lit up. “Oh, you are?” she asked in a tone that sounded friendly to probably everyone but Jessica, who’d known mean girls in high school and could spot fake kindness a mile away. “What movies have you been in?”
Suddenly, though Jessica could have seen this coming, she felt hot with both humiliation and anger. “I, uh, haven’t really made any movies,” she admitted.
“So you’re more into television?” she baited, already knowing the answer. “I don’t watch much daytime TV myself, but I’m just sure I know you from somewhere.”
Jessica glared down at her hands. “I… do mostly commercials,” she forced herself to admit. Sharon’s smile turned wickedly piteous.
“Oh, sweetie,” she pouted, “we’ve all been there.” All of a sudden, her eyes went wide and giddy. “You’re the Salt & Vinegar chips girl!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands in delight. Jessica flushed dark red. That had been a commercial she’d done probably two years ago, but a particularly degrading one, in which she’d been nearly naked on the hood of a car. It was something she’d never do now, but she was in college and had needed the money. To add to her shame, Jace broke into, of all things, a grin as he remembered the same commercial.
“That’s right,” he agreed, “I can’t believe I didn’t know that was you.” Jessica couldn’t feel her cheeks. She didn’t want to look up as her eyes were filled with tears of humiliation, and she really didn’t want to be there anymore.
“I… have to use the restroom,” she fabricated, standing from the table without looking up. She hurried from the table, hearing the chatter turn from idle and pleasant to curious and judgmental, but didn’t stop until she’d found a bathroom, one of several enormous unisex stalls, and locked herself inside. There, she splashed some water on her cheeks, careful to avoid messing up her eye makeup, to calm herself down, and stared into the mirror. The person who stared back at her, she couldn’t help but feel, didn’t belong here at this party. The girl in the mirror wasn’t a serious actor; she was a commercial commodity at best, doomed to do nothing but degrading things to scrape by in a perpetually fruitless attempt to succeed in a saturated field. Suddenly, a knock at the door interrupted her thoughts.
“Jessica?” Jace’s voice called quietly. “Are you in there?”
“No,” she replied, not yet ready to face him and even more reluctant to face his friends and ex-girlfriend. Why did she make her feel so… small? So insignificant, like she didn’t deserve to be with him even if it was just a publicity stunt?
“You don’t have to come out,” he said, sounding surprisingly patient, “but why’d you run off?” She laughed at his denseness.
“I don’t like being laughed at,” she snapped, a bit irritated that he didn’t seem to get that.
“Oh, come on, Jessica,” he reasoned, “we weren’t laughing at you. At least, I wasn’t. We’ve all done stupid shit to get by, even Sharon.”
“Even you?” she asked, already feeling that she knew the answer. Of course, he hadn’t; he was Jace Oliver straight out of the gates. There was no way he’d ever accepted a role that he hadn’t wanted.
Instead of answering immediately like she’d anticipated, he hesitated. “You’re alone in there?” he asked, almost like he was looking around outside, too.
“Yes,” she said.
Jace sighed. “When I got out of college, I did a series of… adult films,” he divulged. “They were for kind of a niche audience, and the website eventually went bankrupt, but… yeah. That was a thing.” She had to bite her lower lip to keep from laughing as she unlocked the door and opened it just a crack to find that she was at almost eye level with Jace, who was standing directly outside and looking embarrassed. Jessica couldn’t believe how kind he was being to her right now even without an audience. Maybe it was just so she would get herself together and rejoin the party, but still, it felt good to have him focus on what she might want to hear. He wasn’t someone who often preoccupied himself with the feelings of others, and she had expected to have to collect herself privately and remind herself of the contract before she’d be able to stop crying, but she realized that there were no tears in her eyes any longer and that she’d stopped shaking. Her face was beginning to feel less warm, and she opened the door the rest of the way and stepped out to stand next to Jace. He was several inches taller than her even in heels.
“Thanks,” she said, and he huffed a sigh.
“If you tell anyone that story, I’m denying it,” he warned. “You’ll look like a liar, which is a very unattractive reputation to have in this business.” Jessica laughed lightly.
“Yeah, yeah,” she dismissed, “I won’t say a word as long as you agree to not talk about my commercials again.” Jace nodded.
“Deal,” he agreed. She stepped forward, taking his hand and tugging him back toward the party, stopping only when he halted suddenly. “But for what it’s worth, I always had a crush on the Salt & Vinegar chips girl.”
