Under His Care (13 page)

Jake Novak was standing there, not a foot away from her, watching her with those movie star eyes and that panty-dropping grin. “You don’t think I’ll understand?” he asked. “I bet I would.”

Raven swallowed. Up close his charisma was so intense that she was thrown into a panic, her heart racing, throat closing up, feeling like she might pass out.

He stood there watching her with those brown eyes and that face she’d seen plastered across countless billboards, on TV screens, even in movie theaters. His eyes were intense, studying her, as if he knew exactly the effect he was having on her in that moment.

“One Long Island Iced Tea,” the bartender called out, saving her.

Gratefully, Raven spun and picked up the drink, guzzling it for a couple of seconds, hoping to calm her frayed nerves.

Jake stepped up to the bar and ordered himself a beer, then turned to her again. “You never answered my question. What’s ridiculous?”

Now she could smell his cologne, his scent, and she found that it was as intoxicating as everything else about him. He was exactly what he promised to be in those silly movies that she claimed not to watch, but secretly enjoyed late at night when nobody was around to see her smile dreamily at the popular boy.

The alcohol had had its intended outcome, although her eyes were watering a little from the burning in her throat after drinking so much so quickly. “I’m just not used to this type of party,” she said, finally.

“Not your scene?” he said, taking his beer and tossing a fifty-dollar bill onto the bar for the bartender, who exclaimed his thanks.

Good tippers were an instant turn-on for Raven, who’d been waiting tables ever since she’d left home at seventeen—and the really good tippers were rare where she came from.

“Fifty dollars for opening a bottle of beer?” she said, raising her eyebrows.

“Too little?” he said. “Fine, then.” He turned and dropped a one hundred dollar bill on the bar. “Compliments of my lady friend,” he told the bartender, whose eyes were now bigger than a pair of dinner plates.

Raven told herself to take a breath.

You’re standing here talking with Jake Novak, but it’s okay. He’s just a human being. He’s no different than anyone else. He’s just a human being. Remember that.

But when she tried to meet Jake’s gaze, all of her big talk went out the window. Her legs shuddered, her mouth got even drier, her hand felt too weak to hold her drink. Because the truth was that Jake Novak wasn’t normal. He wasn’t just like everyone else, and standing this close to him brought that point home with absolute and devastating clarity.

She knew, just as everyone else knew, that Jake had gone into the marines and served two tours of duty in the Middle East right out of high school. He’d been in combat when other guys his age were doing keg stands and rushing fraternities.

What made the whole world fall in love with Jake had been not just his good looks and pop songs, but his life story. Everyone had heard about his beautiful fiancé who’d waited patiently for him as he fought overseas, only for her to get cancer, passing away just a few months after Jake had come home for good.

Standing there looking him in the eye, all of her knowledge about his life came crashing in on her. Despite what she’d said to Skylar about hating his movies and music, the truth was that she did love that dancing movie he’d done—it was called Jump In—and she’d watched it more times than she could count.

And she also had three of his singles on her iPod and played them over and over again whenever she went for her three-mile run in the park.

What made it all so much worse was that his physical presence made her want to get on her knees and beg him to have sex, just like Skylar had joked about doing.

Raven wasn’t that kind of girl and never had been—despite what some people might have claimed. But looking into his gorgeous brown eyes, seeing the fullness of his lips, the strength of his jaw, his styled short brown hair, and that muscular body bulging out of the fabric of his loose-fitting shirt…

Just fuck me
, she thought, her emotions desperate. In the last four years, she hadn’t allowed herself to want anyone, to really picture herself with any man—and here she was picturing herself with the most wanted man on planet Earth.

Of course, the fact that she was a virgin might have complicated matters, but right then she didn’t particularly care.

“Where are you?” Jake asked her.

“Me? I’m right here, same as you.” She was surprised at how calm and almost arrogant her voice sounded in her own ears. She took a long sip from her drink.

“You looked like you were deep in thought just now,” he said.

“Well some of us do that,” Raven told him.

“Some of who do what?”

“Some of us girls do think,” she replied. It suddenly seemed that blistering sarcasm had become her best method of defense.

Jake stepped closer to her then, and she had the sudden urge to run her hands down his chest, to feel the tightness of his well-muscled torso, those washboard abs that had been featured on dozens of magazine covers.

She suddenly imagined herself lifting his shirt and licking his stomach, tasting his salty skin, and then unbuckling his belt…

“I get it,” Jake said, interrupting her bewildering fantasy.

“What do you get?” she said, trying not to sweat. She felt like he could read her mind, like he knew exactly what she’d just been picturing.

He smiled at her. “You’re frustrated.”

“Not at all.” She shook her head.

How can he tell?

“You sure about that?” he asked, smiling, his eyes seeming to pin her down and hold her.

“Maybe I am frustrated,” she allowed. “But then again, I bet you are too.”

He stepped closer to her yet again, and now she could actually feel his body heat and sense his strength, like some kind of wild animal. He reached out and softly touched her wrist, and it was like she’d been burnt by a flame. “You’re right,” he told her. “I do get frustrated with the same old parties, the same silly conversations, the same types of women wanting the same things from me.”

“It must be
so
hard for you,” Raven said, allowing the sarcasm to show.

Jake’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “It
is
hard,” he said. “
Very hard
.” He stared at her, and she found herself unable to even speak.

