“Fake girlfriend.”
As if to mock the sentiment, he stoke confidently forward and slipped an arm around my waist. A host of shivers shot across my skin, but I did my best to keep my composure—fixing on a poker face smile that was just as good as his.
Two could play at this game. I’d coached the best of them. Surely I could do it myself.
“Now that that’s out of the way,” I could have sworn he winked as his hand strayed a tentative inch lower, “shall we?”
There was a low creak as the door started lowering open. A gust of crisp air flooded inside, and almost instinctively, Nick’s arm tightened around me. It was only then that I started to realize something was very, very wrong.
The airport was under siege...by an ARMY of reporters.
“What the fuck?”
It slithered through my teeth before I could stop it, and I cringed backward, molding myself into the little curve beneath Nick’s arm. Since my first day in PR, I had seen more than my share of journalists and paparazzi, but never before had I stood on this side of the cameras.
For the first time, I understood that split second of initial terror that came into so many of my client’s eyes. That instinctual urge to run from the swarming hordes, tempered almost immediately by the practiced habit of standing there instead. Letting them drink their fill.
This was how Nick lived his life? It felt like...this?
“How the hell did they even know we were coming?”
“I may have made a few calls,” Nick answered mischievously, so used to this level of invasive harassment that he was completely immune. My mouth fell open in shock, and he chuckled under his breath. “What can I say? I learned from the best.”
He certainly did. Everyone was here. The Times. The Harold. Associated presses from up and down the east coast. Even the San Francisco Chronicle had sent a representative. I didn’t think there was anyone he had missed.
“I can’t...” I caught my breath and quickly changed the end of that sentence. “I can’t believe you did all this.”
All at once, the weight of my innocent Barcelona decision settled hard upon my shoulders. This wasn’t some frivolous agreement, made outside an ice-cream parlor. It was dedicating myself to an entire way of life for the next three months.
The pros...and the cons.
“Well, you’re stepping into my world,” Nick’s arm tightened around me, and he looked out over the hordes of press with a measured smile, “I thought it was only fair that I take a few pages out of yours...”
I tried to nod, but it felt like my head wasn’t working. With so many pairs of eyes upon me, I suddenly felt as though I couldn’t do anything. Nothing felt natural. Everything felt staged.
Was this how I usually stood? With my feet angled like that? What about my hands—so clunky and in the way. Where the hell was I supposed to put my hands?!
“Hey.”
A gentle voice cut through my panic, heading it off before it could begin. I lifted my eyes to see Nick staring down at me, those blue eyes twinkling back into mine.
“Are you okay?”
All at once, I felt a sudden rush of confidence. Maybe it was the new clothes. Maybe it was the private jet. Maybe it was the fact that not only was I snuggled up in the arms of one of the most desirable men on the planet, but he was a man that I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, I could absolutely trust.
No matter what the reason, I lifted my chin and gazed boldly out across the hangar.
“Yeah—I’m fine.” My blood rose with the challenge. “Let’s do this.”
And that...was when everything fell apart.
I didn’t take one step—not one step—before the world around me lit up with blue. But not just any sort of blue. Not the kind that you could see through, or was, god-forbid, even remotely intermittent. No—this kind of blue pierced through your eyes even when they were closed, burning the retinas while effectively eliminating everything else around it. And it didn’t come and go. I realized this even as I caught my breath, waiting for some kind of relief. Nope, once it started, this kind of blue was here to stay.
I was blind. Absolutely, inescapably, blind.
“Nick—”
“I know,” he said softly, finishing my thought before I had to do it myself.