Chapter Thirty
Burgers sizzled on the grill. Clyde and Pickles zoomed around the backyard.
Callum and Grace Hale’s crowded deck buzzed with Rhys’s colleagues and friends.
They were funny and friendly, and no one wanted anything more than casual conversation from Jules.
Good thing, too, because she couldn’t stop stealing glances at Rhys leaning against the deck rail.
With a beer in his hand, chatting with Dean and Gage, he was more relaxed than she’d ever seen.
This was him at home, off the clock, with no worries or headaches, nothing but a burger and a beer, his dog and his friends.
And her, the client he shouldn’t be sleeping with, hidden far away in Granite Creek, Virginia, a storybook small town she couldn’t seem to get enough of.
Her tongue darted over her bottom lip as he tipped back the beer. His throat bobbed as he took the long drink. Yes, she was now the kind of person who stared at the thick column of a man’s throat.
And his forearms. She couldn’t steal her eyes away from the way his rolled sleeves hugged the muscles in his arms.
He glanced to the side, his eyes catching hers. Their gazes stayed locked as he pulled another drink from the bottle. Then he said something to Dean and ambled her way.
Her heartbeat picked up the pace. If he didn’t want his coworkers knowing something was happening between them, Rhys needed to change the possessive way he stared.
“Never seen him look like that before,” Alicia, Grace’s friend, muttered only loud enough for the women to hear. “Like he’s the big, bad wolf ready to eat a certain someone alive.”
Jules flushed.
“I think that was a PR stunt.” Grace elbowed Alicia.
“Might’ve started that way.” Alicia eyed Jules over her glasses. “But that’s not what I see.”
“We’re just friends,” Jules offered.
Were they actually friends, though? Between the days alone in bed, petting his dog, and hanging out with his friends, it probably did make them friends.
Rhys stopped by her chair, lifting his chin in greeting to the women Jules sat with, and rested his elbow on the back of her rocker.
“Are you two a thing?” Alicia asked with zero compunction.
A smirk that made Jules squeeze her legs together danced on his handsome face. His eyes dropped on her. “Her people have paid a lot of money so that you think so.”
Alicia shook her head as if he’d disappointed her. “I’m not talking about that bullshit.”
He winked.
“Now he’s screwing with me.” Alicia laughed.
“I don’t know what else you might mean,” he said, keeping his attention squarely centered on Jules. “Need another beer? Callum’s about to pull the burgers off the grill.”
“I’m good. Thanks.”
Alicia hummed.
Rhys pointed his beer toward her. “You should know I was talking about you yesterday.”
“Good things?” Alicia asked.
“I promised you could help with book recommendations.”
Alicia pushed her glasses up her nose. “He’s just trying to butter me up so I don’t talk about him when he turns around.”
“I know better, Alicia. Where are your dogs? Clyde has a crush on Toto.”
“Doggy spa day while I’m here with you fools.”
Rhys turned as Callum called that the burgers were ready.
“Clyde really does have a thing for Toto.” Alicia sighed. “The poor thing keeps getting his heart broken when Toto doesn’t even sniff in his direction.”
Grace laughed. “Your dogs act indignant whenever any other dog shows their love and adoration.”
“Pickles needs to outgrow the adolescent-doggy energy before either of my babies will deal with him. Now…” Alicia circled her finger toward Jules. “Are you going to break our guy’s heart?”
“ No . Of course not. It’s not like that.”
“In the year that I’ve known him, he’s never brought a girl home before.”
“He didn’t bring me home. I’m…” She hadn’t even seen his house. Not that she’d bring that up. “He’s hiding me here.”
“Of course he is. He’s tucked you away in one of those in-plain-sight hiding spots?”
“Alicia,” Grace muttered. “Down, girl.”
“I’m not being mean. Just observant.”
Jules smiled. “I like that the Titan men have such kick-butt women in their orbit.”
“Now she’s buttering us up again,” Alicia said with a wink. “Guess we’re going to have to like her.”
“Good. Guess you are.” Jules liked them all. A group of badass women and take-charge men. They had healthy doses of self-esteem but weren’t egotistical. Not a narcissist in sight. It was refreshing, real, and so very different from Hollywood.
Jules rocked on a glider with a beer in her hand.
Scarlett plopped next to Grace with a burger and salad on her paper plate. “What’d I miss? Rhys looks like he won a prize at a fair any time he looks over here.”
