Happily Ever Hers Read online

  Also by Delancey Stewart

  Mr. Match

  Scoring a Soulmate, a Mr. Match Novella

  Singletree

  Happily Ever His

  Happily Ever Hers

  Shaking the Sleigh

  Second Chance Spring

  Falling Into Forever

  Watch for more at Delancey Stewart’s site.

  Happily Ever Hers

  Singletree, Book Two

  Delancey Stewart

  PROLOGUE - Two Years Earlier

  Juliet

  “Tess,” I was excited, but I forced myself to speak slowly, to stay calm. I guided my car into the covered parking spot outside my apartment building, keeping the engine on so I didn’t drop the call.

  “Hey sis, what’s up?”

  “I just talked to my agent. Memories of You—remember that movie?”

  “Was that the one last year where you were a waitress?” My sister saw all my movies.

  “Yes, yes.” My excitement was making me impatient. “It’s nominated for an Oscar, Tess! I’m nominated!”

  There was a brief pause on Tess’s end, and for a moment I thought maybe I’d lost her. But the call was still active.

  “Tess?”

  “Jules, that’s great.” There was a long pause, and then she said. “I’m proud of you.”

  There was something awkward on the line between us, and I wished for a moment that we were closer, that we had the kind of sisterly relationship I read about in books, or saw in movies, or even the kind I’d portrayed in films myself. But I’d left years ago. And though I still talked to my sister a few times a month, sometimes I felt like I was acting in our relationship just as much as I did on film. Acting like there wasn’t a strange distance there. Acting like we were best friends.

  “It’s amazing, Jules. Wait till I tell Gran.”

  “I hope she doesn’t say something awful.”

  “Fifty-fifty chance. But no matter what she says, you know she’ll be proud too. You deserve it.” Tess’s voice had grown warm again, like it had just taken her a moment to actually be happy for me.

  “Thanks, Tess.”

  “Miss you, Jules.”

  “You too.” I hung up, feeling a little space inside me where my family sat, wishing the connection I had with them was just a little fuller, a little rounder somehow. But I turned my focus from that emptiness and to the prospect of the ultimate career achievement. An Oscar!

  I got out of the car and climbed the stairs to my apartment to find a guy waiting for me on the landing. He was dressed like a Fedex delivery driver, so I didn't think anything about heading up to the front door and greeting him with a smile.

  I was still floating, the unreality of the announcement in the front of my mind and my thoughts reeling through ridiculous things like red carpets and getting a dress for the event. And that’s why I thought at first I’d misheard the man who stood waiting for me to get far enough up the stairs to speak to me.

  "You stupid whore," he hissed, which was not the usual way the delivery drivers I'd met had greeted me before. I was more used to things like, "sign for this?" or "here."

  "Excuse me?" I figured I’d misheard him.

  "Why did you take your clothes off for him? You knew he couldn't love you right." Spittle flew from the man's lips and he took a menacing step toward me, his face reddening under a scruff of scraggly beard.

  At this point alarm bells were sounding in my head, and I had stopped three steps from the landing. I began backing down, getting ready to run back to my car.

  "Where are you going, Juliet?" The guy went from angry to hurt in a heartbeat, his eyes widening in surprise and his mouth turning into a frown.

  Crazy, crazy, crazy — my alarms were ringing for real now.

  "I'll take care of you, baby," he started to come down the stairs, reaching for me, trying to catch me, and I turned and jumped down the last three steps. The door of the unit below mine had just swung open, and I barreled in, pushing it shut and locking it behind me.

  "And hello to you too," Marina said, laughing as I threw myself into her arms.

  "I'm sorry," I said to my neighbor and friend, my voice nearly a shriek. “Call the police. And lock the door. Did you lock the door?” I was shaking, terrified.

  "You locked the door. What's going on?" Marina held me out, looking me over. "Why do you look so freaked?"

  "There was a guy. Upstairs, in front of my door." Tears were streaming down my face now, and I thought I might hyperventilate. I gripped Marina’s hand.

  "What guy?" Marina went to the peephole in her door. "I see a Fedex guy standing around."

  Oh God, he was still there. What if he had a gun? "Yes! Call the police."

  “On Fedex? Damaged package?”

  I pulled Marina away from the door, into her bedroom where I locked the flimsy doorknob as she stared at me. “Call the police,” I said again, nearly hysterical.

  I explained what the man had said as Marina dialed, and she calmly related everything to the police, putting the phone down once they’d assured us they were on the way.

  "Well, I guess that's it then," she said, crossing her arms in front of her chest, her pointed chin lowering in a knowing nod.

  "What do you mean?"

  "This and the Oscar nom.” She winked at me and smiled, much calmer than I was, considering there was a potentially armed stalkery type guy outside. “Congrats, by the way. You're officially a movie star. Not just an actress. Now you have to make some changes."

  I shook my head. Marina was an actress too. We'd been on auditions together, had commiserated about missed roles, lost opportunities. "What?" My mind reeled.

  "Stalker equals stardom equals private security." She nodded and pursed her glossy lips.

