Private Passions (13 page)

"Jane, honey, of all people I know how crazy
your life can get. And I know you, I've known you, for a long
time." He paused, his heart thudding in his chest at what he was
about to say next. Part of him recoiled at the idea of throwing it
out there, of putting himself completely on the line. But he could
sense Jane's hesitation, her insecurity. He needed for her to
understand he was all in. "I'm in love with you, Jane, and that
happened a long time before I chased you down to this island."

Her eyes widened and her mouth hung open.
"Oh," she said softly. Then, several seconds later, "You
love
me?"

Deck's stomach pitched down to his knees, and
he felt his cheeks flood with embarrassed heat as he realized his
mistake. "Why else do you think I followed you across the
country?"

Another shrug. "Sex?"

"I can get laid a lot closer to home. That
was never all this was about. Not for me anyway."

Her full pink mouth stretched into a trembly
little smile as she threaded her fingers through his. "Me neither.
I'm sure it probably seemed like that, with everything I wrote, and
the way I treated you after that first time..." Her lids drifted
down as regret flashed across her face. "I spent so long fighting
how I felt about you, convinced it could never work out." She
caught her plump bottom lip in her teeth and slanted an uncertain
look at him from under her lashes. "I love you too, Deck."

He didn't realize he was holding his breath
until it came whooshing out of his chest. "As long as that's true,
I can handle whatever flavor of crazy you throw at me."

###

Jane's stomach quivered as the G6 started its
final descent towards the private runway at LAX. As though he could
sense it, Deck reached over and wrapped his big, warm hand around
hers.

"It's going to be okay," he said.

"I know," Jane said. She closed her eyes and
leaned against his shoulder, savoring these last few minutes of
calm before the storm. Even though they were flying into a private
runway away from the airport's main terminal, she knew from
experience that no matter how quiet she tried to keep it, there
were always photographers at the airport, laying in wait for a
celebrity sighting. She knew that after the way she'd dramatically
dropped off the map for a couple of weeks, her sudden reappearance
in LA would be the night's top story on TMZ.

As the plane touched down she took a big gulp
of her Diet Coke. She wished she could have something stronger, but
since this was her fist appearance since her alleged breakdown, she
couldn't afford to be anything other than stone cold sober.

A thin film of sweat coated her skin as she
slung her bag over her shoulder and followed Deck to the door. He
preceded her onto the tarmac and retrieved their bags before
calling her down. Jane switched on her phone, wincing at all of the
messages she'd ignored for the past week and a half.

Hal had called a half a dozen times since
Jane left him the message that she was coming back to L.A. She
contemplated listening but then decided there would be time enough
for him to air his grievances in person.

He couldn't be flipping out too hard. She
hadn't even told him about Deck yet.

As they walked across the tarmac, Deck stayed
a few paces in front of her. They were careful not to touch or give
any indication they were a couple

"Let's wait for Hal to come up with a
strategy," she'd said when they'd started discussing the logistics
of revealing their relationship to the public.

Deck's mouth had flattened into a hard line.
"I know what Hal's strategy will be. Keep it quiet until you come
to your senses and dump me."

"I'll make it very clear to him that's not an
option," she replied emphatically, "but I do want his help to make
the process as smooth as possible."

Deck hadn't looked happy about it, but he'd
agreed to act like he'd recently come back into her employ—nothing
more—until she and Hal came up with an agreed upon schedule of
events and appearances leading up to the big reveal that yes, Jane
had a boyfriend, and yes, it was her ex-bodyguard.

"Once I'm on the set for a few weeks—"

"Wait, we're talking weeks here?"

"No, we can still see each other, we just
have to keep it quiet. I'm just saying once the interest about me
coming out of hiding dies down, we can start being more open about
everything."

Deck had given a frustrated sigh. "I still
think it's bullshit, but I'll go along with whatever you think is
best."

Jane's lips curled in a secret smile as she
remembered how thoroughly she'd thanked him for his
understanding.

As they walked into the terminal, she braced
herself to face the gauntlet. They walked through the terminal and
didn't make it more than a few feet before she heard the murmurs
ripple across the crowd.

"That's Jane Bowden." Within seconds
flashbulbs were going off in her face as photographers shouted
unintelligibly. Deck served as a human blockade, pushing his way
through the crowd that formed around them.

As they neared the door, one question cut
through the din. "Mr. Decker, can you confirm you're the man in the
pictures from Jane's iPhone stream?"

Jane stumbled and would have fallen if Deck
hadn't caught her arms. "What pictures?" Jane said flippantly
though she was afraid she knew exactly what they were talking
about.

Finally Deck managed to get her out of the
building to where the car was waiting outside. It seemed to take
ages for Lewis, her driver, to maneuver his way through the throng
surrounding the car. At this point, Jane didn't really care if he
ran over someone's foot, but supposed she should be grateful to him
for sparing her a lawsuit.

She pulled her iPhone out with trembling
hands. The phone she'd gotten just a month ago with the express
purpose of it being her private line, her private camera, her
private link into the world. Only a handful of people even knew she
had it.

She clicked on the browser and for the first
time since she'd fled pulled up one of the gossip sites to see what
everyone had been saying about her.

Jane Bowden Frolics with Musclebound, Mystery
Boy Toy on the Beach!

Blood roared in her head as she read through
the endless stream of sensational headlines.

All were accompanied by the pictures she had
taken while they were in the Caribbean. They ran with stories that
speculated about Jane's mental stability and whether or not her new
lover would be able to keep up with her "nymphomaniacal" sex
drive.

Every private moment, every sweet, sexy smile
Deck had flashed her, every goofy grin she'd given as she pressed
her cheek against his, was on display. To be pored over, mocked,
speculated upon.

