Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
You know that scene in Christmas Vacation when all the cops come swarming in, breaking through windows and doors, and taking down that giant Christmas tree only to leave Mrs. Griswold holding poor Clark’s nuts? Yeah, that feels like me right now.
Only it’s not the cops swarming us, it’s the press. And Georgia unfortunately is not holding my dick, just my nipple. To the point where I’m tempted to groan and need to smack her hand away because she’s pinching it and my nipple ring.
But what in the almighty fuck is going on?
“Georgia! Lenox! Over here!” Click, click, click . “How long have you secretly been together? Do Zaxton and Greyson know you’re married? Why didn’t they attend the wedding?”
Questions fire at us one after the other, cameras and phones shoved in our faces.
We’re completely surrounded, unable to see anything past the mass of bodies.
On instinct, I wrap my arm protectively around her—clearly, I lied when I told her I wasn’t a bodyguard—tucking her into my side and crisply walking us forward.
To where I have no clue, but I don’t care. Just as long as I get us out of here.
“Georgia, what does this mean for Ezra? Were you having an affair with Lenox behind his back? Lenox, were you really a virgin when you married Georgia?”
Virgin? I trip on that last one but don’t stop moving, familiar enough with the whole paparazzi routine to keep my features neutral and void of reaction. Security comes flying out of the hotel, and somehow I’m being directed to a limo like we’re living out some cliché Hollywood movie.
Which I suppose we are since I’m married to Hollywood’s former sweetheart.
The door opens, and I shove Georgia in first, climbing in beside her and slamming the door shut behind us. The car slowly inches out of the driveway, pushing past the throngs of press and somehow hitting the light just right and taking a quick left.
“Where would you like me to take you, sir? Ma’am?” the driver asks quietly from the front.
“Anywhere private where we can be alone would be great,” Georgia states breathlessly, and the driver gives her a thumbs-up before raising the partition.
She pivots to me, her face twisted in fury.
“Freaking vultures,” she hisses. “I’m so sorry.
I had no idea this would happen this soon.
I assumed once the press learned of our marriage, they’d go a bit nuts, but I figured that would be on me and happen in LA or even if I moved to Boston.
” She places a palm over her racing heart.
I lean over and whisper in her ear, “Virgin?”
She coughs out a laugh. “It was the wedding planner,” she murmurs contritely.
“The one who was fangirling all over you. After you ran out of the chapel, I was… flustered and, well, not thinking all that clearly obviously because somehow it just slipped out that you were a virgin, though it didn’t make any sense, but it did make me laugh, and that was exactly what I needed in that moment.
I can’t believe that woman sold you out like that,” she mocks in feigned horror. “She’s your biggest fan.”
I stare balefully at her .
“If it’s any consolation, you were great for your first time.” She pats my shoulder and then falls forward, covering her face with her hands and pressing them into her knees. “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
“Is this a Godfather III moment?”
“The press hasn’t bothered me much over the last few weeks. Not since the investigation for my father’s plane concluded. I was hoping it was finally starting to die down, and now they’re baaack . Ugh. Now I’m quoting Poltergeist II . I guess it’s all about the sequels with us, isn’t it?”
I laugh at that. I can’t help it. She’s right.
Her head pops up, her red hair wild and all over the place. “It’s been a day, and it’s not even ten. Between Alfie and Ezra and now this, I’ve had enough.”
“You verbally sparred with one man and dropped two others to the ground, and now you’re going to give up? Where did all that cute Georgie tenacity go?”
She jabs my flank as she does every time I call her that, but I have to imagine it was also because I tauntingly called her tenacity cute.
Still, she doesn’t skip a beat. “You’re right. I’m tenacious as fuck. I have a vagina of steel.”
I cough out a laugh. “Vagina of steel?”
She rolls her eyes. “Um. Yeah. You felt her last night. My girl is strong and doesn’t mess around. Men aren’t the only ones entitled to genitalia of steel. That’s sexist and simply wrong.”
If it wouldn’t get me in trouble, I’d kiss the hell out of her right now. Because even though I was teasing her, she’s irresistibly cute.
The car stops drawing my attention out the window. We’re in a parking lot, but before I can ask where we are or what we’re doing, the driver says, “Give me a few minutes. I’ll be right back.”
