Page 6 of The Encounter
“Is he big?”
Maddie laughed and blushed. “He’s definitely the biggest guy I’ve ever seen.”
“I knew it,” Kayla whispered. “Aren’t you glad I told you to take life by the horns? Or in this case…” She bounced her eyebrows up and down suggestively.
Maddie’s face flamed, and she covered her face. “I had no idea it was him.”
“There wasn’t a single hint?”
Maddie thought back to the night. There were several hints. “I guess maybe I knew he was someone of importance because of the way people were acting around him. But I had no idea it was Jace Locke. I mean, I didn’t even know he owned the club, so how would I?”
“Did he give you his number?”
She shook her head. “No. There was some sort of emergency or something that he had to attend to. I didn’t see him again after that.”
Kayla shrugged. “Well, I guess you can still say you were with him. It was fun while it lasted.”
“Yeah.”
But is that what she really wanted? She had an amazing time with him and had wanted to see him again before she knew who he was. Now that she knew his identity, she wasn’t sure if it held the same appeal. Being thrust into the spotlight by being linked to a local celebrity couldn’t be all it was cracked up to be, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to go down that rabbit hole.
She wasn’t sure if she was ready to have her skeletons released from the locked room where she had shoved them before she left New York. And the last thing she wanted was people digging into her past, all because she was dating a celebrity.
No, she didn’t want that at all.
I guess it’s a good thing he doesn’t know my name either.
* * *
“Jace,”the sweet voice of the girl in the cancer ward said.
Jace blinked and shook his head to clear his thoughts and focus on the bald child in front of him, who wore a princess dress and had an IV hooked up to her arm.
“I’m sorry, Brianna. What did you say?” he asked.
She tilted her head at him before a small smile appeared on her face. “Who is she?”
“Who is who?”
“The girl you’re dreaming about.”
He laughed. “What makes you think I’m dreaming about a girl?”
“Jace,” she deadpanned. “I’m twelve. I’m not stupid.”
He laughed again and moved his checker across the board, jumping one of her pieces in the process. “I met her at the bar last night.”
“Oooooh.” Her voice got high pitched, and she fluttered her eyes. “Who did she go as?”
“She dressed as a sailor.”
“Did she recognize you?”
Brianna had been in and out of the hospital battling leukemia since she had turned five years old. Since Jace was a regular volunteer in the children’s wing, he got to know the kids fairly well. He made it a habit to go to the hospital a few times a week to play with the kids. Today he was spending his afternoon in Brianna’s room playing checkers, her board game of choice. Earlier, they attended a Halloween party where kids either walked or were wheeled in wheelchairs to collect small toys and candy from the different employees stationed around the floor. All the kids dressed in fun outfits and the mood of the children was on the better side because of the festivities.
One of Brianna’s favorite things to do was tease him about his celebrity status and how women fell all over him. She had witnessed it firsthand with some of the other children’s mothers when he came to the hospital to play games with the kids.
“No. I don’t think she did.”
