You're Not Broken (20 page)

Chapter Two
Jessa

              “Jessa! Jessa! Blow us a kiss! Blow the cameras a kiss, why don't you?”

              “Come on, Jessa! Look at us here! Kiss! Give us a kiss!”

              “Jessa! Jessa!”

              Trying not to grind my teeth, I stood in front of the press conference desk and smiled, turning to the left and right so everyone got a chance to shoot me. I lifted my hand and then blew a kiss to the left side of the room and then to the right side.

              A deafening sound of shouts and flashes consumed the huge hotel ballroom.

              The poster for my new movie, another romantic comedy, hung behind me.

              The title,
Got You
, was printed right below my face where I’m blowing a kiss cheekily to Adam Wright, my costar.

              For some reason, photographers loved snapping a photo of me mimicking my poster poses. For the last movie,
Never Again
, I was standing off to the side of the poster with my hand cupped around my mouth, looking as if I was shouting something to Mark Povich, my costar.

              By the next day, there were a series of photos out of me cupping my hand by my mouth, my lips parted, under a whole slew of tabloid titles:
“Jessa Blair shouts for success—another box office hit!”, “Jessa hollers, America comes a-running!”, “Jessa in another mess-a?”

              The last one had accompanied a picture of me and my ex-boyfriend leaving a restaurant. Both of us had been wearing dark sunglasses and you could feel the awkward energy from the one photo. A few days later, we broke up.

              I always say that I would never do a poster pose again but then my agent, studio, and publicist would tell me, wheedle with me, beg me to keep humoring the press. Because after all, even gossipy news was still news, right?

              Whatever.

              As I gave a final wave and a last smile, I exited through the side door of the ballroom where Marsha and a small group of large security guards waited for me.

              My cheek muscles freed, I asked Marsha in a low voice, “Are we on time?”

              A lot of times during press junkets, things always ran late. I hated getting to a place early without a back up plan since that just meant more opportunity for photos and paparazzi.

              Marsha nodded, hustling me down the hall. “Yes, they’re ready.
Access Entertainment
has been added to the list. They’re at the end though,” she said, talking as fast as we were walking.

              I sighed.
Access Entertainment
was one of the worst shows on TV about Hollywood. They loved to stir up gossip and controversy and are usually the source of most of Hollywood’s rumors.

              But during a press tour, you had to do everything. You did a blanket of interviews to promote your films even when you had a track record of nine straight number one box office openers. And I already knew this one would be the tenth.

              Tenth of a long line of movies that I had lost passion in doing after the first one. Ten movies of simple plots and conventional comic gags of girl loses boy, girl eventually gets boy. The first one was set in high school. This last one was set in a hospital where both leads were doctors.

              Story was the same. Just the age and location were different. 

              I had literally grown up as the relatable girl next door and after a decade of it, I was tired.

              I was restless.

              I needed a challenge.

              I wanted to stretch my acting wings and show people that I was more than a cute one liner or a soft kissing montage. I had more in me and I knew it. I just needed an opportunity to show it.

              So engrossed in my thoughts, I rounded the corner of the hall without even noticing that Marsha had disappeared. I only looked up when a hard arm wrapped around my waist, a large hand gripped my hip, and turned me around.

              I looked up in shock to the tallest, grizzliest looking man I had ever met.

              Standing at well over six feet tall he towered over me, even though I was wearing four inch heels. Pressed against his body, I could feel his hard chest and chiseled abs through his black shirt. His body was broad and solid. It looked like it could take a hell of a beating. Better yet, it looked like it could
give
a hell of a beating.

              But my gasp of shock evaporated in my throat as I looked up at his face. Following his corded neck, I looked up at his darkly stubbled jawline. He had a matching dark brush of hair, closely cropped, that only seemed to highlight his steely gray eyes. The face was gorgeous, yes, but it was also dangerous. Lethal.

              Raw.

              I immediately felt a heat that pulled against my core as I looked at him.

              But regaining my senses, I tried to jerk away from him but I was as successful as a puppy against a brick wall. Trying to wedge a hand against his chest and me, I demanded, “Who the hell are you?”

              Where was my security?

              This guy certainly didn’t look like most of my crazed fans—if he did, I wouldn’t be so quick to judge them—but then again, he was a stranger who was holding me far too closely.

              Pulling me along back down the hallway in the direction I had just come, he said in a voice that made my skin shiver at his dark smoothness, “We’re going out a different way.”

              I pulled again futilely as I stumbled along in his arms. “That doesn't answer my question! Who the fuck are you!” I tried again to push away but he only pressed me tighter against him.

