CLARA'S POV

Even drunk, the mention of his mother makes his face scrunch. "Jus' had to ruin the moment." He pushes to his feet, then almost loses his balance.

I catch him before he falls and breaks his face. It would serve him right, but it's my job to keep him safe, among other things. He's extremely heavy. And extra warm from the hot water.

"You know you're not supposed to drink and get in a hot tub, right?" I mutter under my breath as I labor to keep him upright.

"Stop nagging."

I resolutely keep my eyes on his face, but I can feel every hard line and plane of his body flush against mine even through my clothes, which are currently getting wet and plastering themselves to my skin. My mouth dries.

I've been working for him for four years, but I've never had him against me like this before. And no matter how annoyed I am with him, I would have to be dead to not feel anything when the Sexiest Man Alive multiple time winner is hanging onto me even if he is currently drunk.

The women from the tub reach out and try to pull him back. I glare at them, but they are either too drunk or too intent on him to pay any attention. Maintaining balance suddenly becomes a lot more difficult.

"Hey!" I yell.

Then two of them actually pull me into the tub, apparently deciding that may be the easiest way to free Jace. I crash head first into the water. The roaring of the jets is deafening. I try to get up, but a hand pushes my head down. I claw at the person, but it's no use.

Suddenly the hand vanishes, and I sit up, gulping in air. I rub my face to get the water out of my eyes. Jace is perched on the side of the tub, giving the women a dark smoldering glare. "No rough play, I said," he mutters, his words slurred.

He wags a finger at them like naughty children, then bursts out laughing, almost losing his balance again from some hilarity only he can appreciate. For god's sake. If he slips this time, he's on his own.

One of my pumps is floating in the sudsy water. I grab it and get out before the psychos in the tub think of any other crazy thing. My shoes are ruined, but I'll worry about that later. First things first.

I forcibly drag Jace away while the women hurl insults, most of them having to do with me being greedy and fat. I let their invective roll over me. Not like it's the first time, and I just don't have the time to deal with them in addition to Jace right now.

My goal is to take him home without the pap getting a shot for the scandal rags. I consider leaving him on the bed, but there are women there too. Security apparently hasn't gotten rid of all of them yet; I can still hear angry screeches in the living room. Only one armchair is empty, so I deposit him in it. "Don't move!"

He waves me away. Probably too drunk to move. His complexion's slightly pale and sallow with a tinge of green. Alcohol's dulled his eyes, and his wet hair is sticking out at odd angles.

Anyone else, and the sight would be pathetic. But Jace somehow still manages to look hot. I swear his mother sacrificed an entire African country of goats when he was born. I, of course, look like some kind of waterlogged rodent. Ugh. The carpet's soaked beneath my feet. I gaze up at the ceiling for patience.

I march back into the bathroom, ignore the group of inebriated tub strumpets, grab a couple of fluffy white towels, march back out and toss one his way. "Dry off and get dressed. You're going home." I run a towel all over myself, but it's no use. I need a new set of clothes, but I'm not going to get it right now.

"I have a late checkout. Two p.m.," Jace says.

"You are not staying here until two p.m."

"I haven't even banged them yet." He gestures in the general direction of the women on the bed. One of them spreads her legs. Outside is cursing and grunting, and women whining about party poopers.

I cross my arms. "Shouldn't have wasted your time drinking then, should you?" The hotel informed me he checked in at eleven. He was probably drunk at that time, too.

"I don't wanna dry." He smiles at me goofily. "You do it."

My mouth tight, I shove him into a robe without bothering to dry him. He doesn't resist. Once he's decently covered, I retrieve his clothes and dump them into a white plastic laundry bag with the hotel logo. Then I toss a towel over his head to obscure his face and take him to the service elevator.

He stands mutely on the way down, looking like some kind of punchy boxer after losing a fight. Some of the hotel staff are waiting for us on the ground level. Before we leave, I instruct them to send Jace's things to the office, settle his account on the AmEx and forward me the invoice within thirty days.

I assure them photos won't be necessary; I've seen the damage myself. If the staff notices my wet rat look, they don't let it show. Once that's done, I start leading Jace to the Mercedes waiting outside.

"Wait, my car," Jace says. He loves his Ferrari.

"I'll have it brought to the house tomorrow. You know you can't drive."

"Not that drunk."

"Jace, if you can hop on one foot from here to the back exit without stumbling, sure. But you know you can't."

"Watch."

He goes on one foot. Then promptly stumbles and puts the other foot down before he can even jump. The driver's waiting for us. I push Jace inside. It's not easy to maneuver him drunk, but I manage. I've had lots of practice.

