by Claire, Ava
"You take care and I'll see you bright and early on Monday." He stopped and turned back to me, giving me another dazzling smile. "It was nice meeting you, Leila."
****
Le Goût had been on my ‘Big City Dreams’ list since forever. They had a Michelin star chef on staff and were always given amazing reviews in all the right newspapers and magazines. Even though I'd only been on the outside looking in, watching beautiful people around tables with dishes that cost as much as my grocery bill for the month, I knew that Le Goût represented something special. It was the pinnacle of class and prestige—everyone that was anybody had walked through the doors at least once. Even scoring a reservation less than a month in advance was impossible. Unless you were Jacob Whitmore.
Jacob put the Porsche in park as we pulled to the velvet rope in front of Le Goût. The valet was on his p's and q's, promptly moving to open my door. Jacob held up his finger and the man paused, arms at his side, giving us a moment.
"Are you alright?" His eyes flickered over my face. "You've barely said two words since we got in the car."
I unclicked my seatbelt slowly and when I met his gaze I didn't even bother with a white lie. I'd gotten my mother's text over thirty minutes ago and Jacob had to call Le Goût and give them the okay to seat her and Dad, even though they were mega early for our 8pm reservation. I'd become a whirlwind, saying the hell with drying and flat-ironing my hair and forgetting all the strategic make up I'd planned to apply. It was my first time at my dream restaurant and my curly hair was in a messy bun on top of my head and I was wearing an unassuming black dress because I didn’t have the time to steam the scarlet number I wanted to wear. God only knew the trouble my mother was getting into. Add that to the stress of my parents meeting Jacob and no wonder I was close-lipped.
One side of his mouth tugged upward. "You're nervous about your parents." When my eyebrow arched, he remedied. "Nervous about your mother."
I gave him a slight nod as I fiddled with my clutch. I'd told Jacob about my run in with the paps at my parent's house and accidentally let it slip that my mother tipped them off. I'd expected him to write her off, to think she was just another fame hungry Momzilla living vicariously through her offspring, but he'd just laughed and asked if they got any good pictures. And he still wanted to meet her. It was terribly sweet—and upped the ante to a fever pitch that had dread coursing through my veins. He was the first guy who ever seemed genuinely interested in my family and learning about where I came from. It made the possibility that something would happen unbearable.
"It'll be fine." He stroked my thigh, his touch taking the edge off. "It's just dinner."
I gave him a smile and with a nod from Jacob, the valet opened my door and I stepped out of the car. I ignored the part of me that knew it was a lot more than that. I breathed in and out as I clung to his arm and we breezed inside.
All the sights and smells dulled the nerves and I relaxed as we turned to the dining room. The area was a sea of glossy, important looking people, the jewels and watches at their wrists glittering as brightly as the silverware on the table.
I held my smile, believing that maybe, just maybe the night wouldn’t turn into a train wreck until I saw my mother. Her face was furious and disdain flowed off her in waves—and was directed at the waiter. We were easily fifty feet away, but I still heard her words loud and clear.
"What do you mean it’s twenty-five dollars for Perrier? I can buy it for two bucks at the drugstore down the street!"
Oh God.
I rushed forward, hoping she would put the crazy back in the box once she spotted me and Jacob. "Hi Mom!"
She turned her head back to the front and went from meltdown to Miss Congeniality. "Leila!" She swat the waiter away like she was the Queen of England as she stood up, holding out her arms. “It’s so good to see you!”
I gave her an awkward hug before I stepped aside to introduce Jacob. "And this is-"
"My future son-in-law!"
Jacob let out an uncomfortable chuckle as she brought him in for a hug that lasted way longer than appropriate. “Mrs. Montgomery, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Oh the pleasure’s all mine,” she said with a grating wink.
My father gave Jacob a sturdy handshake once my mother released him and flashed me an apologetic half smile.
