Jonquils for Jax: The Rousseaus #1 (The Blueberry Lane Series Book 12) (5 page)

His chest clenched, watching her get emotional over the possibility of professional gossipmongers invading her privacy, and he knew instinctively it was why she’d been so standoffish last night. And damn it but it made him angry. It made him furious. It made him desperate to protect her, even though he couldn’t—even though he was a shadow of the man he once was.

“I’ll do it,” he blurted out, releasing his breath as his lungs relaxed. “I’ll teach you.”

She was halfway out the door, but she whipped around to face him, her face brightening, her chin lifting. “You will?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“I’ll pay you.”

He didn’t like her offering him money. Couldn’t put his finger on why, because she
should
pay him for his time, but he hated the thought of taking her money. “We’ll discuss that later. Where should we meet?”

“Uhhh…Le Chateau? We have a gym.”

“Of course you do.” He paused. “You live there? With your parents?”

“My mother was just in town for the wedding. She returns to Paris tomorrow.”

He sensed there was more to her explanation and couldn’t deny he was curious, but it was none of his business. “Shouldn’t take more than three lessons to teach you a few important moves. Three o’clock tomorrow work for you, Duchess?”

She smiled at him, and glory Lord, he knew he was in trouble, because when this woman looked happy, she was so fucking stunning that something inside of him wanted to make her happy every minute of every day, just so he could take some credit for that much beauty.

“Tomorrow,” she said, opening the door and stepping through before glancing at him over her shoulder one last time. Her emerald eyes sparkled. His heart leapt. “It’s a date.”

A date.

Merde.

Jax’s mother, Liliane, kissed her on both cheeks before cupping her daughter’s face and smiling at her. “Come and see me soon,
chéri
?
Avec Madeleine
?”

Jax nodded. “
Oui, Maman
. We’ll come in August or September.”

“Call me when you return to Hollywood. Once you’re settled.”

“I will,” she said, stepping away from her mother’s touch. She had no idea if or when she might return to California, but her mother didn’t want to hear that. Her mother liked having an Oscar-winning Hollywood producer for a daughter.

Liliane looked at the Mediterranean-style mansion behind her daughter and sniffed. “I never liked this place, you know. And the way the previous owners called it
Chateau Nouvelle
. Tsk. You father thought it was…
amusing
.”

“You’ve had it officially changed to Le Chateau now.”

Her mother waved a perfectly manicured hand dismissively. “
C’est trop tard
.”
It’s too late.

Jax looked back at the house that she loved so much, that had always felt like home more than any other place on earth.

“I should sell it,” said Liliane, looking up at the house with a frown.

Jax curled her fingers into her palm. “Really? Now?”

“
Oui
.” Liliane shrugged. “Eventually.”

Carefully controlling her voice to sound sympathetic and cajoling, Jax placed an arm around her mother’s thin shoulders and led her down the grand steps to the town car waiting in the driveway to take her to the airport.

“Such chaos,
chère Maman
. The expense of realtors and movers. The inconvenience. Dissolving an estate? After all the work you put into Étienne’s wedding? What a nightmare.” She shuddered dramatically for effect, then stopped beside the car as the chauffeur quickly hopped out of the driver’s seat to open the back door for Liliane. “If anything, you deserve a rest.”

Jax’s mother sighed, then nodded as she pulled her daughter into her arms for one final embrace. “You are right. Now is not the time.”

“
Oui
,” murmured Jax, her sense of reprieve so sharp, it almost made her light-headed. “
Au revoir, Maman
.”

“
Au revoir, chéri
.”

In one elegant move that recalled her mother’s one-time profession as a ballerina, Liliane Rousseau slid into the waiting car and the driver shut the door. Jax took a step back, pulling her Tiffany-blue pashmina tighter around her body as she lifted a hand to wave good-bye.

As the car disappeared down the driveway and through the gates of Le Chateau, onto Blueberry Lane, Jax slumped with relief.

“What was that all about?” asked Mad from the top step, a rolling suitcase just behind her.

“She was talking about selling the house. Again.”

“I swear, she knows how much it bothers you,” said Mad, her lips thin, her green eyes angry.

Jax walked up the steps between them. “You’re going too?”

“Mm-hm. Thatcher’s coming home tonight. I thought I’d make him dinner.”