She was picturing doing more than unbuckling his belt, now. She was picturing sucking his perfectly hard cock, taking it in her mouth, doing things she’d never done to any man before.

Raven tried to make the images leave her mind, but she couldn’t. It was as if Jake Novak had taken control of her brain.

He smiled, like he knew exactly the images his words had triggered in her brain. “I think maybe you and I have more in common then you think,” he told her.

“I doubt that very much.”

“That’s too bad,” he said, sounding genuinely regretful. “I bet we could’ve had fun together.” And then he turned around and walked away.

As he left her, it was as though the sun had gone dark, as if all of the heat had been sucked from the room.

Raven felt so cold, so alone—and totally devastated.

What did you expect?
She asked herself.
Did you really think he was going to become your new best friend? The guy is the most famous, most powerful celebrity in the world who could have any woman he wanted.

But she wished she could have taken back that last sentence, when she’d said they had nothing in common. The truth was, she felt something pass between them, and it was something she’d never felt with anyone before.

Something she’d been waiting for her whole life, maybe, only she’d been too terrified to act on it. Instead, she’d chickened out and pushed him away.

She walked slowly back to where Skylar was waiting. “Oh my God, Raven! He spoke to you!”

“Yeah, and I spoke back,” she said, sighing.

“Don’t you even care?” Skylar said, aghast at Raven’s lackadaisical attitude.

Raven shrugged, not wanting to admit just how much she did care. She cared so much that it was like physical pain. For a brief moment, she’d felt such a connection, such chemistry between them…the way he’d looked at her, talked to her, the way the conversation had flowed, as if they knew one another intimately already.

Clearly, though, that was the effect that a man like Jake Novak had on the people he came into contact with—hence how he’d become bigger than Christian Bale and Justin Bieber rolled into one.

A little while later, as Raven continued to drink and pretend to ignore Jake Novak, the man with the tuxedo who’d let them into the party walked up beside her. “You need to come with me,” he said.

Raven looked at him, her brow furrowed. “Why? Did I do something wrong?”

“It’s a private matter,” he said, glancing from side to side as if to indicate that even this was too much public conversation for his tastes.

“Where are we going?”

“Just around the corner, it will take a minute or two at most,” the man told her.

For some reason, Raven decided to look over at Jake Novak in that moment, and she was shocked to find that he was staring right at her again. It was like an electric shock through her system.

Had he sent this man to speak to her for some reason? She didn’t understand it, but at the same time, she wanted to know more.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Raven said.

Skylar was staring after her with wide eyes as the man in the tuxedo ushered her around the corner and into a small private room that he opened with a key.

The room was bare, except for some bookshelves and a desk and some art on the walls.

“I need you to sign some paperwork,” the man told her, turning his back to her and gathering what looked like an entire binder of material.

“Paperwork? For what?”

“A guest has expressed interest in speaking further with you,” he explained. “In order to make the guest comfortable, we have arranged for you to sign our standard non-disclosure agreement.”

Raven’s head was spinning. She knew that Jake Novak must have sent this man to speak to her, but she couldn’t believe they wanted her to sign paperwork just to have a conversation.

“This seems a little extreme,” she laughed. “I need to sign stuff just to talk to a guy at this party?”

The man in the tuxedo placed a stack of papers on the desk and handed her an expensive, heavy fountain pen. “Yes, you need to sign stuff to talk to a guy at this party. Especially this guy.”

“It’s going to take me a year to read all of this,” she said, trying to scan the document. On the very first line of the first page, in bold, it said:

CLUB ALPHA INTERNATIONAL STANDARD NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT

“You don’t have a year to read this,” the man said. “And you don’t have to sign it at all. But if you refuse, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the party.”

“Why?” she said, stepping back. “What’s the big deal?”

“It’s very simple. We make it possible for our very famous guests to engage in a relaxed environment without fear of their every word and deed being exploited for financial and political gain. In order to do that, we must at times make use of legally binding contracts.”

Raven was flipping through the astoundingly long contract, trying to make heads or tails of it, but it was no use. It might as well have been written in a foreign language.

“I can’t understand any of this.”

“As I explained, it’s a standard non-disclosure. Do you have any interest in selling the story of any conversation you might have tonight?”

“Selling it to who?”

“TMZ, People, US Weekly…”

“Of course not.”

“Then you shouldn’t have an issue signing this contract.”

Raven hovered over the contract, trying to figure out what to do. If Jake Novak had asked for this, then she wanted to do it. If that’s what it took to get more time with him, she was powerless to say no. But at the same time, she felt crazy for signing a contract that she couldn’t even understand.

Luckily, I’m just drunk enough not to care.

“Okay, show me where to sign,” she told him. “And hurry up before I change my damn mind.”

For the first time, the man in the tuxedo smiled at her. “Just a few places,” he said, and then began flipping through the contract. “Here. And here…and here…initials and date here.”

By the end, she might have been signing her life away.

***

The party continued, but the conversation with her mystery suitor never materialized.

Raven was vaguely drunk, dispirited, hanging around and trying not to keep looking over at Jake Novak, who had seemed to make a point of drifting from one girl to the next as he made the rounds.

Why isn’t he coming over to talk to me?
I signed the stupid forms they wanted me to sign. Isn’t that what he was waiting for?

None of it made any sense to her.

Maybe some other rich man had been interested in her—but so far, nobody had approached, and the only she cared about was Jake Novak.