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"Being linked to you could skyrocket his sagging career. And maybe we could throw him a bone—didn't Coppola give you carte blanche to choose your costar for the film you're doing next year?"
She had, and I'd relished the chance to actually choose something for myself, to make a decision for a change. Clarissa knew she had, I didn't even need to answer.
"So it's perfect. You can offer the role to Ryan if he's willing to spend some time playing love interest right now." She paused, and I could hear her tapping keys, clearly making notes about everything she'd just decided. About my life. "Plan a weekend away or something, a way for you and Ryan to be spotted."
"I don't want to go away," I said. "If I go anywhere, I have to attend my grandmother's ninetieth birthday party in a week, and I was going to skip that. I'd hoped to lay low."
"Low is the opposite of what I need from you right now. Where is your grandmother?"
"Maryland." Dread bubbled in my stomach.
"Not exactly a hot spot for paparazzi. What part? Beltway?"
"Kind of," I said. Gran lived nowhere near the beltway, but Clarissa's dictatorial tone was irritating. I felt like a petulant child, since that was how she was treating me.
"Okay, fair enough. No private jets. Go commercial. Be seen."
I rolled my eyes. This was going to be beyond painful. The cameras, the fans. And it was exactly what Clarissa wanted. "Okay."
"I'll have Ryan call you today to set things up."
"Okay." My heart sank. In the past week, I’d lived in a quiet bubble with Jace, our evenings spent getting to know each other bit by bit, the potential and promise of something glimmering just outside our easy togetherness. It was slow and careful, the opposite of everything else my life had been.
"Stand by," Clarissa said. "We'll get through this Jules," she added. As if any of this was about her.
"Yep."
She ended the call and I sat, staring out the window into a world that I wasn't allowed to navigate on my own. This house was a cage I'd built with fame and money, and my life felt like a role I'd been playing for too long. And it was about to get even more false.
Chapter Ten
Jace
The day Zac visited us, Juliet stayed upstairs for most of the rest of the afternoon, and I worried about where her mind might be. We'd run together that morning, but there was little else for me to do. I could hear her on the phone at various points, and recognized the sounds of her workout app and then the shower that followed.
I didn't want to be hyperaware of everything she did. I told myself it was my job—it was, after all. But it was also more than that. Since getting to know her a bit, since kissing her, holding her in my arms, it was as if our cells had aligned. I was so much more aware of her than I had been before. And it was almost physically painful to be apart from her. And though I thought about going to talk to her, the employer relationship we still shared made things more complicated than they would have otherwise been. I was at work. She was my client. It would be inappropriate to interfere.
I'd passed the day studying in the kitchen, taking breaks here and there to try my brother and check in with my mom. Jarred was still MIA, which meant soon I'd need to go looking for him. I was afraid of what I would find.
By the time evening fell, I was beginning to wonder if Juliet had sneaked out somehow. She hadn't appeared for lunch, hadn't come down for dinner. But just as I was going to give into my concern and head up to check on her, Chad radioed from the front gate to let me know we had company.
"Movie star douchebag alert," his voice crackled from the walkie beside me on the table where I was closing up my books. The last visitor we’d had made Juliet disappear all day. I wasn’t eager for another.
"Keep it down, moron," I said. Chad never stopped to consider that movie star douchebags were why he had a job. A damned good one. And he had no way of knowing if Juliet was nearby when he said things like that. "What's up?"
"Incoming. Ryan McDonnell to meet with Juliet."
I felt my concern tick up a notch. I had a schedule of Juliet's meetings, and today had been blessedly blank. Something was up. "Got it. Come in with him, okay? He's not on the schedule. I need to go up to talk to Juliet. Is he on your schedule?" I thought maybe I’d just missed it somehow, though the day Chad was more on top of things than me was the day I’d have to quit.
“Negative.”
A moment later, Chad escorted a man through the front door and into the formal living room just to one side of the door. I'd seen the guy before, plenty of times. He was a B-list Hollywood action star. I knew he'd been in a few things, nothing huge. And I was pretty sure his association withCharade of Stoneswould haunt him forever. Even though his character had a decent ending in that long-running series, fans were pissed about the way the whole thing had wrapped up, and there'd been plenty of backlash. And flying monkeys, for god’s sake.
The guy was good looking, I supposed. He declined a chair, stood by the hearth instead, examining the photos Juliet had there. I'd looked at them plenty of times—nothing that told you anything about her life, really. One photo of the woman I now knew was Gran, but other than that, it was all glad-handing with other stars. Probably pretty interesting for a guy like McDonnell.
I took the stairs quietly and knocked on Juliet's door. "Juliet?"
The door opened and Juliet stood on the other side, stealing my breath. Her hair was piled on top of her head, and she wore a light pink sweatshirt that fell off one shoulder, revealing skin that looked smoother and softer than rose petals. I swallowed hard. "You have a guest downstairs. Mr. Ryan McDonnell."
