Star-Crossed (4 page)
“I’m not your enemy.” Romeo lifted his gaze to hers and studied her beautiful face under the bright Nevada sun. “Juliet.”
She gasped in surprise, her eyes growing wide. “I don’t—” She floundered. Her cheeks flushed pink as she narrowed icy eyes at him. “How?” 26
“That’s what Jules is short for, isn’t it?” he asked simply, refusing to look away.
“Juliet.”
“I go by Jules,” she said rather than rise to the bait. For a brief moment it looked like she might reach over and snatch the card back. Her guard was obviously up, but instead of lashing out and rescinding the offer, she looked to his left hand that was wrapped in a white gauze bandage and sighed in defeat. “I’ll see ya at eight, Wellings.”
“I go by Romeo.”
“Fine.” Jules took a deep breath, her cheeks more flushed than ever. “Then eight o’clock, Romeo.”
He did it then, took one long, hard look of Jules Conner standing there in formfitting jeans that clung to her long legs like a second skin. It took everything he had not to adjust himself, because eyeing her made his jeans tighter than usual.
Romeo gave her a devious smile. With a voice low and husky with anticipation, he said, “I’ll look forward to it.”
27
Chapter Two
“Why don’t we just order room service?”
Jules paused from her search through her suitcase and looked up at Wyatt stretched out on
her
bed, watching
her
television. It was obvious he planned to camp out in her hotel room all night. “Ain’t ya got a room of your own?” Wyatt flipped the channel. “What the fuck am I supposed to do in my own room?”
Jules rolled her eyes, knowing Wyatt was clingy because of the drama with Clay.
It shook her up too. The bullet could have easily hit Clay’s heart. Then they would have been dealing with a real crisis instead of an extended stay in Las Vegas while they waited for the hospital to set Clay loose on the world once more.
Usually she’d have been perfectly content to hang out in the hotel room with her brother. Wyatt was like a bad habit, one she’d formed in the womb and hadn’t been able to break in thirty-three years. The sad truth was the two of them irritated the hell out of each other, but they were still inseparable.
Maybe things would be different if Wyatt hadn’t gotten his heart broken at a young age and stopped his search for female companionship. Jules wasn’t exactly a champion in the dating department either, so she took half the responsibility for this dysfunctional disaster.
“Why dontcha go out, Wy?” Jules stared at her brother, bare-chested and barefoot on her bed. It pained her to admit it, but he was a very handsome man. There really was no reason for him to be as lonely as he was. “This hotel’s crawling with beautiful women who’d love to spend time with you. You’re as famous as Clay, probably more 28
so because you don’t growl at anyone who looks in your direction. Take advantage of it for once.”
“I thought you hated groupies.”
“At least they got a pulse. Enjoy the time off work. Go live a little.” Wyatt lifted his gaze to her, blue meeting blue as he said, “You’re telling me to get the fuck out of your room and go get laid.”
Jules lifted her eyebrows as she studied him sprawled out on her bed. “Pretty much.”
“And catch Hep-C.” Wyatt pulled a face of distaste. “No, thanks. I’ll just hang out here and order room service.”
“Always the romantic.” Jules cursed life for sticking her with such a difficult twin.
“I swear, you can put anyone off on dating. When’d you get so cynical?” Wyatt didn’t answer, because it was a rhetorical question. They both knew the moment he turned from a hopeless romantic to a bitter, cynical man who didn’t understand anything past duty and work.
“You’ve turned into Daddy,” she told him, though it wasn’t the first time. “I hope you know that.”
Jules abandoned her search through the suitcase and walked to the closet. She pulled out the last clean dress she’d brought with her. This was the dress she’d brought
just in case
. It wasn’t a business outfit. It wasn’t a going out with Clay and Wyatt outfit.
This was a “fuck me” dress, and she stared at it in trepidation. It’d been a very long time since she wore a dress like this.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Jules dropped her arm, still clutching the hanger tightly. “What?”
“Being like Dad, you say that like it’s a bad thing.” Wyatt frowned as he also looked at the dress in Jules’s hand. “Are you going somewhere?”
29
“I was gonna go out,” Jules said, still feeling dazed at the prospect of wearing a
“fuck me” dress to have dinner with Romeo Wellings.
