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“What?” Lorna recoiled. “No!”
“What do you think your dad would say if he saw you running his company into the ground?”
Lorna’s face crumpled. And I saw red.
I roared in anger and the vlogger turned just in time to get my fist in his face. The punch took him right off his feet and he went flying backwards to land in a heap on the ground. His phone sailed through the air and hit the ground with a very satisfying crack.
“See how many likes that gets,” I snarled.
19
LORNA
The asshole vlogger had hit me exactly where I was most vulnerable. I felt myself break, and he was getting it all on video. The other reporters closed in, eager for tears—
And then JD was there and the vlogger was just gone, like a truck had hit him. All the cameras swung around to point at JD. It gave me a precious few seconds to get my armor back in place. Which was good, because now he needed me.
The vlogger was trying to get up and JD was marching forward, ready to hit him again. I grabbed his arm and spoke in his ear. “No! Come on!” I towed him into the site office.
Thankfully, the press weren’t allowed inside. I shut the door and spun to face JD, not mad, exactly, just panicked and worried. “Why did you do that? You can’t hit people!”
“He had it coming.” JD glanced at the door, ready to storm back out there.
I put my palms on his chest and pressed him back against the wall. “That’s not how we deal with things!”
“That’s how I deal with things.”
“You could get sued! It was just words.”
He scowled. “Well, those words were upsetting you.”
I just…melted. No man had ever been so fiercely protective of me, before. And it hit me that protecting people was what he did. He’d protect me even if it put him in danger, even if I begged him not to. Getting frustrated with him for that would be like getting mad at a guard dog for barking at an intruder. “Thank you,” I told him.
His scowl faded and he gave me a gruff little nod. Then, as his head came up, those prairie-sky eyes locked with mine and a wave of raw heat slammed into me. I saw his eyes flick to the soft skin at the side of my neck. Then to my breasts. My lips.
I realized my hands were still pressed to his chest. The heat of him was soaking into my palms through the thin cotton of his shirt. He pushed off from the wall, his muscles moving under my hands and loomed over me, huge and rough and gorgeous. I caught my breath. “JD…”
“They’re—” A female voice from the doorway, abruptly cut off.
JD and I spun and saw one of the company PR people poking her head around the door. Her eyes were big and worried, her cheeks flushing. “Sorry. They’re ready for you on stage.”
I dropped my hands from JD’s chest as if scalded. “Thanks,” I mumbled. “Coming.”
She retreated into the hallway. When I looked back to JD, he was glaring off into a corner, as if furiously trying to get himself under control. Had he been about to— God, what would have happened if she hadn’t walked in?
I’d have to think about that later. The speech! I could feel the panic starting in my chest. All those people focused on me…
A big hand gripped my shoulder. I looked up and his eyes were tender, the lust locked down tight. “Don’t worry,” he told me. “You’ll be great.”
We followed the PR woman down a hallway and out of a side door to where a stage had been set up. Maybe no one will have come, I thought hopefully. Then I saw the crowd and my stomach dropped. There were at least a couple of hundred people there, plus the press. The PR woman was beckoning me forward but I felt like my feet were glued to the floor.
JD looked me right in the eye and nodded. You got this.
I forced myself to walk over to the podium, praying they couldn’t see my legs shaking. I spread out my notes.
“Um.”
Hundreds of expectant faces looked up at me. Cameras and phones ate up every second of awkward silence, starting a feedback loop in my mind. I’ve screwed this up already!
I looked down at my notes. The PR department had written them: smooth, safe marketing fluff about going forward into the future. Miles or my dad could have sold it, because they could sell anything. But there was no substance for my weird brain to lock onto and my mind just stalled, like an engine trying to run on water. I could see the journalists glancing at one another and grinning: this is a trainwreck.
I scanned the crowd and found Paige. She’d volunteered to come, just so there’d be one friendly face. She was chewing her lip, her eyes willing me on. I glanced into the wings and saw JD, his body tensed as if he was about to run on, toss me over his shoulder and rescue me, and that sounded amazing, however bad it would look. But I had to do this, for my dad.
