Jamie shivered, remembering the dark days of her sister Cassie’s divorce and how badly she’d felt that her sister was hurting. But she knew now that she hadn’t a clue as to the true depth of her sister’s suffering. Secondhand, the pain had been bad enough but this... this was firsthand and it was unbearable, a black despair that smashed her heart and shook the foundations of her very soul.
Jamie thought of how determined and how careful she’d always been to avoid romantic pain and suffering. How foolish and prideful she’d been to think that she could live and love without being hurt!
The pain built to an intolerable level, and Jamie couldn’t endure standing passively for another minute. Taking action, any kind of action, was an absolute necessity.
She meant to run into the bedroom to grab her clothes and make her escape. But when she was halfway there, Jamie turned around and blindly, impetuously rushed into the living room.
Eleven
I think you should claim your prize, Rand,” Jamie said coolly. She wished her voice wasn’t quite so shaky and drew in a deep breath to steady herself. “After all, you earned it. You won. By all means, go for the fourth.”
Rand and Daniel stared at her speechlessly. And in the silent moments following, as Rand continued to study her, his stomach began to churn. Her face was pale and her mouth set in a tight, straight line; her huge blue eyes were dilated and round. She was clenching her fists so tightly that her knuckles were splotched white. She was the picture of suppressed fury and pain held together by steely self-control.
She wasn’t dismissing Daniel’s talk of a bet with the sardonic contempt it deserved, Rand knew, feeling a sickening sense of doom descend over him. She’d taken it seriously!
“Jamie.” Rand started toward her. “Sweetheart, I can explain.” She backed away from him as part of him had known she would. He nearly groaned aloud. “Jamie, surely you can’t believe that I would make such a bet—”
“I don’t want to believe it.” Tears were burning in her eyes, but by holding herself taut and rigid, she was able to keep them at bay. A fierce pride enabled her to succeed. She would not cry in front of these monsters! “Just like I didn’t want to believe that Eric Crenshaw and Richard Aldero would try to use me for revenge because Steve dumped their sisters.”
Rand felt panic grip him. He’d forgotten about those two clowns who’d tried to avenge their sisters’ rejection by Steve Saraceni by romancing and rejecting Jamie. Although they hadn’t succeeded, their very attempts, along with her brother’s checkered romantic history, made the idea of an exploitative bet between men credible to her.
“At least Eric Crenshaw and Richard Aldero told the truth when l put the facts to them. They didn’t try to carry the deception any farther.” A searing anger, coupled with an equally intense hurt, almost toppled her control. But she bravely, stubbornly managed to hold on to it. “I never thought I’d end up using those two sleazeballs as examples of honesty and integrity. But you make them look like Eagle Scouts.”
“Look, I’d better leave.” Daniel Wilcox spoke for the first time since Jamie’s appearance. He looked distinctly -uncomfortable, keeping his eyes fixed firmly to the ground and shifting uneasily from one foot to the other.
“You’re not going anywhere until you tell Jamie that there was never any damn bet concerning her and me!” Rand snapped.
Daniel cleared his throat. “I really don’t want to get involved—”
“You’re already involved, you idiot!” Rand advanced on him, grabbing a handful of Daniel’s pastel striped polo shirt. “You’re responsible for this entire misunderstanding! The least you can do is to—”
“Lie for you?” Jamie inserted acidly. “Don’t bother, Dr. Wilcox. I won’t believe you anyway.”
Rand let go of Daniel to turn to Jamie. His eyes were a dark, flaming amber. “And what does that say about your true opinion of me, Jamie?” Sheer unadulterated rage began to replace his dizzying sense of panic. “You said that you loved me but the minute you heard something that could be misconstrued as negative, you did one hell of an about-face and started flinging accusations.”
“Could be misconstrued as negative?” Jamie echoed. “Now there’s a tidy euphemism for your cold-blooded, egomaniacal, dehumanizing bet!”
“I have to agree that she has a point about owning up to the facts instead of fostering the deception, Rand,” Daniel inserted earnestly. “It’s like throwing good money after bad. Better to cut your losses and—”
“You’re the last person in the world to be moralizing, Wilcox!” roared Rand. “Now, will you kindly tell Jamie that I never agreed to any bet!”
