He looked at the display and scoffed, answering my questioning stare. “It was Marla.
All four times. I’m turning it off now.” No sooner did he say those words than the landline telephone on the table in our suite shrilled loudly. That got one very angry, rock-hard, and unsated man out of his bed.
Someone was about to get holy hell unleashed on them.
“What?” he said with a venomous bite, letting whoever was calling know his exact feelings about being disturbed. “I was trying to sleep.
Now? Why?” His jaw clenched. “This can’t wait an hour? No. I just woke up. Fine.
Give me ten minutes,” he muttered. “I said ten minutes.”
Ryan grabbed his clothing off the floor and cursed. I hadn’t seen him this pissed in a long time. “Tar, you need to get up and get dressed.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
Ryan looked at me warily as he pulled his jeans up over his naked body.
I started to worry. “Hey. What’s going on?”
His lips puckered with disgust. “Marla and David are on their way up.”
I groaned to myself. Wouldn’t be the first time his publicist and manager disrupted his life at an inopportune time. To say they were overbearing was an understatement. He jostled the clothing around in his open suitcase with frustration, sparking my next question.
“Why?”
He rubbed his forehead. “Photos were leaked,” he mumbled.
A wave of fright pricked at my nerves.
“What photos?”
I watched the back of his head sway.
“People in the bar took shots of me proposing to you on Saturday,” he muttered over his shoulder. “Pictures and videos are all over the Internet now.”
I drew in a deep breath as his sudden anger about this blindsided me. Ryan was so riled he had trouble picking two T-shirts apart.
You proposed publicly. I figured a few bar patrons would capture pictures on their cells. What did you expect?
“So? How bad is it?”
Ryan signed heavily before looking back at me with apologetic eyes. “Tar, you know how it is. Pictures were on some fan sites and Twitter that night already.” I stared at my feet, trying to understand.
This was not bad news, or was it?
“Taryn.” Ryan interrupted my thoughts, tossing my jeans over to me.
I let out another sigh as I shoved my right foot into the pants leg. “Why didn’t you tell me about this being a problem sooner?”
“Tar—you know why,” Ryan muttered as he slipped a T-shirt over his head. “Let’s not go there, okay, babe? Please?”
“But . . .”
He appeared resigned but tense. “But what? This is not stuff I want you worrying about, that’s why.”
I shook my head. “That’s not . . . I’m just a bit confused. Yesterday when Mike collected us at the airport, he warned me that the paparazzi were going to swarm and I asked him if I should hide my ring. When he called you to ask, you said to tell me ‘never fucking ever take your ring off.’ So if it didn’t matter for me to be seen with this ring and to have people know we’re engaged, why does it matter today?”
Ryan narrowed his eyes. “And did you?” I was momentarily stunned, knowing that that brusque tone wasn’t really meant for me. “Did I what? Keep your ring on or get photographed wearing it?”
He shrugged. “Either. Both.” I supposed this was information he needed before being bombarded. “Yes, I kept your ring on, as it will never leave my finger, but no, I did not allow the repugnant thieves to make their living off of our happiness. I kept my hand tucked in my pocket.” He nodded once. “Yeah, well, keep that in mind,” he said on his way to answer the door.
Marla Sullivan, Ryan’s icy publicist, greeted me with a half smile, half snarl as she charged into the living room of our suite.
Even though it was early in the morning, she was already dressed in a crisp designer business suit. Her short black hair was equally as tailored. An oversized black bag dangled from her red, pointy fingernails.
“Sit,” she ordered.
Ryan glared at her for a moment and then pulled out a chair at the large dining table.
“Weekly Reporter, CV Magazine . . .” she announced in a scathing tone, dropping printed sheets of paper on the table in front of him. “You’re on all of them. I suppose this is why you’ve been avoiding my phone calls for the last four days.”
Ryan barely glanced at them. He slumped back in his chair and started to rub his forehead, pushing the paper away with his other hand. “I’ve seen them already. So what.” I edged my body closer. That’s when I saw for the very first time the grainy, dark pictures of Ryan standing on top of a very familiar round oak table and another dark picture of him kneeling in front of me. Candid shots from Saturday night when he proposed to me publicly in my pub were now plastered all over the tabloids. My heart sank in my chest from their blatant exploitation.