by Bird, Peggy
Maybe next time. He slid into her warm and wanting body and could almost hear their cooperative sigh. There was an absolute perfect moment of union, of fitting together, a pause before they started to move against each other and with each other. He glanced down to see himself pushing into her and pushed harder. He could tell he had done something right as he felt her tighten around him, so he did it again.
He was either forcing her toward the edge or she was forcing him. He couldn’t tell and didn’t give a damn. Her head was thrown back, and he could barely see her eyes under the brush of lashes. Her skin had a sheen to it; her mouth was damp and slightly open. Every bit of her skin felt like satin gliding across him. She filled him with sensation after sensation, flooding his circuits with overwhelming pleasure that drove him higher but still left him wanting more. He wanted more of her and wanted her to take in more of him. If he could, he would have crawled inside her. Her body, her muscles echoed the sentiment, pulling him in deeper with each thrust.
Even as her body took him in, as he pressed himself into her again and again, he bent down to taste her shoulder. Her skin was warm and sweet. He licked her and nipped at her neck. She rewarded his efforts with a little noise in the back of her throat that sounded like heaven. The sound shot straight to his groin, and he felt himself pushed to his limit. She arched toward him again, and he couldn’t help but groan her name. He pushed into her one more time and felt her tighten in cascades around him. He kissed her one last time before he let go and went with her.
• • •
It was an absolutely perfect morning, with soft light seeping around the blinds in the room, a warm man spooning her from behind, and the chance to sleep in late. Jade stretched her legs and then snuggled her bottom closer to Matt. She thought about the night before. He loved her. Her. Jade. She pulled the comforter up to her face and smiled widely into the corner of it. She inhaled deeply and could smell him on the blankets. His smell mingled with all the familiar scents of her bed, and she smiled wider. She thought about the night before. She thought of the glitter, the orchestra, the socialites, the press, her insecurities. All of those things that seemed important the night before seemed silly now. None of that mattered to Matt. What mattered to him was her. Jade.
“God, I love you.”
He had spoken the words softly, but he had meant them. Yes, she had been practically naked at the time, but somehow, she believed him. Something in his eyes, his certainty, made her believe it could work. Joy flooded her, and she felt content, peaceful, whole. She was afraid her face would split if she were any happier. She snuggled into him again, and his arm tightened around her waist. Even in sleep he pulled her closer. Somehow, this might work. She closed her eyes and slowly drifted off, the smile still on her face. The only thing that could improve this day would be coffee gnomes magically appearing with her first cup of the morning.
Chapter 23
She had fallen back to sleep for twenty minutes, maybe more. When she woke again, the morning seemed brighter and someone was banging on the door.
“Come on, Sparky, I know you’re in there.” Do I know a Sparky? Jade tried to figure out if it was a dream. It sounded like Sam at the door. “C’mon! I need to talk to you. Kind of important!” It was definitely Sam. She was pounding on the door now and sounded … pissed. What had started out as a perfect morning was going downhill fast.
Jade rolled onto her back and glanced over at Matt out of the corner of her eye. When she moved, he rolled over on his back and threw an arm up over his eyes. Jade poked him in the shoulder. “Do you know a Sparky?”
Matt mumbled and grabbed a pillow to hide under. Jade shoved his shoulder harder in response. “Uhm, is there a reason why Sam is yelling and pounding on the door?”
The pounding got louder.
Matt rolled over on his side again and wrapped his arms around Jade’s waist while he buried his face in her hair. The pillow still covered most of his head. Jade lifted the corner of the pillow. “Uh, pookie-bear-snookums? Could you pretty please get up and deal with the deranged woman at the door, since she is your best friend?”
He opened one eye and then the other. Then grunted. Jade batted her eyelashes and flashed a wicked smile. “I’ll make coffee.”
Matt rolled out of bed, grabbed his pants off the floor, and slid them on in one smooth motion. “Deal.”
