“So,” he smiled, pretending not to notice the flash of sheer pink panties she deliberately gave him as she repositioned herself for the third or fourth time. “Are you still thinking of something for your mom?”
“That bitch?” Rachel snarled. “Are you kidding me? She’s gross. I wouldn’t get a gift for that tightfisted fucking whore if she was dying of cancer. She’s the one who turned Daddy against me, siding with Richard fucking Mayhew.”
“Who’s Richard Mayhew?” asked Jake. He didn’t care, but felt he needed to show some sort of interest if he was to stand any chance of selling her a rock at long last.
“My trustee,” pouted Rachel, adding caustically, “She’s probably fucking the decrepit son of a bitch.”
“Fair enough,” said Jake. “So we’re not shopping for Mommy. So who were you thinking of surprising?”
But Rachel was apparently done with small talk. Vaulting athletically over to Jake’s side of the couch, she straddled him, spreading her legs so widely that her tiny skirt bunched up around her waist. “I don’t give a shit, OK?” she whispered hoarsely. “You can give the diamonds to the fucking homeless shelter for all I care. I miss you, Jakey. Let’s make love.”
Arching her back, she lunged toward him like a falcon diving in for the kill.
In fairness to Rachel, a couple of months ago Jake would probably have been a willing victim. Even now, he was unable to stop his dick from twitching in response, like a prehistoric snake emerging from the permafrost into a land of unexpected sunshine. But from the waist up he knew he did not want to screw Rachel Kingman. If he fucked things up with Scarlett—which he seriously hoped he didn’t—it’d better be over someone a good deal more worthy than a spoiled, oversexed teen queen with all the class of Anna Nicole Smith on a Vicodin binge.
Just as Rachel’s tongue darted into his mouth, the doorbell rang for a second time.
It was bizarre. No one came by the condo. Ever. And yet tonight for some strange reason he was suddenly Mr. Popular.
“I’d better get that,” he said, wriggling out from under her with what he hoped came across as a disappointed shrug. “It might be important.”
Whoever was selling tea towels this time was in luck. If Rachel was about to part with as much cash as he thought, he’d buy the guy’s entire inventory and whack a nice little tip on top for his trouble.
“Hurry up,” said Rachel, straightening her skirt and hair, and perfecting her trademark pout while he ran to the door. She didn’t appreciate being interrupted mid-seduction. “I won’t wait forever, you know.”
Sure you will, thought Jake. Danny had christened Rachel “Boomerang Girl” last year because she’d been so impossible to get rid of. Which was mean, but not as nasty as her other nickname on the LA party scene—The Cockie Monster. Jake chuckled quietly to himself as he remembered it.
“Hello?” he said, still laughing as he picked up the intercom. “Who is it?”
“It’s me.”
It was hard to tell whose face fell faster, Jake’s or Rachel’s, as Scarlett’s cut-glass English accent rang out through the hall.
“Listen, darling, I’m really sorry but I’m going to have to bail on tonight. Nancy’s boyfriend’s coming over to help me strategize some stuff for Trade Fair, and I completely forgot about it. Can you buzz me up?”
Panicked, Jake looked from Rachel to the intercom and back again, like a fox trapped between two baying packs of hounds.
“Business,” mouthed Rachel. “Tied up.”
“Er…I’m sort of tied up, er, right now,” stammered Jake, wincing at how insincere he sounded.
“What? Well, untie yourself,” said Scarlett briskly. “I’ve driven all the way down here to see you, so whatever hang-up you’ve got about letting me see your apartment, you’re going to have to get over it. I’m not leaving until you open this door.”
Jake looked at Rachel in desperation.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” she hissed, getting crossly to her feet. Her amorous mood seemed to have deserted her. “Just let her in. I know when I’m not wanted.”
There goes another sale, thought Jake wistfully.
“Angel, don’t be like that,” he said, forgetting for a moment that he was still on speaker.
“Angel?” Scarlett’s voice sounded suddenly hollow. “Who are you talking to? Oh my God. Is someone with you up there?”
“Not anymore,” said Rachel, smiling maliciously as she pushed past Jake and spoke directly into the intercom. “I was just leaving. You’re welcome to him, honey.”
“You bitch,” said Jake, elbowing her aside. “Scar, are you there?”
But he was met by an echoing silence.
“Look, there’s nothing going on,” he pleaded into the emptiness. “Scarlett! Come up and see for yourself. Aw, shit.” Shoving Rachel unceremoniously through the door in front of him, he bolted down the stairs of the building two at a time, through the lobby doors, and out into the street. It was rush hour, cars and people everywhere, but he couldn’t see hide nor hair of Scarlett.
Spinning around, he turned his fury on Rachel.
“What the hell did you do that for?” he demanded. “Now she thinks I’m doing the dirty on her.”
Climbing into her Lamborghini with a look of supreme unconcern on her hard, spoiled little face, Rachel shrugged. “You will be, soon enough,” she said matter-of-factly. “I was just saving you both some time.”
And without a backward glance she sped off down Melrose, taking her godfather’s precious bundle of cash with her.
Too upset to go straight home—she couldn’t face Nancy and her I-told-you-so’s, not until she’d got her head together—Scarlett drove mindlessly over Laurel Canyon to Ventura. Once in the valley, she turned in to one of the hundreds of Wisteria Lane residential streets and pulled over, shaking and sweating like someone in the last stages of an acute fever.
“He’s cheating on me,” she said aloud. Watching her lips move in the rearview mirror, it was as if they were being spoken by an actor. As if this whole nightmare were some sort of farcical out-of-body experience. “He’s cheating on me. And it hasn’t even been a month.”
