by Orla Bailey
We drink in companionable silence and lose track of time.
“I wish I had a boyfriend,” Libby confesses.
“We’re having one delivered by courier. With a Harley between his thighs,” I remind her. “I’ll phone him in the morning and tell him I have a baggage needs seeing to.” I dig her in the ribs with my elbow.
“I’d like to be seen to,” she muses. “It’s been a while since I’ve been seen to.”
We hear a noise. “Sshh,” I tell her, noisily.
“Sshh yourself.”
“There’s someone in the apartment.”
“Who?”
“How should I know?” But I do. I feel the Sirocco no matter how drunk I am. I beckon Libby to crouch up small behind the cabinets like me.
She’s having trouble moving her legs and keeps giggling. I have to keep poking her in the ribs which makes her giggle louder.
“Sshh. He’ll hear you,” I warn.
“Who will?”
Suddenly Blackstock appears around the cabinets. “Mr Stackblock.” I announce. I can’t believe Blackstock is giving me the Sirocco. I look at the almost empty bottle in my hand and put it to my lips to guzzle the last dregs of it before he removes it. I’m convinced he’s come to remove all of it. There’s no booze where he is. Apparently.
“They’re in here,” he calls loudly. “Kitchen.”
Why is he shouting? I hear footsteps. Loud stamping ones. I scrabble to my knees and try to crawl away around the corner.
“Where are you going?” Libby asks crawling after me. She squeals as Blackstock grabs her round the waist and holds onto her.
I’m now an escape committee of one. The last man standing. Well, on all fours to be precise. I crawl unsteadily until I encounter a pair of legs in jeans blocking my way. They’re not moving. I turn to crawl back the way I came before they see me. Hands grab me around the middle and heave me to my feet. Unfortunately they’re feet that won’t hold me upright any longer. It’s my knees that are the problem. They keep bending.
I know who’s holding me because I can smell Clive Christian. “Jack,” I announce without even trying to turn round to look. No need. Confirmation comes in Libby’s startled expression.
“Tabitha.” His deeply disapproving voice sends a shiver up my spine.
I see Libby held tight in Blackstock’s arms and think they’d make a lovely couple. “But you shouldn’t let a man see you in your knickers, Libby” I tell her. “Even if they do approve. You’d better take them off.”
Obligingly she bends to remove them. Blackstock stops her by trapping her hands in his. “I don’t think so, Miss. Not tonight.”
I see him throw a bemused look at Jack behind me.
“Get her to the guest room. Put her to bed,” Jack’s curt voice orders.
“He can’t take her to bed,” I protest, as Blackstock lifts Libby and carries her away in his arms. I try, ineffectually, to go after them. “She’s the baggage of a motor cycle courier. She wants his Harley between her thighs.” I chuckle at the delicious plans we’ve concocted.
I twist round in Jack’s arms, drop my weighty head back on my spine and look up at him. The sudden movement makes me dizzy so I lock my arms in place round his neck and try as he might he can’t remove them without hurting me. He gives up trying and glares at me instead.
“I knew you’d forgive me.”
“I haven’t forgiven you. Nothing’s changed.” He continues glaring. He’s still angry and hurt. He makes no attempt to touch me beyond what he needs to do to keep me on my feet. I enjoy his warm hands resting lightly at my waist. “Blackstock suspected you were drunk. Someone had to sort you out before you hurt yourself.”
“This is your fault.” I jab his chest with my forefinger. “You left me.”
“I don’t share women.”
“Neither do I.” I’m not sure that sounds quite right. He arches his eyebrow at me. I try to arch mine back but my equipment won’t work right. “Where’s my wine? I have a bottle of red somewhere.” I try to look behind me.
“You’ve had enough. Lenuta’s going to be pretty annoyed when she sees the mess you’ve made in her kitchen.”
“Huh!” I shout in triumph. “Lenuta knows it’s all that cat’s fault.”
“I don’t have a cat.” He looks at me as if I’m crazy with drink.
“Yes you do,” I tell him. “Spiteful one. Claws.”
