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The rest of her sentence is drowned out by the sudden screeching of tires as a car peels out of a nearby parking spot. A gunshot rings out and without a second thought I grab Nora and push her toward the cover of a nearby car, blocking her with my own body as we go. Another round of gunfire sounds. Nora screams, burrowing herself into my body.
I’m not saying I’m happy about getting shot at, but the her-pressed-against-me part of the ordeal is definitely the world’s best ever silver lining.
The gunfire ends almost as quickly as it started, the noise of a car screeching away replacing the pop! pop! pop! of bullets. Despite my regret at having to pull myself away from Nora, I nonetheless force myself to do so, scrambling to the edge of the car blocking us to try and get a look at who just shot at us. But the vehicle holding the gunman is already out of the parking lot and flying down the road.
For a second I consider telling Nora to get in my car so we can chase them down, but then I spot Cleo, lying facedown on the pavement, blood pooling around her lower back from where a bullet hit her. I curse under my breath, hurrying forward to check for a pulse.
The doors to the building swing open and people rush out. The person at the front catches sight of Cleo and starts screaming. The scream travels through the group, until the air is full of horror.
I block it all out as my fingers search her wrist for a pulse, any pulse at all. But there’s nothing.
“Oh gosh, Jack, is she dead?” Nora whispers in dismay. I look up at her and nod once. Her hands fly to her mouth as she processes this. “Oh no!” She moves toward me and I straighten to standing just in time to catch her as she falls into me, her whole body trembling.
I wrap my arms around her and hold her against me, sending up every prayer of thanks I can formulate that she’s okay. I’m sorry about Cleo dying, but I couldn’t have lived with myself if Nora had been hurt, or worse, killed on my watch.
An unexpected dry sob wracks through my body, and I hold her even more tightly. In the wake of this attempt on our lives, the love I feel for her seems to blaze through my whole body. I love Nora with a fierceness that I can no longer contain, and I need to find a way to make sure she knows that. To make sure that she knows that I no longer want to just play along with this whole fake marriage. I want our marriage to be real.
Even if it means my pride takes a hit.
She said no to marrying me once before, so I know bringing it up again is a risk, but Nora is worth risking my heart for. After all, my heart has been hers all along anyway.
Chapter 23
Nora
ANDERSON, MONTGOMERY, AND Stafford arrive on the scene fifteen minutes later. I’m still in Jack’s arms when they walk up to us. I haven’t been able to let go of him.
“Odd choice of location for a honeymoon,” Stafford comments wryly as they approach us, his eyes traveling from Cleo's body then up to the sign reading Polter Plastic Surgery Clinic. “Then again if I were you,” he nods in my direction, “I’d want to see if I could fix this guy's bullheadedness right away too. Just put him under the knife and have them chop his imaginary horns right off.”
“Funny,” Jack replies with zero inflection.
“Hey, just calling it like I see it. You’re too stubborn for your own good, my friend.” Stafford claps him on the back, then eyes me again as he adds, “Thankfully, after three long years, you seem to have loosened up some on your own. No plastic surgery required.”
“How about we just talk about what exactly happened here?” Montgomery suggests diplomatically.
“An excellent plan,” Jack growls, obviously irritated with his friend for the insinuation that he’s given up his stubborn ways in order to marry me. I wish I could tell him not to worry—I’m very aware that he married me as a favor. Although favor really isn’t the right word…but I’m not sure the English language has a word to describe what Jack is doing for me. Actually: sacrifice. Yeah, that’s a good word. I’m very aware that Jack married me as a sacrifice.
A sobering thought indeed. Especially when I pair it with my own growing feelings for him.
Jack continues on, summarizing why we came (he fibs a little bit here, making it seem like we came solely to confront Cleo about stealing the promotion she and I were both vying for rather than telling them we came to see if she’d helped move Ian’s body to my front lawn) and then how, as we were talking to her, shots suddenly started going off from a car on its way out of the parking lot.
“Did you see who was inside or get a license plate?” Anderson asks.
“No,” Jack admits regretfully. I look up at him, annoyed to see that he’s shaking his head, as if he can’t believe he didn’t manage to get the license plate of the vehicle.
“Only because he was too busy getting me safely to cover,” I interject a bit hotly. This man. He just thinks he has to do everything.
Stafford grins at me, shooting me a thumbs up. “Gosh, I’ve missed you, Nora. No one calls Reynolds out on his hero complex better than you.”
“I do not have a hero complex,” Jack protests grouchily.
“Whatever you say,” Stafford smirks, staring pointedly at Jack’s arm around my waist.
“Some people bring it out in him more than others,” Anderson comments wryly. The three of them exchange amused glances that I’m pretty sure are totally at our expense.
Upset that Jack is getting flack because of me I start to pull away, but his grip on my waist only tightens in response.
“Some people are always worth rescuing,” he states calmly, and my stomach does a little flip even as the logical part of my brain rudely tries to butt in by pointing out that he could just be saying this to support our marriage ruse.