Thatcher was Mad’s longtime boyfriend, whom Mad kept expecting to pop the question, but there was no popping in sight, unless you counted all the times Dr. Thatcher Worthington popped out of town to attend medical conferences.

“Don’t look at me like that,” said Mad. “He works hard.”

“It was Étienne’s wedding, Mad. I think he could have skipped
one
conference to escort you.”

“He’s one of the leading clinical psychiatrists in the country, Jax. He can’t just—” Mad used air quotes. “—‘skip a conference’ anytime he feels like it.”

“I’d just like to see him putting you first,” said Jax, reaching out to push a long strand of jet-black hair behind her sister’s shoulder.

“He
does
. Don’t worry about me and Thatcher. We’re practically a done deal, big sister.” She waggled her bare ring finger and grinned at Jax. “And listen, J.C. asked for a ride, but he’s still sleeping, so he’s on his own. If he’s too hungover, call him a cab when he finally wakes up, huh?”

“No problem. Sure you don’t want to stay for another couple of hours? We could have lunch.”

“Rain check? I had this idea: a new program I could offer the kids, and I wanted to spend a little time working on a plan to present to Harvey.”

Madeleine Rousseau worked as a librarian in the Children’s Department of the Philadelphia Free Library, and she was always trying to come up with new and innovative programs to offer to the children of Philadelphia.

“What is it this time?” asked Jax. “And how can I help?”

“Music and Movement was such a success for the toddlers…I was thinking we should offer a similar class to grade-school kids after school this fall. It could even be a drop-off. Public schools keep cutting the arts, and I just…” Mad grinned. “I’m on my soapbox again.”

“But you look so gorgeous standing up there,” teased Jax.

Mad rolled her eyes. “I need to do some research, figure out the costs, find someone to lead it…”

“You know you’re just going to end up paying for it again.”

“I will if I have to.” Mad shrugged. “I have millions, Jax.”

It was true. They all had millions. All four Rousseau children had trust funds that amounted to approximately twenty-five million dollars apiece, and three of the four siblings augmented it in their own way—Étienne and J.C. with their company, The Rousseau Trust, and Jax with a recent movie she’d produced to great acclaim. Mad was the exception. She was far better at giving her money away.

“You’re going to go bankrupt someday,” said Jax, hooking her arm through her sister’s and walking her down the stairs to a cute red BMW convertible.

“Then I’ll rush to my rich sister and beg her to take me in.”

Jax grinned at Mad with love. “She will, you know. She
always
will.”

“I know,” said Mad, stopping by her car and leaning forward to kiss Jax on the cheek. “How’s the eye?”

Jax shrugged. It ached less today, but the bruising looked worse.

“Jax, now that you’re back, why don’t you think about getting a place in the city? We could find a co-op with great security. We could—”

“No,” she said, her voice clipped and final. “I prefer it here.”

Becoming a movie producer had changed Jax’s entire life, and not, unfortunately, in a good way.

She’d grown up with magazines like
Philadelphia Today
and
Town & Country
taking pictures of her and her family, of course, and had become accustomed to seeing her picture in the newspaper society pages from time to time. But she hadn’t been prepared for the sort of exposure that producing a movie or winning an Academy Award would generate. Suddenly, she couldn’t leave her Beverly Hills apartment without gossip rags and entertainment magazines taking an interest in her too, and it was a different kind of paparazzi than the gentle, respectful kind she’d been used to back in Philly.

They waited for her outside of the studio, their cameras clicking, shooting rapid-fire questions at her about her love life, sex life, and future movies as she drove from the safety of the electric gates onto the street. They took pictures of her coming out of the grocery store and harassed her friends for information about her. In
Star Tracks
and
Listen Up!
they commented on her hair and clothes, speculated about her love interests, and made up stories about her life. If she wasn’t smiling, she was bitchy. If she looked thin, she was anorexic. If she bought ice cream, she was depressed. If she was talking to a man, she was getting engaged…or dumped. Every word she said on Facebook or Twitter had been analyzed and dissected—until she’d stopped posting altogether and closed her accounts.

Overnight she’d lost her privacy and had only been able to reclaim it by packing up her things, selling her apartment in California, and returning to the safety of Le Chateau, where she’d found solace and protection in its exclusive neighborhood setting, high gates, and state-of-the-art security system.