  The police showed up then, and we spent then next thirty minutes talking with them as they took Mr. Fedex into custody. The guy had been dumb enough to hang out, waiting for me to come back outside. Relief flooded me as they pushed him into the back of a cruiser and I dodged behind one of the bigger cops where the man couldn’t see me from where he sat.

  "Miss Manchester," one of the policemen had said after the cruiser departed. "I recommend you look into a bodyguard. We'll leave a squad car outside for the next week or so, but once a person reaches a certain level of notoriety, there's only so much we can do."

  I nodded numbly and spent the next two nights at Marina's, afraid to be alone. After that, my manager had made arrangements with a security firm he trusted.

  JACE

  * * *

  "Keep your heads down, assholes, unless you want to lose them!"

  The skipper's voice was loud, even over the sound of the explosions ricocheting through the demolished city to our right. I did as I was told, running as fast as I could with my unit toward the cover of a low bluff. With all my gear on, and the M4 in my hands, it was hard to move quickly, but the force of the adrenaline pumping through my body and the sound of the V-22 lifting off overhead added the motivation I needed.

  I wasn't planning on dying over here. My preferred method of departure would be mid-orgasm if I got to choose. Or potentially partway through a pint of ice cream. That would be okay too. But getting shot, exploded, or generally maimed in Afghanistan? No.

  My unit dove behind the low hill where mortars were already set up, joining the unit already firing on the targets out ahead of us.

  I'd just begun to catch my breath when a jet came in low above us—one of ours—and dropped its payload just ahead of our location. I glanced over the guns to see the forward air controller lift his arms and hoot, probably not the smartest move, considering we were under fire. But I couldn't blame him. Every Marine was a rifleman, and while
the rest of us grunts were corporals on our first and second tours of duty, the FACs were officers, and usually pilots themselves. The guy on the radio calling in the airstrikes was probably used to being the guy in the jet, not the guy on the ground, and the guy flying overhead was likely his buddy.

  "Get in over there," our CO ordered. "We're laying in some indirect fire to help support the guys up front. If it moves, you hit it!"

  I was at the end of my second tour, and after almost eight years as a Marine, I wasn't particularly impressed by much of what I'd seen. At least geographically. On a human level, the Marines I served with were some of the most loyal, intelligent, and steadfast fuckers I'd ever come across, and as much as I was glad to get the hell out of the Middle East, I was going to miss them.

  I'd had my fill of Osprey and helicopter rides, mortar fire, and dust. I was heading back to our forward operating base. This was my last firefight. Home was on the horizon.

  "That was good times, right there," one of my fellow grunts said a week later, sitting next to me in the Humvee that was giving us transport back to the base from which we were headed home.

  "Got that check in the box," I said. "But I'm going to have some strong words with my travel agent about the accommodations on this so-called tour, man."

  "The food was shit, too," he laughed, and we relaxed more minute by minute as we moved farther from the action and closer to home. "I've got some thoughts about the nightly fireworks show too."

  When we were finally seated side by side in first class on a commercial jet from Germany to DC, we were practically regular guys.

  "Nice of those folks to give up their fancy seats," my friend commented, tapping his champagne flute to mine.

  "It was." Since Marines didn't travel in uniform on commercial flights, it was rare that folks would even realize the guy sitting next to them might have been in a war zone the day before. But the passenger who'd approached us on the terminal had been a Marine himself, and whether it was the close crop of our hair or the just-avoided-certain-death set of our eyes, he knew the look.

  "You guys want an upgrade?" he'd asked us, after saluting and offering an "ooh-rah." He and his wife were insistent that we take their seats, and though we'd said no several times, they finally got their way and I wasn't unhappy about it.

  Thanks to that man, I found myself sitting in a restaurant next to America's most famous movie star a year later, wondering how things could have changed so much. The woman beside me was gorgeous and sweet, bright blue eyes and honey-blond hair complementing what felt like a genuinely kind personality. Juliet Manchester had me a little bit star struck, but mostly I was happy to have found a job. I was a world away from the war zone where I'd spent a big part of my life and maybe left a little piece of myself—thankfully nothing I couldn't live without.

  The star's manager was there, and so was the rest of her security detail. I'd just been brought on board, and I couldn't pretend it was an everyday thing for me. Security was new. It was the job that had been offered when I'd followed up with the former Marine who'd given up his seat to me. It was his firm.

  Since I hadn't finished my degree yet, I was interested. I could work as a bodyguard while I focused on my education.

  Make some money while I got myself right.

  I just didn't expect any of what happened next.

  Chapter One

  Juliet

  "I hate these guys," Zac had always said about my ever-present security detail from the moment we began dating. But Zac Stephens, the man I was dumb enough to marry, probably hated pretty much everything about me. Maybe he only pretended to love me. I knew he loved what I could give him.

  When filming wrapped early for the day and I got home earlier than usual, hoping to surprise Zac with a quiet dinner at home. I nodded at the security guards stationed at the driveway as I parked, and made my way to the kitchen door, fumbling my phone and car keys as I pushed the door open.

