by Janice Lynn
“Shush.” Jill threw a cushion at her sister and kept her gaze glued to the television set while her and Rob’s early morning run-in played. She relived his first kiss, recalling how his mouth felt on hers, recalling how every nerve cell in her body had been singed by his touch. A deep ache settled in her stomach that had nothing to do with popcorn and everything to do with the man who’d stolen her heart.
More clips followed. Clips she’d forgotten. Clips of him gazing at the computer monitors, watching her with the bachelors. Clips of her watching him. Clips of him rescuing her from the lake, his kissing her temple. Clips of their late night return to the lake. Who had taped those? And thank God she hadn’t dragged him onto that dock and had her way with him.
Another commercial break. Jill ordered her lungs to inhale. She wasn’t sure she had since the last commercial.
“Jilly, Rob is commentating this. That has to mean he loves you.” Jessie helpfully supplied, still bouncing around.
Was it possible? Then the truth of what was going on hit her.
“No, he’s doing this for the ratings. I didn’t fall for one of the bachelors and they were afraid it would hurt ratings. He’s making sure he wins America’s approval. That’s all this is about.”
But even as she said the words, she admitted she wasn’t sure. Rob liked his privacy. This was the last episode. Surely, he’d already far exceeded his rating requirements? From everything she’d seen, JANE MILLIONAIRE had been a smashing success. Based upon the media’s harassment, she’d think they’d far exceeded expectations.
“Ratings?” Jessie looked appalled. “I don’t think so. Did you see how he looked at you when he saw you in your princess gown? Oh my gosh. If Larry had ever looked at me like that I’d still be wearing his ring instead of dating Steve. And that kiss,” Jessie fanned her face. “You two were totally blazing!”
“Maybe.” The show came back on, saving Jill from more of Jessie’s assumptions.
Scenes from the day she’d left the castle aired. Clips of Rob’s face while she faced the bachelors prior to stating her choice. Her comment that she chose no one since she hadn’t fallen in love with any of the bachelors. Rob’s look of relief.
How had she missed the emotions he’d revealed?
Because he had kept them hidden from her. He hadn’t been willing to share his feelings, and she was sure he hadn’t meant for them to ever be known by anyone. JP must have twisted his arm into doing this. Or the network had offered him a deal he hadn’t been able to refuse. Or maybe the ratings really hadn’t been as good as the media attention led one to believe.
Tension filled her while she watched an edited version of her knocking the vase over in the hallway, of her chasing after Rob, and damn, if they hadn’t even caught them on film in the stairwell, although only a brief segment of their conversation was shown. Thank goodness.
She also realized no clips of her going to Rob’s room had been aired. Nor any of the sound effects of the night he’d come to her room. Had that been intentional, or had Rob destroyed that footage long ago?
Panicky energy shot through Jill. She stood and paced across the room during the next commercial break. What did all this mean? What did she want it to mean?
As if she didn’t know. She laughed at herself. She wanted Rob. But how could she ever know that he was sincere in his feelings for her? That he hadn’t done this for ratings?
But would he go this far for mere numbers on a show?
Her heart quickened, as did her pace.
“Sit down. You’re making me nervous,” Jessie ordered.
Jill glared at her and continued to pace. She had to figure out what Rob commentating this show meant. When his handsome face came onto the screen, her long strides paused.
“God, he’s too good-looking to be real,” Jessie sighed, dropping back onto the sofa and earning another glare.
More clips of her interview, then Rob sitting in the same chair as she had, but the background looked different. When had they taped that? At the castle? Somehow she didn’t think so.
“How did I feel when I first met Jane?” He laughed, looking proud and confident, but Jill heard the uncertainty in his voice. “Like a two-by-four had smacked me over the head. Here was the sexiest woman I’d ever met, and she was totally off-limits.”
Jill’s eyes widened. He’d thought that?
“I remember taking a cold shower that night. One of many I took after meeting her.” He grinned at the camera and Jill’s heart rate hitched higher. “I didn’t know men really took cold showers until I met Jane and I practically took up residence in one.”
He’d been taking cold showers when she’d been burning up with need for him? What a waste.
“The night she met the bachelors, I watched her float down the stairs and knew I was in trouble. I tried to stay in the background and watch while she danced, but couldn’t. I pushed reason aside and held her in my arms for those too short three minutes. From there my obsession with Jane only got worse. She monopolized my every thought. The more time I spent with her, the more I wanted her,” he paused, as if mentally chiding himself for his omission.
“I won’t go into all the reasons outside the obvious why I felt I needed to resist my attraction to Jane. Let it suffice to say I’d been burned a time or two and hadn’t trusted women in a long time. Not until Jane. And even with her, I didn’t let myself have total faith. Not like I should have. Not like she deserved.”
He paused again, looking a bit uncomfortable for a man so proud, so strong.
“Jane,” he stopped, took a deep breath. “Jill, if you’re watching this. I made a really big mistake when I asked you to go.” He paused, swallowed. “An even bigger one when I let you leave without telling you how I really felt.”