“Bed.”
I go immediately soft and rub myself against Jack’s steely hard body. He yanks apart from me as if I’m corrosive.
“Behave yourself. Is that how you got your lover into bed so quickly?”
Uh oh. That sounded bad. “You tell me. You know everything about it. Apparently.”
“What’s his name?”
I snort. “Whatsisname.”
“What. Is. His. Name?”
He’s still trying to find the guy so he can beat him to a bloody pulp for me. I love Jack. He wants to beat that jerk who attacked me into a dripping, bloody pulp. I curl into him again. He forces my face up to his with a hand beneath my chin. “His name?”
“Jerk.”
He clicks his tongue thinking I’m calling him names which is pretty funny so I laugh.
“I mean to find out.”
“Good luck.” I hope he does. Save me the bother. I’m sleepy and so contented in Jack’s arms, held warm and close. He takes the sting away so easily. “Take me to bed, Jack.”
He sighs and lifts me easily. He’s very strong. I’m so relaxed I flop across his arms so he has to swing round to fit me through the doorways, making me want to throw up, as he carries me directly to his bedroom. He stops when he sees all the clothes strewn across the bed and sighs again with impatience.
“I made another mess. It was me.”
“Do you need the bathroom before you go to sleep?”
“Sleep? I thought you were taking me to bed.” I pout.
“To sleep it off. Bathroom?”
“I drank three bottles.”
“Stating the obvious.” He carries me through and lowers me to my feet in front of the toilet. He lifts the lid, raises my dress, lowers my knickers to my knees and sits me back down.
Jack looks anywhere but at me while I pee. He pulls off toilet paper. He looks at it, looks at me and looks back at the paper again until I laugh. He stuffs it into my hand and stares at the wall over my head while I dab away.
“Done?”
“Done.” I don’t know why I’m grinning like an idiot.
He pulls me to my feet again and the knickers drop to my ankles so I kick them into the sink. I see him roll his eyes to the ceiling which makes me grin wider. My face is beginning to ache. He lifts me, vertically, against him and moves towards the door.
“Flush,” I remind him.
He stops, shuffles back, flushes the toilet and puts the lid back down.
“Happy?”
“So happy.” I hang on to him, smiling.
He half carries, half drags, me into the bedroom and holds me against him while he sweeps all the clothes to the floor.
“Watch it. They’re expensive,” I admonish.
“I know that.” He looks at me like it’s my fault they’re lying in a sorry heap on the ground, like a bundle of old rags.
“Your mess.”
I thrust my arms into the air and wait for him to lift the dress over my head. He hesitates for a second and I don’t understand why. It’s not like he hasn’t seen me naked before. Hundreds of times. The last time when… actually, I don’t like where that thought is going.
“I can’t sleep with clothes on.”
He opens the zip and tries to drop the dress off my shoulders but I won’t lower my arms. He has no option but to lift it over my head.
I stand before him stark naked and far too drunk to be shy about it. “See how easy it is to get me undressed.”
He glares at me furiously but says nothing until I wonder what I’ve done this time. He’s such a
complicated man but he’s my complicated man. Or he will be once he’s got over his strop.
He peels back the covers and waits for me to climb in. But I’m not going without him and stand there wobbling. He puts me in place with gentle force. It doesn’t take an awful lot of strength in my state. He covers me up, turns immediately and walks towards the door, flipping out the light.
“No kiss goodnight?” I complain.
He stops in the doorway. “Go to sleep, Tabitha.” Then walks away without looking back.
“Leave the door open,” I mumble. I don’t want even that much separation from him.
It may not feel anywhere near as devastating as the last time but he leaves me. Again. Yet he did speak my name. Tabitha. Not his kitten, but it’s a start.
“Jack,” I whisper into my darkness. I love that man so much it hurts.
* * *
“Good morning.”
“Libby?” I croak.
“Lenuta. I have coffee. Strong coffee. I have fresh squeezed the oranges. I think you need this.”