Jax looked over her shoulder at the yellow-colored stone mansion with thirty shiny windows and a set of three elegant French doors at the grand entrance that looked out over the circular drive where the sisters stood together. It was an ostentatious house. Yes. And she remembered her father chuckling with delight at the ludicrous, grammatically incorrect French name bestowed upon it by the previous owners. But it was her home, and for two months, ever since she’d moved home in April, it was the only place where Jax truly felt comfortable. This enormous pile of stone on Blueberry Lane was her safe haven, and she loved it with all her heart.

“No,” she said again, gentler than before. “I’m happy here.”

“Will you produce another movie?” asked Mad, her voice tentative.

“Now that the wedding’s over, I can look through the stack of scripts in my room,” Jax answered, hedging the question with forced levity as Mad unlinked their arms, collapsed her suitcase, and lifted it into her trunk.

Jax didn’t fool her sister. Mad’s face was still troubled.

“Jax, truth?”

“If you insist.”

“You’re hiding here. Avoiding life. Maybe even a little stuck.”

“So what if I am? Is that a crime?”

“No. But I’m worried about you.”

“My privacy was totally invaded. Shredded. I was practically hunted. It was awful to feel like someone’s prey, to be constantly looking over my shoulder and having no legal recourse.”

“I can’t believe that lawyer wouldn’t press charges when you got into the accident.”

“He couldn’t!” exclaimed Jax, her frustration and anger rising. “The photographer had a helmet on that hid his face. And I didn’t get a look at the tiny license plate on the back of his motorcycle. He sped away before I could see it. Mad, I could’ve killed that woman I hit! I could’ve really hurt her or someone else.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” said Mad, reaching for her sister.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Jax, pulling away. “Just, please, try to understand: I feel safe here. I don’t want to live in the city.”

“I
do
understand.” Mad sighed, reaching out to place a gentle hand on her sister’s arm. “But it’s been months. What’s next for you?”

Jax didn’t have an answer. She pursed her lips, part of her wishing she had a ready answer, the other part wishing Mad would get going and stop asking her questions that felt so daunting.

“You need to rebound at some point.” Mad tilted her head to the side, searching her twin’s face. “It’s okay to take a little while to figure out what comes next, Jax…as long as it doesn’t take forever.”

“We can’t all graduate from college and nab our dream job out of the gate,” said Jax, her voice edgy, her lips pursed.

Mad gave her a look. “I was stacking books for three years before they offered me assistant librarian, and even then, it wasn’t in the Children’s Department. Didn’t matter what my last name was, and you know it. I had to
earn
my job there.”

“I know. I know. I just meant…you always knew what you wanted to do. Me? Not so much.”

After college, Jax had bought a share in a horse breeding farm outside of Philadelphia that had turned out to be a bad investment. Feeling duped and furious about her lack of legal recourse, she’d enrolled in law school at the University of Pennsylvania, where she’d attended classes for two years but never completed her degree. While on campus one afternoon, she’d run into a sorority sister who’d told Jax she was she was producing a movie, and with her friend’s help and connections, Jax had put together and financed her own project,
The Philly Story
, a remake of the 1940 classic
The Philadelphia Story
, and moved out to California to follow the postproduction process. It was an Oscar darling, and she’d taken home the gold statue.

And that’s when the nightmare had started—paparazzi hounding her every move. She took a deep breath and sighed as Mad slammed the trunk of her car and took her keys out of her purse.

“I’m only twenty-seven,” said Jax, following her sister as she rounded the car and opened the driver’s door. “I don’t have to decide my whole life today, Mad.”
“That’s true,” said Mad. “And there’s nothing wrong with taking a break. But don’t hide away here forever, huh?” She looked up at the enormous façade of Le Chateau. “It’s too big a house for one small girl.”

No, it’s not. It’s my home and I love it.

Jax let her sister pull her into a warm embrace. Mad grinned at her as she drew away. “Come for dinner on Thursday?”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” said Jax, watching as Mad slipped into her seat with the same effortless grace as their mother.

“Am I invited?” yelled J.C., who appeared suddenly behind Jax, running toward their sister’s car with a wild case of bedhead, a bare chest, and unbuttoned jeans.