THE PAPARAZZI PROTOCOL
The silence in Julian’s sprawling Hollywood Hills compound was a stark contrast to the absolute warfare erupting on the internet.
In the guest suite, Elara sat perfectly still on a velvet vanity stool while a team of three stylists—dispatched frantically by Marcus—worked around her in a blur of heated tools, makeup brushes, and anxious whispers.
They had been aggressively briefed on the crisis.
The leaked audio clip of Elara crying in the hotel lobby was still trending at number one. The media was thirsty for a breakdown.
"More contour on the cheekbones," the lead makeup artist murmured to her assistant, her eyes darting nervously to Elara’s reflection in the massive mirror. "We need her to look sharp. Untouchable. No soft edges tonight."
Elara barely registered the pull of the brush against her skin. Her mind was a chaotic loop of Julian’s words from the practice facility.
“I am playing defense now... If I lose it all because I stood between you and the rest of the world, then it’s a price I am completely willing to pay.”
She had spent three years with a man who calculated her worth based entirely on how she benefited his public image.
Declan had carefully curated their relationship to ensure he was always the brightest star in the room.
But Julian Thorne operated on a completely different axis.
He was a man who conquered violently on the ice, yet handled her with a terrifying, reverent gentleness.
He was willing to detonate his own heavily negotiated PR strategy just to protect her from a bad headline.
"Okay, it’s time for the dress," the stylist announced, breaking Elara from her thoughts.
Elara stood up. The dress she had chosen from the rack was not a defensive garment. It was a declaration of war.
It was a custom piece of midnight-blue silk that felt like liquid water slipping over her skin.
It possessed a dangerous, plunging neckline that stopped just above her sternum, held together by sheer willpower and invisible tape.
The back plunged even lower, dipping completely to the base of her spine, leaving a vast expanse of her porcelain skin entirely exposed.
A thigh-high slit on the left leg allowed for a lethal flash of skin with every step she took in her towering, silver-strapped stilettos.
When Elara finally turned to look at herself in the floor-to-length mirror, her breath hitched.
She didn't look like a heartbroken victim.
She didn't look like the hysterical, crying woman from Declan’s spliced audio recording.
With her dark hair swept completely off her neck into a sleek, severe twist, and a dark, bruised-berry stain on her lips, she looked lethal.
She looked like a woman who owned the room before she even stepped foot in it.
"You look devastating," the stylist whispered, a note of genuine awe in her voice.
"Thank you," Elara breathed, her voice finding its natural, husky rasp. "That was exactly the mandate."
The styling team packed up rapidly, fleeing the heavy tension of the house. Elara took a slow, grounding breath, grabbed her small silver clutch, and walked out of the guest suite.
The floating glass staircase descended into the cavernous living room. The sun had set, and the house was bathed in the cool, ambient glow of the city lights sprawling out below the massive windows.
Julian was standing by the floor-to-ceiling glass, a crystal tumbler of amber liquid in his hand.
He was wearing a bespoke, midnight-black tuxedo that looked like it had been tailored directly onto his heavily muscled frame.
The broad, dark expanse of his shoulders, the crisp white of his dress shirt, and the perfectly tied black bow tie presented a picture of absolute, devastating aristocratic power.
The bruised cut above his eyebrow from the fight on the ice was the only feral imperfection on his impossibly handsome face.
He turned his head at the sound of her stilettos clicking against the glass stairs.
Julian froze.
The crystal tumbler in his hand stalled halfway to his mouth. His stormy gray eyes swept up the length of her long, exposed leg, over the dangerous curve of the silk clinging to her hips, and settled violently on the plunge of her neckline.
Elara felt the exact moment his gaze hit her skin. It was a physical sensation, a heavy, burning heat that immediately flushed her chest and neck. The air in the massive living room was instantly sucked away.
Julian slowly lowered his glass, placing it on a side table with a heavy clink that echoed in the quiet house.
He didn't say a word. He didn't have to.
The raw, predatory hunger entirely stripped of its cage was evident in the tense, rigid line of his jaw and the sudden, shallow hitch of his breathing.
Elara reached the bottom of the stairs, stopping a few feet away from him. Her heart was hammering a frantic, wild rhythm against her ribs.
"You told me to wear the most devastating dress I owned," Elara whispered, the silence stretching out too long. "Did I overdo it?"
