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“Why did you bring her now when it can’t be? What can I do not to lose her?” He raises his eyes to the moon. “Just tell me, and I’ll do it.”
Jack’s sincerity, his longing, drives cracks through my resolve. Every word he speaks finds an echo in my heart. He’s not blowing past our duty to the show or what being together might cost us. Even though he understands why we shouldn’t be, he still doesn’t want to lose me. My chest aches from holding in breath. I release it in a gust and press a hand to my heart.
Perspective I planned to find while Jack was away hits me with blunt force, and tears splatter down my cheeks. I do want a life waking up next to him in the morning. Yes, the show and our careers matter, but Jack matters more. He’s right. The challenge of being together is ours to solve, together. Damn Treat and his emotional wrecking ball for making me believe running is the right choice. Happiness is the right choice. Jack is the right choice.
I move so lightly up the hill, it’s as if I’m floating. Call it faerie wishes or fate that brought me back up this hill, it doesn’t matter. My decision is made. Not vetted, over analyzed, or dissected, simply made. I wrap my arms around Jack from behind and lay my head against his fortress of a back. He doesn’t speak. His heartbeats reverberate through his body into mine. Neither of us moves. We become part of night’s stillness.
If I leave Jack now, he will forever be a beautiful place I lingered in for a moment, the beginning of potential love never to be visited again. Here on the hilltop, I return to paradise. If I stay, there is no going back to a life free of secrets. This time, I’m not being forced into a secret alone. We will be the secret together.
I breathe out a single phrase. “Ten and we’ll own this.”
With painstaking slowness, Jack swivels within my arms as if he’s afraid any rapid movement will send me running. He grasps my hands and traps them against his chest. “Swear to me you aren’t faerie magic come to break my heart.” The words are barely out of his mouth when thunder rolls over the line of nearby hills. His eyes dart toward the sound and then back to me.
“I swear.”
“Last night, I dreamed I was pulled underwater. My arms and legs were bound so I couldn’t swim.” The breath he takes is powerful enough to push against me. “Looking up, I saw you above the water.” He stretches a strand of my hair. “Your hair shone like rubies. You called to me, but I fell farther away.” He leans in so our foreheads touch. “I couldn’t bear the agony of not touching you. I welcomed the drowning, but it didn’t come. Only the falling.” His grip tightens. “You walking down that hill away from me was that dream come to be.”
Bringing our joined hands to my lips, I whisper against his skin. “I’ll play in your tournament, and we’ll try to figure out this mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.
He adds a kiss on top of mine and whispers.“Mo chroí.”
I press against him. “You said that before. What does it mean?”
The moon’s brightness reflects off tears welling in Jack’s eyes. He truly looks like a being not quite of this earth. “My heart.”
I lay a hand over his heart, feeling its strong beat under my touch.“Mo chroí.”
Icy wind slices across the hilltop, and Jack cocoons us inside his cloak. We hold tight to one another as rain begins to fall.
ChapterSeventeen
Paranoia is an effective motivator. I skitter around the writer’s room like a chipmunk on stimulants, doing my damnedest to anticipate everyone’s needs. Despite Jack’s assurances that Moose is trustworthy, my eyes flick toward the door with every movement, expecting the stable master to barge in and expose me.
“For God sakes, Gillian,” says Maureen, throwing a pencil at me, “if you don’t stop spinning around the room, I’m going to need Dramamine.”
I stoop to pick up the pencil. “Sorry. Can I get you some coffee?”
She throws her arms wide to block me. “Step away from the coffeemaker.” Maureen kicks out a chair and nods to it. “Sit. Bobby forbade us from asking you to fetch coffee.
I roll the pencil back to her. “I go a little crazy when I don’t have something to do.”
A script comes sailing through the air and lands with a smack on the table in front of me. “Let’s read. I need to hear it.” Maureen turns her chair backwards to straddle it. “You’re Donal Cam.”
As I read Jack’s lines, an ache for him tolls inside me like a bell. He’s been gone for three days on night shoots up in Northern Ireland. The vampire schedule he keeps is in direct opposition to my days here at The Clan, so we’ve only texted. I erase them immediately, certain I’ll do something idiotic like leave my phone out on the big table in the writer’s room for everyone to see Jack’s messages. I added another layer of security by changing his contact name toCheese and Onion Pie.
“Nice accent,” says Maureen. “You’ve nailed Jack’s speech pattern.”
Heat rolls across my face as I focus on the wordsyou’ve nailed Jack.“It’s pretty distinct.”
Maureen laughs. “It’s just plain pretty, like the rest of him. Damn fine casting.”
“Was the Donal Cam in your head from the books anything like Jack?”
Maureen straightens her arms and arches back as if she’s in the throes of the best sex ever. “So-oh-oh-oh much better.” She snaps to attention. “And if you ever tell him I said that, I will have to kill you.”
Even though Maureen is clowning around, I sense she’s as smitten with Jack as every other female on the planet aged fourteen to four hundred. The pulsing waves of lust crashing over Jack from every direction knock my spine out of alignment. If only I had the freedom to snarl“Stay away from my man”to the feminine collective.
Jack’s ringtone chimes from the pocket of my jeans. “Excuse me, Maureen. I’m expecting a call from L.A.” I quickly do the math in my head to make sure the time differential makes sense. Check.
