Jon-Michael pulled back, both hands spread in an I-come-in-peace gesture. But he looked her squarely in the eye. "Because if it does, I’ve said it before and I will say it again. Your husband was a fool. But, Hayley honey—" he leaned in to grasp her chin firmly, their eyes mere inches apart "—I am not. I know exactly what I have in you. I’m also aware I screwed the pooch once before." Releasing her, he rose to his feet and stared down at her. "But know this. The woman has not been born who could tempt me to screw it up again by being unfaithful."
It terrified her how badly she wanted to believe him. But if she did and he let her down, it would kill her; she knew it on a visceral level. Protect yourself, a shrill inner voice warned. Protect yourself, or this time he could destroy you.
So she did. Taking a deep, calming breath, she straightened her shoulders, raised her chin, and said very distinctly, "Nobody asked for your fidelity, Olivet. All I ever wanted from you is sex." Then hated herself for the baseborn liar she was.
It was too late to take her words back, however, even if she wanted to. Once spoken, words could not be recalled and Jon-Michael visibly withdrew. He stood looking her up and down, and there was something in his dark eyes that caused Hayley to hastily reach for the sheet that had drifted forgotten onto the mattress. She tugged it up and tucked it under her armpits, clamping her arms to her sides to hold it in place.
"Drop it," he immediately ordered with soft-voiced menace.
"What?"
"All you want is sex? Then drop the sheet. A little nudity between fuck buddies shouldn't bother a free-wheelin' sex pistol like you." He reached for his belt. "How do you want it, honey? Truth is, I'm a little pressed for time, so it will have to be quick. Quick 'n rough, maybe—I know that appeals to me at the moment. C’mon." He had his pants undone. "Why are you still covered up? I said drop it. Let's fuck."
Pressing her arms to her sides more tightly, she assured herself it was merely offended masculine pride that made him such a dick. So why, then, did tears rise with such scalding ease in her eyes?
Jon-Michael made a sound of disgust. Whether it was aimed at her or himself was anyone’s guess, but he turned away, redoing his fly with none of his usual grace. He crossed to the bureau and picked up his wallet, checked the contents, and stuffed it in his back pocket. Then he turned to face her again.
"I apologize," he said stiffly. "That was crude and…" He rolled his shoulders impatiently. “I’m not going to say uncalled for, Hayley, because frankly I think I had a huge dose of provocation. Still, you have my apology."
She merely stared at him, hating the fact her lower lip was quivering. She could really use a little screw you bravado right about now.
Jon-Michael looked down at his hands. "I always thought you were about the gutsiest woman I knew," he said in a low voice. "I admired that, you know." He studied his fingers as if they had turned into the most fascinating objects he’d ever clapped eyes on. Then his hands abruptly dropped to his sides and he looked up at her. "I was wrong, though, wasn't I, Hayley? You’re an emotional coward. And this push-me/pull-me shit we keep engaging in is not doing either of us a damn bit of good."
He stared at her as if waiting for some kind of argument. When she didn’t immediately give him one, he shrugged.
Then turned and walked away.
Scaredy cat, scaredy cat. Hayley kicked the shower stall wall and thrust her head back beneath the pounding jets of water as if she could rinse the mocking words out of her head as easily as she rid her hair of shampoo. Emotional coward, my ass, she thought testily. Jon-Michael was full of shit. She was cautious—with cause. That did not make her a coward.
She twisted the water off and wrung out her hair. Okay, so maybe these days she was the slightest bit fainthearted when it came to making any sort of commitment. Big deal. Once upon a time she had trusted her feelings, had freely offered up her heart right, left, and sideways. Look where that had gotten her. A deadbeat dad, a red-hot reputation, a philandering husband and life in a goldfish bowl. So if she erred on the side of caution, she’d say it made her smart, not an emotional coward.
And just what did that last thing he’d said even mean? If he thought they weren’t doing each other any good did it mean he wanted her to pack her stuff, which had began accumulating in his place, and move out of his life?