To prevent her face from turning pink again, she swatted him on the arm. “That doesn’t sound like ‘not talking about it,’” she reminded him, forcing indignance that she didn’t feel. He put his hands up in mock surrender as he followed her back to the party, where their pleasant, quiet moment was once again swallowed by the swell of music and chatter. Jace Oliver was a public figure, Jessica reminded herself repeatedly as she watched him force banter with directors he never did anything but complain about and schmooze with people he didn’t even like. His smiles were phony; everything he said was perfectly plotted, scripted, usually, by Nora, to advance his career and get him what he wanted. Jace’s personality was composed of nothing but schemes and conniving attempts to get ahead. Even as she held his warm hand all night, as he rubbed small circles in her back as they sat idly or offered his lap when there weren’t enough chairs, she had to remember that his motives were clear, and that he was anything but hers.
By the end of the party, Jessica had drunk several glasses of champagne (mostly because no matter what she did, she couldn’t convince Jace to dance, and since that was all she wanted to do here, she found herself with nothing better to do) and was pleasantly tipsy, bordering on drunk. Despite how alcohol had always made her either horny or sad when she was in college, as an already-tired adult, it now had a tendency to make her sleepy. She allowed her head to rest on Jace’s shoulder for the entire last half hour of the party as they sat next to each other at a table full of movie producers that Jace was trying to impress. At first, Jessica had tried to listen, but now she wasn’t even pretending to do so. It had been an embarrassingly long time since she’d stayed out past one in the morning. She didn’t even realize that she’d started to drift off until Jace nudged her shoulder and startled her.
“Jessica,” he murmured, his chest vibrating with the low, patient voice she could feel with her face against his chest, “dear; it’s time to go home.” She stood, wavering drunkenly, and allowed him to steady her so that she didn’t trip in her high-heel shoes.
“Okay,” she agreed. She didn’t say goodbye to anyone, barely even managed to open her eyes, just trusted that Jace would lead them to the car safely. He put her inside but hesitated when she immediately curled up against the seat.
“Scoot over,” he demanded. That got her attention, and she pried her eyes open to watch him slide her across the leather seats of the car and climb in next to her. “You’re go
ing to fall asleep on the ride home,” he explained.
“No, I’m not,” she argued pointlessly. Honestly, she wasn’t confident in that rebuttal, so she was glad that it didn’t seem to change his opinion, anyway, as he gave the driver her address. Her home wasn’t far from the venue, and since Jace had kept her there longer than most of the other attendees, the traffic had died down considerably. It had rained while they were inside, but had stopped by the time they’d left, leaving only a gentle petrichor and the sparkling of the wet street against the yellow street lights.
“You were nice to me tonight,” Jessica mumbled, her head leaning against the window of the cab tiredly. She looked out the window instead of at Jace, but he was staring at her.
“I’m always nice to you,” he replied, and Jessica laughed.
“No,” she whispered, her voice low enough that the cab driver wouldn’t hear her, “like, really nice. When you didn’t have to be.”
Jace didn’t move, nor did he respond. Jessica wasn’t sure whether he’d heard her or not, but she figured that it was better not to repeat herself, regardless. He was right about her falling asleep in the car. When she woke up, Jace was sliding his hands under her knees to get her out of the car. It made her heart race uncomfortably, but he put her down when she shifted so that she could walk next to him.
“You don’t have to walk me to my apartment,” she disclaimed.
“Journalists are always lurking after events like this,” he shrugged, “and besides, I don’t trust that you’d make it all the way there. You walk like a newborn fawn in those stilettos.”
They were, indeed, the tallest shoes she owned and as if to prove his point, she stumbled over her own feet. He smirked, taking her hand while she slipped off her shoes in the lobby with a relieved sigh.
“My feet are killing me,” she complained, carrying both shoes in one hand while she held onto Jace with the other. Once inside her apartment, she threw the shoes on the ground carelessly, bee lining straight for her bed and flopping down on her back. Jace chuckled, tugging her upright gently.
“At least promise me you’ll change out of that dress before you go to sleep,” he bartered. Jessica groaned but nodded.
“Fine,” she agreed, standing up to walk Jace to her door. His intention appeared to be to leave without another word, but she stopped him by grabbing his tie, still feeling quite tipsy and bolder than she normally would. She pulled him in toward her and pressed a kiss to his lips, chaste and innocent, before releasing him.
Instinct told her to pull away, to apologize, but she’d had just enough to drink to be able to stomp down that hesitation and to keep her face near his. He had one hand on the small of her back, supporting her in her heels as if he were afraid she’d fall over, and he didn’t release her, either. Her fingers were still gripping his tie, definitely putting wrinkles in it as she held it tightly and decided to tug him in for another kiss, this one deeper and longer. She allowed her lips to part slightly and his tongue to slip into her mouth, still tasting of alcohol but not drunk enough to be clumsy.
