LEXI: I didn’t need to know that. Now I can’t concentrate. What a visual. Don’t get your stitches wet and don’t faint.

She pulled a toothbrush from the display, tossed it into the basket, and moved on.

JAX: I love the way you take care of me. Next shower will be together.

“Jesus,” she muttered and paused at the ice cream display. Found an all-fruit peach sorbet and tossed it in, grabbed a quart of milk…and smiled as she picked up a can of whipped cream.

“Enjoy him while you have him. He’s not known for staying with any one woman long.”

Lexi’s smile fell.

“Have I told you I love you yet today?”

Her mind spun. Her heart squeezed. She closed her eyes and shook all the confusion away. They definitely needed to talk.

Twenty-Three

Jax paused the movie as Lexi answered her phone. He prayed she didn’t have to go out, and from her end of the conversation, it sounded like his prayer had been answered.

When she disconnected, her blue eyes smiled up at him from where her head lay on his belly. “Claire and David just left the reception for their honeymoon.”

He smiled, leaned down, and kissed her. “Congratulations on your first successful day off in fifteen years.” Then he spooned peach sorbet into her beautiful mouth and kissed her again.

Jax was feeling a hell of a lot better now, eight hours after starting the antibiotic, but he could still feel the drag in his body. He was so grateful Lexi had taken care of covering his shoots the next couple of days. It was good for his guys and for him.

“I feel guilty,” she said, “but I have to admit, it feels incredibly…decadent too.”

She reached up and pressed her hand to Jax’s forehead, then the side of his face, then his neck. And smiled. “Fever’s down.”

He covered her hand, sighed, and pulled it to his mouth for a kiss. “Your touch feels decadent.”

When he opened his eyes, she smiled, but the look was still worried. “What’s wrong? You haven’t been the same since you left for the market.”

“You’re awfully sensitive,” she tried to tease.

“I’m perceptive, and I’ve had enough people pull away from me to know when it’s happening.”

She shook her head. “I’m not. There’s just a lot on my mind.”

“What happened?” he asked again.

“Rubi called. She heard rumblings about me from Jessie’s wedding and wanted to know what they were about.”

It was starting. Not twenty-four hours after being in public together for the first time, and it was already happening. And they hadn’t even truly been together at the wedding. He sighed, reached over to the laptop she had perched on her thighs where the movie filled the screen, and closed the lid.

“What did she say?” As if he didn’t already know.

“I really don’t care what she said. I’d rather hear about you from you.”

“What would you like to know?”

She lifted her shoulder. “Whatever you’d like to tell me?”

Jax licked the spoon, then put the ice cream on the bedside table. He wound a piece of her hair around his finger and decided to start with what would be most important to Lexi.

“I’ve spent my life working hard and playing harder. Was caught up in the whole Hollywood scene for several years. I’ve been successful but not truly happy. When I started taking different types of roles, looking for that…satisfaction, that…elusive happiness, it caused a rift in my already shaky relationship with my parents.”

“Also actors, I hear,” she said.

Jax nodded. “An ugly web, really.”

“I’ve heard uglier,” she said. “Go on.”

“As the rift with my parents grew, my life got shaky. My relationships with my brothers went south too. And even though my family roots were shallow, they were my only roots. Without that, I kind of…” He shrugged. “I just lost my way.”

“How old were you?”

“Early twenties. Twenty-two, twenty-three. Decent looking with a truckload of money, a famous family, a famous face, and no one who gave a goddamn about me.”

Her thumb cruised over his cheekbone. A small smile turned her mouth. “You’re lucky you’re still alive.”

“Damn straight.” He loved that she understood the deeper meaning. That she didn’t make a big drama out of it. “I met Wes on a movie set. He was grabbing stunt gigs where he could. I loved doing my own stunts but ended up standing by, arms crossed, watching guys like Wes having all the fun because the insurance company on the films wouldn’t let me do them.

“Then Wes would walk off the set like nobody, have drinks with friends, and go home to a sweet woman. No stalkers, no cameras in his windows, no interruptions when he tried to go out to dinner. Real people in his life. When that movie was over, I decided to drop acting and pick up stunts.

“In my own defense, since then, my only bad-boy tendencies have been related to riding motorcycles, playing with fire, and jumping from buildings.”

“And picking up women,” Lexi said.

Jax’s mouth turned up in a lopsided grin. “Which was something I was trying to change when you texted me at the airport.”

“That was what, then? Falling off the wagon?” She laughed, the sound soft but light. No jealousy darkened her face. Both refreshing and a little…unnerving. “Because you slept with me sight unseen.”