              “Rowan Matthews. Your new bodyguard,” he said, not even looking down. His silvery eyes were kept forward, alert, as he guided her down the hall.

             
This
was my new bodyguard?

              Holy shit, Agent Todd wasn’t kidding when he said the new guy would be different. This Rowan Matthews was as far as you could get from her previous bodyguards who had all been some kind of former football player with thick necks and even thicker heads.

              This guys was built but built by pure muscle. He was hard and solid and radiated a sense of firm command. I could tell immediately he was no schlub who was looking for a quick buck or a chance to take a picture with a ‘starlet.’

              But regardless, I was not enjoying his introduction or his treatment. Wedging both my hands between us, I finally managed to shove him off me. “Hey!” I said, glaring at him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Where is everybody? Where’s Marsha?”

              Rowan looked down at me, as if seeing me completely for the first time. God, the man just oozed pure sex. My cheeks immediately flushed at the thought but it was impossible not to think it.

              He had a body that screamed power and sex. And I could hear its echoes ringing in my head.

              “I told everyone to head down towards the kitchen and exit through the back entrance there. The cars have already been redirected,” he said calmly. “If you hadn’t been walking with your head in the clouds, you would’ve heard me telling everyone where to go.”

              I stared at him.
Excuse me?
I knew it was true, what he had said, but who was he to tell me when and where I could walk. If I wanted my head in the fucking solar system, I would put it there.

              A bodyguard guarded my body. Not bossed it around.

              “Why did you redirect the cars?” I asked, annoyed that he had taken such presumption.

              Rowan quirked a brow and looked at me as if I was simple. My temper raised another notch higher and I could feel my cheeks starting to burn with annoyance.

              “Didn’t you meet with the Feds today?” he asked. “I thought they had met with you to discuss your latest note.”

              “They had,” I said, wondering where he was going with this. Agent Todd
had
said that my new bodyguard might arrive today but I definitely had
not
been expecting someone like Rowan Matthews.

              Rowan shrugged his broad shoulders, as if his point had been proven. “Well
that
is why I redirected the cars,” he said dryly.

              I threw him an annoyed look, not happy with his humor nor his aggressive manhandling. To my even greater annoyance, I saw amusement light up his silvery eyes.

              “Your schedule is no great secret. It’s not a leap to think your stalker knows where you’ll be going today,” he explained. “Every celebrity always goes out this side exit towards their car. If this stalker knows your schedule well enough, I would imagine there’s a good chance he could’ve been out there waiting.”

              A shiver ran down my spine as he spoke. Again, nothing he was saying was new. With previous stalkers or crazed fans, we had always taken extra precaution in case they were hiding amid the swarm of paparazzi that always followed or waited for me.

              But something about the gravity of Rowan’s voice and the way he looked at me, made the threat seem more credible. More real.

              Biting my lower lip, I looked him over. Tall and with a straight back, he cut an imposing figure. Even with his black shirt and dark jeans on, I could tell that he had a body that was ripped and corded with muscle. He looked as if he had just come back from some Roman battle.

              And my own body was reacting quite strongly to what was standing before me. I had to tell my thighs to unclench and tried my best to not focus on the heat that was rolling up from my belly all the way to my cheeks.

              “In the future,” I said coolly, trying to regain my composure, “I like to be informed of any changes that are made to my schedule or routine.” I looked up at him in what I hoped was a bland, neutral face with only a hint of that celebrity haughtiness. I figured it would be better to come off a little haughty than to look remotely interested or turned on by him.

              Rowan’s lips twitched but he nodded gravely, as if addressing a queen, mocking my haughty act. “Of course, Miss Blair,” he said solemnly.

              Straightening up, he gestured down towards the hall. “Now if you’ll follow me,” he said. But before he allowed me to actually follow him, he put a hand on the small of my back, compelling me to move.

              I sighed and tried to pull away a little, just so that he’d drop his hand. But instead he blocked me by grabbing me by my hip and pulling me closer to him. I would’ve looked up to shoot him an annoyed look but I was nervous that my face was too red to pull off the look convincingly.

              Instead I followed him in silence down the hallway and towards the busy kitchen where the back door waited for us. I let his heat and presence envelope me completely.

              I sneaked a look up at his stern jawline and straight nose from beneath my lashes.

             
Rowan Matthews, huh?

              I didn’t know if it was apprehension or nervousness but I felt my stomach momentarily tighten as I felt something change in the air before me.

             
This was going to be interesting.

Chapter Three
Rowan

              As I took my seat and closed the black SUV door behind me, I heard a voice cry out in exasperation, “God, we were wondering what took you so long!”

