He chuckled, reluctantly separating from my body, and helped me off the counter. I grimaced as I wiggled my dress back into place, feeling the slick mess of his cum on my inner thighs already. Fucking Gray could have left me a pair of panties to put onafter.
“I need to clean up,” I admitted, cheeks heated. “I can’t go back out there like this.”
Jace frowned in confusion, then grinned when he understood. “Oh. Baby. You areabsolutelygoing back out there like that. Christ, now I’m getting hard again just thinking about you walking around with my cum coating your pussy. You’ll be sitting there eating dinner, and it’ll be dripping out…Fuck. Round two?” He grasped himself through his pants, which he’d onlyjustdone up, and I laughed as I pushed him away.
“Stop it! We can go for round two in Gray's car on the way home.” I laughed, pushing him again, but he caught my hand, reeling me in for another breathtaking kiss.
“Fine,” he grumbled. “Come on. They already probably know we were fucking; no use hiding it by sneaking out separately.” He guided me out of the restroom and back to the table before I could even tidy my hair, and the knowing look Tess gave us said it all.
Damn it, Jace!
The rest of dinner was amazingly enjoyable, once I got past my embarrassment. Jace kept giving me soft looks of adoration, his hand on my knee under the table, and I found myself gazing at him like a lovestruck idiot on more than one occasion.
Eventually, though, the dinner ended, and we all got up to leave. Jace and his dad handed their valet slips in to get their cars, and I chatted with Tess about her new puppy, which she needed to get home to feed. He was a twelve-week-old Spoodle she’d named Jonas after a character in a book she was reading. After seeing pictures, Lydia and I cooed over how cute the little floof was, and Jace’s dad spoke quietly to him on something or other.
The first car to arrive was Lydia and Greg’s, so we bid them farewell with hugs and promises to stay in touch. Lydia gave us a wink and told us that we’d make beautiful babies, then climbed into the car as my panic surgedagain.
“Alright, well, I better get going,” Tess told us with a wide grin. “Ignore Lydia. She’s just desperate for grandbabies at the moment; must be a phase of life.”
Clearly Jace hadn’t told his parents about Penelope, but I couldn’t blame him for that. It wasn’t the sort of thing to casually drop in conversation.
“Can we give you a ride?” I offered, since she’d said she would walk the few blocks back to her hotel. Lydia and Greg were driving back to Siena, but Teresa was staying for a few days. “It’s late, and Naples is full of crime these days.”
She shook her head, declining. “Nope, I enjoy the night air. But I hope I can see you guys again while you’re in town?”
“Absolutely,” I agreed emphatically. “I’d love that.”
Tess hugged us goodbye just as the valet pulled up with Grayson’s Mustang. The attendant hopped out and handed over the keys, then gave a horrified gasp.
“You’re Jace Adams,” she exclaimed, still clutching the car keys in her hand as she glared up at Jace. “You’re JacefuckingAdams. From Bellerose.”
Jace winced, glancing around. “Yeah. Did you want a selfie or…?” He hunched his shoulders and clutched my hand tight, uncomfortable with the girl's attention but also trying to be polite and not brush off a fan.
“Aselfie?” she spat like he’d just proposed shitting on her bed. Maybe not a fan, then. “You ruined my whole fucking life! You think I want aselfie? I want you to pay for what you did!” Her eyes shifted from Jace to me, then to Tess, and her expression twisted with a cruel coldness. “Teresa, right? Jace’s half-sister from Baltimore?”
Tess frowned, a flash of fear in her eyes. “H-how do you know that?” She turned to another member of the valet staff. “I think maybe we need security.” But the restaurant was crazy busy, and the guy barely even glanced over as he spoke on the phone with a guest.
“No. No we don’t,” the enraged valet snapped. “No, this is perfect. Fucking perfect. Better than anything I had planned.” She gave an unhinged laugh, reaching into her pocket. “You ruined my life, Jace. Now I’ll ruin yours.”
From her pocket she pulled out a switchblade, pressing the release to flick out the blade. I shrieked, and Jace acted lightning fast. He grabbed me, twisting our positions so his broad form shielded me, but it was pointless.
I wasn’t the target.
Tess screamed, the kind of scream I would never forget, and I shoved at Jace as I fought to get at the crazy bitch. Jace realized what’d happened a split second after me, but the girl was already gone. She took off running into the night, leaving Tess on the sidewalk with a pool of blood rapidly spreading across the middle of her silver dress.
The hoarse cry that tore out of Jace when he crouched beside his sister, his hands desperately pressing her injuries to apply pressure, was the sort of sound that haunted the world. It ripped through my soul and squeezed my heart, and I had toforcemyself to move. To snatch the phone from the other valet’s hand and dial an ambulance, all the while praying to gods I didn’t believe in.
She couldn’t die. Jace didn’t deserve this. Tess needed to be okay.
The lifeless way her hand flopped onto the concrete spoke a different story, though.
Sirens sounded in the distance, and I sank to my knees beside Jace, at a loss for what to do as gut-wrenching sobs shook his whole body. Maybe… maybe it would be okay. I had to have hope. Without hope… where were we in this life?
eighteen
ANGELO
When Billie called me, sobbing and choking out her words, I’d thought the worst. For a horrible, harrowing moment, I’d thought something had happened to her. Or to Jace. When she finally got the relevant information out, that it was Jace’s sister Teresa who’d gotten hurt, I could finally breathe again.
