Page 53 of A Reclusive Heart

Within minutes, Rick had been on the phone with the police and Nick wouldn’t let her out of his sight, not even to use the bathroom. When she couldn’t hold it any longer, he made her use the men’s room so that he could stand guard. He thought she was kidding when she told him to sing so that she could use the bathroom. She hadn’t been.

Not even a little bit.

Besides learning that the men’s bathroom was a lot cleaner than the women’s bathroom, she also learned that Nick had a very sexy singing voice. That, of course, didn’t make up for the fact that she hadn’t eaten anything in almost twenty-four hours. As soon as they reached the hotel, Jamie was going to order food and then pass out. If Nick didn’t like that then that was too damn bad. She was a tired, cranky woman in need of sugar and he was the big jerk denying her, her fix.

“How much shit does she need?” Nick asked as he reached over and grabbed her duffle bag and threw it over his shoulder before taking her hand in his.

They watched as Holly directed the man carting all eight of her bags towards the waiting line of taxis. Jamie realized that they wouldn’t be heading home for four weeks, but eight bags was a bit much, especially since they would be traveling a lot. While Holly’s bags were loaded into a taxi, Nick signaled for another taxi and had their things thrown in the trunk.

“Nick!” Holly said brightly, waving to get his attention.

With a muttered curse that had her lips twitching, Nick glanced back at Holly. “I thought it would be a good idea if you and I shared a taxi so that we could go over a few things,” Holly said casually, but there was no doubt in Jamie’s mind that talking was the last thing she wanted to do with Nick.

It wasn’t difficult to figure out Holly was interested in Nick. What woman in her right mind wouldn’t be? He was incredibly sexy, handsome, and charming and she wasn’t the only woman that noticed.

He opened the passenger side door and gestured for Jamie to get inside. She barely managed to hold back a disappointed sigh as she resigned herself to riding to the hotel alone. “We’ll meet you at the hotel,” Nick said as she closed her eyes and settled in for what she hoped was a short ride.

“Okay,” Jamie mumbled sleepily.

“Okay, what?” Nick asked as he joined her and took her hand back in his.

Jamie opened her mouth to explain that she thought that he was riding with Holly, but she was too damn exhausted to try. Instead, she curled up next to him and forced her eyes to stay open during the blessedly short ride.

It seemed like minutes later, she was leaning against the hotel foyer wall while she watched Nick check them in. She was waiting to see how many rooms they had before telling him that she was getting her own room since she didn’t want to hurt Holly’s feelings by flat-out refusing to share a room with her.

Holly walked into the hotel foyer, followed by a man pushing her bags on a trolley when Nick walked back over to Jamie. He handed her a keycard and one to Holly when she finally joined them.

“So, we get our own rooms?” Jamie asked, sounding hopeful.

Nick shook his head as he reached down and grabbed his bags. “No, I’m afraid our original reservations still stand. Two of us are going to have to share,” he announced as she watched the expression on Holly’s face turn calculating. Jamie knew the minute that she was out of earshot that Holly was going to offer to share a room with Nick.

That wasn’t happening. She might be a pushover, but that didn’t mean that she was going to stand by quietly while another woman made a play for her boyfriend, she was-

Utterly shocked that she thought of him as her boyfriend.

For the first time in her life, she had a boyfriend. She ignored the fact that kind of made her pathetic and focused on the here and now, and right now, there was another woman flirting with her boyfriend. She was going to have to take Holly aside and explain to her that-

“Miss Harris and I will be sharing a room,” Nick announced, shocking Holly and putting the matter to rest, which was agood thing since Jamie really didn’t think she would have had much energy to deal with this right now. “We’ll see you in the morning,” Nick said, grabbing Jamie’s bag and threw it over his shoulder.

“Wait! You can’t do that!” Holly yelled after them.

“Goodnight,” was all Nick said as he ushered Jamie onto the elevator. Just before the elevator doors closed, she saw the furious expression on Holly’s face, and thanks to growing up with Caitlyn, she knew that she was going to make her life a living hell.

Great, Jamie thought dryly as the elevator doors closed. That’s all she needed to make her life perfect.

“I could have gotmy own room,” Jamie mumbled as she stepped out of the bathroom, drying her damp hair and wearing a pair of light pink flannel pajama pants and a tiny white tee-shirt that had his blood simmering.

“They were sold out for the night,” he lied. “It was either share a room with me or with Holly,” he explained, noting the pinched expression on Jamie’s face at the suggestion. Not that he could blame her. The woman was incredibly annoying and that perfume of hers was strong enough to peel paint. She was also the last person that he wanted to tag along on this tour.

When he’d realized who Holly was, he took Rick aside and told him to pick someone else. Unfortunately for him, there was no one else. Correction, he could have had someone else if he’d been willing to wait a few more days, but that wasn’t an option.

Not after seeing those letters.

He wanted to get his little recluse out of there as soon as possible and for damn good reason. It wasn’t uncommon forcelebrities and authors to receive death threats from unhappy fans and psychos. He knew that she’d no doubt receive more over the years, but the letters were alarming.

Not only had they gone into graphic detail about how the psycho wanted to kill her, but the letters were all addressed to Jamie, not J.L. Lewis. That probably wouldn’t have been entirely alarming since her family had taken it upon themselves to give away her real name, but that had only been a few days ago. The letters dated back a month ago before anyone knew her real name. The biggest concern was that none of the letters had been sent through the mail.

There wasn’t a single postage stamp on any of the death threats, which meant that whoever wrote them had hand-delivered them to Jamie’s mailbox. Thankfully, Jamie’s landlord decided to throw her ass out, otherwise, he’d probably be having a hell of a time convincing her to move out. All of her things, her personal items like her computer, clothes, and toiletries were being moved out of her place at the moment. He’d convinced her to donate all of her furniture, not because he really thought it was a nice thing to do like he’d claimed, but because it allowed the movers under Rick’s direction to get in and get the hell out without tipping anyone off about what they were doing.

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