Page 22 of Emma's Element

“Donna Mitchel.”

“That super hot actress?” blurted Finch.

“Yeah. We usually attend these things together.”

Jude shook his head, muttering, “Fucktard.”

“What?” Marcus’s confusion must have been written across his face as the men erupted into laughter again.

“Jesus, man,” Tin Man scolded. “You made a date with another woman in front of Emma.”

Marcus opened his mouth to reply in the negative until the truth of that statement hit him. He dropped his head as the laughter echoed in the fuselage. He was a fucktard. He’d given her nothing but mixed messages the entire day. The hand holding, the intense hug by the bluff, his attempt at distance, and finally, his conversation about Donna. It wasn’t a secret that he’d often attended events with the actress; their pictures together were plastered everywhere. But there had never been anything between them. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. They both knew the routine. Be seen, pose for a few pictures, then go their separate ways. That was all there was to it.

But Emma didn’t know that, dickwad.Maybe it was for the best this way. Perhaps he could better maintain more space between them if she remained perturbed with him. It might keep them both from the inevitable hurt his leaving could cause. But the tightening in his chest told him he’d hate that plan.

Afterthreemoreintensedays of classroom training, Marcus was again enjoying a meal with Emma in Jolene’s “private room.” But for some reason, this time, Emma insisted that Jolene join them. It was almost as if she didn’t want to be alone with him. He couldn’t blame her after his behavior at their last dinner together. He’d been frustrated with his growing attraction to her and worried about how he could possibly make it work between them. But then he’d gone and fucked it up even more, discussing arranging a “date” with Donna.

His dating track record was nothing short of a disaster. Most of the women he’d tried dating had only wanted to use him. But there had been the occasional woman who truly wanted to be with him. Those all ended in bitter failure. If he tried to take her out, the paparazzi found them, hounded them. Even when he’d attempted to be stealthy, they still managed to find him. And if the woman met him at his home, the minute she left, they followed her, harassing her mercilessly.

There had been one woman at the beginning of his stardom whom he’d once cared for and contemplated building it into something more. Marci had been a sweet, shy librarian he’d met in a coffee shop one morning after bumping into her and almost accidentally spilling his coffee all over her. They’d laughed over the near miss, and he’d been smitten by her giggle. They’d shared a table and talked for nearly an hour. He’d ended up asking her to dinner.

The Three Musketeershad been released the week before he’d met Marci, and he’d been unprepared for the skyrocket to his fame. His agent had advised him to hire Colleen Pike to handle the publicity side of his career, which at the time he’d been grateful to hand over to someone who knew what they were doing. But it wasn’t long before the paparazzi started to harass him, and by extension, Marci. Photographers found them every time they went out together. They dug up every salacious morsel they could about the sweet librarian, and when they couldn’t find anything juicy enough, they made it up.

Then they started playing games with her feelings. They snapped pictures of him with any woman he happened to be standing next to and made up whatever narrative they wanted about who the woman was. Often, it was someone he’d never met, just an unlucky woman who’d been waiting to cross the street when the light changed at the same corner. They would accuse him of stepping out on Marci, and she’d been too polite to question him about it. But he could see the stress and anxiety change her. She’d stopped eating and sleeping. Refused to leave her home, even to go to work. Eventually, she’d lost her job and started drinking.

He'd tried to shield her as much as possible, but the damage had been done. When she’d wrapped her car around a pole, her parents took her home and put her in rehab. He’d offered to pay for it, but they refused. They wanted nothing more to do with him since they blamed him for the ruination of their daughter. And he couldn’t say he blamed them.

He’d used caution from then on when dating, trying to keep things private. But the paparazzi always discovered him. Colleen had tried to convince him that any publicity was good publicity when he attempted to complain about the attention. She maintained that if he wanted to be successful in his career, he had to put up with every aspect fame brought him . . . the good and the bad. But it seemed to him that he should be able to walk down the street without being linked to every woman he passed. The few times he’d managed to get away, like his trip to the UP nine months ago, he had a few days of peace before they found him again. Eventually, he’d given up.

If he wasn’t on set working, he was home. This time with the Nighthawks was a welcome respite. But how much longer did he have before he was tracked down again? The guilt of what happened to Marci lived with him as a daily reminder. Could he subject another woman to that torture? Emma was the first woman he’d wanted since Marci, but there was a ticking time bomb pounding in his head. How much time did he have left alone with her before it was ruined?

“I’m curious,” Marcus said to Emma. “Why did you leave the Coast Guard?”

“I just needed a new adventure, I guess,” she replied. The answer came a little too quickly, almost rehearsed. Her rigid body posture and tense smile, combined with the looks Jolene kept firing Emma’s way, told him there had to be more to the story, but she wasn’t sharing. He let her lie stand for now.

“Where did you serve?”

“Up until last year, I was stationed in Marquette in the UP.”

“What happened a year ago?” he asked.

She hesitated and shifted in her chair. He was even more convinced there was a story she was unwilling to share. One she was very obviously trying to hide from him. “I transferred to DC to work in intelligence.”

“Really? Why intelligence?”

“I thought it was a good fit. Someplace to use my computer science degree.”

“She’s got crazy mad computer skills,” Jolene interjected.

“You have a computer science degree?” Would wonders never cease when it came to Emma?

“Among other things,” she answered.

“Other things?”

“She’s a wiz when it comes to hacking and stuff like that.”

“Jolene,” Emma admonished.

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