Daniel grimaced. “All I know is that shortly after I offered you my condo at the shore for a weekend if you managed to get a date with her, you told me that you were taking her out.”
“I never took you seriously for an instant! I had a date with Jamie before you even mentioned your stupid condo! And I never agreed to—”
“I’ve heard enough,” Jamie cut in. She couldn’t stand here listening to this for another minute or she really was going to break down. Her control was slipping fast. “I’m leaving now. I’ll call home and ask Saran or Cassie to pick me up.” There was no way she could face her parents or Grandma just yet. She prayed they wouldn’t answer the phone when she called.
“I’ll take you home after we’ve talked this out,” Rand said with chilling finality.
“No!” She couldn’t bear to listen to any more of his lies, and the idea of being alone with him was too alarming to be borne. What if he tried to make love to her? A shiver rippled along her spine. Could she trust herself to resist him? Those long, passionate hours in his bed last night had given him a powerful weapon over her. Could she withstand the force of her own love for him should he decide to seduce her into doubting what she’d heard?
“There’s no reason to talk, there’s nothing more to say.” Her blood was roaring in her ears, and she felt both burning hot and freezing cold. “You used me. 1 can’t trust you, Rand Marshall. And without trust—there’s nothing.” Her voice was bleak and flat.
“I used you? That’s rich!” He gave a harsh, mirthless laugh. “When we first met, I was determined to get you into bed and if I’d succeeded then, maybe your accusations would be valid. But that’s not what happened.”
Rand began to pace the floor with the manic energy of a caged wild animal. “For months, I’ve played it your way. The old-fashioned courtship. All those dates! Those endless nights when I thought I’d explode from frustration because I was respecting your wishes not to hustle you into bed. And, don’t kid yourself, I could’ve gotten you there before last night, baby. You’ve been ready for it, you’ve been wanting me for weeks. Months!” he added with a flourish. “But, no, I played by the rules you set, breaking all my own, because... because—”
He broke off as the realization struck him with full force. Because he was in love with her. He loved her and wanted to please her, to make her happy, even if that meant circumventing his own needs and pleasure to place hers first.
“Last night?” Daniel stared from Rand to Jamie, his face reddening. “Do you mean last night was the first time that you—” He pulled a handkerchief from his pants pocket and wiped his brow. “Oh, boy, I sure screwed things up by showing up here today, didn’t I?”
For just a moment, Rand’s and Jamie’s eyes met and memories of last night passed, almost tangibly, between them. But then Jamie pulled her gaze from his and turned pointedly to Daniel. “I suppose I should be grateful that you arrived when you did. Before—” She swallowed hard.
Before what? her heart cried. Before she’d fallen in love with him? She already had, ages ago. Before she slept with him? Another moot point.
Clutching the lapels of the robe tightly, protectively around her, she whirled away from Rand’s searching eyes and Daniel’s guilty ones and ran from the room.
“Jamie!” Rand called after her. He restrained himself from going after her.
As upset as she was, they might both end up saying things they didn’t mean. He’d let her take a shower and get dressed; then he would talk to her. And she would listen to him, he’d make sure of that. They would clear up this unfortunate misunderstanding and put it behind them. Then he would tell her that he loved her.
“Look, Rand, I really am sorry about this,” mumbled Daniel. “But I did make that bet with you. In Darby’s, the night we were with Shelli and Maxi. Do you honestly not remember?”
Rand stared at his old friend and knew that their friendship, as they’d known it through the years, was over. Daniel had hurt Jamie, unwittingly perhaps, but he’d done it, just as he’d caused this terrible rift on a day that should have been a joyful, loving one for the pair of new lovers. Rand thought of the hurt, haunted look of betrayal in Jamie’s eyes, and a spasm of pain ripped through him.
“You might’ve made a bet with me, but it was wholly onesided. I never made a bet with you, a fact you deliberately neglected to tell Jamie,” Rand said coldly. “Now get out of here before I give in to the temptation to knock your teeth down your throat.”