I settled in my seat, trying to ignore the warmth of the gaze of the other patrons. Their disapproving eyes were as unnerving as cameras flashing. When our waiter gauged he wouldn't be chewed out again over the price of water, he breezed back to the table. I barely let him get a word out before I ordered the biggest martini they had.
"Hard day at work?" Mom didn’t even bother masking her judgment.
"Something like that," I answered with a tight smile.
I knew she wanted to push the subject, maybe give me a lecture about how it wasn't ladylike to drink, but she let it go. "It must be so glamorous working with celebrities." She leaned forward, dropping her voice to a near whisper. "Working with anyone interesting?"
I glanced at Jacob and he gave me a nod. "Right now we're working with Cade Wallace."
She exchanged a look with my dad and he shook his head. "You know I don't keep up with that stuff, sweetheart."
She turned back to me, her forehead scrunched in concentration. "There's something familiar about that name..." She snapped her fingers as it dawned on her. "Cade Wallace! That bulky, Captain America looking action star with the strong jawline?"
"That's him," I said with a weak laugh. My smile faltered when I realized why she remembered his jawline at all.
Oh no...
"If memory serves, Lay had quite the crush on him."
Jacob perked with interest. "Is that right?"
"I don't know if I'd call it a crush, Mom," I smoldered.
I must have been naive to think that this meet and greet would go any different than the others. I'd turned down an offer for Jacob and I to come over for a home cooked meal, remembering my mother bringing out the photo album for the first guy I'd brought home. The second had to endure Mom's frighteningly descriptive honeymoon with Dad after she found out we were going on a cruise.
“It’s really not that big of a deal,” I said, trying to crush the subject.
"Oh please," she snickered. "You had posters of the man plastered all over your dorm." She winked at Jacob. "All the other girls swoon over Leonardo DiCaprio, but not my Leila. She liked her men with extra testosterone."
I hoped her dated intel would lessen the blow of revealing that I was a fan of Cade’s, but I could already tell that she'd ruffled Jacob's feathers. The hand on my thigh retreated to his own and his jaw went tight as a bowstring.
"Well," Jacob said with a chuckle that he only used when he was pretending he found something amusing. "Maybe I should have made the time to meet the man of Leila's dreams."
I jabbed him with my elbow. "Don't be silly. You're the man of my dreams." When he looked at me for a heartbeat of a second, I could see the anger flash through his ice blue eyes.
The waiter returned to our table and I downed my drink in record time and held up a single finger. He gave me an abrupt nod and hustled away to get me another.
Jacob didn't even touch his drink. He just kept his eyes forward, icing me out like I kept some great secret from him.
I gave my mother a pointed look and she let out a nervous giggle.
"Well, um, what are you doing with Cade exactly? Another junket like Venice?"
I'd been hoping for a complete subject change, but as long as she wasn't singing 'Leila and Cade, sitting in a tree', I'd take it. "He has a film coming out soon, so we're working with him to set up media interviews and other promotional activities."
"A new movie?" she said brightly. "What's it called so Dad and I can be there opening night, bells and whistles on?"
I couldn't help but smile at her efforts. Even when she was being absolutely ridiculous and embarrassing me with impressive skill, she always f
ound a way to make me lower my arms by reminding me how she supported me. "Soldier's Creed."
"That movies about 'Nam, right?"
Everyone turned to my dad, surprised he actually said enough words to string together a sentence.
He cleared his throat and shuffled in his seat uncomfortably, clearly not a fan of being in the spotlight. "I remember seeing something about it in The Times." He passed the mic to my mother. "You remember that article, don't you Cheryl?"
"I sure do." She fondled with the pearls at her neck, a rueful look on her face. "It's just horrible what they did to that boy in the POW camp. For him to stay strong after all of that is amazing."
I nodded in agreement. After meeting Cade I'd read up about the film and the soldier's story that inspired it. After being captured by enemy forces, he'd endured unspeakable atrocities for months on end but he never gave in.
