AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She didn't say anything for a long moment, just looked up at me, like she was deciding something. She held my eyes and my heartbeat thudded into a rapid-fire rhythm. Something was up. Before I could figure out quite what, she stepped close to me, one hand reaching for my face. She cupped my cheek, and lifted up on her toes. My body instinctually followed where she led, and a heartbeat later my arms were around her, my mouth on hers. Her tongue pressed past my lips, sweeping my own, sending a signal of pressing desire through every cell in my body.
And then, as quickly as it began, it was over. She stepped back, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and adjusted her top. I let my hand linger on her shoulder, rubbing a finger over that soft smooth shoulder. I'd been right—that skin was like heaven.
"I have to do something," Juliet said. "If Ryan agrees."
Was she signing on for a film? Telling me we were going on location? "All right."
"I don't like it. I don't think you will either."
That wasn’t good. Worry sprouted roots in my gut. "Okay."
"But it's just a strategy. It doesn't mean anything, okay?"
Her green eyes stayed fixed on me, waiting for a response. But I didn't know what to say because for one thing, all my thinking at that moment was occurring in the wrong head. For another thing, the woman was not making sense. "Gonna need more than that," I told her, unease working through every vein in my body.
She laughed, her posture relaxing a bit. "You'll figure it out. Basically I have to pretend to be in a relationship with Ryan for a while. To distract the media."
A vague hazy red haloed my vision as my mind threw images at me of what “pretending” to be in a relationship would look like. "What?" The word was more of a growl.
She put her hand on my chest again. God, I loved it when she did that. "Jace, it's not real. Just remember that, okay? It's just for the press. And only for a little while."
The fact she felt she had to justify it to me should have made me feel good. It confirmed that I wasn't losing my mind. Although, that kiss a second ago confirmed it too. There was something here. Wrong side of the tracks or not, there was something here. I just needed to figure out if I was willing to risk my job over it. I kind of already knew the answer.
"Okay," I managed, forcing myself to remember there was something between us, something real. I took deep breaths, in and out.
"And we have to go to Maryland. Next weekend. Okay?"
"We, you and him?" I hated this idea, the thought of her out of my sight. There was no way she’d be going anywhere without security.
"We, all of us. There's a party and my agent has set up a magazine feature." She said this slowly, like she was asking my forgiveness as she did it.
"Fine." A mass of anger and jealousy twisting inside me was making it hard for me to speak. And movie star McDonnell was waiting. "Your guest," I reminded her.
"Right. We'll talk later, okay?" She smiled weakly at me and then went downstairs, Elvis trotting at her side and shooting me a glance over his little doggy shoulder as if to say, "you coming?"
I followed.
Chapter Eleven
Juliet
Ryan McDonnell stood, shifting his weight back and forth and stretching out his arms as if trying to work out a kink, in the middle of my formal living room. I swallowed hard, hating what I was about to ask Ryan, hating what I knew it would do to Jace and me. Chad stood in the doorway, watching him with interest.
I nodded at Chad, who winked at me and then turned, returning to his post outside, I assumed. I heard Jace come down the stairs behind me, and knew he would stay nearby. Jace was like my security blanket. My hot, muscular, sweet security blanket.
"Hello again, Ryan," I said, greeting my former co-star with a hug as he kissed my cheek.
"Juliet, good to see you," he said. "You have a beautiful home."
"Thanks very much," I said, refraining from adding the part about how Zac would like to take it from me. "Can I get you a drink or something to eat?"
He shook his head. "Nah, that's fine. My agent said there was some kind of deal to discuss? Oh hey, who's this?" He bent down to offer a hand to Elvis, who snuggled the offered hand and then promptly sank to the floor on Ryan's foot, asleep.
"Uh, that's Elvis. He has a bit of a sleep issue."
Ryan stood and smiled a little uncomfortably as he carefully slid his foot out from under Elvis’s fat little snoring body. Jace stepped into the room, lifted Elvis gently and carried him to the corner to deposit him in his electric blue satin dog bed.
“A sleep issue, huh?”