Wilcox, always meticulous in matters of his own self-preservation, wisely chose to make a speedy exit.
From the bedroom, Rand heard the water in the shower running, and he resisted the almost overwhelming temptation to join Jamie there. She would be naked and wet and vulnerable, and he would pull her into his arms and clamp his mouth over hers before she could utter a single syllable of protest. It was certainly the way a Brick Lawson hero would handle a recalcitrant female.
Sighing heavily, Rand went into the kitchen to feed the cat instead. Jamie was not, nor had she ever been, a Brick Lawson heroine, one of those soft-headed, malleable little twits who probably only exist in male adventure novelists’ and their readers’ fantasies.
Jamie was stubborn, strong-willed and opinionated. She was funny, affectionate and complex; he found her endlessly fascinating. She interested him in a way no other woman ever had or could. He was in love with her, Rand admitted again. He couldn’t wait to tell her so.
He visualized her as she had been last night in bed, passionate and vibrant, remembering her soft, sweet cries as he took her from virgin to lover. His breathing thickened. Just thinking about it, about her was having a lusty physical effect upon him. He wanted her so much, he couldn’t imagine the day when he wouldn’t.
He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he didn’t hear Jamie emerge from the bedroom, especially as she was careful to tiptoe quietly down the hall to the front door. She had called Saran before taking refuge in the shower, and with any luck, her cousin should arrive just as she was ready to leave.
Her luck, however, seemed to have taken an appalling turn for the worse this morning, Jamie thought despairingly as she pulled open the front door. Saran wasn’t outside waiting for her, and the creaking sound of the door had alerted Rand in the kitchen.
He shot into the living room just in time to see her slip out the door. “Jamie! Come back here!” His voice was sharper than he’d intended. But the sight of her stealthy departure had thoroughly disconcerted him.
She didn’t stop, and he had to follow her outside, still in his robe and bare feet. He caught her arm and held her fast. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“I refuse to spend another minute with you.”
“You’ve been crying,” he said, taking in her puffy, red-rimmed eyes. She must’ve been crying in the shower, where the sound of the running water would muffle her sobs. Remorse flickered in his eyes. “Jamie, I’m sorry you were hurt by what Wilcox said. But regardless of what he claims, I never made a bet with him concerning you.”
Jamie gulped. “He certainly seems to think you did. Are you calling him a liar? Saying that he made the whole thing up?”
“I remember him making some sort of stupid wager at Darby’s the night of Angela’s birthday. But I never took him up on it, Jamie. I didn’t give it another thought until this morning when he showed up and started ranting on about it.”
She stared at him, desperately wanting to believe him. Needing to believe him. She was in love with him; she wanted to think that last night’s lovemaking marked the beginning of a permanent relationship between them, not the end of a one-sided deception.
Sensing her indecision and flickering hope, he cupped her shoulders with his hands and faced her squarely. “You spoke earlier about trust,” he said quietly. “It works both ways, Jamie. Haven’t the past months been about learning to know and trust each other? And if you trust me, you’ll know that I wouldn’t hurt you or use you.”
Jamie began to cry. It was all too much, the dizzying heights and crashing depths of emotion she’d experienced since awakening less than an hour ago. She was about to let Rand take her into his arms, where she would melt against him and enjoy the supreme pleasure of being comforted by the man she loved, when Saran pulled Jamie’s car into the driveway and lurched to a stop.
“Oh, no!” Rand groaned.
“I called her before I went into the shower and told her to come over right away,” Jamie confessed tearfully. “Oh, Rand, I—”
“What’s going on?” Saran called as she jumped out of the car. She dashed to Jamie’s side, took in her tear-streaked face and Rand’s tense one and arrived at her own conclusion. “Oh, no! Jamie found out about Brick Lawson! Oh, jeez, this is terrible. Don’t be too mad at him, Jamie, he—”
“Saran!” Rand’s voice was more of a bark.
Jamie took a few steps backward to glance puzzledly, warily, from Saran to Rand. “Brick Lawson? The writer?” she said carefully.