He steps out, and then it’s just me and Georgia in the back of a dark, quiet car.
After the anxiety and adrenaline of the morning with Ezra, her tackling me to the floor like a fucking ninja, and the press after that, the quiet is too much.
Everything is amplified. Like the smell of her still-damp hair and the sweetness of her skin.
The sound of her breathing, still slightly accelerated from the press—or perhaps from something else.
I shouldn’t have fucked her last night. I knew it then, but it’s worse now because all I can think about is doing it again.
I can’t. And I won’t. But hell, why does everything about her have to be so alluring?
Like magnets, her lips demand my attention, and the moment I focus on them, images of last night flicker through my head.
She passed out somewhere near two, and instead of going to my computer to work the way I told myself I would, I found myself crawling in bed behind her, running my fingers through her hair, and watching her sleep like a goddamn creeper.
I assuaged myself by saying this would be my last shot ever to do that. It had been one of my favorite things to do with her—a soothing balm to my ravaged thoughts—and I couldn’t pass it up. But with it came… familiar thoughts. Familiar thoughts about her.
Familiar thoughts I cannot be having about my wife.
But then I did the unthinkable. I fell asleep beside her and slept better than I have in I don’t even know how long.
I woke alone—grateful for that—showered, and then everything else happened.
I’m in this to protect her from those assholes, and yet I haven’t sorted through Alfie’s information.
I haven’t started my attack strategy though I’m positive they’re already working on theirs.
I’m failing her—again—and it’s more than I can take.
Thankfully she’s still too worked up to notice where my mind is.
“You must be regretting this,” she says softly, dejectedly.
“I pretty much turned your life upside down. I’ve brought a man, possibly two, into your life who won’t hesitate with threats or bribery.
The press knows about the wedding, and…” she trails off, once again feeling too many feelings.
“Asked if I was a virgin,” I finish for her.
She winces, even if she can’t stop the resulting giggle. “Yes.”
Her eyes flicker to mine—the most gorgeous fucking eyes I’ve ever seen—and the fact that I’d do anything, even speak, and intentionally be sarcastic to get her to laugh is troubling.
“I feel like I’m underwater, and no matter how hard I swim or how visible the surface is, I can never reach it to take a breath. There is always something dragging me back down.”
Without thinking, I take her hand, intertwining our fingers, and bring the back of her hand to my chest. Our rings flash in the muted sunlight shining through the tinted windows.
A man knows he’s fucked when he can’t stop watching or thinking about a woman, and I can’t stop watching or thinking about my wife.
The woman who hates me because all I’ve done is disappoint and hurt her.
“Isn’t that why I’m here? To help you reach the surface and finally be able to take that breath?”
I stare at our joined hands, pressed against my chest, right over my heart, and slowly my gaze rolls up to hers.
She’s watching me, caution in her brow yet with a look that makes my lungs feel like they’re burning.
My problem is—and has always been—I find her inexorably perfect.
In all the things she does. Even her pain and sorrow make me hard, because all I want to do is fix them.
But what kind of man gets off on something like that?
I’m not the hero of her story. It’s not a title I’m deserving of.
I’m not sure I’m even worthy of being her dark knight.
But God, does she make me want to change that.
Everything about Georgia Monroe makes me want to strive to be a better version of myself for her, and for the last six years, that’s all I’ve done.
I stop short, cutting my useless thoughts off with a goddamn butcher’s knife, my breath suddenly coming out in harsh pants.
It’s not until the back door opens, letting in a stream of blinding light and cool air, that I realize how close I am to her. My face is right up in hers, our lips inches apart, and I jerk back.
A spike of restlessness flares through me. I need to get a grip on myself.
Thankfully Georgia steps out of the car, her curiosity about where we are taking over, and I hear her squeal as I step out.
She points up. “Look!”
I don’t have to look. I know exactly where we are, and it automatically makes me suspicious.
“I’ve always wanted to go on this. ”
She treats me to an enthusiastically bright smile, and considering the morning she’s had, that’s saying something.
“Thank you! This is perfect!” She throws her arms around the driver who immediately blushes.
“Of course, ma’am. Here, sir.” The driver hands me two tickets. “Just tell them that you belong to Paulo. I’ll be here waiting for you after.”
I nod at him, reaching out and shaking his hand.