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He stood up too and grabbed hold of her arm. ‘What doesn’t matter to you?’
‘Who you take to your bloody premiere.’ The minute the shout had left her lips, she knew she’d given herself away. Big time.
It did matter. It mattered a lot. And now he knew it did too.
But instead of gloating, or trying to placate her—which would have been far worse—he simply stared. ‘Juno. It’s you who I’m taking with me,’ he said at last. ‘Why would I take someone else?’
‘Me?’ she asked, the huge rush of relief quickly followed by a wave of mortification. What was wrong with her? Why had it meant so much to her? She didn’t even want to go. Really. ‘But I can’t go,’ she said in a small voice. ‘That would be ridiculous.’
He grasped her other arm to stop her turning away. ‘And why can’t you?’ he murmured. ‘What would be ridiculous about it?’
She looked down, the blush burning her scalp. ‘It’s just …’ Why was he making her say it? ‘It wouldn’t look right. I wouldn’t look right. I’m not that sort of woman.’
He tilted his head. ‘And what sort of woman would that be, now?’
Glamorous. Sophisticated. Beautiful.
‘The sort of woman who goes to movie premieres,’ she mumbled.
‘Juno, you slay me.’ He chuckled. ‘You don’t seriously think they’re better than you?’
‘Of course not.’ Or not exactly. ‘But I’d be completely out of my element.’
‘And thank God for it,’ he said with a vehemence that made her heart stutter.
‘I don’t even have anything fancy to wear …’ she added, a little desperate now. However pleased she was that he’d asked her, did she really want to expose their relationship to any more public scrutiny?
‘We’ll go to Rodeo, then,’ he said easily. ‘Get you something fancy. I know a stylist will be able to help.’
Her heart stumbled. Why was he doing this?
He brushed his thumb across her chin. ‘The only thing those women can do better than you is show off. And believe me, even in Hollywood, showing off as a life skill is overrated.’
Tears prickled at the backs of her eyelids—and the band around her heart tightened. He shouldn’t say these things. Because it felt like more now, more than it was ever meant to be.
‘So will you come to the premiere with me?’ he asked. ‘I’d be in your debt.’
When he put it like that, what choice did she have? She nodded mutely, her heart thumping in her chest like a sledgehammer. ‘I suppose so, if you’re sure.’
‘I am.’
Mac watched Juno leave to get her shoes and bag and cursed himself for being all kinds of a fool.
He should have taken the opportunity to make up a fictitious date—and told her she couldn’t come with him to the Death Game premiere.
Ever since yesterday he’d been trying to create some distance between them. For his own good as well as hers. Because she was really starting to scare him.
The way she’d somehow got him to talk about things he’d not told another living soul. The way she’d cried for him when she’d never even cried for herself. The way she still looked at him as if he were one of the good guys, when he’d told her as plain as day that he wasn’t. The way she seemed to be able to see right through all the defences he’d constructed so carefully over time and make him need things he didn’t want to need.
He didn’t just feel involved any more, he felt… Hell, he wasn’t even sure what he felt. Which could not be good.
And yet, when his agent had reminded him about the premiere tonight, he’d known instantly he wanted her on his arm—because she would make the whole ordeal that much more bearable.
And as soon as the thought had occurred to him it had annoyed the hell out of him. And he’d taken it out on her.
But how could he have known his irritable invitation would make her jump to entirely the wrong conclusion? Once he’d seen the crushed expression on her face, he’d felt like the worst kind of heel.
He sat at the table and picked up his cell phone to dial the stylist.