              I looked over at the passenger seat of the car and saw a woman in her late thirties. She had thin blonde hair that she had cut into some sort of shag. She wore dark rimmed glasses, behind which she was giving my new charge a worried and mildly irritated look.

              “We’ll have to hurry to change when we get to the Beverly,” the woman continued. “We won’t have much time now.”

              “Are we late?” Jessa Blair asked.

              The blonde woman shook her head. “Not yet,” she said. Looking over the actress, she asked suspiciously, “What took you so long?”

              Jessa gave the woman a pointed look. “Well, apparently, I have a new bodyguard that was anxious to introduce himself. Marsha, meet Rowan Matthews.”

              Marsha gave me a quizzical look from behind her glasses. “New bodyguard? Another one?” she asked. But then waved her hand, as if dismissing it, and then turned to the driver to tell him to avoid the 110 freeway at all cost. “The traffic’ll be a nightmare at this time,” she said.

              As the SUV smoothly pulled out onto the road and took off for our next location, I took the time to look over my new assignment.

              Jessa Blair.

              Even I had heard of her. This girl was a huge star. I remembered back at Fort Bragg a bunch of the privates having posters of her around their bunks. I had spent most of my adult life either deployed abroad or in the dirty darkness of a motorcycle garage and yet even I could recognize this girl.

              I shook my head and corrected myself, this
woman.

              Her movies were usually some kind of chick flick and her posters and billboards always gave her a more girlish look. But now having seen her in person, I realized this was no cutesy little girl.

              Jessa Blair was a woman.

              And fuck, was she gorgeous. Of course, I had expected her to be beautiful. She was a Hollywood star, after all. Beauty was the number one requirement, followed distantly by talent. But Jessa wasn’t just beautiful. She wasn’t just another pretty face.

              There was something in those warm almond shaped eyes and something playful in those full pink lips and something seductive in her womanly curves. I immediately felt drawn to her the moment I set eyes on her. There was a secretive draw, a hidden lure that made you want to keep her close so you could discover her inner world.

              I shook my head.

              What the fuck was I talking about? I shrugged my shoulders and cracked my neck. I was sure I was just off kilter from meeting Jessa and having my expectations blown apart.

              The only other bodyguarding I had done in Hollywood was for some singer who had just come off a big reality show. She was pretty with her long blonde hair and her big blue eyes. But she had no draw and definitely no class. I had probably seen her huge tits fall out of her tops at least half a dozen times while I had been with her. She had always giggled as if embarrassed but then was slow to pull her top back up.

              She had enjoyed having a bodyguard, feeling as if it meant she had truly made it in Hollywood. She would try and send me out on errands to buy nail polish when she was bored and then writhe against my body when she was horny. I didn’t take to either situation. She eventually got frustrated with me and I was fed up with her. I left within two months.

              I hadn’t expected much more from Jessa Blair. If a two bit singer already had that big of a swollen head, how much bigger would Jessa’s be? After all, she had been a huge celebrity for years now.

              But instead, I had met a beautiful yet assertive woman. She refused to be led around without an explanation. She made sure to set rules for her expectations. She did not like being messed with.

              I had immediately been intrigued.

              Perhaps I could actually hang around LA longer than I thought I would.

              After the whole fiasco with the first bodyguard assignment, I had felt as if it had been a sign that LA was just not my scene. After all, I came from a town of less than three thousand people. And over there, they sure as hell did not care who had the top hit on the charts or had dominated the box office weekend.

              I looked out the window as we drove down Sunset Blvd.

              I had grown up on the edges of California, the deserts that practically touched Nevada. In Low Pointe, we had a population of 2,700 people. It was a small town with most people living very simply. You had to. There was literally nothing around us. The nearest interstate was ten miles out. Very few people ever entered Low Pointe and almost damn near nobody ever left.

              But the town got on because of the Black Wings. I felt my throat tighten in that familiar wounded anger as I thought about my old MC. Black Wings was an institution in Low Pointe. The members all lived in Low Pointe and acted as kind of a protection squad for the town.

              And protection it definitely needed. Because of its remote location, Low Pointe was the perfect spot for drug trade. And it came from all sides—from east in Nevada, south from Mexico, west from LA.

              Dad had been part of the Black Wings. It was common to have generations within the club. I had always grown up proud of having a dad in the club. It meant something to me. I knew no matter how shitty or grim the town was, it was kept at least a little safer because of dad and the club.

              So when I became of age, I was ready to join. I was ready to be initiated. But I was surprised when dad first hesitated about my joining. I was a little hurt at first, thinking he thought me too inadequate to join even though I had practically grown up within the club and the motorcycle garages they owned. I could pull apart a bike with my eyes closed and put it back together again with my hands tied.

