by Jillian Neal
Connor, Cal, and Levi had taken dozens upon dozens of tampons and put them all over the house. Then, whenever one of them found one, they’d hand it to her with a snide comment about leaving them everywhere.
If Rainer stumbled upon one in the breadbox, in the kitchen, between the cushions of the couch, or once stuck in his old baseball mitt, she would run from the room, crying. The final blow had been when they’d tied dozens together, and placed them discreetly on top of the blades of the fan above her bed. When she’d turned on the fan, they’d scattered like some sort of bizarre projectile weapon.
That was when her father stepped in. The teasing had halted completely when the culprits had spent several days doing manual labor, outside in Virginia, in July. She shook her head and then smiled.
“So, shall we go get groceries, and then go hang out on the beach, or do you want to go to the boardwalk or something?” Emily asked.
He smiled at her.
“Whatever you want to do, baby. I just want to be with you.” Her entire body seemed to light as he stared at her. He was, once again, overwhelmed by her.
“We should probably get dressed.”
He pretended to pout, which made her giggle sweetly.
“Come on.” She stood and then tugged on his hand. He followed her back to their room. She pulled on a navy blue, fairly skimpy, bikini, a pair of denim cut-offs and a white button-down shirt that she left unbuttoned. It was the uniform of Virginia Beach. As much as he appreciated the sight of her in a bikini, a sudden sense of possessiveness like he’d never known before took over his body. He clenched his jaw. He certainly would never tell her what to wear, but the thought of other men admiring her made him furious. He pulled on a pair of his own cut-offs and a t-shirt as she slipped on a pair of flip-flops.
“So where do you want to go, baby?” He called himself a prick for even debating asking her to wear something else.
She shrugged.
“Let’s go get groceries so we can make lunch and stuff, and then we can go wherever you want.”
Rainer grabbed his wallet, keys, and phone and shoved them into his pockets as she started to walk past him into the hallway.
He caught the back belt loop of her shorts, and pulled her back to him. He guided her beautiful face to his and devoured her mouth then he whispered how much he loved her. He began informing her just what he wanted to do to her when they got back. He whispered his wishes between the intense kisses, as he made certain that she felt him. He let her heady energy flood through his body. She was panting when he finally pulled away. With a broad grin, she bit her lip.
“Ok, this side of you that I’ve somehow been missing for the past twenty years of my life is really hot!” She waggled her eyebrows as he laughed and followed her to the door.
The Life Inside the Picture
She halted abruptly, and Rainer almost walked into her.
“What’s wrong?” He looked around as he tried to discern what had stopped her.
She pointed out the paneled windows that surrounded the front door. There were photographers positioned around his car and in the street, awaiting their exit.
As the Haydenshires owned a fair amount of the oceanfront on the back side of the house, their front yard was smaller; only big enough to park three or four cars, which meant that photographers could easily get shots and still not be on the Haydenshires’ property.
He sighed and shook his head. They’d already taken pictures of his car, certainly, so they knew that only he and Emily were there.
“Do you want to stay here? I’ll go to the store. Just tell me what you want.” At least she wouldn’t have to be photographed, he thought, but she shook her head.
“No; let’s just get this over with. They can’t come out on the beach. That’s ours.”
He nodded and apologized for what felt like the millionth time. Several thousand of the apologies had been when she’d laid in a hospital bed, after her car had been run off of a bridge by photographers on motorcycles.
“I’m sorry, Em. I hate that I do this to you.”
She smiled and took his hand.
“You didn’t do this, and you’re worth it.” She flung the door open, and then placed a kiss on his jaw as cameras clicked feverishly. She turned back, and he blocked her while she locked the door. Then he shielded her from the reporters as he rushed her to his car.
“Are you two here celebrating your inheritance?” called one reporter.
“What are your plans until you start work?” called another.
“How long will you and Miss Haydenshire be on vacation, Rainer?” taunted yet another, in a syrupy-sweet voice. She batted her eyelashes at him.
“Get the hell away from my car!” Rainer spat as a cameraman leaned across the passenger side door, in an effort to get a shot of Emily’s face. The photographer moved as the reporters scribbled furiously. He was going to pay for that.
He opened Emily’s door, moved to block her while she got in, and then slammed it shut.
“Would your father approve of your being here with your girlfriend, un-chaperoned?” sneered a reporter who Rainer recognized from a particularly conservative paper in the Realm.
“Does Governor Haydenshire know you have Emily here?”
Rainer sprinted to the driver’s side, leapt into the seat and turned the key, then threw the Mustang in reverse. He watched as the photographers and reporters scattered quickly. One even came down out of a cherry tree near her parents’ property line.
He shifted and then took off down the road, but he knew they would follow.
“Why is our coming to the beach so freaking interesting to everyone?” he fumed.
Emily took his hand and tried to soothe him. “Because it’s just us, and because we just graduated, and because you got your inheritance yesterday.”
He shook his head and rolled his eyes in disgust. “I think everyone’s sort of expecting you to do something crazy, now that we’re out of school, and you have the money and everything.”
He drew a deep breath. None of this was her fault, and he needed to calm down. He was scaring her.