"Cade told me that they actually brought the soldier in as a consultant." I traced the stem of my martini glass. "As a vet, he seemed really moved by the story and honored to share it on the screen."
"Interesting," Jacob said beside me, his face impassive.
I turned to him, glad he was finally getting over it. "Yeah, the story was really interesting."
"Oh I wasn't talking about the story." He gulped down a swallow of scotch. "I was referring to you being on a first name basis with a client. Kind of unprofessional, don't you think?"
Heat unfurled in my cheeks as I tried, and failed, to temper my response. "I referred to our last “client” by her first name on numerous occasions. And since you gave the go ahead to share with my folks, I really don't see what the big deal is."
As soon as I was done and saw the look on everyone's faces, I felt like the village idiot. The big deal was obvious.
Jacob was jealous.
****
Even though I knew my mother couldn't say no to anything dessert related, she acted like she was bursting at the seams and had zero interest in looking at their treats. At the start of the evening I'd wanted to hit fast forward but since Jacob had been given me a sneak peek of the epic fight we were gonna have, suddenly I wasn't so excited about parting ways.
"You sure you don't want me to walk you out to your car?" I offered, trying to tuck a subliminal message in the words. "It's really no trouble."
Mom’s lip smirked slightly as she shook her head. She got the message, but chose to ignore it. "That's alright, sweetie."
Dad rose and shook Jacob's hand and waited while Mom gave Jacob another squeeze. She leaned down to my cheek and whispered, "Talk to him" before they hustled toward the exit.
‘Talk to him’? My date who'd gone from charismatic to quiet as the grave over some silly crush I had on Cade? I honestly didn't even know where to begin.
The waiter came back with Jacob's black Visa card and Jacob slipped it onto his money clip. I shook every drop of alcohol I could from my glass and still came up wanting. There would be no dulling the nerves that had taken up residence in the pit of my stomach.
"So are we going to talk about this?" I said finally, breaking the silence.
"Talk about what?" He chewed every word and spit them out, refuting the nonchalant question.
"About Cade." When he tensed, I added, "Mr. Wallace."
"So now you want to talk about your attraction to him?" Jacob said heatedly. "When I've already agreed to represent him?"
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. "You're saying that if you knew that I had some stupid crush on him forever ago, you wouldn't have brought him on as a client?"
His silence was all the reply I needed.
I couldn't help but laugh at that. Jacob Whitmore was saying that he'd stonewall Cade Wallace, hell, any man that I dared to have a crush on? It was mind boggling. How did I become this person, this woman worth burning bridges and cutting ties? Me, just a regular girl from Douglas Heights, making the sexiest man I'd ever met jealous to the point where professionalism was irrelevant?
The sound of his chair scraping backward cut through my laughter. "I'm glad you find all of this amusing."
"Jacob-"
"We're leaving." And with that he raged toward the exit like a bull with red in his sights.
As much as I was dreading sliding into his two seater, I was dreading a ride home in a taxi even more. If we were trying to build a relationship and my feelings for Cade hurt him, I had to figure out a way to talk about it and make it right.
I hustled behind him, trying to grip his elbow but he wrenched from my touch.
"I want to talk, Jacob."
He stopped, but he didn't turn around. "I need to cool off first, Leila. Anything I say now will only make things worse."
"You won't even look at me!” I said, my voice rising. “How can it get any worse than that?" I knew we were putting on a show that would have put my mother's water debacle to shame, but I didn't care. I was trying to talk and be understanding and he was turning me into the villain. "I just don't get what the big deal is."
"I'm not going to do this here." He burst through the door and I had tunnel vision, my anger causing me to completely miss the people camped out in front of the restaurant.
"Stop walking away from me!" I said shrilly as I followed him outside and came face to face with the paparazzi. They gobbled up my plea and worked themselves into a frenzy as they snapped pictures left and right.
I futilely held my clutch as a shield, trying to hide from the flashes as the valet helped me into the car, but their questions had already hit the mark.
"What were you two arguing about Leila?"
