Marrying Mister Perfect (15 page)

When Lou came back downstairs with Emma and
the carry-on, she set the kids up at a table on the terrace with
chicken tenders and an assortment of berries from craft services.
Jack sat with the kids, listening to their cranky grumblings while
she asked one of the producers if she could raid the screening room
for DVDs for the portable player for the flight in case the kids
didn’t immediately drop off when they got airborne.

Instead of devouring the berries in a blitz
attack like they normally would, both children sat zombielike at
the table and automatically went through the motions of feeding
themselves, eyes glazed. They might have played a little too hard
today, but he’d wanted to pack the most into every second he had
with them.

Emma froze with a chicken tender halfway to
her mouth, turning wide, concerned eyes toward him. “Daddy, where’s
Fluff Muffin?”

He hadn’t seen the raggedy blue puffball that
was Emma’s go-to security blanket stuffed animal. They’d been
slowly weaning her off taking it with her everywhere she went for
the last year. “I thought you left her in Chicago.”

Em’s lower lip began to tremble. “I want
Fluff Muffin.”

Seeing another meltdown looming, Jack quickly
scraped back his chair. “I’ll ask Aunt Lou. She’ll know where Fluff
Muffin is. Eat your chicken tenders.”

Emma sniffled wetly, temporarily mollified,
but ready to burst into tears should they be called for, and took
the world’s smallest bite of chicken.

He found Lou in the screening room, peering
at the lowest shelf of DVDs on all fours. She wore jeans for the
plane, but they weren’t like any jeans he’d ever seen her in. They
looked new and snug, stretching taut over her ass as she bent to
examine the bottom shelf. He froze in the doorway, arrested by the
sight, suddenly tense.

He cleared his throat around a strange
thickness there.

Lou gasped and came up on her knees, twisting
around. Her face fell with relief when she saw him. “Jack. You
startled me.”

He started toward her to help her to her
feet. Along with the jeans she wore some slinky plunging top—the
kind he expected to see on the Suitorettes. It was distracting on
Lou, fluttering and sliding against her skin as if the right breeze
would give him a glimpse of something he shouldn’t want to see. But
there was no breeze.

“Expecting someone else? An illicit
rendezvous with a cameraman or sound mixer?” His voice sounded
oddly rough.

“The gaffers are more my type,” she said
dryly, taking his hand to come to her feet and putting her back
against the shelves. “All that talk of amps and fill lights gets me
all hot and bothered.”

“I knew there was a reason you were so eager
to visit.”

Something about the words seemed to catch her
out. She looked up at him with big, dark eyes and slowly wet her
lip, lifting one hand to toy with the pendant that flirted with the
cleavage revealed by that slippery slinky top. “Jack… I…”

He cleared his throat again, the sound harsh
in the air-conditioned hum of the media room. He was standing too
close to her, but he couldn’t seem to move away. Even with the
lights on, the windowless screening room was still dark and filled
with shadows. Shadows and possibilities.

He’d been kissed by five women in the last
two weeks, but Lou’s was the only one he remembered with
crystalline clarity. Perhaps because it was more tease than kiss,
just a tantalizing taste of what could be. The possibilities…
Temptation tugged at him. Would she mind? Just one harmless little
kiss?

“Emma’s asking for Fluff Muffin,” he said,
reaching for a safe topic.

“She left her in Chicago.”

Jack nodded. “I thought so.”

Then the silence fell again, wrapping them in
that odd pocket of awareness. But awareness of what, he didn’t
know. Lou was still looking at him, the eye-contact lingering until
it became something else, something more. He propped his shoulder
against the shelves beside her and Lou tucked her hands behind her,
gazing up at him. The pose was naturally flirtatious, but she
couldn’t be aware of how coy and inviting she looked. Lou didn’t
flirt. That wasn’t her. But nonetheless there seemed to be a
strange tension in the room.

Did she feel it too? It had sprung up out of
nowhere with just a flick of her lashes.

“Find anything good?” he asked.