Commercial.
Jill blinked, wanting to shake the television set for cutting to a commercial at such an inopportune time.
He’d said Jill instead of Jane.
“He’s got it bad,” Jessie piped up. “Maybe even as bad as you do.”
“Be quiet,” Jill ordered, crossing the room to dig in her purse for her wallet. Right before she’d left, JP slipped her a business card with Rob’s cell phone number scribbled on the back. He’d told her to give it some time and to call Rob since he was sure his friend would regret his hasty reactions.
Jill had taken the card, kept it, but not believed she’d ever use it. How many times had she almost tossed the card only to stuff it back into her purse? At this moment, she needed to hear Rob’s voice. To ask him what this show meant, what he’d been thinking when he’d recorded it, and more importantly, how he felt. Did he love her? Was there even the remotest possibility he could learn to love her?
Okay, so she was upset he’d rejected her in the worst kind of way. If he loved her, she’d forgive him. She might make him eat dirt first, but she’d welcome him with open arms when all was said and done.
Then reality set in. This wasn’t just some average Joe she loved. Nor was he Detective Reynaldo Curtis who could bring Law and Order to her erratic heartbeats. He was Rob Lancaster the famous Hollywood producer. They came from totally different worlds. How could she ever compete with the jet set life he lived?
She couldn’t. He’d bore of her, and then she’d have to go through the rejection again. It wasn’t worth it.
She clutched the card in her palm, stared at the cordless phone on the coffee table, but didn’t pick it up. What would be the point? She and Rob had no future together.
She inhaled and forced herself to sit down to finish watching the show. She might have been tempted to turn the tube off if she didn’t think Jessie would choke her, but probably not. Her curiosity would have driven her mad at wondering how he’d end the show.
The commercials finished, and Rob came back on the screen. The scene picked up prior to where he’d been at the commercial break. Jill’s breath caught when he repeated his comment and continued.
“My world is empty without you. I’m m
iserable. Had you chosen one of the bachelors, I’d have gone insane. Or found a way to stop you. I should have offered you another choice.” He stared into the camera as if he were looking out her television set and straight into her eyes. “A choice to choose me. I didn’t throw myself into your list of options during that last day at the castle, but I’m offering now. Jill, will you spend a week with me in paradise?”
Chapter Nineteen
Jill stared at the screen and wondered if she’d heard right. He was asking her to spend a week with him?
A week to have an affair and then they’d go their separate ways? Okay, so they couldn’t have a happily ever after, but he’d just insulted her in front of millions of people, cheapened what they’d shared.
She grabbed the phone off the cherry surface of the coffee table and punched in the numbers off the back of the card she held with shaking fingers.
The absolute nerve of him to go on national television and ask her to have a weeklong affair with him.
Jeeze, where was the 1-800 number so all America could call in and vote on her decision for her?
She seethed. This stunt had to be for ratings.
How dare he take advantage of the way she felt for him in such a callous manner? How could he just ignore how his question would hurt her? The man didn’t know the first thing about love.
Right before she pressed the last number, Rob’s nervous glance at the camera had her pausing.
“Jill, I know this is an odd way to go about this, but I also know I hurt you, and it’s going to take something drastic to convince you that I love you.” He laughed a self-derisive chuckle. “Yes, you heard me right. I love you. With all my heart and I don’t want to be alone anymore. I need you in my life. Forgive me.”
Jill dropped the phone. Maybe she needed a 1-800 voting number to find out if she’d heard right.
“I knew this is what he had planned when he told me to make sure you were watching.” Jessie squealed, bouncing around the living room. “I just knew he loved you, too.”
Jill stared open-mouthed at her sister, at the television, while she tried to make sense of what was happening. Jessie had talked to Rob and hadn’t told her? She was dead meat.
Her gaze locked onto the television screen. Rob continued talking to her via the set. “These past two weeks really have been hell. I’ve missed you like crazy. I even went so far as to buy roses to keep in my room so that when I slept I could feel close to you.”
“Pretty corny, huh?” He grinned, and Jill fell in love with him all over again, as she imagined every woman in America just had. “This is for you, Jill.”
He snapped his fingers and disappeared. For about fifteen seconds of heart-stopping silence only the empty chair filled the screen.
Jill shrieked as Rob reappeared. She couldn’t tell where he was as the camera was close up on him. He spoke, but she couldn’t understand him over the roar in her head. All she knew was she had to talk to him, in person, now. Right now. He’d said he loved her. She jerked the phone up and punched in the number.
Ring.
Jill frowned as Rob stopped talking on the screen.
Ring.
He grinned as he dug in his coat pocket. The camera scanned back, and Jill’s stomach knotted tighter than if a boy scout used her insides to earn his Merit badge.
This was live feed.
Rob stood in front of her house.
Ring.
“Just a minute, folks.” He smiled into the camera while he found his phone. “I have to answer this just in case it’s Jill telling me to get lost.”
Ring.