Julian slowly closed the distance between them. He moved with that heavy, predatory grace, stalking toward her until he was standing so close she could feel the heat radiating from his chest beneath the wool of his tuxedo jacket.
"You look..." Julian’s voice was completely destroyed, dropping into a ragged, guttural rasp. He stopped, shaking his head slightly as if trying to clear the static from his brain. "You look like you are going to be the absolute ruin of me, Elara."
Elara’s breath caught. She looked up into his eyes, mesmerized by the dark, turbulent storm raging in the gray depths.
Julian raised his large, scarred hands, hesitating for a fraction of a second before gently resting them on her bare waist, exactly where the silk dipped lowest on her back.
His palms were incredibly warm against her chilled skin.
The contrast of his rough, calloused hands against the delicate silk sent a violent shiver straight down her spine.
"Are you ready for this?" Julian asked, his voice dropping into a low, intimate rumble. "Sarah says there are over a hundred credentialed press members outside the gala. It’s going to be a bloodbath."
"I'm ready," Elara said, her chin lifting defiantly. "If you are."
Julian’s thumbs slowly traced the curve of her waist. "I told you, sweetheart. We are playing offense tonight. But we need a protocol. They are going to shout his name. They are going to scream questions about that audio clip. They want to see you flinch."
"I won't flinch," Elara swore, her whiskey eyes flashing with newly ignited fire.
"I know you won't," Julian murmured, stepping half an inch closer, entirely invading her personal space.
"But here are the new rules, Elara. When we step out of that car, you don't look at them. You don't acknowledge a single flashbulb. If they scream a question that hurts you, you squeeze my hand. You don't try to answer. You let me speak for you."
Elara’s instinct, honed by three years of fighting for her own voice, flared defensively. "I can fight my own battles, Julian."
"I know you can," Julian countered smoothly, his grip on her waist tightening with a firm, grounding pressure. "But tonight, you don't have to. Let me be the shield. Let me take the hits. It’s not a weakness to let someone protect you, Elara. It’s a tactical advantage."
The profound, absolute truth in his words shattered her defensive walls. She wasn't surrendering her power; she was aligning it with his.
"Okay," she whispered, her hands slowly coming up to rest flat against the lapels of his tuxedo jacket. The solid wall of muscle beneath the crisp shirt was intoxicating. "What else?"
"We stay connected," Julian commanded softly, his gaze dropping to her dark, berry-stained lips.
"Physical proximity. If we are touching, they can't isolate you in a photograph. They can't paint you as lonely or unhinged if I am standing right next to you, looking like I want to burn the world down for you."
Elara swallowed hard, the heavy sexual tension in the room spiking to an unbearable degree. "The contract says no excessive PDA. No kissing."
"I won't kiss you," Julian rasped, though his eyes dragged over her mouth with a starvation that entirely contradicted his words.
"But I am going to touch you, Elara. I am going to hold you, and I am going to make sure every single camera in that press pool knows exactly who you belong to tonight. Do we have a deal?"
Elara stared into the stormy depths of his eyes, her pulse completely out of control. "Deal."
Julian slowly leaned down. He kept his word; his lips didn't touch hers. Instead, he pressed a scorching, open-mouthed kiss to the desperately sensitive skin just below her ear, right on the pulse point of her neck.
Elara gasped, her eyes fluttering shut as a shockwave of pure electricity ripped through her veins. Her fingers clenched convulsively in the fabric of his lapels.
"Let's go to war, sweetheart," Julian murmured against her skin.
The Portland Museum of Art was an architectural marvel of glass and white stone. Tonight, it was the site of the Pioneers’ annual charity gala, but the philanthropic purpose had been completely eclipsed by the media circus surrounding the captain and his rockstar girlfriend.
Leo expertly navigated the matte black SUV through the barricades, pulling up to the edge of the sprawling red carpet.
The noise was deafening even from inside the vehicle. The press pool was packed ten deep behind the velvet ropes. Security guards were actively linking arms to hold the photographers back. The flashbulbs were a continuous, blinding wave of white light.
"Ready?" Julian asked, shifting in the seat beside her.
"Ready," Elara confirmed, her hands remarkably steady.
Julian didn't wait for the valet. He pushed the heavy door open and stepped out into the chaos.
The collective roar of the paparazzi was like a physical wall of sound. Julian ignored it entirely. He walked around the back of the SUV, his heavy, predatory stride commanding the red carpet instantly. He pulled Elara’s door open, offering his hand.