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“What do you think I’m made of, Julius?”
He offered that crooked smile. “Why, sugar and spice, of course. And the strength you need to get through the rest of the concert, and the next and the next after that.”
Her eyelids fluttered on his words that touched her beyond anything yet. Then she did something she never thought in a million years that she’d do.
She went on tiptoe and brushed a kiss over his beard-roughened cheek. “Thank you.”
ChapterFive
“She brought up whether or not she should give a statement about what really happened on the tape.” Julius watched his boss’s reaction. He already had thoughts about how that would affect her. Her worry for her career aside, Avalynn was above all a private person.
“What’s your take on that?” Clay asked.
“That she’ll regret it as soon as it’s out. Then it will be too late to take it back.”
“All right, then until she tells us she’s giving that statement, we stay alert. We can’t afford to let down our guard at this point.” Clay’s command had the Sentry team nodding in understanding. They broke from the ring they’d gathered in, and Julius headed straight for Lark.
She gripped a small shopping bag and bounced on the toes of her Converse sneakers as he approached.
“You got it?” he asked.
“Right here.” She held out the bag.
He took it like a junkie accepting a kilo of coke. The knowledge of what was inside didn’t scare him the way he expected it to.
He glanced around the corridor. The Sentry team was still hanging around, except for Jennings, who’d escorted Avalynn to her interview. Long after she walked away from him, that look that she’d sent etched itself on his mind, an imprint like the brightest sun after he shut his eyes.
He must look much like how Quaide was staring at Dove, who, at Julius’s bidding, had been called in from Colorado. She stepped toward him with an amused smile.
He gripped the bag tighter. “I guess we’re committed to this.”
She and Lark traded a look. Dove leaned in, her voice an urgent whisper. “Are youkidding? Do you know how much work went into this plan? How can you even think about backing out?”
“I do know how much work went into the plan. And I appreciate all you did.Weappreciate it,” he corrected. He stared at the closed door ten feet away. “She’s still in with the reporter fromRolling Stone?”
Lark nodded. “You were right, too. She doesn’t even know what city she’s in. She won’t have any idea about the surprise in the des—”
He cut her off. “Good. Stick to the plan.”
The plan involving him and Avalynn, a picnic in the desert and the item inside this bag.
The door cracked open, and Heidi exited first. She gave him a haughty look that might have made him laugh if his nerves weren’t snapping.
“I wish I could get her alone. There are too many people hanging around,” he muttered to Lark. The press conference was in the hotel ballroom. The lobby was packed with reporters and VIPs who’d been given passes hoping to get a minute alone with Avalynn. It was a security nightmare, and one he wanted his ward out of ASAP.
Through the open door, he spotted Jennings standing within reach of Avalynn. TheRolling Stonereporter had been interrogated at length by Quaide, so Julius knew the man was no threat to Avalynn.
The guy from the magazine shook Avalynn’s hand. She clasped it with a warm smile lighting her face. Not many would know how forced that expression truly was.
She saw Julius, and eagerness lit up her big brown eyes. She rushed toward him, with Jennings right behind her.
Several lights flashed as people snapped photos of her. Julius strode forward, and Jennings handed her off with a nod. Something in her expression sent tenderness burning through his chest.
Before he acknowledged what he was about to do, he looped an arm around her back and drew her close the same way he had during the concert. She melted into his arms.
He dropped his lips to her forehead.
A few gasps sounded, and more cameras captured the moment.