“Hello?” Rob answered her call and she thought she might black out. For sure, clamminess covered her skin and darkness danced in front of her eyes for a few seconds before Jessie’s sharp poke pulled her back to the present.
“Answer him,” Jessie encouraged.
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
Rob quasi-shrugged at the camera, began walking towards her front door again, but didn’t hang up the phone. “Jill, is that you? Honey, say something?”
He climbed her steps, crossed her porch and stood on the other side of her front door.
“Jill?” he asked again.
Still clutching the phone, Jill hurried across the living room and flung the front door open to stare at the man she loved.
# # #
“Jill,” Rob breathed, his eyes fixed on her face as he clicked his phone shut and slid it into his suit jacket pocket. What was she thinking? Did she still feel the same or had he destroyed her feelings for him?
Was he about to be made the laughing stock of America on live TV?
Talk about your reality show.
He sucked in a deep breath and waited for her to say something. She seemed frozen to the spot, her one hand clutched the phone to her ear and the other on the door as if she were afraid she might slide to the floor if she let go.
“Darling, please say something,” he whispered when more time had passed than should have. Was she going to slam the door in his face? Throw the phone at him? Of course, he deserved all those things and more, but he’d hoped she’d throw herself at him and slam her mouth to his in a crushing kiss.
He searched her shocked green eyes to try to read her emotions. Overwhelmed. Unsure. Upset.
He’d made another mistake in doing this. He’d wanted to make a grand gesture. To prove his love to her by announcing his feelings to the world. He’d known she’d pick up on the significance of his actions, that he was putting his heart on the line in the most public of ways. But she wasn’t receptive to his proposal.
His proposal. He really hadn’t gotten to that part yet, had he? The diamond in his pocket suddenly weighed a ton, dragging him to one knee.
Her eyes widened. With fear?
Before he put her in a compromising position with twenty million plus viewers watching, Rob stood, unwilling to place such a burden on her. Not like this. They’d talk in private, and if he could convince her to forgive him, then he’d give her the ring he’d bought for her.
He turned to the camera. “Sorry folks. Looks like I’ve miscalculated.”
Her fingers closed around his upper arm, pulling him to face her.
“Tell me,” she whispered, her eyes large and full of the same emotion he’d witnessed when she’d stood before her throne and begged him to stop her from choosing one of the bachelors.
“I love you, Jill,” he said the words filling his heart.
Her eyes closed. He swallowed the lump in his throat and wondered if he’d misread her. Had he somehow failed her again?
Her eyes opened, and hope flickered to life. She still loved him. He could see it in her gaze, in the tears streaking down her cheeks.
“Don’t cry. Not over me. I’m not worth it.” He grazed his knuckles over her soft skin, wiping the moisture away.
“Did you mean what you said?” she asked, her tears not slowing.
“About loving you?”
She nodded.
“More than anything. Do you think I’d go through all this if I didn’t?”
Her lids fluttered. “Maybe for ratings.”
“The only rating I care about is your heart’s.”
She blinked, went to wipe her tears away and realized the phone was still in her hands. She stared at it a moment before absently tossing it to someone behind her. Her sister, who’d promised him that Jill would watch tonight’s show come hail or high water, he imagined.
Aw, what the hell? He dropped back to one knee and took her hand in his. “I love you, Jill, with all my heart. I have to believe you still love me. You told me you loved me in the stairwell. I was too blind to see the truth, to realize I loved you, needed you.”
A sob shook her body and he longed to stand and take her in his arms, but if he didn’t finish he might not get the nerve back up.
“Jill, I once said I preferred to be alone, but that’s not been true from the moment I met you. I just didn’t know wh
at loneliness was until I faced life without you.” He gently squeezed her hand. “Please do me the honor of sharing my life.”
Her hand trembled in his.
“The honor of being my wife.”
Love shined in her eyes.
“Say it,” he asked as he stood.
She stared up at him. “But I thought you wanted me to go on a week’s vacation with you?”
“A honeymoon, Jill. A real one.”
“What about the differences in our background?”
“You’re not willing to tie yourself to a poor hombre from East L.A.?”
“I’m a cop. You’re you. How would we ever fit our lives together?”
“One day at a time, Jill. One day at a time.” He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed her palm. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to have you by my side. Are you willing to do the same? To love me even when I’m stubborn and foolish and full of pride?”
His heart lurched as his strong, capable Jill nodded amidst her tears. “One day at a time?”
“Every day for the rest of my life.”
She smiled and he knew they’d make their two worlds mesh. That each day would bring them closer, make their love stronger through the ups and downs the future would toss at them.
“Yes, I’ll marry you.”
Clapping sounded all around them, but Rob didn’t pay any attention to the film crew or to the fact that millions had watched him put his heart on the line. He only had eyes for Jill as he stood and pulled her into his arms.
If America wanted to tune in, well, he’d let the networks worry about what drivel they aired next.
He was busy living a reality all his own.
Be sure not to miss Jessie’s story in CAUSING A COMMOTION
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