“In that?” Wyatt’s eyes grew wide. “Do you have a date?”
“No.” Jules huffed, because this was a business meeting of sorts. Romeo had done something heroic and brave in saving Melody. Clay would want Jules to buy him dinner. It was more like a moral obligation than a date, except for that strange fluttering in her stomach when she thought about Romeo looking at her in this dress. “I don’t
think
it’s a date.”
“Are you meeting someone?”
Jules let her shoulders slump because she couldn’t see getting out of admitting it.
“Yes.”
“In that dress?”
“It’s the last clean one I got,” Jules said helplessly. She could dress casual and take Romeo somewhere inexpensive, but that seemed all wrong. He’d risked his life to help Melody, whose boyfriend just beat Romeo in a title fight. The chivalry that took restored Jules’s faith in humanity. The least she could do was buy him a nice meal, and she wasn’t going to let a sexy dress stop her. “I guess it’ll have to do.”
“Who is it?”
Jules met her brother’s gaze, knowing he’d never understand why Jules felt the need to reach out to Romeo like this. Why it was important to acknowledge what he’d done. To Wyatt, Romeo rescuing Melody seemed like no big deal when he would have done the same thing. Didn’t matter who it was, if they were in danger, Wyatt would come to their rescue. Their father had made sure Jules and Wyatt were both strong enough to always help others. It was the one thing he’d instilled in both of them, because that unique integrity was what her daddy had lived and breathed until the day he’d died.
Which could be why Jules felt so drawn to Romeo. Wyatt might not realize it, but Jules had learned a long time ago that men like that were
very
rare. She felt compelled to 30
recognize something that made sure Clay and Melody were together and happy and safe.
“He’s a cop,” she lied, knowing how deeply Wyatt despised Romeo Wellings. “I met him at the hospital. He asked me out to dinner. It’s mostly professional. He knows I’m not from here, and I told him I’m still a volunteer deputy back home. It’s just one cop reaching out to another. Like a business meeting.”
“Whatever, Jules.” Wyatt snorted in disbelief. “If he asked you out, it ain’t to talk shop. ’Specially not if you’re wearing that. That’s a ‘fuck me’ dress.” Jules held up the dress, looking at it once more. Even Wyatt, who’d been off the dating market for years, knew a “fuck me” dress when he saw it. This was starting to get more complicated than she wanted to deal with because Romeo Wellings was a little
too
handsome. Any heterosexual woman with a pulse would feel that throb of excitement over being near him. Jules knew it was a normal, biological reaction to a prime example of Grade A, all-American male, and usually she could keep her cool.
She’d spent her entire life around big, tough, and buff men like Romeo. She just hadn’t seen one quite as good-looking as him before.
“It’s nothing,” she argued, more to convince herself than Wyatt. “And this is all I got to wear. It’ll have to do.”
“Then have fun. I won’t wait up.”
“I ain’t sleeping with him,” Jules snapped, knowing she was being defensive enough to be obvious, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “Just ’cause you’re a pig, don’t mean he is.”
“By definition all men are pigs, and I believe you know that.” Wyatt shrugged dismissively, turning back to the television, remote in hand. “I’d buy condoms on the way down to your
business meeting
.”
* * * *
31
Jules felt eyes on her everywhere as she made her way to the Italian restaurant she and Romeo had agreed to meet at. Considering she was in Las Vegas, where long legs and low-cut dresses were a staple, Jules knew she was in trouble.
She’d gone out of her way to look good, and it was obvious. Maybe she shouldn’t have styled her hair, leaving it to hang in long, loose curls down the center of her back.
She’d pulled up one side with an expensive gold hair clip she’d purchased specifically to match the dress when she’d been going through one of those dark bouts where she took out her depression over her nonexistent love life on her credit card and bought all the things she needed to get laid: sexy underwear, thigh-high stockings, garters, and high heels that left her standing well over six feet tall. She’d never expected to really wear all this, especially for a dinner with Romeo Wellings, but for some reason she was.
Jules had even shaved her legs and wore perfume.