"Oh, God," she muttered, “this is a total waste of time.” She dried off, slapped on lotion and pulled on her bra and panties. With less than four hours sleep, her head felt as if the high school marching band was holding practice in it. She hadn’t done laundry in too long and really needed to go back to the estate to get something clean to wear. Bet your ass, though, she could look forward to a pack of reporters hanging around outside the Olivet gate, all geared up to stick their microphones in her face, blind her in the glare of their lights and demand answers to intimate questions she had hesitated to discuss with her best friend.
She had to get out of here. The walls were closing in on her.
Actually, talking to her best friend sounded like a plan, but when she called the Olivet house no one answered. Kurstin was either in the shower where she wouldn't hear the phone, using a hair dryer or—crap, of course—at work.
Hayley donned a pair of shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, then pulled a comb through the wet tangle of her hair. She went through Jon-Michael’s medicine cabinet and found a bottle of ibuprofen.
She took three, put the bottle back and shut the mirrored door. Catching the reflection of her blank stare, she blinked and shook her head impatiently. One thing was for certain. She could not spend the entire day staring at these walls or she would be a raving lunatic before the morning was gone. She located her bathing suit. Might as well do what had worked for her in the past. She would head out to the Olivet estate, grab her stuff and take a swim until she quieted the thoughts scurrying through her mind like so many rats in a maze.
She had opened Jon-Michael’s front door when her conscience kicked in. Hesitating on the threshold, restlessly tossing the keys in her hand into the air then snatching them back, only to immediately send them aloft again, she debated herself.
The verdict was still out on whether she had won or lost the dispute when she closed the front door again. But she tried Jon-Michael’s cell phone.
It went to voicemail.
So she went into his home office, where she located the appropriate number, picked up the phone, and dialed.
"Good morning, Olivet Manufacturing."
Hayley's fingers tightened around the receiver. "May I speak with Jon-Michael Olivet, please?"
"I'm sorry, ma'am, Mr. Olivet is unavailable."
"Oh." She had not planned for that. "Um, how about Kurstin McAlvey then? Is she available?"
"Yes, she is. One moment please."
The connection closed and then opened again and her best friend’s voice said, “This is Kurstin.”
"Hey."
"Hayley? Is that you?"
"Oh, Kurstie. Everything is so screwed up."
"Tell me about it." Kurstin's voice, although dry, contained a hint of bitterness. But it gentled when she asked, "How did it get all screwed up for you, though, sweetie? Aside from the usual, I mean. The press finally manage to stage a successful raid on the last of your closely guarded secrets?"
"I don't think I have any left to guard," Hayley replied glumly. "No, this is worse. Jon-Michael and I had a big fight this morning. So big I am not even sure I'm supposed to be here when he gets back."
"Don't be absurd. Jon-Michael loves you madly."
"He says I'm an emotional coward, Kurst."
"Well, you are."
"Kurstin!"
"Girl, please. As far as committing to Jon-Michael is concerned, you have a yellow streak up your back a yard wide." Call Waiting blipped for Hayley's phone, but Kurstin ignored it. "On the other hand," she continued gently, "you’ve been given more reason to be cautious than any woman should ever have to contend with, not the least of which came from
Jon. He’ll remember that as soon as he cools down from whatever set him off this morning." The Call Waiting signal blipped for the third time and Kurstin said impatiently, "You want to get that damn thing? It’s very annoying."
"Yeah, hang on a second." Hayley pressed the flash button to access a second line. "Hello."
"Hayley?"
"Patsy, hi. Can I call you back in a minute? I'm on the other line."
"I just wanted to see if you would like to go out and shoot some arrows with me this afternoon. I don’t have to be to work until six."
"Okay, sure." It was exactly what Hayley needed. Something mindless and physical to take her mind off the continuing soap opera that was her life. "Where do you wanna meet? That clearing above Mavis Point?"
Patsy laughed and her voice was laced with an amusement Hayley didn't understand. "Yeah, sure, why not. Meet you there around two?"
"Okay, see you then.”
Patsy hung up on her.