  I walked into my familiar kitchen with its stark white tile and gleaming marble counters, and it took a few minutes for the scene before me to make sense. My husband was bent over, face-first in something our personal chef Maribella was offering him. Something that had definitely not been on any of the menus she’d shared with me.

  Our personal chef was on her back on the huge marble island, her legs spread wide as Zac’s head bobbed between her thighs, and her throaty moans turned quickly to high-pitched shrieks of alarm when she spotted me staring at them from the doorway.

  "Seriously? On my kitchen island?" I yelled, as if the location of the act made it any more awful than the act itself.

  My furious shouts brought Jace and Jack inside immediately, and I watched, open-mouthed, as they hauled both Zac and Maribella outside and left them there. Jace swiped their discarded clothing off the floor and counter and tossed it out before following them out. Jack stayed with them, evidently supervising their efforts at dressing themselves in the driveway, and Jace came back inside to see if I was all right.

  I wasn't. I definitely wasn't.

  He found me where I'd sunk to the kitchen floor, crying pitifully with my head in my hands.

  "Hey." His quiet deep voice broke through my humiliation and misery. I looked up to find deep concerned chocolate brown eyes watching me thoughtfully.

  Jace reached a hand down to me and I took it. The firm solidity of his big hand was reassuring, and I realized numbly that if Zac had walked in and found me crying on the kitchen floor at any point in our marriage, he would have told me to get up before asking what was wrong or reaching out a hand to me.

  I had been so stupid.

  "You okay?" Jace asked once I was on my feet again. He stayed close enough to make sure I was steady, but took a step back, clearly not wanting to crowd my space. He was handsome, strong, and he projected an air of quiet confidence.

  I shook my head. "No. I'm not okay. I’m an idiot." I dropped both hands onto the counter before realizing with horror that was the very surface on which I'd just caught my husband with the chef. I whipped them away, crossing my arms over myself instead. "God, I'm so stupid."

  "Hey." Jace caught my attention again with a low patient voice. "You're not. He's the asshole here."

  I blew out a breath. "I don't think it's the first time."

  Jace lifted a shoulder.

  I squinted up at him. "Do you know? Has he done this before?" I would hate to think of the security team knowing my husband was cheating on me, knowing I didn’t know. I would feel like even more of a fool than I already did.

  He shrugged. "Not that I know of. But he's an asshole, so I wouldn't put it past him."

  "Thanks a lot." I rolled my eyes, wiping at the angry tears that had collected on my cheeks. "You could have told me."

  He smiled, wide full lips parting to reveal teeth that were perfect except for one chip at the corner of the top front. "Tell you that your husband is a choad? Not part of the job description, Miss Manchester."

  "God, call me Juliet. You've known me at least a year now.” I sat down heavily on one of the stools, motioning to the other and feeling happier by a fraction when Jace sat down beside me. I felt like such an idiot. I wanted to make sure I’d never be this clueless again. "Make me a deal?"

  "What's that?"

  "For one, tell me what a choad is."

  A dark flush crept over Jace's handsome face. The light skin at his jaw, covered with a scruff of beard, twitched with a hidden smile. "I think you'd better check Urban Dictionary for that. I'm not really comfortable using those words with a lady."

  I sank my elbows to my defiled counter. "Oh for fuck's sake."

  He didn't tell me, but he did pull out his phone and swipe until he found the definition on Urban Dictionary.

  "Oh. I see. Okay, yes. Zac is a choad." I stifled a giggle. This was not the time for giggles.

  "What else?" Jace asked, shoving his phone back in his pocket.

  "What?" The definition I’d just read had me forgetting whatever I’d
been about to say.

  "The deal."

  "Oh. Promise me you won't keep things from me again. You see more than I do. You know what's going on when I don't. Can you be my second set of eyes, Jace?" I knew it was more than I was supposed to ask of my security team. But I didn’t have anyone else. I didn’t have family here, wasn’t close with the family I did have. And now I didn’t have a husband either.

  He shifted on the stool and I got the sense he was uncomfortable.

  "I'll pay you more," I said quickly. Was he worried I was asking him to do more work?

  "No," he said. "It's not that. It's just ..."

  "I need someone I can trust." I dropped my head into my hands. "It's like I don't even know what's real anymore. Does that make sense?"

  He didn't say anything for a long second, and I swiveled my head so I could see his face. I'd had lots of bodyguards since that first incident, most of them kept their distance and didn't say much. They opened doors, they lent a hand when needed. But they were like shadows. For some reason, since the day Jace was assigned to me just over a year ago, I'd felt something different from him. I was more comfortable in his presence, more at ease.

  And I couldn't pretend I hadn't entertained a fantasy or two about those muscled biceps, that hard wide torso. He was like a statue in a dark T-shirt, and something about him looked fierce and dangerous. But at the same time, he was always quick with a gentle smile, a kind word. The other guys didn't speak to me most of the time, but Jace always said hello. I'd come to think of him differently.

  It was possible I had a little crush on him. And the thrill of having him alone here with me, in my kitchen, even in the face of having just discovered my asshole husband face down in our chef, was intriguing, even through my misery.

  "You can always trust me, Miss Manchester," he said, his rich dark voice earnest and sincere.