CLARA'S POV

I sit down next to him and shut the door. If I leave now, he'll end up in another hotel suite or a club. It doesn't matter that he isn't even dressed. This town worships fame and money, and he has plenty of both. The air conditioning inside the car blows over me, and I shiver. My reaction annoys me further. If I weren't soaked, the temperature would be perfect.

"We're going home," I say in my most stern don't argue with me boss voice. "You're going to sleep this off. And you will go to the rehearsal dinner tomorrow."

"Don't want to," he mutters.

"Would you rather attend your father's wedding?" Jace's sixty something father is marrying for the sixth time, and to a woman who is barely twenty and there seems to be an epidemic of matrimony in the family because it's on the same weekend as his cousin's ceremony. "It's not too late to make the travel arrangements."

"Hell no." Jace moans theatrically. "Hey, maybe I'll be too hung over to go to either of 'em."

"Then I'll have a driver take you. Don't worry."

By the time I'm home, it's well after four a.m. I open the door and spot my roommate, Sasha Vance, kicking off her shoes after having finished her shift at the bar downtown. An aspiring actress from Chicago, Sasha is petite with flowing black hair that reaches her lumbar, and pale green eyes that look arrestingly large in her tiny pixie like face. Combined with a pert nose and wide mouth, she creates the kind of mesmerizing beauty you can't look away from.

When I first came to Miami, she more or less took me under her wing. It was pure luck that I found her listing for a roommate online. Her lack of success as an actress bothers me, because she works so hard. Amazingly enough, I've never heard her complain about it. Her upbeat attitude makes me wish I could do something for her, but she's asked me not to bother because stuff like that can jeopardize my job.

Jace is a nice guy, but he's made it clear he doesn't do favors for aspiring anyone, and Ivy is uninterested in newbies.

"Hey," I say.

She turns, and her eyes widen. "Oh my gosh, what happened to you?"

"It's a long story." My clothes are clammy, and I feel gross. I remind myself to leave an extra change of clothes at Jace's place.

"Uh you okay?" she asks, peering into my face.

"No." I don't tell her what happened because my employment contract comes with an NDA. I'm not allowed to talk about anything that happens while I'm working for him.

"You aren't doing anything crazy because of you know Cole?"

"No." Cole Reynolds is my ex. We broke up earlier today. Well, technically yesterday. We met because I wanted to tell him I was pregnant. But he told me I was worthless before I could get a word out. And once he made it clear how contemptible he found me too fat, too unhelpful, too bitchy I couldn't talk about the baby.

"Um. Okay." Sasha's giving me a look that says she doesn't really believe me. "He's a jerk. I never liked him. Neither did Zane."

"I know," I say, although I didn't. Sasha was always friendly to Cole. So was Zane, her twin brother. I sigh. They were probably polite to him for my sake. Who knows? I'm too tired to care.

"Hey, come here." Sasha opens her arms for a hug.

I duck away. "You're going to get wet."

"Whatever. I need to shower anyway." She hugs me tightly. She doesn't say anything. But I close my eyes and let myself enjoy the affection and love from my friend.

It's been seven days since the hotel. Seven glorious, incident free days. I even got the whole weekend off because Jace was away at the wedding, and he insisted that he didn't want me coming with him. He promised he would attend and do all the right things. I've never seen him break a promise, so I stayed home. Read some books and relaxed. Pampered myself a little. I figured I deserved it after finding out that I'm pregnant, getting dumped by Cole and being dunked in a hot tub full of skanks.

And the days following the weekend pass in relative peace. Now why can't we do this all the time?

On Friday, I drive up the road that winds through what seems like miles of lush flower gardens. A giant pool appears to my left, the water sparkling like liquid jewels. I park my six year old Altima and get out. Even after four years, I still can't get over how grand Jace's Star Island mansion is.

The main house is three stories tall, with thick columns between the doors. I go inside without ringing. I am one of a very very few people who can do that at Jace's place. The interior matches the splendor outside. The floor is real marble; huge and glittering chandeliers hang from the vaulted ceiling. The walls have numerous paintings, but not a single photo of Jace or poster from one of his movies. For such a handsome man, he doesn't like to look at himself much.

After grabbing a cup of ginger ale from the state of the art kitchen, I head toward my office on the second level, climbing the winding staircase. It's exactly like the one from Tara in Gone with the Wind.

CLARA'S POV

I stop at the sight of the seven special, climate controlled cases mounted on the wall. The big one in the center is empty, but the other six contain charcoal sketches of Jace...a Jace, however, who I've never seen in real life. The drawings span the time from when he was a newborn to his mid teen years. My gaze lingers on one. It is of Jace when he was just a toddler. Despite the rough lines, joy beams from his wide eyes as he gazes back at me.