“Bye,” Hayley murmured and clicked the flash button again. "Kurstie? You still there?"
"Yes. Who was that?"
"Patsy. We're going to meet in a while to do some target practice with her bow and arrow."
"Whooped-dee-do."
"Don’t start. I don't know why you're so hard on her lately." Then she made an erasing gesture. Realizing her friend couldn't see it over the telephone, she rushed on, "But that's not important right now. What am I going to do about Jon-Michael? I need to tell him something before he goes into that meeting, but the receptionist says he's not available."
"Yeah, he’s been locked in with dad since he got here. Man, wouldn’t you just love to be a fly on the wall to catch a snatch of that conversation?"
Hayley wasn’t sure if the choked expulsion of air that caught in her throat was a laugh or a sob. "The mind boggles. Will you give him a message for me?"
"Sure."
"Before the board meeting? It's gotta be before the meeting, Kurstie."
"No problem. I’m going down in about ten minutes. What do you want me to say?"
"Just tell him...good luck, okay? That right is might. And I know he’s going to kick butt."
"God. She's driving me crazy." Jon-Michael hooked a finger in the knot of his tie and yanked it loose. He craned his neck in the opposite direction and looked down at his sister. Shit. He didn’t need this after the frustrating session he’d just had with his father.
He and Kurstin stood in a corner he had commandeered in the boardroom, and after a single glance over her shoulder at the people entering the room he turned the full force of his attention back on her. "One minute I'm sure she loves me, the next she is virtually telling me not to hold my breath. I don't know up from effing down anymore. I wish she would make up her damn mind."
"Yes, don't you simply abhor inconsistent behavior?" Kurstin commiserated. "It is high time she got over herself. Why, the way she acts, you would think every man she’s ever loved turned her life into a circus or something. How immature can one woman be?”
Jon-Michael pulled at his tie again in frustration. “I’ve tried to show her how much I’ve changed. And I have told her until I’m blue in the face how much I love her."
"And I'm sure you are just patience personified when she shies away from believing you."
That pulled a wry smile out of him. Then he sobered. "She told me flat out this morning all she wants from me is sex."
Kurstin gave him a pitying how-stupid-can-one-guy-be look. "Oh, please. And you believed that?"
"Hell, yeah, I believed it. It's the reason she moved in with me in the first place."
"I cannot believe you are that dense, Jon-Michael."
"I prefer to call it realistic."
“Prefer anything you want. It doesn't change the fact you're a bonehead."
"Thanks, Kurstin. One appreciates knowing his family is firmly on his side in his direst hour." Remembering the rest of Hayley's message, however, he felt a corner of his mouth reluctantly tug up. He looked at his sister. "Right is might, huh?"
"That is what she said."
He pushed away from the wall he’d been leaning against, reaching up simultaneously to re-tighten the knot of his tie. "Then I suppose it’s time to do what she said, isn't it?" He looked at the stack of papers she held. "Is that my proposal?"
"All twelve copies of it."
"Okay." He looked at the board members who had been slowly filtering in and taking their places at the long rectangular table. Drawing a deep breath, he held it a moment, then blew it out, deliberately pushing all the anger and hurt boiling through him to the back of his mind. "Let's go kick some ass."
The woods were dim and quiet and Hayley found herself dawdling on her way to the rendezvous point with Patsy. Dust motes filled shafts of sunshine filtering through overhead gaps in the trees to mantle her hair and shoulders in warmth. The deep breaths she inhaled were scented by a fecund aroma that soothed on a fundamental level. Tension eased out of her knotted neck muscles even as frazzled nerves began slowly knitting themselves back together.
Listening to the rhythms of the forest: the birds ceasing their songs at her approach only to start up again as soon as she passed, the breeze riffling the treetops, it struck her that many of her life's more perfect moments had happened in these woods. Given how rife with anxiety her current life was she found comfort in the memories.