"Is there trouble in paradise?"
Jacob barely let the valet close my door before he stepped on the gas and the car swung into traffic. He snapped on the radio before switching gears, darting and weaving in between cars like some daredevil Nascar driver. It was clear the last thing on earth he wanted to do was talk. His anger over an innocent crush made me want to talk even more.
I powered off the radio. "We need to talk."
I expected more of a fight, but he conceded. "Fine."
I tried to explain it the best way I could. "I like over the top, insane action movies. And once upon a time, that was Cade Wallace's M.O." I swallowed. "So I was a fan. Am a fan."
"Just a fan, huh?"
"Okay, so I would have given the president of his fan club a run for her money," I said with exasperation. "But it was just a simple, silly celebrity crush. I never thought I'd ever meet him. And even if I did, I wouldn't even make his radar."
"Oh but you did, love."
I didn't think it was possible for the L word to come out of his mouth and make me feel anything but warmth and safety. Instead, I felt an icy slash of fear, only magnified when I saw the white of Jacob’s knuckles as he gripped the gear shift.
"Jacob, I have no idea what you're talking about. We talked for ten minutes at lunch, we weren't planning some super-secret getaway!"
When all I got was silence, I'd had it. If he wanted to be angry, fine. I wasn't going to die in a mangled sports car to prove I was a good girlfriend. "If you don't want to talk, fine. Pull to the curb and let me out." When he didn't even flinch, I put all of my frustration behind the order. "LET ME OUT!"
He slowed down, but gave no indication that he planned on pulling over, so I decided to wait for the next stoplight. Too bad the paps weren't hot on our tail, or they'd get a hell of a shot of me sprinting from Jacob's Porsche.
"He tweeted something yesterday that stuck with me, even though I planned to have him delete it. It had a romantic feel to it and completely contradicts the bad ass image we're trying to portray for the film."
I clicked my seatbelt back on, abandoning my plans for escaping. "What does his Twitter feed have to do with-"
"Let me finish," Jacob interrupted forcefully, but without the anger he'd been holding onto since dinner. It was like he'd been clutching this burden and was just exhausted and eager to let it all go. He glanced at me, eyes softening. "Please."
I gave him a long look and nodded. "Alright."
"The tweet said something like, 'Met someone and felt like Cade for the first time in a long time' and when I read it, I saw your face." He inhaled deep and released it. "Before I met you, there was always this hole, this missing piece. And then there was you."
Warmth rushed all over me, the ache in my chest whenever he was near expanding.
"That's sweet, Jacob." I cautioned a smile and the side of his mouth twitched with his own as we moved closer to uptown. "But why would that piss you off? Because of damage control? I still don't get what any of that has to do with me."
"Because he tweeted it almost immediately after he left the Whitmore and Creighton building." Jacob's voice changed, something in it exposed and raw. "I think he was talking about you."
****
The first tip off that something fishy was going on should have been that fact that Natasha was all smiles when in the past the very sight of me was enough to make her physically ill. Ignoring the feeling of wariness, I took a deep breath and rapped on Jacob's door, running over the speech I'd been practicing all weekend.
After the bucketful of awkward with Cade's tweet and my mother's over-share at dinner, we both agreed to take a few days apart to get our heads right. Truth was even after taking the weekend, my head was anything but clear.
Even though I thought my exchange with Cade was totally innocent, Jacob's reaction and Cade's tweet had me replaying the conversation, wondering if anything I said could have been misconstrued. At any rate, I'd come up with a list of reasons why Jacob had nothing to worry about.
Number one: He was, well, Jacob. No one else could rob me of the ability to function with just a look. No one else could make everything else fade except the drum of my heart and the ache between my legs. And no one else could make me want to simultaneously do them physical harm and kiss their lips off.
I smiled when the door was pulled open with number two on the tip of my tongue. When Missy Diaz, one of the staff publicists and ringleader of Operation Leila Sucks, glared back at me instead of Jacob, I forgot what number two was.