He nodded toward the DVDs, but her face
flamed as if the question were loaded with double meanings.

“Some Pixar. We should be good on the plane.”
She swallowed and he saw the resolve flicker in her eyes a moment
before she spoke. “Jack, there’s something I’ve been wanting to
tell you.”

She wet her lips again and he waited, letting
the silence grow expectant.

“I love you.” The words rushed out on an
exhale.

Jack nodded. “I love you too. I know I don’t
say it much, but Miranda’s been all over me to be more upfront with
my feelings.”

“Yeah, I know, but that isn’t what I—”

The intercom speaker above them crackled
noisily to life. “Attention all staff. The Tanner-Doyle party will
be departing for LAX in fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes. Thank
you.”

He looked up at the speaker and when he
looked down again, Lou had averted her eyes.

Jack straightened, only realizing how he’d
been leaning down to her as he moved away. Lou wasn’t one of the
Suitorettes. Lou was home and stability and friendship. One thing
she could never be was temptation.

He shoved his hands into his pocket,
recalling Miranda’s words from earlier and wondering if there was
any truth in what she’d said.

Lou was his support system—both emotional and
otherwise—that was true. But did he use her to avoid having to make
connections with other people? Was she his shield against real
emotion so he wouldn’t experience another loss like he had with
Gillian? She was comfortable and safe—and at a safe distance.

Or at least she had been until yesterday. Now
things seemed to be changing, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. She
was dressing different, acting differently, and he didn’t know what
to make of all the changes. Before the show had come into their
lives, she was sweet, comfortable Lou. He didn’t know who this new
version was.

But he knew he felt stripped raw and
hyperaware around her. All the tension that had been in the room
hadn’t dissipated, it had funneled into him, leaving him wound
tight. He was on a hair trigger, but a hair trigger to what, he
didn’t know.

“Why are you dressing like that?” he heard
himself saying as he put space between them, the words a little too
harsh. “It isn’t you.”

Lou’s face flushed with embarrassment. “I
wanted to shake things up a little.”

He hated himself for embarrassing her, but
that only seemed to make him angrier. “Aren’t things shaken up
enough already?” Everything was changing, and he was realizing how
badly he hadn’t wanted things to change. “You’re supposed to be my
one constant. Though maybe Miranda is right and you shouldn’t be.
Maybe I’m not open to love when you’re around.”

“I want you to be open to love with me,” she
whispered.

His body reacted in an entirely inappropriate
way to the soft vulnerability in the words, urging him to move
forward, take her in his arms, see if her lips were as soft as he
remembered. “Maybe you shouldn’t come next week.”

She sucked in a breath as if he’d hit her.
“The kids want to come see you—”

“And they will,” he said with forced calm.
“But there’s really no reason you have to be the one to accompany
them. Especially if we’re both letting you undermine what I’m doing
here. I’m not blaming you. It’s as much my fault as yours.”

“Who will look after the kids when you’re on
your dates?”

“They have child-care people on staff.”

“And will those people care more about the
kids or about how they can use them to boost the ratings of the
show?”

He glowered at her. “This was Miranda’s idea.
Miranda is
your
friend.”

“And she’s paid to make the show profitable.
I know we want to trust her because we knew her in high school, but
maybe you should be a little more cautious about doing whatever she
tells you. Especially where the children are concerned.”

“I would never let them do anything to hurt
the children. I can’t believe you would think that of me.”

“I know you wouldn’t on purpose, but they’re
filming you the entire time you’re with them and you don’t know how
they are going to use that footage or what kind of ripples this
might have for them. Emma and TJ didn’t sign up to be exploited on
national television. You did that for them.”

“They aren’t being exploited.” Icy anger ran
through his veins. “They’re barely going to be on the final
program. I hardly see how a few shots of us playing together are
going to emotionally scar them.”

“You can’t control what ends up on the final
program. You don’t know what may be said or done. You aren’t in
charge here, Jack. No matter how much Miranda and her minions might
try to convince you that you have all the power. You’re just a
puppet with a pretty face.”