She beat Patsy to the clearing above Mavis Point and appreciated simply sitting quietly on a fallen log, angling her face to feel the dappled sunshine on her skin. Closing her eyes, she leaned back on her palms and breathed in a measure of peace with every evergreen-scented lungful of air she inhaled.
Her eyes refused to open again until she heard Patsy's approach through the woods. Watching her friend step into the clearing, she greeted her with a spontaneous smile. "Hi," she called softly. "I am so glad you called . This is the most relaxed I’ve felt in days."
Stopping, I blink at Hayley in bemusement. The friendliness of her greeting jolts me. It confuses me and makes me want to fall back on the seductive yearning to be included in her confidences I have nurtured for so long. Maybe I should give it another try. Maybe Joe was right when he said our problems have nothing to do with an outside party. Maybe…
No. Seductive is the word for this home wrecking twat. Hayley Prescott is not my friend. The absolute truth of that was driven home by my conversation with Joe. Hayley is like one of those Pre-Raphaelite sorceresses, long-necked and wild-haired, with a reserved poise and a surface prettiness that fools the uninformed into believing she would never do anything underhanded. Inside, though, lives a fucking bitch scheming to beguile and ensnare.
And I have made up my mind. I know what needs to be done if I am ever to get Joe back.
Looking at her poised there like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, I notice the log my erstwhile friend sits on is the one from which I shot Ty Holloway right off his feet. Amusement unfurling, I feel my lips curve up.
I am not the stupid one here. I am the powerful one, the one who knows where the bodies are buried. I laugh out loud, for in this case that isn’t just an expression, is it?
"What's so funny?"
I like this feeling, this possessing a juicy secret no one else knows. I hug it to my breast. "It is just all so... deliciously perfect," I murmur.
"True, that." Hayley rises to her feet, twisting to brush needles and bark dust from the seat of her pants. "We just don't get enough of these fabulous days, do we?"
I am tempted to demonstrate my contempt at how wrong her interpretation is, but I control myself. It just sank in I do not have a plan. I, who am always prepared for every contingency, stand here planless for perhaps the first time in my life. I have no idea what I’m going to do next.
Okay, that is not precisely true.
I do know I am going to kill Hayley Granger Prescott.
Twenty-One
Hayley stretched. For the first time since Holloway’s shit-fest of an article hit the fan she fe
lt as though she could catch an honest-to-god deep-to-the-bottom-of-her-lungs breath. The hike up from Mavis Point trailhead had left her pleasantly tired, sunshine lay soft as a benediction upon her shoulders and the evergreen trees surrounding the open space she and Patsy occupied smelled divine. Smelled like home. Hands on her hips, elbows out and feet planted wide, she twisted from her waist to the right, enjoying the stretch along her upper body.
When she reversed to twist to the left she saw something behind the log from the corner of her eye. She pivoted her left foot back to get a better view.
And felt something whiz past her chest to thunk into a tree ten feet beyond the log.
Startled, she jumped back. Her foot rolled over a baseball-sized rock and without a scrap of dignity she performed a crazed but mercifully brief dance before landing on her butt. Right on top of another rock.
Wincing, she fished it out from beneath her hip. Before she could toss it aside, motion caught her eye. She looked up. And gawked, the hand holding the rock dropping limply to her lap.
Because an arrow, still quivering, was buried a good inch deep in the tree trunk. She whipped around to stare at her friend. “What the hell? You damn near shot me!”
To her amazement, Patsy merely shrugged. “Yes, it is clear I’ve let my practice slide a bit too much lately,” she said in a cool voice. “My aim is too consistently off true…even if only a smidge.”
“You meant to shoot me?” But, no. She must have misunderstood.
Patsy’s prompt don’t-be-an-idiot look strengthened the belief and she sucked in a relieved breath.
Only to have it catch in her throat when her old schoolmate said, “Duh. Of course I did.”
“What?” Hayley shook her head. “I mean, I heard you. But… why?”
“Oh, do not play coy!” Patsy spat. “God! I idolized you! You stood up to my bitch of a mother for me. I would have done anything for you.”
“I did?” Hayley frantically shuffled through old memories.
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