The housekeeper always dusts the cases daily Jace's explicit instructions. I once asked him why the center case was empty. He said it was reserved for his grandfather's painting. He was...reverent when he ran his hand over the glass, and there was a palpable longing in the way he gazed at the empty spot. Judging from the sketches, his grandfather's painting must be something very special. I've never seen Jace react like that to any other artwork and he has a very large collection.

My office is nice, with plenty of shelf space, cabinets and a great view of a sparkling blue pool and flower garden that cost five figures a month to maintain. The place feels like a slice of southern Florida heaven...so long as I don't look too far beyond the pool and see the concrete gray walls with barbed wire and security cameras along the top. Jace doesn't have a mansion. He has a compound.

A big box covered with red heart stickers waits for me on my antique Louis XIV desk. It has YOUR GREATEST FAN in all caps...like that would make Jace notice. Despite the lack of return address, I immediately know who sent it. This one comes from a particular loony tunes I've dubbed Loopy because of her overly rounded handwriting.

I place my cup of ginger ale it calms my nausea on my desk and fish for the box cutter in the upper drawer. The furniture is ridiculously ostentatious for an assistant, but it's part of Jace's home, so that's that. Interior decoration isn't my responsibility or prerogative, and if Jace wants me to use a pricey antique desk, so be it. At least it comes paired with an incredibly comfortable ergonomic chair.

I run the box cutter along the clear packing tape. Inside is a white card. "Loopy, Loopy, you really need to stop." I pull out a card with fat, childish handwriting. The overzealous woman never signs her name. And she always sends food at least once a week. The card reads, The expressway to a man's heart is through his stomach. Pure delusion. There's no expressway to Jace's heart. There are roadblocks all over. Countless women are currently stuck, mired in the traffic jam. They'll all die before they get anywhere near his stomach, much less his heart.

On the other side of the card it says, Don't forget I am your soul mate, the Cinderella you've been looking for all your life. I shake my head. She never used to say that until Jace starred in a blockbuster retelling of Cinderella. He played Prince Charming naturally and rumor has it that the ushers were scooping melted women off the floor after each viewing.

I look inside the package. A red, heart shaped tin of homemade chocolate truffles sits in the center, just waiting to be devoured by the object of Loopy's loopy desire. What a waste. Nobody touches food items delivered to Jace. Everything is restuffed into the boxes for storage. Ever since a psycho fan tried to run him over in her Jeep screaming, "If I can't have you, nobody can!" Jace has everything from his fans tagged and shelved in storage as evidence. Just in case the police need them. It turned out that the psycho in the Jeep had sent him over two hundred letters in five months' period.

I dump the box on the floor behind my chair, making a mental note to put it away later. Then I see another piece of mail a big manila envelope. Thankfully this one doesn't come with heart stickers. Just the logo and address of one of the most expensive and exclusive hotels in the state. What is this about? It's not the place I went to drag Jace out of the hot tub, and hotels this exclusive do not send junk mail. No, they stick to the old way of doing things like having humans hand deliver messages that could've just been emailed instead.

I work a letter opener under the flap. A letter and a three page long invoice along with colored photos spill out. I snatch the letter and start reading, toying with the apple shaped silver pendant around my neck that I never take off. The general manager has addressed it to me directly. I would've been impressed if it were his first time. That one, he addressed to "To Whom It May Concern."

Dear Ms. Clara Bellamy, the letter begins. That is the only nice part. The rest is a litany of complaints about the woman Jace screwed and left behind in the hotel's presidential suite. I can't decide if it's good or bad that the general manager used such polite yet pointed language. The H&D women can be forces of destruction, fueled by spite and a sense of betrayal. The former is completely understandable, but the latter? I don't get it. Jace never promises anyone anything. When he takes you into his suite, it's for a night of good fucking. You can't even call it sex, if what the media reports is even ten percent accurate.

I toss the letter on the desk and pick up the invoice. Then wince. The bill lists over twenty thousand dollars' worth of damage to the suite. Twenty thousand dollars? Did Jace pick up a feral cat? I scan the enclosed photos. The minibar is cleaned out. Broken glass everywhere. Numerous green and brown stains of dubious origin cover the pale ivory carpet. The woman also left a message on one of the walls with what looks like bright red lipstick. F U! assole

I laugh. I can't help it. It's either that or cry, and I'd rather not waste any tears on a person who can't even spell "asshole." I've already shed plenty over my worthless ex, Cole. I take a few deep breaths. How did I get on Cole? I'm better off without him. He only wanted me for my connection to Jace. I'm not going to let him know about the baby either since he would only use it against me to get me to help his "career transition" into acting.