Page 107 of Love In The Spotlight

She turned and saw Jamie laughing as he said it. If anyone was looking at the three of them and taking pictures as Alex has mentioned, they’d see Jamie and her relaxed and Alex the one looking not so smug right now.

“You’d never do that,” Alex said.

“I’ve been known to goof off now and again with the guys,” Jamie said, putting his hand out. “You might want to shake my hand so that the press doesn’t think you’re the one with the problem. There are eyes on us. Those same eyes you tried to put on Laken when she didn’t want them.”

Alex shook hands with her boyfriend and she kept her smile in place. What she wanted to do was burst out laughing but wouldn’t.

When Alex stalked off she turned to him. “That was very mature of you.”

“I’m a mature person,” he said.

“You wouldn’t want to ram him into the wall, would you?”

Jamie snorted. “Hell yeah, I would but wouldn’t. I heard what he said to you.”

“He’s bitter,” she said.

“Do you hate having eyes on you like this?” he asked.

She could see he was concerned. “No. I hated it with him. Maybe I’ve gotten used to it. I don’t know. It could be the fact that it’s with you and I know it’s part of your life, but you wouldn’t put anyone through something they wouldn’t want to do. You’d always do the right thing and protect those you love.”

He hugged her close to his side. “That’s right,” he said. “Because someone taught me that I’m enough and that is all that matters.”

She laid her head on his shoulder. “But in teaching you that you’re enough I realized that I am too. I don’t have to be like my brothers. I don’t have to keep killing myself and working to prove anything to anyone. The right people know what they need to.”

“I guess you could say that we taught and learned from each other,” he said.

“My mother would be so proud.”

He laughed at her dry tone. “Mine might be too.”

Just hearing him say that told her that, yes, they’d both come a long way. It was amazing what opening your heart to the right person would do.

EPILOGUE

“That was a beautiful wedding,” Jamie said two weeks later.

“If anyone can pull off stunning in the backyard at night in the Hamptons with the weather not that quite warm, it’s West,” she said.

They were back at the hotel that West had secured for his family for the wedding.

A Friday night wedding before Easter. Laken had told him that West planned it this way so that all the siblings would still be here to celebrate since they didn’t get together often. She’d joke her brother was trying to get on her mother’s good side.

So on Sunday the eight siblings and those with significant others would go to West’s from the hotel for a big dinner and then West’s jet was flying his mother, Elias and Talia back to North Carolina. Rowan would fly back to California on Monday.

There was more family here than he could have thought. Every single one of West’s cousins on both his father's and mother’s side was in attendance. West paying for all the airfare of anyone who wasn’t close enough to fly on his private jet that he’d sent to North Carolina to pick people up.

“It was more than beautiful,” he said. “You looked gorgeous as always.”

Of course Laken was in the wedding. Along with Talia, Lily, and Abby’s sister, Liz, as the Matron of Honor. West wanted all his brothers in the wedding so there was one more groomsman than bridesmaids.

“I’ve got good genes,” she said. “Penelope seemed to have a good time.”

“She’s never been around so many people before,” he said.

He’d been nervous when his daughter was invited but then knew this wedding was going to have security everywhere. Even the date hadn’t been leaked. He’d later found out the hotel they were in was owned by West and he’d made sure the rooms were all secured under different names.

“And she handled it well,” she said. “She’s blossoming.”

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