“See?” Alicia bobbed her dark eyebrows and tossed her coiled hair over her shoulders in an unspoken told-you-so. “I know what I’m talking about.”
“God. I missed something good, didn’t I?” Scarlett made a puppy-dog face. “Loop me in before I beg.”
“There’s nothing—”
“Jules is the fair prize,” Alicia said, gesturing her way, then stood up. “And I need a burger.”
“I’m not a fair prize.” But the burgers also called her name, and Jules gave up the battle, joining Grace and Alicia to pile their plates high.
They returned to Scarlett. If Rhys was looking at her like they said he was, she wouldn’t be able to keep her own expression in check.
As they ate, the conversation dropped from her and Rhys and ranged from what color highlights Scarlett should try in her hair to which books had plot twists that still stunned this collective group of brilliant women.
Aaliyah, Yasmin, and Abigail would like them too. Jules missed them. The first pang of homesickness hit her chest.
Scarlett groaned and held up her phone to Jules. Sloane’s wall of text messages blanketed her screen.
Jules blocked the phone with her hand. “I don’t want to see anything about Mason.”
“He’s Retire Guy, right?” Scarlett asked.
“You need a better name than Retire Guy,” Alicia said.
“My sister agrees,” Jules said and finished her last bite.
Given Sloane’s messages to Scarlett, Jules guessed Mason’s FBI interview had leaked.
She imagined that the same gossip site that had broken the news about Mason cheating now proclaimed he was the diabolical brains behind her harassment campaign.
Rhys walked over with Callum and two other men, and Callum lifted Grace into his lap and arranged her against his chest. Rhys introduced the other men as Eli and Decker then rested his arm on her glider, as he had before.
This was apparently as close as they could get without crossing the line and making Vivian’s head explode.
That was fine. She didn’t want him to lose his job, but whoa, the urge to crawl into his arms like Callum was holding Grace took a huge amount of energy to ignore.
“You ready to get out of here?” Rhys asked as if reading her mind then gave their peanut gallery a quick appraisal. “We didn’t get in until the middle of the night.”
“Yeah, I’m exhausted. Thanks for having me over.”
Grace and Callum graciously accepted their reason to beg off.
Alicia did not. She hummed. “Does she look tired or… something else?”
“Don’t mind her.” Grace kicked at her friend’s shin. “While you’re here, come over any time. With or without him.” She nodded to Rhys. “We’ll do a girls’ day. Alicia’s here for the next few days.”
“We’re trying to convince Alicia to move here,” Scarlett added, batting her eyelashes before returning her attention back to Jules. “Maybe we’ll work on you next.”
Rhys frowned.
Her stomach churned. She hadn’t suggested moving here. She wouldn’t uproot her life for a man. Maybe a break from acting would be nice, but she’d never follow a man who hadn’t asked her to.
Did Rhys think that was what they’d been discussing? Did he worry she was trying to complicate their situation?
Then again, he’d said she was his. What the hell did that mean? In bed? In general?
He called for his dog with a quick snap, and Clyde galloped toward him. They walked around the house. Clyde veered toward the truck, and Rhys dropped the tailgate. His dog sailed onto the bed. Then he caught Jules, snagging her by the waist, and lifted her onto the truck.
Rhys positioned between her knees and draped her hands on his shoulders.
Darting her eyes toward the Hales’ house, she dropped her hands away. Rhys grabbed them again, moving them back to his shoulders with a squeeze as though he could glue them in place.
“Someone’s going to see us.”
“You gave me a look,” he said.
Heat infused her cheeks. A bad look? A good one? Apparently, a look that made him push between her legs. So, a handy look. Her heart fluttered. “No, I didn’t.”
“You did. And…” He cupped her chin, holding her face so that she had to look directly at him. “And I really liked it.”
“That doesn’t mean your boss can see us together like this.”
“Right now, that’s a chance I’m going to take.” He caressed her cheek with his thumb. “We have two options. One: I run by my place and pick up Clyde’s food before we go back to the house we stayed at. Or two: we grab your luggage, and you come home with me. I have a preference.”
“You do?”
“I want you in my bed. In my house.”
Goose bumps slid down her spine. “Option two.”
“You sure?” His smile crooked. “That took you a second, baby.”
“The whole trying-to-remember-how-to-breathe thing.”
He ran a thumb over her cheek again, over her lips, then tugged the bottom one down. “Then let’s go.”