She couldn’t stop herself and scrolled through the dozens of places that Mason’s mouth shouldn’t have been.
Mason cleared his throat. “Can we talk about this later?”
It wasn’t like they were in love. But they had very clear parameters under which they would get married. She hadn’t asked for anything other than the security that came with a partner. The safety and security from a friend—ish—who had promised they could be solid business partners in public and private.
Mason had always wanted the world, to have his name next to hers, to tap into her fan base—to make money off her.
Her goals were less lofty but no less important. Love was for fools, but she craved the stability that came from a partner. More crucially, she wanted to dissuade her stalker with the barrier of holy matrimony.
“Jules?”
She ignored his pleading and visually sifted through his groomsmen. One after another, their guilt was displayed like a billboard of shame and embarrassment. They had all known. Of course they had.
She might have been a fool, but Mason had just ruined the best business deal that he would ever come across.
Abigail rested her hand on her shoulder. Jules turned to her sister, needing to escape and uncertain how to handle the unscripted crisis. Sloane had disappeared to do whatever the Sloane Ellises of the world did to handle catastrophic PR nightmares.
Holding her head high and hiding the jumble of emotions she couldn’t make sense of in front of too many people, Jules walked down the aisle, followed by the parade of gorgeous, furious bridesmaids.
Chapter Two
With autopilot fully engaged, Jules remained upright and on her feet. It was her only task as Abigail bulldozed into the staging tent at the end of the aisle. Behind their entourage, the murmurs and whispers turned into a full-fledged buzz before the white canvas flaps closed.
Jules wasn’t heartbroken, yet she felt so profoundly betrayed. Little shards of jagged disappointment tumbled and turned with every hurried step, ripping apart the security blanket that her marriage to Mason had promised. What would her stalker say now?
Abigail didn’t slow down as their gaggle flew through the oversize staging tent.
“Where’s Sloane?” Jules stumbled, only to be yanked up by the veil bundled into Yasmin’s arms like a newborn baby.
A newborn baby.Mason was going to be a dad. Olivia would be the mom. Somewhere in Las Vegas, gamblers were betting on whether the baby would be a boy or a girl. She’d seen the oddson when she and Mason might have a child. The answer was never. Children had been thoroughly discussed during contract negotiations. She didn’t want any. He had shared the sentiment. At least not with her.
Did everyone know?
Did anyone know?
The groomsmen did. Absolutely. Had her bridesmaids had any idea Olivia was pregnant? That Olivia and Mason were together? If they had, it would all come out in the news. Jules imagined Sloane interviewing each bridesmaid in a CIA black site. By the end of the night, they’d know who’d known what, even if Sloane wouldn’t really resort to spy interrogation techniques. At least, probably not.
Spycraft or not, Sloane would finagle a plan to save Jules from the ridicule that would roast her alive as the ugly truth swept through gossip bloggers like a flood breaking through a dam in a desert.
Jules searched for Sloane. “Do you see her?”
“She’ll find us.” Abigail ordered the herd of bridesmaids to stay close.
Abigail still had Sloane’s phone, but Sloane had likely confiscated one of her assistants’ devices, blocking and forwarding phone numbers like a gunslinger in the Wild, Wild West.
Her security team materialized from the shadows. Her eyes locked with Rhys Callaghan.
She didn’t let herself wonder, not even for a second, what it would have felt like to ask him instead.
He’d been by her side for years. She distrusted him, and she needed him.
They were a contradiction in everything, yet the sight of him somehow promised all today would be okay. Sloane Ellis might be a ruthless media mastermind. But Rhys, with his rigidrules and whatever-it-takes-to-get-the-job-done attitude, kept the insanity at bay, and she bet he didn’t do so-so sex and knock up bridesmaids.
The man lived for his job and nothing else. Then again, she’d never met a person who worked in her world who detested Hollywood the way he did.
“I got her.” Rhys took over the charge, relegating Abigail to Jules’s side.
The security team swept them through the hotel lobby like that time someone had yelled, “Gun!” at a red-carpet event. Rhys and his colleague Wes Wilder forged the path into the hotel, flanked by the pack of bridesmaids. Aaliyah and Tabitha stayed close to her side. Yasmin carried the heavy train of the dress.
