Wes burst into the hotel room, the door slamming against the wall. They jumped as Wes flew across the hotel room.
“Get the phone,” Rhys ordered. “It’s under the table.”
“Got it.”
“Half?” the man shouted. “Give you both half. Split it.”
Rhys handed the man to Wes and snagged the phone in exchange. Wes wrapped a beefy arm around the flailing man. Red-faced and veins bulging in his forehead, he struggled like a mouse in a barn cat’s mouth, locked in place. Rhys held up the phone to the man’s face. Boom. Unlocked.
That move was far savvier than Jules would have given him credit for. The drama played out like an absurd scene onForever Falls. It was almost too much to be true.
“Fifty percent. Sixty?”
“Fuck right off, man.” Rhys selected photos.
“This is against the law. You’re stealing. Those are my pictures.”
Rhys hummed, casually scrolling and deleting photos like he was bored and waiting for an Uber at the end of a long, miserable day. Or maybe today was only long and miserable for her. Either way, he’d transitioned into a cell phone superhero. Scarlett Wu would be proud of him.
Oh… Titan’s Scarlett Wu.That answered the where-was-Sloane question. If anyone could hunt and destroy gossip fodder of the likes of today, Scar could.
Sloane and Scar would be proud of Rhys. His thumbs tapped and scrolled again. He was probably checking the deleted folder.
Tap, tap, tap.
How quickly did a cell phone back up its photo gallery to its cloud? The backup couldn’t have uploaded faster than Rhys deleted.
His lips tugged down, and after another casual moment perusing, Rhys handed the device back. The man, still buckled to Wes, jabbered on and on about how he was going to sue and he was entitled, like he wasn’t belted to a bodyguard about to throw him out on his ass.
Rhys and Wes shared an unspoken conversation. Yasmin and Aaliyah hunkered next to Abigail on the couch. This wasn’t the first time paparazzi had paid off hotel staff, but it might be the most memorable.
The world wanted to know how shattered Jules was. They wanted pictures of her sobbing into her wedding veil and eating ice cream straight from a carton, mascara-inked tears trailing down her cheeks. Jules wasn’t anywhere close to that. Maybe she should have been. But that required a belief in true love, and that wasn’t her.
Love had proved itself to be a liar long ago. She wouldn’t let it destroy her from the inside out again.
Wes dragged the wannabe paparazzo out of the room. The door slammed like a bold end to an action sequence. The silence percolated. No one found the right words to interrupt the ridiculousness that had arrived with gourmet ice cream. Tabitha would vibrate from jealousy that she’d missed this spectacle.
“Um, thank you.” Abigail shattered the uncomfortable silence that bounced off the hotel room walls. “Those pictures were probably worth forty thousand.”
“At least,” Jules added.
Rhys grumbled, explaining it was all part of the job.
This would be one more reason that he hated Hollywood. One more reason Jules would continue to hire him until he was done with the circus that always showed up whenever she walked intoa room. He ran a hand through the loose strands of his dark hair and gestured to the ice cream. “What do you want?”
Ice cream had been a sound plan. Now it mocked them like a children’s treat incapable of soothing the stress she’d brought upon herself.
He picked up the ice cream scoop and tossed it. The heavy metal scoop rotated like a baton before he caught it. “It’ll melt. What do you want?”
She could scoop her stupid ice cream. Did he think her that fragile? A pampered, brokenhearted princess who had everyone candy-coating her nightmare with sugar and calories.
She tightened the sash on her robe and moved to his side. Everything Abigail had ordered awaited them. But Jules couldn’t swallow the ache growing in her throat. Couldn’t blink away the burning behind her eyes. An unexpected sob caught in her throat. The whimper couldn’t be choked into submission.
Rhys glanced down, a glare flaring in his midnight eyes.
Oh, the judgment.
She refused to cry over Mason Marlow. But the ice cream might make her crack.