              But dad was insistent about my taking my time. He asked why I wasn’t more curious about the world and about seeing the rest of the country. Even the rest of California.

              “There’s beaches, you know,” dad said with a wry grin. “California just ain’t all desert.”

              I looked up at him as if he was speaking nonsense. “Why the fuck would I want to go to a beach?” I asked, genuinely perplexed by such a question. As we spoke, both of us had grease under our nails and calluses on our hands from years of riding.

              Dad sighed and ran a hand down his gray stubble. “Because you’re just eighteen and all you’ve seen is this godfor-fucked town. You should see that there’s more to life than just Low Pointe.” He paused before pinning me with a direct look. “There’s more than just the Black Wings.”

              I had been shocked to hear him talk like that. He had been a good and loyal member of the Black Wings MC for decades. Other members were proud to have their sons join the club. It was odd that my dad had seemed so reluctant.

              But he had been persistent. Dad had come at me again and again with the idea of going out of Low Pointe and exploring. He kept telling me there was more to life and the world than I had seen and it was time I went out and saw that for myself.

              Brow beaten and a little more than hurt by his reluctance at my joining, I had finally given in and joined the Army. It wasn’t exactly what he had expected me to do but he was happy nonetheless that I would be getting out of dodge and seeing what else the country had to offer me.

              Once in the Army, I had felt a fierce and sudden drive to prove to dad that I
was
good enough for the Black Wings. Whatever doubts he had of my abilities, I was going to erase them by showing him exactly how capable I was.

              I had joined the infantry and at my first chance I tried to push past the status of a regular foot grunt to the 5
th
Group Special Forces. I marched miles through jungles, I ate grass and bark during survival training, I was tortured in POW simulations, and after a horrendous amount of physical and mental assaults, I finally earned that green beret.

              Medals were pinned and stripes earned over the six years I was in. Although I had initially started the Army as a way of proving myself, I had grown to really enjoy the life. I was a good soldier and I began to feel less reluctant with the prospect of continuing with a military lifestyle.

              Then dad died.

              Once I heard the news, I knew it was over. I was done with the military. I needed to go home. As soon as my enlistment was up, I declined the offer to renew and headed back to Low Pointe.

              I had been welcomed back into the arms of Low Pointe and the Black Wings immediately upon my return. They had all expressed their sadness over dad’s sudden death. It had been a violent and unexpected heart attack. No one had seen it coming.

              Least of all me.

              Raze, the club president, immediately took me aside to talk about dad and the club. Within a few weeks I was initiated into the Black Wings. The only thing I regretted was not having dad there to see me become a member. I felt a pang at the loss of us not ever being able to ride together as Black Wings riders.

              But I had finally found my place in the world. I was a member of the Black Wings. I would ride around town on my bike, feeling proud of the town that I protected. It felt good and nostalgic to know that I was riding and protecting the same streets that my own father had protected over the last several decades.

              I had embraced club life and knew I had finally found my peace.

              But that was until that one night.

              That was until I had learned the truth.

              That was until I had realized that dad had had a reason to try and push me out of Low Pointe.

              I felt my back and neck tense as I remembered getting onto my bike and riding out of Low Pointe, anger and rage flying around me like a tornado of emotion.

              I remembered when—

              “We’re here,” Marsha said as the SUV pulled up to the Beverly Hills Hotel.

              I snapped back from my tortured reverie and looked out the window to see the crowds already gathered around the front of the hotel.

              Hand on the door handle, I looked over my shoulder and asked Jessa, “Ready?”

              A delicate brow raised in amusement as she looked up at me with those warm hazel eyes that were now dancing with dry amusement. “Are
you
ready?” she asked, reminding me just who the newbie was in this game.

              I grunted, surprised by her coolness and impressed by her calmness. She was no petrified starlet, terrified of every passing stranger. I watched as she flipped her heavy mahogany hair over her shoulder as she prepared herself for the crowds outside.

              I opened the door and helped her step out.

              Immediately cameras began flashing and people began screaming for her attention. Her security detail had ridden ahead and had already fallen into line to hold back the crowd of reporters and curious fans. They strained to prevent everyone from literally falling on top of the actress. It was complete chaos.

              But Jessa smiled brightly and waved. She walked with sure steps down the line her security were providing. Whenever a section of the crowds got to aggressive and swarmed in, she didn't squeal or recoil. But neither did she bask in it and encourage the frantic fans so she could stroke her own ego. She simply took one step back and then continued walking, smiling serenely.