He jerked a hand through his hair. “Wow. It’s
nice to know you think so highly of me.”

“It isn’t what I think of you. It’s the show.
This isn’t about love or family or happy endings to Miranda.
Frankly, I doubt very much it’s about love for ninety-nine percent
of the people involved. It’s propaganda and emotional manipulation.
They throw you into romantic situations and toss you off bridges to
build a false sense of intimacy. It’s all contrived. They are
using
you, Jack, which is your call, so if you want to be
used, that’s
fine.
But how can you let them use the
kids?”

“That isn’t really your call, is it?” Jack
snapped. “You may not agree with my choice to allow them to be part
of this experience, but they’re my kids. It’s my decision, not
yours.”

The word were out before he had any awareness
that he was going to say them and then it was too late to take them
back. Lou paled, her pale blue eyes filling with tears that didn’t
fall as she looked at him with equal parts anger and hurt.

“You asshole,” she whispered, snatching up
the DVDs and starting to push past him.

“Lou.” His hand shot out of its own accord,
catching her upper arm.

“Don’t touch me.”

“There you are!” Miranda’s voice sliced
through whatever Jack would have said to fuck up the situation even
more. Her eyes flicked between the two of them, her brow wrinkling
in concern. “Everything okay in here? We’ve got to get Lou and the
kids off to the airport or they’re going to miss their flight.”

“Everything’s fine,” Lou said, pulling at her
arm in his grip. With Miranda watching, he forced himself to
release her.

Miranda beamed as if the room wasn’t
crackling with wild surges of tension. “Chop, chop, you two. Planes
wait for no man.” She spun on her heel and marched out, calling out
“I’ve found them!” to the rest of the house.

Lou was out of reach and through the door
before Jack could do more than call after her. He cursed to himself
and slapped on a smile for the kids, acting like everything was
okay. Acting like he still had the first idea who he was and what
he was doing here.

Chapter
Fifteen

Lou sat in the limo, arms wrapped around her
middle to hold the pieces of herself together as the children
pushed their faces out of the open window and shouted Goodbyes and
I-love-yous to their father, as if sheer volume equated to
sincerity.

She’d managed not to cry in front of the kids
so far and she wasn’t going to start now. Even if Jack had said the
one thing she’d thought he would never say. Even if he’d made her
feel like an uninvited guest in her own life.

He hadn’t apologized. Admittedly, she’d used
the children as human shields to keep him at bay, never letting him
close enough to say another private word to her, but it still stung
that he’d let her leave with those words hanging between them.

His kids
. She wasn’t the mother. She
had no say.

Lou swallowed hard.

It didn’t matter. She was okay. She was fine.
She just needed to get a grip. She couldn’t cry in front of the
kids. She just had to hold it together through a limo ride, airport
security, a four hour plane ride, and the forty minute drive from
the airport to the house. Then she could break down.

No problem.

Thank God for Pixar. Lou didn’t know how
she’d remembered to pick up the DVDs she’d set aside when she
stormed out of the screening room, but she was glad she had when
both kids were whining and resisting sleep on the flight. She got
out the portable DVD player, popped in
The Incredibles
, gave
them each a pair of headphones and fifteen minutes later they were
both out.

She forced herself to wait another five
minutes to sneak off to the airplane bathroom. Some turbulence
bounced the plane a little as she was walking down the aisle and
she looked back to make sure the kids were both still asleep before
going the rest of the way.

She wrapped her arms around herself in the
aisle, waiting for the Vacancy light to change color, so she could
have five minutes of her own for a nervous breakdown. When the lock
finally clicked back, she went through the excuse-me dance in the
tight aisle, do-si-do-ing around the other passenger to get to the
cramped bathroom.

She almost didn’t trust her reflection in the
mirror.

Even her make-up was still in place. No one
would know the love of her life had just destroyed her as only he
could.

She closed her eyes—but those unfair Paul
Newman blue eyes filled her mind’s eye, dark with anger, so she
quickly opened them again.