• • •
Matt yanked open the door and spoke around a stifled yawn. “This had better be good,” he grumbled.
Samantha pushed the door open and stepped inside. Surprisingly, she was dressed for battle, in a suit tailored to perfection, black pumps, and a tightly pinned up-do. “If by good you mean bad, it is.”
Matt sighed. It was insanely early to be doing this. He had spent far too little time actually sleeping last night to deal with whatever emergency had come up. “We need to get going.” Sam glanced down at her BlackBerry, typing a text and pressing “send” before she looked back up at Matt.
He stood there trying to make sense of things. “Go?”
Sam looked up at him then glanced toward the kitchen where Jade was preparing coffee. “We need to go back into the city today to deal with some business.” She reached for Matt’s arm, turned him away from the kitchen, and lowered her voice. “We have a media shit storm brewing. Mackenzie Whitman from the Times claims that she got a quote from Jade stating that you have been researching the Cartwright treasure for your next book.”
“Bullshit!” He was loud enough that Jade looked up from what she was doing. The worry was clear in her face. She flipped the switch on the coffee maker and moved toward them.
Sam shrugged. “True or not, we’ve got to deal with her.”
Jade’s brow furrowed. She looked back and forth between Sam and Matt. “What’s wrong?”
Matt pulled Jade up against his side. “Don’t worry.” He wanted nothing more than to push Sam out the front door, lock it behind her, and crawl back into bed with Jade. Unfortunately, Sam was rock solid. If she was here telling him that there was something that needed to be dealt with, then he trusted that implicitly. What he didn’t trust was a reporter’s version of anything. “Did this reporter have any of this on tape?”
Sam shook her head. “No, but she found some people who were willing to go on the record.”
Jade pulled her robe more tightly closed and fussed with the belt. “What reporter?”
Matt ignored her. “We can stop the story.”
Sam shook her head. “Sorry, this is not exactly going to be top priority for a court to grant an injunction. You’ll just piss off the judge for wasting her time. You can threaten to sue for damages after the fact, but if Mackenzie wants to run her story, the damage will already be done. A legal battle will only add to your bad press.”
Jade spoke a little louder. “Um, what’s going on?”
Matt waved her concern off. “It’s nothing … Just some reporter conning her way into a story.” Matt turned back to Sam. “Fuck it. How much damage could it cause? Let her run whatever story she wants. People won’t even remember this a day later.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, we can ignore her and let the story run, but it will do damage. Your readership will get excited about a treasure hunting story then pissed when they realize your book doesn’t have anything to do with that.”
“What was this reporter’s name?” Jade asked.
Matt spoke over Jade’s head. She was so petite than that he could rest his chin on her silky hair and still talk to Sam. “It’s in there a little.”
Sam shook her head. “I read your synopsis. It’ll piss off the readership. I also don’t want to subject Lakehaven to an incoming flood of treasure happy yahoos.”
Matt agreed. “There are enough local yahoos.”
Sam nodded. “This is better handled with honey. We go in, give her an exclusive, and make a friend in the process. It’s a win-win.”
Jade asked again. “Who?”
Sam finally took pity on Jade and
answered her question. “Mackenzie Whitman.”
Matt felt Jade go completely still in his arms. He pulled back and started to ask what was wrong but stopped when he saw her face. She had gone pale, and her eyes were too wide.
“Oh, God.” She looked frantically up at Matt. “I did talk with her last night.”
• • •
Jade started to tremble. She looked back and forth between Sam and Matt and desperately tried to remember what exactly the conversation had been. She peered up at Matt. “We talked, but I didn’t think … She said it was all off the record.”
Matt winced and gave Sam an apologetic look. The mess had been made and now Sam was going to have to clean it up. Their heavy glances made Jade feel worse. Sam shrugged it off. “Not a problem. I’ve made the phone calls and set everything up. It’s nothing a day or two in New York can’t solve—an easy fix. It’s just that we need to leave now.” Sam’s smile oozed bitterness. “Our new best friend Mackenzie has a deadline to meet.”
