Ignoring the camera flashes as he was recognized, he went left out of the doors—his parents always waited on that side, and that way the cart hid Esme’s small form from intrusive shutters.
“Daddy, why are they taking pictures of us?”
“Because I play rugby.” He kept his voice calm so she wouldn’t be scared. “They’re excited.”
She beamed. “You’re fast! Uncle Danny is faster though.”
Jake would’ve laughed if he hadn’t been so tense. Danny was faster; he could run like the fucking wind, the ball tucked securely in one hand. “Can you see Grandma or Grandpa?” he asked, having already spotted them.
“Um.” She looked around for a few seconds before giving a happy cry and streaking forward toward his parents.
She was already in Joseph’s arms by the time he reached them. His father gave him a disappointed look, his bushy eyebrows heavy over dark eyes.
Jake parked the cart. “Wait here. I have to get Juliet.” He texted her to tell her he was on his way back to the exit doors.
The disappointment faded, to be replaced by firm approval.
His mother nodded too. “I don’t know what the world is coming to, that the media thinks this is acceptable.”
Jake was already moving and was at the doors when Juliet walked out. He took her hand before she could stop him. Her glance was shocked, startled. He just squeezed and said, “Let me do the talking this time, Jules.”
A tiny frown, but she was shaken enough that she didn’t protest, and then they were heading straight for the pack of media salivating out front. Camera flashes went off in a tornado of noise and light, questions shouted their way from ten different mouths.
31
Shield
Jake paused and waited until they’d all calmed the fuck down.
“Jake! Jake! Did Juliet cheat on you with Reid? Or did you get together in New York?”
Beside him, Juliet stiffened. “Why the hell would I go to Reid when I have Jake?” She sounded so flabbergasted that Jake found himself bursting into laughter.
“The photo!” another reporter shouted. “Are you saying you weren’t with Reid that night?”
“I’m not into threesomes,” Jake said with a straight face.
It took a moment for his comment to penetrate. The questions began again, harder, faster.
He let them roll over him until they quieted again. “Look, that pathetic piece of crap who can’t even crack twenty-five on the wicket these days is taking you all for a ride. I was there the night Reid tried to hook up with Juliet again. Jules kicked him to the curb—her taste in men has improved drastically since—”
Juliet elbowed him, sharply and visibly enough that the cameras flashed again. Grinning, he hauled her into a kiss, one hand cupping the side of her face and his fingers in her hair.
And that was the photo that hit the online sites even as Jake’s parents drove Juliet, Esme, and Jake from the airport in their big people-mover van. Juliet, stunned at what had just gone down, stared at her phone as the pings began. Jake’s family, Charlie, Aroha, Iris, Everett, Kalia, Mei, Nayna, Molly, casual friends, even the eldest daughter from the family that had put her up back when she’d returned from Samoa, they were all sending her thumbs-up emojis or laughing faces or messages that broadcast pure delight.
The cameras had caught Jake laughing as he kissed her. Jake never laughed. Not for the cameras, not this way. And the way he was laughing, the way his hand cupped her face, it was… Things got all tight inside her. No one had ever looked at her that way before. No one had ever put himself in the line of fire to shield her.
He’d linked himself to her with a finality that was going to make his life much harder.
The articles that had begun to pop up also mentioned that she and Jake had been greeted at the airport by his parents and that Jake’s daughter appeared very comfortable with Juliet. Esme, back on her feet by then, had grabbed her hand as soon as Juliet and Jake joined Alison and Joseph.
She’d been frowning. “Are you famous too, Jules? But you don’t play rugby.”
Needing the sweetness of Esme, Juliet had gone down to squeeze her into a hug. “I’m a little famous,” she’d said after. “I don’t want to be though.”
Esme had patted her cheek, and the five of them had walked out of the airport unmolested by any more media interest. The reporters were all racing off to file their stories, and the photographers apparently realized there was no point taking family shots that included Esme. Not here, not in this situation.
Maybe that line in the sand would be crossed in a larger country, but in a country this small, with the Bishop-Eseras a beloved family that quietly gave a lot of financial and emotional support to disadvantaged kids who wanted to play the game, the public tended to look askance at such an invasion of privacy.
It helped that Jake was a young god on the rugby field. His devotion to his daughter was well known, as was his protectiveness. The media was well aware the public could turn against them in defense of Esme.
All the articles held a vein of shock at the unexpected turn of events. Jake had sold it with his obvious contempt for Reid’s false statements. Juliet’s lips still tingled from the kiss. She’d never have expected that. Never. Jake was so private.
She looked forward to where he sat in the front passenger seat beside his dad. Alison had chosen to get in back with Juliet, with Esme in a child seat between them. When Juliet glanced at Jake’s mother, her heart trembling because surely Alison had reservations about her son hooking up with a woman like Juliet, Alison gave her a warm smile.
“You just let us handle this, dear heart.” She reached over to touch Juliet’s hair in a maternal caress. “You shouldn’t be dealing with it alone.”
“That picture,” Juliet said, because she couldn’t bear for Alison to be shocked by the truth should it come out. “I let him take one when we were first married, and I trusted him. I know I shouldn’t have, but—”
“You trusted your husband. There’s no shame in that,” Alison said gently. “But no matter what the circumstances, Juliet, it wouldn’t ever mean that you or any woman deserved that kind of media haranguing. Reid also released an intimate image without your permission and has been lying about you non-stop—you say the word, honey, and we’ll get the lawyers on it.”
Juliet was going to start crying. Looking down, she squeezed her eyes shut.
A tiny hand patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t be sad, Jules.”
Esme sounded so worried that Juliet swallowed the knot in her throat and met the little girl’s eyes with a smile. “How can I be sad when I have all of you?”
Smiling, Esme leaned her head against Juliet and went back to her conversation with Mr. Mouse about how New York had been so much fun but she was glad to be home.
“Thank you,” Juliet said to Alison, one of her hands in Esme’s hair.
Alison glanced to the front, where Jake and his father were involved in an animated discussion about a recent international match between two big rugby countries. Then she reached over and pulled out a pair of sparkly pink headphones from the back pocket of a front seat.