The most recent article identified Deck as
Jane's long term bodyguard, and was careful to highlight the fact
his employment started before she'd even married Ryan.

"So much for keeping it quiet," Deck
said.

Deck
had once spent three days pinned down in rock-strewn ravine outside
of Kandahar and he'd never felt as much under siege as he had for
the past twenty-four hours.

They'd gone straight from the airport to
Jane's house where Hal and Hailey were already waiting, along with
what seemed to be about nine hundred photographers crowding the
gates of her Brentwood estate.

Hal's face had been beet red when he'd opened
the door. Combined with his agitated wheezing and the vein
throbbing in his neck Deck hadn't been able to resist asking if he
should get a defribillator.

Hal had pinned him with a glare so fierce his
eyes disappeared in the plump folds of his face, but he didn't miss
Jane's quickly stifled giggle.

It gave him a small measure of relief from
his fears that she would drop him cold now that their "reveal"
wasn't going anything close to the way she'd hoped.

He was also relieved when Jane refused to
give into Hal's demands that Deck leave immediately. "He can't stay
here, Jane, not until we figure out how to get in front of
this—"

"Thanks to that little dweeb from the repair
shop"—that's who Jane had concluded leaked the photos, since he'd
had access to her computer recently and Jane had forgotten to turn
of her photostream that connected her phone to her iCloud
account—"there is no 'getting in front of this," she snapped. She
went to stand beside Deck and slipped her hand in his. "We're a
couple, and we're serious. That's the only story we need to
tell."

Despite Jane's words, after a sleepless night
spent in her bed, Deck rose with a nagging sense of dread that all
of the chaos swirling around them was steering them straight toward
disaster. It didn't help that Jane had gotten up hours ago and
locked herself in her office with Hal like they were negotiating
the fate of the free world.

"You don't really think she cares about you,
do you?"

Hailey's nasally voice speared through his
foggy brain like a knife.

Deck cocked an eyebrow and continued sipping
his coffee.

"Really, I mean, she may say she cares about
you, but the only thing she really cares about is herself and how
the world sees her."

Her words brought his own doubts churning to
the surface, doubts that had plagued him since they'd left the
island and she'd told him that even though she was in love with him
she still wanted to keep it quiet. She could say whatever she
wanted in their own private retreat, with no one around to
hear.

Now they were home, under the relentless
glare of the spotlight. Would Jane really choose her love for him
over her need for the world to love her?

He forced the dark thoughts aside. If he
couldn't have faith in her and the way she felt about him, they
didn't stand a chance. "Are you still pissed I turned you
down?"

Hailey's pale skin flushed red at the
reminder of the time six months ago she'd made a pass at him and he
turned her down cold. "Don't flatter yourself. But you should think
harder about dating so far above your pay grade. She's practically
royalty in this country. How long do you think she's going to want
to be with someone who comes from poor white trash?"

He felt the hairs prickle on the back of his
neck. "Leave my family out of it."

Hailey let out a mocking laugh. "Come on,
Deck. You can't be that naive. When you're dating a huge star,
everyone in your life is fair game."

As she whirled and stalked out of the
kitchen, he cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner. He wasn't
an idiot, he knew his own life would be thrown under the
microscope, every misdeed however slight highlighted for the world
to see.

But he'd been so caught up in his own
happiness and the incredible idea that not only was he in love with
Jane Bowden, she actually loved him back, he hadn't thought about
what it all might mean for his family.

Stomach clenching, he dialed his brother,
cursing when the call went straight to voice mail.

"Damon, it's Deck. Listen, you may have heard
some stuff about my love life already—sorry I couldn't tell you
first. But I wanted to give you a heads up that the press might be
sniffing around, and you need to make sure not to tell them
anything before we talk to them, and don't let Mom talk to them
either."

As soon as he hung up he dialed his father to
tell him the same, but he didn't even get past the area code before
Jane walked in.

He knew from her pale, shocked face that it
was already too late.

"How could you not tell me?" she said,
holding her iPad out in front of her like a shield.

Deck's stomach did a flip as he took it from
her. It took a second for him to focus on the words swimming in
front of him. Pain exploded behind his right eyeball as the
headline jumped out at him in all its salacious glory.

Jane's Lover's Bloody Past

The blood roared in his head and his legs
threatened to collapse under him as he scrolled farther. He set the
tablet down on the counter and braced his hands to hold himself
upright as he looked at the picture that showed a dark-haired,
slender woman being led to a cop car. Nearby was a woman holding a
little boy's hand as he strained to go after the dark-haired
woman.

That little boy was him at age two, screaming
for his mother the night she'd killed his father to save herself
and her two-year-old son.

Though Vivian Marshall was never charged,
claiming her husband had long abused both her and her son, Daniel,
some sources believe she used her relationship to the county
sheriff to convince him to look the other way. A suspicion
supported by the fact that Marshall married Harlan Decker less than
a year after her first husband's death.

Bile burned like acid in his throat as he
thought of what his mother must be going through. His beautiful,
generous mother who would do anything to protect her children.

Now this disgusting article glossed over the
truth and made it sound like she was some floozy who had been
fooling around with Deck's stepdad all along and used
"questionable" abuse charges to give her an excuse to get rid of
him.

And his dad—his real dad, the one who raised
him—was written up like some ignorant redneck taken advantage of by
his mother the black widow. Forget the fact that Harlan Decker had
taught his mother to love and trust again, treated her like a queen
for the past thirty years, and loved Deck like he was his own flesh
and blood.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, knowing his family
couldn't hear him but unable to hold the words back.

"You should be sorry." Jane's tight, high
voice broke through his haze. "How could you not tell me this, give
me some warning that this would come out?"