“I’m sorry,” he offered, but she furrowed her brow.
“For what?”
“I don’t know...everything,” he shrugged dejectedly as he gestured his head back to the black SUV that had just pulled out from a side street behind them, and was edging closer.
“Why do they think I’m gonna do something crazy?”
Her explanation settled in his mind.
“I don’t know; it’s a lot of money. They’re looking for a story. I guess I should have said, ‘they’re hoping you’ll do something crazy’.”
He shook his head, turned abruptly down the next side street, and then doubled back. This wasn’t the first time he’d lamented purchasing a fairly recognizable car.
“Well….” he pulled to a stop and checked his side mirrors before proceeding. “I plan to get down on one knee, beg you to marry me, move out of your parents’ home, move in with the love of my life, and hopefully let her plan the wedding of her dreams. Oh, and I thought I’d actually go to work, pay bills, eat, you know, crazy shit!” he drawled as she began to laugh.
“I won’t make you beg for too long.”
This finally elicited a laugh out of him, as well.
After making several unnecessary turns, he pulled into the parking lot of the Bottom Dollar market, where the Haydenshires always shopped when they were at the beach. In an effort to conceal the Mustang, Rainer edged it between two large trucks.
He drew a deep breath, but was relieved when no one shoved a camera in his face as he exited. As he opened Emily’s door, he beamed at her and breathed a prayer of thanks that she was willing to put up with all of press for him. She stood and took his hand.
They proceeded down the aisles. Emily would halt every few feet, pick up an item to consider it, and then either place it in the cart he was pushing, or back on the shelf.
As they frequently di
d the shopping for Mrs. Haydenshire, this was something Rainer was quite accustomed to. This market was much smaller than the one Mrs. Haydenshire preferred back in Arlington, so it didn’t take them long.
They edged to a check out with the light off and no attendant around. Emily picked up a copy of The Times and the Daily Press, then grabbed The Enquirer, and US weekly.
One of the things that Rainer and Emily had decided back in his tiny flat in London, during their talk when they’d reunited, was that if they chose to read what was being printed about them in the papers and tabloids, they sure as hell weren’t paying for them. The papers and Gifted news networks were all making a killing selling them out already.
So, Rainer glanced around, and then they backed towards the nearest corner. Rainer spotted the security camera and cupped his hand. He harnessed the potential energy in the swiveling mount of the camera and edged it the opposite direction. He made sure the feed remained steady, in the unlikely event that the store had someone watching the cameras.
It was their small and fruitless rebellion against something they seemed to have no control over, but that very often felt like it would spin wildly out of control. Emily glanced around and then cupped her hand. It took less than a moment for her to harness the heat from the laser printing on the page. Rainer watched. He braced himself as the The Enquirer turned into The Illusionist, and the print changed to the stories of the Gifted Realm.
“I always start with this one because it’s always the worst,” she explained, though he knew that was her policy. They studied the headline.
“Is Lawson looking to trade up after being awarded his father’s estate?”
While furrowing his brow, he moved closer.
“I’m not trading in my car.”
Emily clenched her jaw as fury permeated her energy.
“They’re not talking about your car!” she spat. He studied the pictures and then his mouth dropped. They’d gotten a shot of his winking and blowing Emily a kiss the previous night at graduation. Only, in the next picture they showed another Venton student, a girl from Adminis who Rainer remembered seeing around campus but he didn’t recall her name. They’d made it appear that Rainer was blowing the kiss to her. He shook his head in disgust.
“That’s Samantha Peterson,” Emily spat. “She’s Governor Peterson’s daughter.”
The Petersons were an extremely wealthy family in the Realm. They were fully of the opinion that they were somehow better than everyone else. Governor Peterson was jockeying to replace Governor Carrington as Crown Governor but hadn’t gotten very far, as people were well aware of what he thought.
Emily rolled her eyes and moved on to the next paper. Rainer watched The Times turn into The Realm Times. This had pictures of him giving his speech, and of him and Emily kissing. There was one of him seated beside Logan as he’d stared at the Chancellor at the podium. The caption read “Rainer Lawson contemplating the future of the Realm as it rests on his shoulders.”
“Yeah, see, they’re all full of crap. I was thinking ‘when the hell can I leave? I’m bored to death’,” Rainer huffed and Emily laughed hysterically.
They made the same move with the other papers; most of them were reporting on graduation. One of them listed options of what would be the smartest investments for Rainer to make with his inheritance.
She took the US Weekly and pretended to glance through the Non-Gifted stories as a store manager passed. When he’d moved on, she waved her hand over it again and then gasped in horror.
The full-cover spread was in two blocked pictures, one of Rainer, Logan, and Governor Haydenshire entering the Pentagon from the day before. Rainer hadn’t even noticed a photographer, but from the looks of the photo, they’d used a long-range lens. The bottom photo was one of Emily, with several of her girlfriends from Auxiliary, in a department store near Venton. They were all carrying shopping bags.
Emily Haydenshire and her closest friends celebrating boyfriend Rainer Lawson’s inheritance birthday in style
read the caption under the photo. The photograph of Emily was at least a year old, and Rainer sighed.