Matt looked at Jade with sympathy, and she could feel tears pressing at the back of her eyes. If they had been mad or accusing, it might have been easier for her to endure. They weren’t, though. They were trying to make it better, and their concern left her feeling like a small child. “She promised it was off the record. How could she lie like that?” Jade knew she sounded naïve, but she couldn’t help it. The tight knit community of Lakehaven was pretty straightforward. People who had a problem dealt with you face to face rather than behind your back. She was completely out of her element.
Sam tried to help. “It’s a game they play. The reporter agrees that what you say is off the record. You tell them some little detail and then they dig around, get five other people to go on the record corroborating the story. Mackenzie Whitman didn’t exactly lie to you. She won’t quote you. All of the quotes will be from other sources who are completely willing to go on the record.”
They weren’t trying to be condescending, but she could only imagine what they thought of her at that moment. She bit the inside of her mouth to keep from crying and straightened her spine. “I’ll fix it. I’ll make it right.”
Matt’s smile was sympathetic. “There’s nothing you can do. Mackenzie wants Riley McLaughlin.”
Jade bit her lip. “I am so sorry. I had no idea.” Again, she felt like a fool.
Sam shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. It was just a rookie mistake. Could have happened to anyone.”
Sam’s phone dinged and she glanced at it. Her expression was tight. She texted a response while cursing under her breath. She finished the text and looked at Matt. “We need to go now. I’ll brief you in the car on the way. You can shower when we get there. I want to be on the road immediately so we can bypass as much traffic as possible.”
He ran his hands through his hair, making it stick up. “Damn. I hate this.”
Sam patted Matt on his back and shot him a dangerous grin. “Don’t worry, Sparky. I’ve got it all under control. The big bad reporter will be eating out of my hand and owe us about a billion favors by the time I’m done with her.”
Matt dropped his head forward to look at the floor. He stood there for a moment before lifting his head up. “Okay. Fine. Let’s do this.” He was already turning back to the bedroom, on the move. He moved quickly and confidently, but Jade could see the tension in his shoulders.
She followed him into the bedroom. “Matt, I wish there was something, anything I could do.”
He shook his head but didn’t make eye contact. He was looking around the room for his underwear. “Don’t worry about it. Sam’s handling it.”
“Maybe I could talk to the reporter.”
His pants were back on, and he was fastening them. “It won’t matter. At this point, anything less than Riley McLaughlin won’t be enough. Don’t worry, Sam’s good with PR. She knows what she’s doing. I trust her.”
Jade stood there stunned. On top of being naïve and foolish, she was incompetent and untrustworthy. She bit her lower lip.
If Matt was aware of how his words had landed, he didn’t show it. He really wasn’t looking at her at all. He found his shirt and threw it on, not bothering to tuck it in, and grabbed his wallet and cabin key off the dresser before moving to the foot of the bed. “I don’t think this will take more than a day or two to handle.” He bent to pick up his socks, which he shoved into his pockets, and then slipped his shoes on his bare feet. “I’ll call you when I know for sure how long it will take and when I’ll be back.” He moved to the door where Jade nodded numbly at him, and bent to kiss her before he headed back to the living room.
• • •
Matt’s call didn’t come until twenty-four hours later. For Jade, that meant twenty-four hours of worry, obsessing over her mistake. She tried to keep busy; there were accounts to settle and supplies to order, and when she was done with her duties up at the main house, she cleaned her cabin. She straightened her living room, did the dishes, even tidied her bedroom … which was when she found a little white business card on the floor.
It was at the foot of the bed where Matt had dropped his pants, and it didn’t take much to guess where the card had come from: Amanda Carmichael—Sutton Galleries. It had a Hudson Street address and a 10013 postal code that Jade didn’t recognize, but at least she knew that the 212 area code was New York. The font was elegant and the card stock felt expensive. She felt the jealousy bubble up in her.