Over the years of being on television, Jace had kissed a lot of women. They had ranged from gentle pecks on the lips to hot, steamy scenes that had pushed the boundaries of what amount of sex appeal was allowed on daytime television, and being a begrudging fan of his show, she’d seen most of them, if not all. She had to admit, at least to herself, that she’d wondered what it might be like to have him for herself, to feel his strong arms wrapped around her body and his soft lips pressed firmly to hers. She’d wondered if he would be rough and wild, like his character on Code Blue, or if there was some kind of romantic, tender side to him that he never showed.
As it turned out, it was something in between. He was passionate but not forceful, one hand coming up to cup the side of her face and pull it closer. She closed her eyes, letting herself dissolve into the kiss as he brushed a stray hair behind her ear. He pushed her up against the wall and deepened the kiss, not letting go until it had already taken her breath away. By the time he stepped a half-step back so that he wasn’t pressed up against her, she realized that she’d subconsciously loosened his tie and had undone the top three buttons of his shirt. He put his hands over hers to stop her from working on the fourth.
“How drunk are you?” he asked. She was acting out of character, she knew, doing things that he didn’t even know she’d ever thought about doing before, and he was probably concerned that he was taking advantage. However, though she knew that she might regret this in the morning, the alcohol had nothing to do with how much she wanted him right in this moment—it wasn’t a motive; it was an excuse.
“Not so drunk that you should feel guilty,” she replied, and he pressed the deviously amused smile that response elicited to her lips once more and let her work on the buttons of his shirt again. Jace reached around her slender frame to unzip her dress and then helped her out of it. The feeling of his warm hands on her skin made her want to move faster, to forgo the buildup and just get to the main event, already, but Jace was infuriatingly patient, setting and maintaining a slow, steady pace that was making her crazy. She ripped off his suit coat and his shirt, then yanked his undershirt over his head, all as fast as she could manage to do without seeming desperate, but he was slipping her out of her dress like he was appreciating a piece of artwork, deliberate and patient.
Once her dress was on the floor, she kicked it away with a high-heeled shoe to join his tie, coat, and shirt. Before she could reach down to work on his belt, he lifted her up and carried her to the couch, where he laid her down gently. She looked up at him as he leaned over her, his hands on either side of her shoulders to hold himself up, both of them sharing such a small space that she couldn’t so much as move. She sat up to kiss him so that he didn’t have to lean down, distracting him while she undid his belt and unzipped his pants so that she could reach down them and massage his already-hard cock. When he started to thrust his hips in time to her rhythm, she took her hand back, allowing herself to focus instead on his thrusting against her pelvis. They were both still in their underwear, not fully naked and making to effort to get there. For now, this was enough, she thought. His body was hard and hot and damp against hers and she reached up to entangle her fingers in his slicked-back hair.
She didn’t even need him inside her to moan, she discovered, because just the rough pulsation of his pelvis rocking against the entrance of her vagina was enough to get her close to orgasm but not quite send her over the edge. She’d been with men before—not a lot, but a few—but it had never been like this. Jace not only knew what he was doing, but he did it like he was trying to prove something, like he was trying to make sure that he knew he was the best without using his words. Whether it was too late or they were too drunk or it was too risky to the validity of his contract, Jessica wasn’t sure, but he never fully undressed her. Instead, they simply explored one another in the quiet darkness of her living room, barely speaking, barely breaking the passionate kiss that began to feel more important than breathing even as she felt lightheaded with the lack of air, until they found a comfortable spooning position and fell asleep curled into one another.
Chapter Six: Jace
Since news moved fast, the second week of Jace’s and Jessica’s engagement was to consist almost entirely of talk show appearances and magazine interviews. At Nora’s recommendation, they’d agreed to a solid block of continuous, exhausting public appearances, and though it was tiring, Jace had to admit that he was seeing a change already in how the engagement was characterized. Magazines that had originally speculated that Jessica might be after his money were now totally head over heels for the couple, calling her “down to Earth,” which Jace read to mean “not a spoiled rich girl.” The consensus was that she was good for him, and he couldn’t ask for much else, not this early in the game.
Jessica was fabulous in every interview. He’d been initially nervous that she’d slip up and misspeak, flubbing part of their cover story or putting her
foot in her mouth about how difficult she found him to get along with, but she’d proven him wrong every step of the way. She teased him lightly when he talked about his busy schedule and acted lovesick every time he complimented her, but most of all, she kept him humble by refusing to be ignored in conversation. No matter how little the interviewer seemed to care, Jessica made it a point to talk about her acting career and dream roles, inadvertently giving them the appearance of being not only independent, but a power couple. What she lacked in experience being in the public eye, Jessica more than made up for in charm and charisma. She was a hit, and Jace had to admit that he found it less and less surprising the more time he spent with her. She was unflappable by difficult questions, polite to interviewers, and consistently hopeful for the future even when asked about her past roles.