She stopped in front of the restaurant. Her pulse was beating wildly out of control, reminding her of being fourteen in a way that was so startling she fought to breathe through the nostalgia. She had the same warm feeling she’d gotten when she first discovered boys and spent all her spare time covering her room with boy band posters.
It hadn’t mattered that Wyatt lost his voice teasing her about the new obsessions. Jules bought every album and watched every video over and over. Those boy bands taught her how to daydream. They taught her how to lie in the grass and look at the clouds and think of something besides what was next on her to-do list. Those unobtainable obsessions let her feel wild and free in a way she hadn’t been able to capture again—
until now.
Jules thought this particular brand of hope was for the young and naive, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe she’d known it all along. Her other dresses weren’t
that
dirty and regular panty hose would’ve worked just fine with this outfit. But she’d been full of anticipation since the moment she’d touched Romeo’s massive bicep in front of the hospital and felt that flash of attraction that was rare and special.
“Juliet.”
32
Jules lifted her gaze, finding Romeo standing at the entrance of the restaurant as if he’d been watching her deal with her midlife crisis for a while. She took a shuddering breath, because he looked incredible. It’d been so long since she’d seen a man in a real suit, and it fit him perfectly. She hadn’t realized it until right then, but Romeo Wellings was made to wear a suit like that in a way the men she knew would never be. The rich, deep gray hue made his eyes glow like green fire against his tan skin, and she felt drawn in by them.
He was so tall. His shoulders were so broad and for some odd reason Jules felt her eyes get watery as he walked up to her looking like a fantasy come to life. He stopped in front of her, and for once Jules didn’t feel like an Amazon woman. Even in three-inch heels, she was still short next to Romeo.
Maybe this
was
a date.
“Are we okay?” Romeo asked hesitantly.
“Yeah.” Jules threw caution to the wind and gave him a bright smile that reflected her excitement. “We’re great.”
Romeo breathed a sigh of relief, and then his gaze ran over her, making that warm feeling ignite into something white-hot and addictive. He smiled back at her, making him almost too handsome to handle.
“You look fantastic.” His voice became low and seductive as he tilted his head, eyeing her once more. “I was gonna try and play it cool, but there’s no way I’m gonna be able to pretend I don’t find you sexy as hell when you’re wearing a dress like that.”
“Thank you.” She felt a pleased blush stain her cheeks. “You look good too.
Amazing, actually. That suit is, whew—” Jules shook her head as she studied him looking pressed and perfect, with his black hair pushed away from his chiseled, striking features. Even with the healing wounds from the fight with Clay and the scar through his left eyebrow, he looked incredible when she took in the full package. “You’re one fine-looking man, Romeo Wellings, but I suppose you know that.”
33
Romeo puffed out his chest in a way that was actually charming. He smoothed a hand down his suit jacket vainly, his smile growing broader. “It’s still nice to hear.” Jules laughed and hit his shoulder, relieved for the crack in sexual tension that was so thick between them she could hardly breathe past it. “Cocky.”
“I won’t deny it. Which is why this is weird for me.” Romeo’s voice lowered as he leaned into her. His warm breath fanned against her neck, making Jules shiver as he said, “You’re so beautiful you make me feel humble. Being with you scares me, and I’m not real sure what to do about it.”
She tilted her head, meeting Romeo’s beautiful emerald gaze, knowing desire was written all over her face. She leaned into him rather than away and stood on her toes to whisper in his ear. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m not your enemy.” They stood there for one long moment, sharing the same space, vibrating with the strange passion that had welled up around them without any warning.
Then Romeo boldly slid one hand to the curve of her lower back and rested it there possessively as he smiled once more. “Then let’s have dinner.” She smiled back. “I’d love to.”
Romeo kept ahold of her, his large hand sliding to the curve of her waist when they turned to walk into the restaurant. He pulled her closer, and Jules let herself enjoy the warm, masculine smell of him, man and expensive cologne mixing together perfectly.
The butterflies in her stomach were going crazy. Her neck was hot with exhilaration. A part of her was half-worried Wyatt was going to sneak down and spy on her date out of boredom, but Jules wouldn’t have changed anything about this night even with the risk. For just a moment Romeo had her feeling like a real-life Juliet, and she was okay with that.