“Lenuta?” I rub my eyes and push myself up onto one elbow. “What time is it?” Lenuta normally arrives about eight. I’m going to be very late for work.
“Six. Early.”
I suddenly remember last night. “Oh God.” I flop back down on the bed and cover my eyes with my arms. I’m so embarrassed. “Is Jack still here?”
Lenuta sits on the bed beside me. “He left as soon as I got here. He asked me to come early today.”
“Sorry.” I seem to be ruining a lot more lives than my own.
She dismisses it with a wave of her hand. “It is nothing. I like early. Mr Blackstock gives me ride in his beautiful car.”
“He sent Mr Blackstock to get you before six?”
“Mr Keogh did not want to leave you here alone. I think you have lovers’ tiff?”
If only. Once I start, I don’t stop until I’ve told her the whole sorry tale right from Amanda’s visit on Friday afternoon up to this morning. By the time I’m finished she’s hatched-faced with fury.
“That spiteful cat,” she spits.
I could hug her. She believes me instantly. “Why won’t Jack believe me?”
“Man is complicated when feelings are involved.”
“Feelings?” The only feelings Jack has for me right now are disappointment and contempt.
“Of course. He loves you.”
“I have to prove it.”
Lenuta wrinkles her brow. “You don’t have to prove he loves you. He knows it.”
“I have to prove I didn’t meet a lover at the hotel.”
“Not lying in bed you won’t.” She stands swiftly and yanks back the covers, oblivious to my nudity. Ever efficient, she hands me a cup of coffee. “I take coffee to your friend now. I think you have lots of fence making to do.”
“Fence mending.”
“Mend? Make? Is all same. Get up.” She leaves.
I sip the brew. Considering how much wine I drank the night before I feel stronger than I have any right to be. Perhaps I’m building up a tolerance to the stuff. It’s quite strange. I was the girl at university that hardly drank at all. I was so scared of it affecting my grades; of losing control. Loving Jack has had many strange effects on my life.
I notice the pile of clothes are no longer all over the floor. Lenuta must have hung them up already. I’ll have to apologise for the extra work and for the state I left the kitchen in.
When I walk into the bathroom I remember Jack helping me to take a pee and I cringe. I even made him flush the toilet. I’m surprised he didn’t leave me in disgust. Deep down inside him, beneath the anger and the hurt, he must still care a little. That thought lifts me almost as much as it makes me sad.
I won’t give in to my instinct to crawl back to bed and stay there feeling sorry for myself. Today is the day I will try to find out exactly who couriered the cash for the hotel room. I shower and put on clean underwear, reminding me I practically ordered Libby to take her knickers off in the kitchen right in front of Jack and Mr Blackstock. I groan with renewed humiliation. How could I be such an idiot?
I tie my bathrobe and go to see if Libby’s up yet. She’s sitting up in bed slurping coffee, looking completely unaffected by last night’s session on the red wine.
“How are you feeling this morning?”
“Brilliant.”
“No hang-over?” I perch on the bed.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Between us we drank about four bottles of wine,” I remind her, eying her for signs of alcohol induced psychosis.
“That’s a pretty normal weekend in my house. Any excuse to get bladdered.” She chuckles and raises her coffee cup. “This is the life, eh? I could get used to hot coffee served in bed every morning.”
There’s only one hot thing I want served up in my bed every morning and it doesn’t come in a china cup. What I want already left before I woke. Jack can’t bear to be around me longer than he has to. If I want to have this whole mess out with him, I’m going to have to stop acting like a fool and think about how I can pin him down to a proper conversation. He needs to hear my side of the story for starters.
“Come and decide what you want to wear to the office, Libby. Pick four more outfits too. We’ll put them in a bag to take home with you so you have a working wardrobe to start you off.”
“Five whole designer outfits? Won’t Jack be pissed at you?”
“Jack’s already pissed at me beyond all reckoning. A few clothes won’t make any difference. Besides they’re mine. If I want to share them with you, I will.” Everything’s changed. I’m not going to be Jack’s dress-up doll. I won’t let him turn me into a clone of Amanda either or the perfect CEO. I’m none of those things.