“I don’t remember much sleeping,” he said, loving the way her eyes darkened with memories. “And that was a huge feat for me. Looks have always been important. Too important. It was one of the things I was trying to get over. That and choosing women who walk all over me and treat me like shit—or so Wes likes to say.”

“Ah,” she said. “That explains his attitude when I talked to him. He thinks I’m another one of those women.”

“Not…exactly.” Jax grimaced. “And sorry about the attitude. I’ll straighten that right out when I talk to him. He’s a good guy. Trying to look out for me, but I’m not exactly—”

“The perfect patient?”

“Something like that. He, uh…also set me up with the girl I was dating…”

“I see. It’s all becoming very clear.”

He tugged the strand of hair from his finger and touched her cheek. “I’ve also never been in love with a woman—other than you—and I’ve certainly never told another woman that I loved her. Ever.”

Her smile was so sweet it made his chest tighten. He leaned down and kissed her.

“You’re a good man, Jax,” she whispered against his lips before she opened and tasted him.

Love flowed through him, swift and hot, whipping up a fierce desire. He groaned into her mouth, slid his hand around her waist, and pulled her to him with his good arm.

She moaned but pulled away. “You’re just getting better. You should rest.”

“I’ll rest better after I’ve made you come two, three…six times.” He kissed her again as she laughed.

The abrasive tap of metal on glass cut into his bliss. Lexi pulled back with a frown. She turned her head toward the balcony.

The sound came again, louder. Tap-tap-tap. “The front door?” Jax asked, sitting up with Lexi as a wave of protectiveness swept through him. “Rubi?”

“She has a key.” Lexi stood and started toward the balcony. “And she knows you’re here. She wouldn’t bother us.”

“Have the photographers ever done this?” Jax asked. Stitches or not, if that was a reporter knocking on her door, the guy was going to lose more than his camera.

“What the…?” she said.

“Who is it?” he asked coming up behind her.

Lexi swung around and put both hands on his chest. She walked him backward, out of sight. “It’s Martina.”

From the way she said her name, Jax knew this Martina was important. “Who’s that?”

Tap-tap-tap, then a muffled, “Lexi? I need to talk to you.”

“Shit,” she muttered. “This cannot be good. Jax, please, please, stay up here. I’ll tell you about it when she’s gone.” She must have read the frustration in his face, because she said again, “Please.”

Stay up here hidden from anyone who mattered to her career.

But he rubbed her arms and said, “Fine.”

Lexi’s beautiful face filled with dread, but she straightened her shoulders, and went to unlock the front door clad in bare feet, shorts, and T-shirt. He loved that she didn’t rush to change for whoever this was.

Jax pulled on his jeans and sat on the corner of the bed, forearms on thighs. He could just see over the edge of the balcony as Lexi unlocked the front door.

“What are you doing in Los Angeles?” were Lexi’s first words to the other woman. Martina. “And why are you here? Why didn’t you call?”

Martina didn’t smile, didn’t greet Lexi, but she did say, “I’m sorry for not calling, but this was urgent, and I was nearby.”

Jax thought she might be a relative, only Martina was dark skinned, dark haired. She carried a purse and a manila envelope.

In Jax’s experience, manila envelopes were never good. Anything good was already out of the envelope. Things that stayed inside envelopes were time bombs. His chest tightened with apprehension.

Lexi was still locking the door when Martina said, “I was having dinner with colleagues. I just got into town for an event at the fashion center. I’m speaking for someone who couldn’t make it at the last minute.”

Lexi gazed out the glass door, searching up and down the street, before turning back to Martina. “Can I get you something? Water?”

“You can get her the hell out of your studio at nine o’clock on a Sunday-fucking-night,” Jax muttered to himself. Who the hell did that?

“No,” Martina said to the offer of water. “I’m here because someone had this delivered to my table at dinner.” She thrust the envelope toward Lexi.

“Oh shit,” Jax whispered, fisting his hands.

Lexi looked down at the envelope but kept her arms crossed. “What is it?”

“A photograph.” She thrust it forward again. “Look for yourself.”

Jax ran his hand through his hair and fisted it. His mind scoured his time with Lexi. When could someone have gotten a picture of them together?

Only about half a dozen times.

He held his breath while Lexi took the envelope, lifted the flap, and slid the photograph out. She stared at it for a long second when Jax couldn’t read her body language. Couldn’t catch enough of her face to see her expression.

When Lexi looked at Martina again, all she said was, “Who?”

“I don’t know, but I told you about this in New York, Lexi. I told you that some of these designers are cutthroat—”

“I know the designers involved in this competition.” Her voice was fierce. No one was going to push this woman around. And Jax was humbled by her inner strength. “None of them would stoop this low.”