Amanda Carmichael probably had no problem dealing with the press. Amanda Carmichael was in a creative industry—the art world—and no doubt she was comfortable at fundraisers and gallery openings and luncheons and film premieres and wherever else Matt might have to go. Amanda Carmichael was everything that Jade was not: polished, and if not perfect, perfect for Matt.
Jade sat hard on the end of her bed and stared blindly at the business card. She had made the mistake once before with Nick. When she had been in love with Nick, she hadn’t really thought about what it would be like to be a part of his future, part of his forever. She had assumed that since they loved each other, it would work itself out. She was not going to make the same mistake twice. The fact of the matter was that though she was really angry at the time, she could see now why Nick would want a future with Stacy. They were right for each other. They both wanted the same future. Jade might have made it work, being the professor’s wife to Nick’s tenured professor, but she never would have thrived.
She had no doubt that Matt loved her, but could she make him happy? She thought about him in New York having to clean up the mess she had made. Yes, it had been an innocent mistake, but how many more of those would she commit? The reality of it was that she couldn’t imagine being in his world, in his future. She could imagine Amanda Carmichael in it. Easily.
The phone jolted her out of her thoughts, and she swallowed hard around the lump in her throat. “Hello?”
Matt’s voice was rough. He sounded tired. “Hey.”
Jade took a steadying breath. “Hey yourself. How did it go?”
“It’s gone well so far. We put out the fires, and Sam and my publicist are going over some other details. They figure if there is going to be press anyway, they might as well use that to our advantage. Turn it into a positive. So your mistake might have been for the best anyway.”
This time, Jade thought. “That’s good news.”
“I’m going to wrap up here in a day or so, and then I’ll come back up.”
Jade bit her lip. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
Jade heard the concern in Matt’s voice. “What’s wrong?”
Jade felt the first tear slide down her cheek but managed to keep the quiver out of her voice. “I just think … ” She swallowed and started again, this time with certainty. “I’m not right for you.”
Matt laughed. “What are you talking about? You’re perfect for me.”
“Your life is so different from mine—the publicity, the social whirl.”
Matt sighed. “That isn�
��t even my life. That’s an act for the sake of publicity. Don’t you see? That’s part of why you’re perfect for me. I get to be myself with you. So many other people want some slick version; they want Riley McLaughlin instead of me.”
“But it’s your career. It’s a part of your life. You’re a writer, and the public you is a part of that.”
There was a pause on the line and when Matt spoke again, she could hear the tension there. “Jade, God, please don’t do this. We’ll work this out when I get there.”
Jade pleaded, hoping he would get it. “Matt, I love you. But that’s not necessarily enough to make it work.”
Matt interrupted, his voice low, controlled. “It is enough. Dammit! Just let me come up and—”
“No!” She hadn’t meant to yell, but this was hard enough over the phone without seeing him. She was trying to save them both a lot of pain later on, but it was killing her now. She used the back of her hand to dash the tears from her eyes. “You have an entirely different lifestyle! This time all I did was make a little mistake and look at all the time, effort, and juggling you’ve had to do to fix it. Next time, it could be worse. I am not willing to do that to you. A future with me is not going to be easy.”
“Fuck easy! If I wanted easy, I’d have a fucking one-night stand. I don’t want easy. I want you.”
She was sobbing now and knew that her voice was unsteady, but she plowed on anyway while she still had the nerve. “You know what I want? I want you to be happy. Truly happy.”
He sputtered, incredulous. “But you’re what makes me happy!”
She yelled then, hoping that it would get through. “No, Matt, just listen. You are having to jump through these hoops and put on the Riley McLaughlin show for the press because of me. I hear the strain in your voice, and I know I put it there. And it’s killing me. I can’t do this. I can’t bear to work at it and work at it, each day falling a little more in love with you, and each day failing you. In the end, it doesn’t work. It won’t work.”
