Page 54 of Jake

“First, this isn’t your fault.” She made to argue and he held up a hand. “Your mother is not your fault.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Second, I can think of one way out of this that works for both of us.”

Lauren arched a brow at him over her coffee cup.

“We’ll tell our story, our way. Give credit to the blind date place and everything. I can get someone on the line and do it this afternoon.”

“I hate that you’re having to do this,” she said quietly.

“I don’t. Let’s shout it from the rooftops.” He meant it too.

“Okay, let’s do it,” she agreed.

“I’m going to make a few calls. Can you call Catherine and get her involved? We can take all the PR assistance we can get. Let’s get in front of this.”

Lauren nodded, picking her phone back up.

“Don’t tell your mom, of course.” He got up to go find his own phone but stopped and turned back to her. “What was she going to say?”

“I don’t know. Anything that would sell well, so I doubt it would be good.”

He nodded and went in search of his phone, his coffee completely forgotten.

It took only a few hours to set up several interviews with eager reporters. It bordered on a press conference for all of the effort they had put into it.

Breakfast had shown up in the middle of the chaos and Lauren had joked about the amount of food he’d ordered. In the end, though, she set it all out for them and treated it like a private buffet.

“Catherine said she just got here,” Lauren told him as she walked into this office. “She brought me some better clothes for this.” She gestured to herself and the athletic outfit she’d brought to wear today.

“You can do it in this if you want to. You know that, right?” He was still worried about her thinking she was taking advantage of him.

“I don’t want to. If we are about to announce to the world that we’re a couple, I’m going to make sure I look as good as possible doing it,” she told him.

“Come here,” he urged, pulling her into his lap as she did.

“I don’t care what you wear. You look great like this, or in nothing at all.”

He seized her lips in a kiss then, letting the chaos fade away until it was just the two of them and the building passion.

“I know this is your place, but you guys did invite me here.” Catherine’s teasing voice dampened the mood.

He rested his head on Lauren’s forehead as they both suppressed a laugh.

“Honestly, I could probably just invite the reporters in here to see this and I think we’d be good.”

Lauren got up, grabbing Catherine’s arm on the way out of the dining room. They were using his dinner table as an office for now.

He needed to make a space for Lauren to work, he thought. Somewhere that was her own. There was another bedroom that he could easily convert. There were three spare ones in here and no one ever used them except Cade on the rare occasion he’d been too drunk to want to get a ride home.

Taking a deep breath, he slowed his thoughts. She didn’t live here, but he wanted her to. He hadn’t even confessed any feelings to her, hadn’t given it a true thought about doing so, just assumed she knew that he wanted to move forward whenever she did.

Did she know that though? He didn’t know. Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure she would want to move in with him at some point in the near future, maybe not at all. She’d be worried about her mother and how everyone else would perceive her.

Damn. He didn’t know what to do from here. Grabbing his phone, he called Owen and quietly closed his office door. It was time to get real advice.

“Hey, man, what’s up?” Owen answered.

“I need advice.” Jake quickly summarized everything that was happening and then all the thoughts that had just gone through his head at a million miles an hour.

“Tell her,” came a woman’s voice over the phone.

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