Page 107 of To Love Jason Thorn

“Don’t put your hands on me, man,” the guysaid with a half growl as he lowered his camera. “Just doing my job here andtaking a few pics of the pretty ladies.”

Was he goading Jason?

“I don’t care what the fuck your job is. Idon’t want you getting in her face.”

I curled my hand around Jason’s arm andtried to force him to keep walking before things escalated between them.

The jerk smirked and said, “Ease up man,maybe she needs someone to get in her face. I hear you’re not quitedoing it for her.”

A few of the others let out low chucklesand kept taping the whole thing. They were eating it all up. Jason took a stepforward, and then another as his muscles kept tensing underneath my hand whereI was trying not so successfully to hold him back.

“Olive, do something or he’s going to loseit,” Lucy murmured urgently in my ear.

“Jason,” I said sharply when I saw hishands had balled into fists. “We need to go.”

His eyes still on the smirking idiot andhis jaw set, he gave me a sharp nod and started forward again. The paps keptfollowing us and even though they were keeping their distance this time around,the questions kept circling around my reaction to his lackluster kiss at thepremiere.

I was half tempted to stop walking and justfling myself in his arms so we could have a repeat of our first kiss—obviouslythe one we’d just had that night, because there was no way I was accepting thepremiere kiss as my first from him—and shut them the hell up, but getting outof there as fast as possible seemed like a better idea.

Maybe I’d have a chance to maul him inpublic some other time?

Reaching the car and driving away from thesmall crowd didn’t help Jason loosen up at all. As much as Lucy did her best tolighten our moods, Jason didn’t utter more than a few words.

As soon as we dropped Lucy off, Jasonreached for his phone and called his publicist without speaking a word to me.

“Megan. Yeah. Sorry for interrupting. I’m callingto give you a heads up. A few people from the crew took videos of Olive and mekissing on stage. Yeah, we were at the crew party. Fine.”

I quickly realized that I didn’t like themdoing damage control about something that was so damn near magical to me.Rubbing my hands on my thighs, I turned my head and watched the cars passing byus.

I wondered where they were going, who theywere going to reach at the end of their journey. Maybe they weren’t goinganywhere, just sailing through life.

You’re not even making any sense, Olive.Shut up your babbling mind.

“Yeah, I know,” Jason clipped. “We didn’tpromise exclusivity to the magazine with the marriage thing. Sure. Go ahead andmake a comment on the videos then. No. That’s not all.”

He paused before letting out a big sigh. Ifelt like an intruder listening in on their conversation, but it wasn’t like Icould get away to give them privacy either.

The best day of my life was slowly being ruinedby damage control.

“Someone must have tipped off the papsbecause a small group of them was waiting for us when we left early. One ofthem got a little too close to Olive so I gave him a shove.”

I closed my eyes and rested my head on thewindow.

“No. He damn near tripped her,” Jason shoutedsuddenly. Despite being right next to him, I couldn’t hear what Megan wassaying. I could hear her rising voice all right, but I couldn’t make out herwords.

“I’m not apologizing,” Jason growled ather. “I won’t have anyone crowd her just because she is too polite to tell themto back off. I called to give you a heads up. Now you know. Do whatever youwant with it.”

With those last words, he hung up on her.

For the rest of the ride, he didn’t speakto me, so I didn’t think it would be a good idea to force a conversation onhim. Maybe he was already regretting kissing me? Or maybe he had been playingand I was too dense to notice we were acting? Could he be that cruel? Or maybehe was angry about the paps mentioning the photo from the premiere that made somany headlines…

If he was angry about that, I didn’t knowhow to fix it. I’d waited for him to say something about it the day the picturehad gone online, but I was too chicken shit to mention it on my own. When hedidn’t bring it up and chose to act like nothing was wrong…well, why poke thebear right? However, maybe if I apologized, he would soften at least enough tospeak again.

Gaah… He wasmaking both my heart and my head hurt with his loud silence.

We spotted the paparazzi lying in wait infront of his house the moment he turned the corner onto his street.

“Damn it!” Jason growled, speeding uptoward the gate before they could get between the car and the gate and blockour entrance.

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