The Bachelor

Chapter 15

Zach’s anger surged up not when he heard Chloe’s statement, but when he saw Julianne’s accusing glare. For the first time, he was angry at her for even thinking that he would betray her trust.

He directed his anger towards Chloe, yes, but he was angrier at Julianne. He was hurt.

“Where did you get that story, Chloe?” he asked again.

Chloe was looking pale, her mouth open and out of words. “I…I…someone told me,” she uttered.

He took a deep breath. He could see Julianne was shocked from the corner of his eye. Hell, she should be! He didn’t say anything about her being J. Green. Was she shocked because she thought he told someone? Or was she shocked because he got angry all of a sudden?

“Nothing happened in Las Vegas,” he decided to address that issue and hopefully, no one would ask about Julianne being the author of the number one thriller book. He looked at Hanna and the girl cowered. “Nothing happened, right, Hanna?” his voice was like ice now, his eyes like daggers.

“No, nothing happened,” she said in a whisper.

Everyone behind the camera was speechless, even Brent.

“Good, because I went to bed alone,” he looked at each women in the eye, including Julianne’s. “I don’t like this rumors circulating around you girls. It’s just plain immature,” he stated. Whirling around, he looked at Jack Carter and said, “I don’t want this shoot aired.” The man nodded and he turned his attention back to the ladies, “Let’s forget about what was said here and start all over again. As for Julianne being J. Green, that’s for her to tell and you can’t go around announcing such information without her knowledge. Now,” he forced a small smile, “let’s just have fun and no fighting. I don’t like it.”

The ladies nodded their heads solemnly. He looked at Julianne. She diverted her gaze and anger rose up in his throat once again. He decided he should leave to cool things down. He had never snapped in front of a lot of people before.

“I hope you clear this thing up before I return for tonight’s dinner,” he declared and left the cabin without another word.

 *****

“Oookay…” Brent said after a long time of awkward silence. “Why don’t we continue this later?” he got up and walked out the door. What a jerk.

Julianne, her mind whirling with all the things that had happened since Vegas, followed suit and almost ran up to her room. She was followed by Pauline.

“Julianne, are you okay? I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that bitch was going to do that. If I had known, I would have told you,” her friend uttered gently, sinking in the bed beside her.

“That’s okay, I don’t expect anything good from them,” she answered, her voice blank. Her mind was full of Zach as of the moment. Funny, she didn’t care at all that everyone knew of her identity as J. Green. She was more bothered by the gaze Zach directed towards her before he left. He looked hurt and angry at the same time.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“About what?” she asked absently, staring up at the ceiling.

“That you’re J. Green,” Pauline said, her voice full of awe rather than accusation.

“I wanted it to be kept a secret for a while,” she replied.

Her friend nodded. “But Zach knows, right? I saw it in his eyes when Chloe said those words. He was more shocked that she knew than at the news.”

“Yeah,” she nodded her head once. “He knew it a long time ago.”

“You think he told Chloe?”