“Please don’t let them get to you, Em, please.”
She shook her head and looked defeated.
“I’m not,” she sighed. They returned the papers to the stands, and got in line to purchase the groceries. It could have been worse, he thought disgustedly. He recalled the time when Emily had been photographed cradling newborn Keaton, and they’d declared that she’d birthed his child at seventeen years of age. They were loading the groceries into the car when the press caught up with them again, but they made it inside before the cameras started clicking.
Intrusions
Rainer’s phone rang on the way back to the beach house. He hit the speaker button. He knew better than to be photographed talking on the phone with Emily in the car. He’d done this about three months after her wreck. The papers had called him out for being careless with Emily so soon after her near-death experience.
“Hey, Logan, you're on speaker,” he drawled.
Logan laughed.
“Ah, they trying to get your mug shot again?”
“Something like that.”
“Hey, Em...I heard Mom talking to you earlier. Wow, that was not something I wanted to hear or think about.”
Emily’s head fell into her hands.
“Ugh,” Emily whimpered, “please tell me no one else heard all of that?”
“Just the twins,” Logan teased, “and Dad.”
Her face turned the color of her hair as Logan cracked up. “Just kidding; only the twins and I were blessed enough to have to hear that.”
She looked slightly mollified then shook her head, “How’s Adeline?”
Logan stopped laughing abruptly.
“She’s ok. That’s what I wanted to talk to Rainer about, actually.”
If Logan needed him, then the press could stick it, Rainer thought as he picked up the phone and turned off speaker. Not that he wouldn’t tell Emily what Logan said, but Logan didn’t want to have a conversation with both of them; that much was obvious. Emily smiled her understanding.
“Ok, it’s me,” Rainer glanced in his rearview mirror. “It’s ok with me. I’ll talk to Em,” he agreed after Logan’s rather lengthy request. “Yeah ok, I’ll call you back.” Logan thanked him and then hung up. After ending the call, Rainer pulled his car back into the beach house driveway.
“So what did Logan want?” Emily asked sweetly. He glanced around to make certain that no one was in the trees, and then he hoisted the bags of groceries out of the trunk.
He decided it would be better to discuss his and Logan's conversation inside the house, so he didn’t respond. She seemed to understand as she unlocked the door and they entered. As they put the groceries away, he explained.
“Logan thinks it might be good for Adeline to get away from Arlington for a few days. We apparently missed the stories about her mom’s arrest.” Emily looked crestfallen as he mentioned this. “He wanted to know if we’d mind them joining us here, but he didn’t want to interrupt anything.”
“Of course they can come. I mean, I’m sure she does need a break, and that would be fun.” Relieved that he could tell Logan ‘yes’, Rainer smiled and nodded.
“I mean, we can still....” she gestured towards the bedrooms.
Rainer laughed; he was extremely pleased that she seemed just as thrilled with the next level of their relationship as he was.
“I don’t think they want to bunk with us, baby, just come hang out. We just might have to be a little quieter,” he waggled his eyebrows as she laughed and nodded.
“Have they ever...?” she asked hesitantly.
Rainer shook his head. He hoped Logan wouldn’t mind him sharing that. “I didn’t think so.”
“And they want us here for that?”
“I don’t know if they’re going to be doing that, sweetheart,” he didn’t really want to explain the other part of his and Logan’s
conversation.
“Oh,” she nodded and furrowed her brow.
“I think Logan’s a little hesitant to do that after what happened. He wants to make sure she’s really ok.”
Emily nodded, and looked deeply concerned. “Adeline has wanted to do that for a while. We talk about it all the time,” she smiled mischievously. Rainer felt his cheeks begin to burn. “I keep telling her Logan’s such a good guy. He doesn’t want her to do that until he’s sure she’s ready, but I think he’s starting to hurt her feelings.”
Rainer nodded his understanding. Logan knew that as well; he just didn’t know what to do about it.
“Well, it’ll be good for them to come down here, if the photographers will stay the hell away.”
Emily nodded as she glanced out the window automatically, and then relaxed slightly. A broad grin spread across her face as she seemed to revel in the fact that they were completely alone.
She hopped up on the kitchen counter, and began swinging her legs as Rainer put the last few things in the refrigerator. He moved to her with a hungry smirk. He edged her thighs apart, and she slid forward until she could wrap her legs around his waist. He moaned as she positioned herself very suggestively over him. He grabbed her backside, and massaged it as he leaned in to kiss her.
“You should call Logan back,” she hushed as she arched her back and thrust her breasts in his face. With another moan, he slipped his hands from her backside to what she clearly wanted him to caress.
“In a minute,” he growled as he popped the clasp of the top of her bikini. He pulled it away from her, and spun his thumbs over her nipples as she began to pant. The sound drove him wild. He kissed down her neck and quickly made his way to what he wanted.
Suddenly, a flash went off in his face.
“Shit!” he spat as he instinctively pulled her to him, and wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug to block her from view. She looked terrified.
The windows in the kitchen were uncovered so everyone could see the shoreline. A photographer, dressed in black, was sprinting towards the front of the house.