A Reclusive Heart
Page 40

He opened the taxi door and gestured for her to get inside and barely held back her disappointed sigh as she resigned herself to riding to the hotel alone.
“We’ll meet you at the hotel,” Nick said as she closed her eyes and settled in for what she hoped was a short ride.
“Okay,” she said around a loud yawn.
“Okay, what?” Nick asked as he sat down next to her and took her hand into his.
She opened her mouth to explain that she thought that he was riding with Holly, but she was too damn exhausted to try. Instead, she curled up next to him and forced her eyes to stay open during the blessedly short ride.
It seemed like minutes later she was leaning against the wall near their things while she watched Nick check them all in. She was waiting to see how many rooms they had before telling him that she was getting her own room. She didn’t want to hurt Holly’s feelings unnecessarily by flat-out refusing to bunk with her.
Holly just stepped into the hotel foyer followed by a man pushing her bags on a trolley when Nick walked over to her. He handed her a keycard and one to Holly as she joined them.
“So we get our own rooms,” Jamie said, hoping that she didn’t sound too hopeful.
Nick shook his head as he reached down and grabbed his bags. “No, I’m afraid all of our original reservations still stand. Two of us are going to have to double bunk,” he announced and she wasn’t too busy trying to find a tactful way around it to notice the look Holly sent Nick. She knew the minute she was out of earshot that the woman was going to offer to share a room with Nick.
That wasn’t happening. She might be a pushover, but that didn’t mean that she was going to stand by quietly while some woman made a play for her boyfriend, she wasUtterly shocked that she thought of him as her boyfriend.
Even though he’d referred to her himself as her boyfriend a few times she hadn’t given it much thought mostly because she didn’t want to get her hopes up, but she realized that it was true. For the first time in her life she had a boyfriend.
She ignored the fact that that little bit of information was kind of pathetic and focused on the here and now and right now there was another woman interested in her man.
Although she wasn’t the down and dirty cat fight over a guy kind of girl that didn’t mean she was going to stand back while another woman made a play for Nick. She’d simply take the woman aside and explain to her that”Miss. Harris and I will be sharing a room,” Nick announced, shocking the woman and putting the matter to rest as far as she was concerned, which was a good thing since she really didn’t think she would have had much energy to explain anything to the woman at the moment. “We’ll see you in the morning. Have a good night, Holly,” Nick said, grabbing Jamie’s bag and throwing it over his shoulder once he had all of his things.
“Wait! You can’t do that!” Holly yelled after them.
“Goodnight,” was all Nick said as he ushered her onto the elevator. Just before the elevator doors closed she saw the look of fury on the woman’s face and thanks to growing up with Caitlyn, knew the woman was going to make her life a living hell.
Great, she thought dryly as the elevator doors closed. That’s all she needed to make her life perfect.
******
“I could have rented my own room,” Jamie mumbled as she stepped out of the bathroom, drying her damp her off and wearing a pair of light pink flannel pajama pants and a tiny white tee shirt that had his blood simmering.
“They were sold out for the night,” he lied. “It was either share a room with me or with Holy,” he explained, noting the pinched look on Jamie’s face at the suggestion. Not that he could blame her. The woman was incredibly annoying and that perfume of hers was strong enough to peel paint. She was also the last person that he wanted to tag along on this tour.
When he realized who Holly was he took Rick aside and told him to pick someone else. Unfortunately there was no one else. Correction, he could have had her replaced for this tour if he’d been willing to wait another couple of days but he hadn’t been.
After seeing those letters he wanted to get his little recluse the hell out of there as soon as possible and for damn good reason too. The reason of course was the death threats. It wasn’t uncommon for celebrities and authors to receive death threats from unhappy fans and psychos and he knew that she’d no doubt receive more over the years, but these letters were alarming.
Not only did they go into graphic detail about how the psycho wanted to kill Jamie, but the letters were all addressed to Jamie, not J.L. Lewis. That probably wouldn’t have been entirely alarming since her family took it upon themselves to give away her real name, but that had only been a few days ago. The letters dated back a month ago before anyone knew her real name. The other concern of course was that none of the letters had been sent through the mail.
There wasn’t a single postage stamp on any of the death threat letters which meant that whoever wrote them had them hand delivered to the building.
Thankfully Jamie’s landlord decided to throw her ass out otherwise he’d probably be having a hell of a time convincing her to move out. All of her things, her personal items like her computer, clothes and toiletries were being moved out of her place at that very moment. He’d convinced her to donate all of her furniture not because he really thought it was a nice thing to do like he claimed, but because it allowed the movers under Rick’s direction to get in and get the hell out without tipping anyone off about what they were doing.
They had a month left of this tour and he hoped the police were able to find the sick f**k before it was time to go home. If they didn’t some things were going to have to change and he was afraid those changes were going to push Jamie back into a corner and she’d go back to being afraid of her own shadow. It was only because they’d kept certain details from her that she wasn’t panicking right now. He’d just have to keep her distracted with work and other things in the meantime.
“Please tell me they have room service,” she mumbled in a sexy little whiny voice that had him smiling.
“They do, but the kitchen closed down an hour ago,” he explained as he grabbed his bag of toiletries and headed for the bathroom.
“Of course it did,” she said, dropping the menu back on the small rectangular coffee table and plopped down on the couch with a sigh.
The knock at the door had him biting back a smile. He ignored Jamie’s questioning look as he tossed her his small bag and headed for the door. When he opened it and spotted the bellhop, he stepped to the side so the man could roll the cart into the room.
With a polite smile the bellhop unloaded the two covered trays onto the coffee table and rolled the cart back towards the door where he stood waiting. He slipped the kid a hundred before shutting the door. That was one thing he learned long ago, in places like this money and position were everything. There wasn’t anything that he couldn’t get by greasing the wheels a little. It also didn’t hurt that the manager’s wife was a huge fan of J.L. Lewis and Nick promised him a set of signed copies if he opened the kitchen for his little recluse.
“What’s all this?” Jamie asked, shooting the covered trays a curious look.
“This,” he said, walking over to her and lifting the tray even as he bent to kiss her, “is dinner, sweetheart.”
“Is that double fudge cake?” his little sugar addicted asked on a gasp.
He chuckled as he set the cover down. It figured that she’d focus on the cake instead of the large plate overfilled with stuffed chicken breast, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, dressing and a few other things that were giving off a mouth watering aroma that had his stomach growling and reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
“It’s actually triple fudge with real Belgium chocolate and chocolate mousse in the middle,” he said, chuckling when she let a little reverent gasp of pleasure.
When she picked up her fork and went for the cake he wasn’t too surprised.
“I’m going to grab a quick shower before I eat. Try to eat some real food too, Jamie,”
he said as he stepped into the bathroom only to come to a halt and add, “and don’t touch my cake, woman!”