He’ll have to want me for me.
Libby scoots out of bed, crosses the room and hugs me. “Thanks, honey. You’re a fabulous girl. Jack would be crazy not to want you in his life.”
“Crazy wild.” I sigh.
I rummage in the back of the guest room walk-in for some of my old clothes and find the little grey suit I wore the first time I invaded Jack’s boardroom. I lift it down from its hanger. Lenuta has had it dry-cleaned. I find the buttoned-up-to-the-chin white, piecrust collar, blouse and my black shoes with their low kitten heels.
This is me. Tabitha Caid. The girl who works twice as hard as everyone else for everything she gets. This is who I remain. Harry’s niece. Doing the best I can with the cards I’ve been dealt. If Jack’s ever going to trust anyone, it will be the real Tabitha. Me.
We go back to Jack’s bedroom to dress and Libby excitedly selects her favourite outfits. I even put on a defiant slick of lip gloss. I’m not expecting to be kissed any time soon.
Lenuta is in the kitchen making breakfast.
“I’m sorry for all the mess I made in here last night.” She’s been hard at work already, I note. The place is immaculate.
“What mess? No mess.” She continues poaching a couple of eggs.
I grab the whole-wheat toast when it pops up in the toaster and start to butter it. “I left all the dinner things unwashed.” And the rest.
“Then it is gone when I came in. Clean kitchen.”
Jack? Mr Blackstock? “And the heap of clothes on the bedroom floor?”
“All clothes hanging up. None on floor.” Lenuta glances at me as if she’s wondering exactly how much I drank last night.
It wasn’t a dream. Jack really did come back into the bedroom while I slept. I must have been thrashing around sideways in bed because he wrestled me the right way around. I dreamt we were making wild, crazy, abandoned love.
I remember a seismic tremor passing through me as if I’d been shaken to the core. Jack spoke to me but I can’t remember anything he said. Only the rough timbre of his voice, like he was roused and disappointed. Did I confuse those worried frown lines between his dark troubled eyebrows for some other emotion? I cried out with joy in a dream of desire but he was showing m
e his displeasure. His pain.
Yet his arms encircled my naked body. That wasn’t a dream, was it? I was angry that he wouldn’t believe me. Torturing him in the interests of romantic justice. Did he pull me against him and hold me there to stop my arms flailing? I touched him but was it real? He was hard for me. I didn’t dream that. Did I?
Was he simply trying to make me lie tranquil?
I kissed him. I’m sure I did. He held me off and stared at me. Was that some wine-induced vision or did I truly drag his hand to my bare breast and hold it against me? Did I moan only because I was dreaming of love or did he really touch me? He made me lie back down. In my dream he wanted to take me. I begged him to ease my aching need. Why wouldn’t he when I cried out to be touched?
It was no dream when I told him he could have me if he liked. He called me a child.
Like she does.
None of it was a dream at all. I really did implore Jack to make love to me. Shamelessly. Like I did once before. I stare at my distorted image in the brushed steel refrigerator. I threw myself at him last night yet he still didn’t want me. I tell myself it was the drink, nothing more. That Jack wouldn’t dishonour me or himself by taking me in that condition. He wouldn’t. It doesn’t mean he no longer wants to.
I could weep for shame.
He stood apart until I settled but I willed the lovely dream to return. The luscious feeling of his body calming mine. He paced the room. Anything to keep himself away from me. Picking up all the clothing. He’s a considerate man. A decent man. He doesn’t use his staff to clean up his mess. Or use me simply because he can’t get enough of me.
Why, kitten?
He’s a boy from Dublin who grew up in a family where it was every man for himself. I’m an ordinary girl from London who grew up alone, fending for herself too, except for Uncle Harry. We’re meant to be together.
Libby comes into the kitchen looking for breakfast.
“What do you think?” She twirls in front of Lenuta and me.
It’s hard not to be happy at her enthusiasm. “Quite the young executive, climbing the corporate ladder.”
