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“I’m terrible at packing,” she moaned. “I know it.”
We'd be gone four days, but she was bringing half her closet.
"The weather in Maryland is unpredictable. And I don't know how I'll feel," she added.
"My clothes never seem to care how I feel," I told her, laughing.
"I mean I'm not sure what I'll feel like wearing," she said, poking me in the chest and then dropping another hand low to give me a teasing squeeze.
"Don't start something you can't finish," I warned her.
In the past few days there'd been a lot of finishing. For both of us. But I'd begun to see that the more I had of Juliet, the more I wanted of her. Every time I held her in my arms, my mind started working through future scenarios, ways we might be able to make this thing between us work in the long run, while my heart just hammered out words that echoed inside my skull relentlessly. Words like: Forever. More. Love. Mine.
She'd smiled up at me then, the smile that made my heart melt and my dick into a steel girder at the same time. "Soon. We'll find a way, I promise."
I carried her things downstairs, and we waited for Ryan to arrive.
When Chad radioed that McDonnell was there, the warm intimacy between us stilled. And when Juliet pulled open the front door and her movie star “boyfriend” gave her a casual hug, I took a step back, physically and emotionally. This weekend would not be easy. I would need to hang back, stay in the shadows. No matter how much it hurt.
We took two cars to LAX Thursday night. Jack and Christian had taken an earlier flight to Washington DC so they could arrive at the house in Maryland a couple hours ahead of us. They'd need to check the property, identify security risks and set up the patrol and response plans before Juliet and Ryan arrived.
McDonnell left his car at Juliet's house, and the two of them rode together in the back of a dark Town Car one of the other guys from the firm drove. A second car waited just behind it, this one for me and Chad.
"Ready for this?" Juliet had asked McDonnell when he'd arrived, black bags slung over his shoulder and a shit-eating grin on his face. Of course he was ready. All you had to do was look at Juliet to see that any man with blood in his veins and two brain cells to rub together would have been ready in a heartbeat. My blood raged inside me and I found myself needing to count to ten and take calming breaths more than once in the fifteen minutes we spent packing up their car.
And as I packed her into a car with Mr. Perfect Hollywood, Ryan McDonnell, Juliet's promises were all I had to keep me from going Hulk on the car and ripping the roof off to get to her. I forced myself to keep my eyes away from the windows because if he touched her—if I saw him touch her—there was a chance I'd kill him.
I took small consolation from the fact that Elvis was currently in Brentwood with my mother, undoubtedly being spoiled rotten. It was ridiculous, but the fact that my mother had Juliet's dog—it was like part of her was being kept by part of me, and nothing between us could break as long as a narcoleptic pug was with Mom.
Grasping. Straws. Yeah, I knew it. It was all I had.
* * *
Juliet had dressed casually,but had refused the baseball cap and shades I'd suggested would help stave off attention, telling me the whole point of the farce with her and pretty-boy was to be seen.
Still, I wasn't quite prepared for the crush of paparazzi already gathered at departures when we arrived. There were always crowds around Juliet, but this was excessive—someone had tipped them off. Chad and I had to play offensive line, holding back the crowd and directing luggage handlers as the movie stars made their way through the terminal.
"Keep moving," I growled at McDonnell at one point, when he looked around, acting surprised to see all the people focused on them, and then he stopped to stare at Juliet.
He didn't keep moving, and my skin tried to crawl right off my body as I watched in horror while he put his hands on her and she rose up on her toes to kiss him.
This was not a peck.
This was not chaste.
Movie-star-asshole-douchebag McDonnell had his hands all over Juliet and his tongue in her mouth, and I swear to God, I could not hear for the sound of the blood rushing violently inside my head. My skin was burning and if I clenched my fists any tighter, I was pretty sure every bone in my hands would actually break.
Flashes were firing, and reporters were calling out questions as passersby took video of that asshole groping Juliet like she belonged to him. Like he had the right.
Fury was suddenly my new religion and I was ready to throw myself on its altar and use McDonnell for a human sacrifice.
As they broke apart, Juliet's eyes found me, and she held my gaze for a long second. When her eyes met mine, the searing want and need I felt for her leapt up to join the jealousy spiraling inside me and I actually felt sick. Like I might need to sprint off to find a potted plant. Maybe I could just vomit into McDonnell's suitcase.
Steady, Jace,I told myself.They're acting. That's what they do.
I took a deep breath, telling myself this was just for show, it was fake, and we continued moving through the airport, finally coming to the gate just in time for boarding to begin.
Chad didn't seem to mind the excitement or the fact that McDonnell kept a possessive hand on Juliet's waist. He even leaned into me when they were finally done searching for one another's tonsils for the cameras and said, "Shit, I've got a chub just from watching that. I'd like to give her a little boink some time. Did you hear her tell him to put his hand on her tit? Maybe she's some kind of domme, huh? Into kinky shit, you think?" He moved away to push back a photographer who'd stepped too close, and it was a good thing because I'd been about to shove my fist down his throat.
