Chapter Twenty-Four
Tess
“Hi everyone,” Ryan began as the cake turned to cement in my mouth. “I’ve gotten to meet a few of you here tonight, and maybe a couple of you know me a little bit from before tonight.” A low chuckle rumbled through the crowd. They knew who Ryan McDonnell was. Half the women in the tent had cocktail napkins and pens sitting in front of their dinner plates, trying to work up the nerve to ask him for an autograph.
“Anyway, I’m Ryan, and the first thing I wanted to say is happy birthday, Helen.” He turned and smiled at Gran, who had dropped her knife and was grinning at him and eating her cake, watching this unexpected spectacle. She gave him a quick thumbs up, and I watched Ryan take a deep breath, seem to force his broad shoulders down, and turn to look back at the crowd.
“Quit it,” I hissed at her. “You’re not on his side.”
“His side?” she looked at me questioningly.
God, he was handsome. I wished I didn’t notice.
But it didn’t hurt anything just sitting here appreciating, right?
Eating cake, looking at handsome men. Those things were harmless.
I’d noticed the way he looked earlier, of course. But now I could openly appreciate it. The tux fit him perfectly, the jacket hitting him just high enough to appreciate the way his waist narrowed into lean hips and that perfect round ass. His jacket hugged his arms and shoulders, rippling as he moved and leaving no doubt about the sheer strength of the body beneath. A body I’d gotten to run my hands over, trace my mouth across. I squeezed my eyes shut hard and tried not to remember.
It was impossible, and my body heated at just the memory of his stubble grazing the sensitive skin along my collarbone.
“I also wanted to thank you all for welcoming me here. The Manchester family especially. Juliet, of course, and Tess.” He looked at me then, and when our eyes met, an electric zing jolted through me. I’d been avoiding making eye contact with him all night. Especially since returning from the barn. Now that I had, I knew why I had to avoid it. I hoped I’d still be able to walk straight.
“I’ve never been to Maryland before,” he went on. “Never really even considered the place, if you want the truth. I grew up out west, and my education probably wasn’t what it could have been. Will you all hate me if I tell you I never knew Maryland had beaches?” He shrugged as a few people laughed. “I knew about the crabs.” He delivered this line looking right at me, and I felt my cheeks heat, but made sure not to let my eyes meet his for more than a glance.
As the crowd shifted in their seats, I wondered what the hell he was doing. Was he really this much of a diva that he needed to commandeer the microphone at an old lady’s birthday party? But then he started in a different direction.
“Most of you here have been told I came to Maryland with Juliet. That’s true. At least in one sense. We did fly out here together. We’ve been working together, and our agents thought it would be a good idea for us to spend more time together off set. That kind of thing is good for the movie. I suggested to Juliet it would be even better if people thought we were together—like, as a couple.”
The crowd murmured and a burst of shock ran through me. It hadn’t been his idea. She’d told me her agent orchestrated the whole thing. Why was he lying?
“That kind of falseness is part of our business, I guess. My agent thought it was a great idea, good for my career especially. And Juliet was sweet enough to invite me to join her here to celebrate her grandmother’s birthday party. So I came along.
“I thought I’d hang out, meet some people, pretend to be dating Juliet Manchester and then go back to LA with a bright and shiny newly buoyant career. I hoped for all that really, because I honestly haven’t really ever hoped for anything else. Hollywood saved me from some of the things that weren’t great in my life, gave me things I’d never dreamed I’d have. But I think it takes some things from us, too.” He looked at Juliet, and she nodded at him.
I watched her a beat longer, and had the sense she had just given him some kind of silent permission, her approval.
“So when I got here and met a woman who made me reevaluate everything I thought I knew about the world, about myself, about what was possible and what I thought I wanted … well, I didn’t expect any of it.
My heart raced and I glanced at my sister, who looked perfectly fine with this little speech. He was going to out them? What would happen to her? At the same time, my skin warmed with the knowledge he was talking about me, talking to me, and my desire to know what he’d say next overwhelmed my worry for my sister.
“And when she allowed me time to know her a little bit, time to explore this amazing place and to imagine a life that didn’t include fake relationships, a security detail, and a magazine reporter scribbling your every word on a tablet—“ he paused and most of the crowd turned to look at Alison Sands, who was too busy scribbling his every word into a tablet to notice. “Well, Tess Manchester let me dream with her just a little bit. And the funny thing is, I don’t think any of it was a dream. I think what you people have here, this place, this life—this is the real world. And what you have here, whether you know it or not—getting to be this close to Tess Manchester every single day? I’d trade anything for
