All the Feels (Spoiler Alert #2)(52)

Lauren had gone offline again to protect her own equanimity, but she wasn’t a fool. At some point, someone was going to realize that the woman who’d deflected a red-carpet attack on Alex was the same woman he’d defended from insult in the viral video, and then—

Honestly, she had no idea what would happen. But she still didn’t want to explain her role in his life. Her job was an insult to him.

He didn’t need a keeper. He needed companionship and understanding.

The car was slowing as they neared the drop-off area, and she couldn’t pretend she was calm. Not when her palms prickled with sweat and her heart skittered in her chest at the prospect of confronting crowds by Alex’s side.

Even without the prospect of paparazzi, she’d be worried. About bloggers and fans and hotel employees and … everyone.

One derisive sidelong look, one passing comment about her face or her body, and he’d detonate. She knew it.

In his car yesterday, she’d watched hurt and anger—at her, for her—darken those storm cloud eyes and twist his perfect face. She’d cradled the hot, vulnerable nape of his neck in her hand as he shared stories he’d told no one else, as he shared his pain, as he shared his huge, loving, impulsive, honorable heart.

And she’d told him to follow his instincts, because how could she not? In that moment, how could she spurn his generous emotional response to her?

But even if she’d asked him not to react, she wasn’t sure he’d be able to contain himself if someone insulted her.

Because he cared about her more than his career.

It was bizarre. Bizarre and touching and, frankly, terrifying.

Whatever they’d become to one another over the past fraught months had an end date. In less than a year, she’d be gone from his life, while he could have several decades left in his career. Rationally, it made absolutely no sense to risk his professional reputation for her sake.

But when it came to anyone he cared about, Alex wasn’t rational. At all.

That reckless loyalty caught at her throat and hitched her breath, and it also scared the living hell out of her. As she’d told him so many damn times, she didn’t want to be the means by which he destroyed anything precious to him. And he’d clawed his way to professional success over two decades of hard, hard work, despite the complications posed by his ADHD, so his reputation in the entertainment industry wasn’t merely precious.

It was irreplaceable.

Whether he agreed or not, it was obviously way more important than whether some random person she didn’t give two hoots about thought she was ugly.

She might have protected him from an unexpected attacker on the red carpet, but she didn’t know how to protect him from himself.

The driver parked the car at the hotel entrance, and Lauren took a slow, deep breath before opening the passenger door. As the three of them climbed out and gathered their minimal luggage, a crowd of fans descended on both actors.

Those fans paid her no attention. Good.

Even as Marcus and Alex eventually made their way to the reception desk in the airy, sprawling lobby, no one seemed to realize she was accompanying the two men. Or if they did, they didn’t care. Which was the correct reaction, because she didn’t matter.

Once they’d all checked in—Ron had approved Marcus and Alex staying together in a suite, so she had her own room on another floor—they prepared to go their separate ways.

That tether tugged at her chest again, harder than ever, but she ignored it. It was better for her not to be in his immediate vicinity. Safer.

After pocketing her room key, she gave both men a nod. “I’ll see you at your Q-and-A session, Alex. Have a good evening, Marcus.”

When they stood so close, it hurt her neck to look up at them.

It hurt her heart too.

They were both tall, both exceedingly beautiful, both stars with their own powerful gravitational pulls. Soon enough, though, she’d have to wrench herself out of Alex’s orbit and float out into space, a satellite adrift once more.

He was speaking, gesturing to her, but the buzz of the crowd, of her thoughts, drowned him out. Was he saying something about walking her to her room?

In all honesty, she would love a buffer on the way there, especially since some of the convention’s attendees might recognize her from the red-carpet video. She should go on her own, though. That was the right thing to do.

So she pointed apologetically at her ear, mouthed I can’t hear you, and fled as Alex’s grin transformed into a scowl, Marcus watched them with a gaze as sharp as his best friend’s tongue, and fans with phones poised for selfies descended on both men.

When she got into the elevator, Alex’s aggrieved stare from across the lobby seared the side of her face, and she had to turn away and hide behind the closing door.

Yes, she was doing the right thing.

But leaving Alex felt wrong, wrong, wrong.

OTHER THAN WREN’S abrupt, exceedingly rude departure, everything else was proceeding according to Alex’s very wise and well-thought-out plan.

He and Marcus had entered their blue-and-gold suite minutes before, then claimed their chosen bedrooms and unpacked. Or, in Alex’s case, opened up his suitcase on the provided luggage rack and called it a day, because he didn’t unpack for trips of less than a week.

The rooms were comfortable but generic, and they didn’t matter. What did matter: Alex’s commitment to continual, provoking conversation. It was a particular skill of his, cultivated over decades, and it proved as effective as always.