Page 91 of Shine For Me

I’m still giggling a little, but he quickly shuts me up with a kiss. And then another.

I don’t think I’ve ever laughed and kissed at the same time. I don’t think I’ve ever had reason to—when in my life have I ever been this happy?

In punishment for laughing at him, Fox keeps me up late into the night with his mouth, his hands, his body. I don’t complain at all.

* * *

I wakeup to Fox kissing my cheek while bright sunlight blazes into the room. “We fell asleep,” I croak out. Fox had planned to sneak back out last night, but that obviously hadn’t happened.

“I thought about leaving, but since the cat was already out of the bag, I figured you wouldn’t mind if your mom saw me here this morning.”

“She’s probably not here anyhow,” I say, shooting a bleary look to the clock on my bedside table. “She does sunrise yoga on Monday mornings then gets mimosas with her friends. Says she likes to start the week off right.”

He laughs. “I think your mom and I will get along really well.”

I can’t help a goofy smile at that. I like the idea of Fox and my mom seeing each other again past this weekend.

“Let’s go see if she started the coffee before she left.”

My mom’s kitchen looks the way it always does—cozy, cluttered, and filled with sunlight. The complete opposite of my stark white, gleaming marble kitchen. I always miss this room the most when I leave.

I’m just pulling two earthenware mugs from the cabinet when the screen door bangs open, revealing the towering figure of my brother, Jude. I blink at him in surprise—it’s not often I see Jude before sunset when there are grapes on the vines. Then I take in his expression—concern mixed with hot anger. My stomach drops.

“What’s wrong?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” he says, stomping into the room. “Why the fuck has Jimmy Cain been calling my vineyard all morning?”

I blink at him in surprise. “Grandpa called?”

“The girl at the front desk said he’s called four times, looking for you.” Cold dread snakes through me. “And then reporters started calling. What the fuck is going on June?”

“I don’t…I don’t know.” My brain feels sluggish with worry as I look around for my phone, realizing belatedly I have no idea where it is. I turned my phone off the first day we were here and haven’t looked at it since.

“I saw it on your dresser,” Fox says gently. “I’ll go get it.” He tilts my face so I’m looking at him, his blue eyes locked on mine. “Take a deep breath, June. I’m sure everything is fine.”

Everything is not fine. I know that the second I power my phone on. There are dozens of missed calls, from my grandfather, from Justin Sinclair at the PR firm, from unknown numbers that I assume are reporters. There’s even one from my dad. “What the fuck happened?” I whisper, too scared to open any of the messages.

“Fuck,” Fox mutters, and my head snaps over to see him bent over his own phone. He looks up, his face tight. “Someone took a picture of us at the karaoke bar the other night.”

For a split second, I think there must be a story going around about how awful I was singing that night. Maybe someone at the bar took video and sold it to a blog or something. But one look at Fox’s face and I know it’s much worse than some embarrassing footage of me drunkenly singing.

“We’re kissing,” he says. “In the picture.”

Oh.Oh. A picture has been published of me kissing Fox. A man who most definitely is not my fiancé. And the statement about my breakup with Adam hasn’t been made public yet.

So, okay. This is bad. No wonder my grandfather is freaking out. But it’s fixable, right? We just amend the statement and say we’ve been broken up for a while.

I open a web browser and type my name into the search. Immediately several grainy pictures show up. I click on one and yup, that is definitely me and I’m definitely kissing a man. You can’t actually see Fox’s face very clearly, but the blond hair is pretty evident. I suppose it’s low enough quality that a decent PR person could argue that it’s not us.

Fixable,I tell myself. No big deal.

Then I open the last message from my grandfather and realize that it’s not going to be that easy.

Jimmy:Call me immediately, Juniper, or I’ll come up to that damn vineyard and find you myself.

My blood runs cold. No. There’s no way I can let Jimmy come up here. This is my mother’s home. Her sanctuary. This place represents everything she ran away from in Los Angeles. I won’t let Jimmy pollute that for her.

“June, let’s just take a breath,” Fox says, his hand on my elbow. “You haven’t even had coffee, yet, and we know how you are before caffeine.”