Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Jess
J ack’s pace was a little faster than I preferred, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. I could keep up okay and the day was too beautiful to be spent inside, so bless him for suggesting an outside activity.
I always planned on being in a suit, especially when there were all kinds of swanky events on his schedule, but the detour was welcome and exactly why I kept a bag of other outfits in my car for assignments like this. An A-lister is gonna do what an A-lister wants to do and you better be ready. All it took was one time for me to go hiking in a regular underwire with someone I was assigned to a while back, and from then on I’d learned to always be prepared with appropriate spandex and footwear.
“Do you normally run here?” Jack slowed and puffed out a breath.
“It’s not my favorite form of exercise, but I do it a few times a week.” I inhaled through my nose, grateful it wasn’t as cold as it had been when the day started.
He laughed. “So then, yes. You do.” He huffed loudly. “I need to live in the mountains so I don’t have this shortness of breath anytime I come back and try to walk upstairs.”
I chuckled. “I mean, we’re doing an eight-minute mile right now…”
“I swear I get winded standing up from dinner. It’s pathetic.” He seemed genuinely bothered, but in a kind of self-deprecating way that made him that much more appealing.
“You realize it’s science, right? Not a matter of fitness?”
He made a dismissive sound that reminded me of Beast. Jude. My stomach fluttered and I swallowed down the nerves.
He’d asked me out for dinner tonight like it wasn’t weird—like he wasn’t embarrassed to seem too interested.
I hadn’t dated since Kurt had left me—simply hadn’t wanted to. Maybe that was why I compared everything to my time with him. Kurt’s pursuit of me had always felt extremely targeted and purposeful, like he had a goal in mind and that goal was me on his arm, in his life, in his bed.
If only I’d realized that once he’d gotten me there, locked into all the roles he’d imagined for me, he’d gotten bored. He just hadn’t been man enough to admit it and cut me free.
Between Kurt’s determination and my need to hurry up and nail down a secure relationship where I belonged, it wasn’t a complete mystery how I let so much mediocrity between us slide. Had there ever been even a fraction of the fire between Kurt and me like there was with Jude?
No comparison. I’d never felt so distinctly desired and… sought after as I had this morning with Jude.
Our time together was water cupped in his hands and it’d seeped out through the cracks all too soon. Instead of saying, “Oh, well, let’s do it again next weekend,” he’d been too eager to take another scoop and hold it close, protecting the well there. He’d had no patience to wait.
His impatience had always bothered me—it was one of many qualities I’d taken as a personal failing. I’d never considered how delicious it could be when directed at me.
“You like living here? You’ve been here for a little over a year, right?” Jack asked, breaking through my odd thoughts.
“About eighteen months now. And yes, I love it here.” We pounded the paved trail tracing the edge of the Silver Ridge Resort property for another quarter mile, and then I added, “It’s the first place that has ever felt like home.”
After a few minutes, he slowed so I did the same. We walked, cooling down as we neared the resort’s buildings again.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever had a place that felt like that,” he said.
I glanced at him, his chiseled, handsome face bleeding a vulnerability I wouldn’t have imagined possible for someone like him before I met him this week. “Maybe it’s time for a change?”
He gave me a half smile I’d seen in more than one of his films and we plodded along until I swiped a card to enter the back door, then held it for him.
There was already a buzzing sound coming from the lobby.
“We could take the service elevator and avoid it,” I suggested, knowing the crowd was likely waiting for him or any number of other celebs in residence right now .
“Nah. I don’t mind today.” He gave me a little nod that looked exactly like a Bruce Camden gesture, and then we moved.
The instant we entered the lobby, the crush of voices and furor rose. People yelled his name, questions, proposals, everything, and fortunately the hotel had roped off the elevator access. It hadn’t been this wild last year, so most of these folks were likely out of towners. Certainly, the people with giant camera lenses pointed at Jack were.
He waved and smiled, chatting amicably with a few people who had actual questions. When will you make the next movie in Litmus Chronicles ? Why have you been so reclusive lately? Is that your girlfriend?
Jack took them all in stride, answering that he’d be filming in the coming year, he’d been busy working and preparing for the movie being shown at the film fest and he hoped they all loved it, and no, she was his badass bodyguard.
Love a man who wasn’t scared to admit a woman was guarding him. Some people really did have a problem with it—and even if not in practice, they might struggle to admit it in a setting like this. Not Jack.
Good guy.
I ushered him into the elevator and got it moving, eying him as subtly as I could to make sure he wasn’t rattled. He seemed solid.
“I’m good. Thanks.”
“Good.”
His phone buzzed. “Oh, it’s Jenna. Do you know if Cookie’s guarding her?”
My senses piqued. “Jenna Halter? I think he’s assigned to her on and off. They have a history.”
His smile flashed. “Oh, I know. He’s good people. I’d hoped maybe they’d do the whole ‘fall in love with your bodyguard’ thing, but apparently, they’re just good friends now.”
His level of disappointment at this was unmissable.
“Wow, that’s quite romantic of you,” I said, then stopped short. “Does that mean you’ve fallen in love with a past bodyguard? A future one? Bruce is incredibly charming.”
He tsked. “You know Bruce only has eyes for Nikki. And no, no luck falling for any of my bodyguards. You up for it?”
His ice-blue eyes hooked into mine, and for a heartbeat, it almost felt like he was really asking. Not because of me , but because he wanted it—love, maybe?—that badly.
“Uh, thank you for the offer, but…”
He laughed. “I’m not hitting on you, I swear.”
“I would be worried for you if you had been. And I’d also be honored, of course.” What else does one say to something like this?
“It’s the big guy… Brute, or something?”
I cackled. “Oh, man, I wish it was Brute! That’s amazing. But it’s actually Beast, so not far off.” I glanced up at him and his pleasant smile waited for me to continue. “And yeah. It’s… uh…” I scratched at my cheek for something to do. “It’s him.”
What it was remained to be seen. Did I love him? Obviously not. I’d only just realized I didn’t hate him. But could I?
Astoundingly, there was only one clear answer here, and it was yes. I could. I’d always thought so. I’d always wondered… well, before everything detonated.
Jack nodded, accepting my awkwardness as proof .
The doors lurched open on the top floor and I exited first, expecting to find an empty hallway, but Kurt emerged from the left—the stairs?
“There you are,” he said, and came straight toward me.