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“Ryan.” Joe’s voice was a warning rumble.
Ryan was unaffected. He was far too excited by his revelations. “Do you know who your girlfriend is?”
At any other time, Julia would have freaked out at being called Joe’s girlfriend. Not this time. This time, she couldn’t speak at all. Her throat was solid. There was a reason she kept her past hidden. And she couldn’t open her mouth to tell Ryan not to reveal her secrets. She couldn’t do anything but stand there and wait.
“You’re dating acting royalty, dude,” Ryan told Joe. “Julia’s mum is Libby Collins, as in three-time Oscar winner Libby Collins. Her sister is Belinda Collins. I can’t remember how many Oscars she’s been up for, but I’m pretty sure one of them was just for being hot. Daniel Collins, her young brother, does those superhero movies.” Ryan looked at Julia. “If he needs a coach to help with the action scenes, I’m available. Then there’s her dad; he’s a director. He has an Oscar as well, or is it two?”
“Two.” Patricia looked about ready to rip Ryan’s head off.
Ryan didn’t care. He was beaming widely now. “And Julia. Our Julia was a child star. She had her own TV show and everything. People were always going on about her voice. She was some singing genius or something.” He frowned at Julia. “And then you disappeared. People thought you were dead, and all your family ever said was that show business wasn’t for you and you’re happy doing other stuff.”
Julia waited, prepared for someone to mock her for going from child star to office manager. It didn’t come.
“You about done?” Joe’s voice was pure menace.
“No,” the dense man said, oblivious to the rage emanating from Joe. “Why the big secret, Julia?”
Julia looked around at the astonished faces of the people who were closest to her. She didn’t need to be a mind reader to know what they were thinking. She’d heard it all before. You were famous? You want to run an office instead of performing? What’s wrong with you? Why couldn’t you cope with fame when everyone else in your family can?
“This is why,” Julia whispered to the silent room.
Joe tugged her hand. “I need medical attention.”
“Five minutes,” Callum called after them. “We need a debrief. In the meantime, I’m going to have a private word with my dumb-as-dirt employee.”
“What’d I do?” Ryan said.
But the damage had already been done. Everyone would think Julia was an even bigger freak than they’d thought she was before Ryan had outed her and her family.
And there was no denying they were right. She was a freak. A freak who was incapable of living a normal life. She cast a glance at Joe. And that included normal relationships too.
“I need to…” She cast around for an excuse for leaving him to sort himself out. “I should show Elle what I’ve pulled up before the meeting starts. You can sort yourself out, can’t you?”
She’d already disentangled her hand from his and was backing away from him.
Joe studied her for a moment. “We’ll get back to this later.” It sounded like a promise. Or a threat.
Julia didn’t care which. Keeping her head down, she skirted the edge of the room back to her bedroom, where she’d left her iPad on the closet floor.
With her iPad in her hand and her messenger bag across her body, she felt more able to face her team. This was who she was. Not the child star everyone remembered, but the full-grown woman who needed her security blankets to make it through the day. She closed her eyes as the memory of the years she’d spent acting washed over her. The times spent emptying her stomach before each performance. The nights spent awake and worrying about the next morning. The fear of going out in public, where there would be cameras shoved in her face. It was a lot for any child to cope with, but for one who was naturally shy, well, it had destroyed what little confidence she did have.
It hadn’t been her parents’ fault. They hadn’t pushed her. She’d wanted so badly to be the same as the rest of the family. And she’d failed spectacularly. But that was then. She wasn’t that person anymore. She would never be that person. She would always be the freak who could barely cope around other people. The freak who was better off alone.
With a deep breath, she went out to face her team, prepared to run and hide if the questions started again. When she came back into the room, everyone was glaring at Ryan and he was rubbing his jaw. But there weren’t any questions about her past.
Chapter 14
It felt all too familiar, meeting in a hotel room, talking about a woman being held hostage, planning a rescue.
“Anybody else got déjà vu?” Elle said, echoing Joe’s thoughts.
“It’s one in the morning.” Callum helped himself to coffee. “I’m knackered. Can we get this show on the road?” He looked over at Joe. “Want to update us?”
Joe turned his attention to Julia, who was curled into a ball in the armchair over at the window. As far away as she could get from everyone else without leaving the room. She was busy scanning notes on her iPad, but Joe suspected it was purely to avoid looking anyone in the eye. She hadn’t looked at him since she’d come back into the room. Thanks to Ryan’s big mouth, they’d taken a step backwards. He should have punched him twice. Joe didn’t give a damn who Julia’s family were. There was something seriously wrong with their relationship if she thought he would.
“Joe?” Callum prompted, clearly losing what little patience he had in reserve.
Joe couldn’t take his eyes off Julia. Every instinct he had, told him he’d stumbled onto her reason for retreating. He knew it, the same way he knew she belonged to him, on a cellular level. She thought they were comparing her to her famous family and finding her short. He’d bet anything she thought they considered her crazy for giving up her talents to work in an office. Couldn’t she see that the talents and skills she used at Benson Security were important too? She was thinking less of herself again, and he wouldn’t have it.