“Rand can explain everything,” Saran inserted hastily, then proceeded to explain things on her own. “It’s just that he knew you’d never go out with him ’cause you think Brick Lawson is a sleazy hack who writes porno trash and then he didn’t tell you because he hadn’t told you in the first place and we all know what an honesty freak you are.” She stopped to gasp for breath.
“Rand is Brick Lawson,” Jamie said flatly. She stared at Rand, stunned, her blue eyes wide and disbelieving. “The author of Assignment: Jailbait, Land of 1000 Vices, Life is a Game of Craps and Untamed Bikers: Hard as They Come. Are there any I’ve missed? It’s true, isn’t it, Rand? And Saran has known all along?”
Rand opened his mouth to speak, but Saran beat him to it. “Since we went to his house the night of the Merlton Spring Sing,” she said rather proudly. “But I didn’t tell him I knew until I needed a passing grade on my English theme. You know, Rand’s really a good writer, Jamie,” the young woman added ingenuously. “My English teacher even said so, sort of. After she read the paper he wrote for me for English, she said, ‘Saran, you should be ashamed of yourself for hiding your light under a bushel all year. You have definite writing talent, and if you stick with it, you could be a professional writer someday.’ She gave the paper an A, Jamie! Thanks to good old Brick here I’m going to pass English and will graduate with my class!”
“Good old Brick,” Jamie said in a chilling tone. “May I assume that you blackmailed him into writing the paper, Saran? Told him that you’d tell me about his secret identity if he didn’t?”
Saran nodded. “I know I probably shouldn’t’ve, Jamie, but I was desperate!”
“No, Saran, you were lazy.” Jamie’s eyes burned like twin flames. “You didn’t want to take the time and effort to do the paper so you found someone to do it for you. You were dishonest, you cheated and you lied and you should be ashamed of yourself!”
“Well, I’m not.” Saran shrugged, undaunted. “I’m just glad I’m going to pass English. And I think you should tell Rand that you’re sorry for thinking his books stink. Lots of people like them and buy them. Someday I might even read one.”
“Saran, I think you’ve said enough for now,” Rand said, his eyes never leaving Jamie’s face. “Why don’t you drive home and Jamie and I will—”
“We’re both leaving now.” Jamie took the car keys Saran was dangling a
nd stalked to the driver’s side of the car.
“I want you to stay, Jamie,” Rand said with quiet intensity.
“So you can spin some more lies?” she cried. “Oh, you are good at it, Rand Marshall! No wonder you’re such a successful writer, you make the most implausible tales of fiction seem believable!”
“Name one implausible tale of fiction I’ve told you,” snapped Rand. Her anger sparked his, and his temper flared. What a positively hellish day this had turned into! First Wilcox and the bet, and now, just as he and Jamie had reached an understanding about that, along came Saran and the Brick Lawson revelation.
His rage faded as quickly as it had come, leaving him feeling drained and depressed. The timing couldn’t have been worse, he conceded gloomily. Having just spent their first night together, Jamie needed his love and attention and reassurance, but instead she was hit by lies and partial truths and subterfuge.
He knew how hard she would take it; he understood her just as she understood him. They were good for each other, they were good together, although one look at her taut, white face and he knew Jamie wasn’t about to admit that right now. She was, paradoxically, emotional and cautious, passionate and controlled. And every single, contradictory aspect of her nature was working against him right now.
Tears swam in Jamie’s eyes. “I’m not going to prolong this farce any longer.” Her lower lip was quivering ominously; if she didn’t leave immediately, she was going to burst into tears again, and she just couldn’t let him see her crying over him. “Get into the car, Saran. We’re going home,” she ordered fiercely.
“Oh, Jamie, why don’t you stay here and make up with Rand?” Saran said with a world-weary sigh. “You know you want to. You’re madly in love with him, and everybody knows it.”
“I can’t expect a—a conniving little blackmailer like you to understand what truth and honesty mean in a relationship, Saran,” Jamie said tightly. “Without them, there is no relationship, only self-delusion, and I’ve been suffering from an acute case of it lately.”
Rule Breaker Page 16