As soon as she’d heard the girl’s spiteful, taunting voice, she’d turned and run, bolting into her car as if she’d just been scalded and driving to nowhere in particular as fast as she could. But now she was regretting her impulsiveness and wished she’d hung around to find out more. Who was this chick? She wanted to see her face, see what kind of woman had got Jake to fall at the first fucking hurdle. Bastard!
Just then her cell phone began jumping around on her lap, buzzing like an angry bee. She startled, then assuming it was Jake, picked up and yelled into the receiver.
“Don’t call me! Don’t you dare call me! I don’t want to hear it.”
“Er, OK,” said Nancy. “I’ll just go with the hot and sour shrimp then, I guess?”
“Oh, shit. Sorry. It’s you,” said Scarlett. “I thought you were someone else.”
“Yeah, well, I’m glad I’m not if that’s how you were gonna greet them. What’s happened? Are you all right?”
No, thought Scarlett. No, I’m not all right. Not remotely. “Fine,” she said briskly, forcing herself to stop shaking through sheer effort of will. “I’m just a bit distracted, that’s all. Where are you?”
“Chin Chin,” said Nancy. “I’ll be home in five. Che Che’s right behind me.”
“Good,” said Scarlett, not entirely convincingly. “Great.”
“You are still on for this meeting, right?” asked Nancy. But it was more of a statement than a question.
“Sure,” said Scarlett. “Of course.”
Talking shop with two lovebirds was the last thing on God’s earth she felt like doing. But she couldn’t very well sit here all night, staring at the curb and fuming about Jake like a madwoman. Besides, a commitment was a commitment. Unlike some people she could mention, Scarlett knew how to keep her word.
“Scarlett
? Scarlett?” Nancy waved a frustrated hand in front of her friend’s face. “Anybody home?”
“Hmm, I’m sorry?” said Scarlett, blinking. “What were you saying?”
“I wasn’t saying anything,” said Nancy patiently. “Che Che wanted to know whether Andy had pitched the program to anyone back in London.”
“I just wondered whether it might have been a copyright issue with NPR. They can get a little edgy about editorial exclusivity.”
“Oh. I see,” said Scarlett. She was trying to concentrate, truly she was. She knew that getting the Yakutian miners’ story out there was infinitely more important than her relationship with Jake, or rather her ex-relationship…Dickhead, how could he make a fool out of her like that…
“Scarlett!” Nancy kicked her under the table. “Wake up! Did Andy show it to the BBC or not?”
“Er, no. At least, I don’t think so. He never said anything to me.” Scarlett smiled apologetically to Che Che, who smiled back, a disarming flash of ivory against his jet-black skin. “In any case, the NPR producer said it was a scheduling issue.”
“Which makes no sense at all, as they commissioned it,” said Che Che.
“Exactly,” nodded Scarlett, wondering if this was the first time Jake had done the dirty on her, or if she’d been one of many all along. “I do appreciate your help with this, or rather your friend’s help,” she said sincerely, standing up to clear away the empty plates. “I’m sorry I’m a bit distracted.”
A few minutes later, she was so absorbed in scrubbing dried noodle off one of Nancy’s chipped rose bowls that she didn’t even see Jake striding up the garden path. He was on the porch and through the screen doors before she knew he was there, never mind had a chance to lock him out.
“Hi,” said Nancy, rising to greet him with as much cordiality as she could muster. “Scarlett didn’t mention you’d be coming by. Can I offer you a glass of red?”
Jake’s eyes narrowed in confusion. Was this a trick question? But his attention soon swung back to Scarlett, who was staring intently into the sudsy water of the sink, as if suddenly fascinated by the floating remnants of Che Che’s Singapore Ho Fun (no pork).
“We need to talk,” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper as he walked up behind her.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’ to the wine then, shall I?” said Nancy, rolling her eyes at Che Che. Really, if she could make the effort to be polite, the least Jake could do was respond.
“No we don’t,” Scarlett hissed back. She could feel her eyes welling up with tears of anger and bit her lip hard in an effort to bite them back. “There’s nothing to say.”
“It’s not what you think,” said Jake. “There was nothing going on.”
“Please!” Scarlett spun around to face him, a picture of righteous indignation. Suddenly she didn’t care if Nancy and Che Che heard or not. They were going to find out sooner or later. “So if I’d had a hidden camera in that apartment, I wouldn’t have seen anything to upset me? Nothing at all?”
Jake hesitated. An image of Rachel straddling him, her head thrown back wantonly, popped up in his mind’s eye.
“She was a client. I was trying to make a sale,” he said, trying not to lie outright and wishing he didn’t have to have this conversation in front of an audience, especially an audience as hostile as Nancy. “Look, can we talk in your bedroom?”
“My bedroom? I don’t think so,” said Scarlett. He wasn’t about to charm her back into the sack that easily.
“Outside then,” pleaded Jake. He looked so desperate, and every bit as miserable as she did. It was hard not to feel a tiny bit sorry for him. “All I’m asking for is a chance to explain. You owe me that much, at least.”
“Owe you? I don’t owe you anything,” said Scarlett firmly. But she was also conscious of Nancy’s and Che Che’s eyes boring into her back. Drying her hands on a tea towel, she followed him out into the garden.
Outside there was a chill in the air, although the night was beautifully clear. Sitting down on a wooden bench at the bottom of the garden, the farthest point from the house, Scarlett leaned back against the wall and gazed heavenward. She could clearly make out the pole star and Orion’s belt. It was difficult for one’s problems to seem significant against such an awe-inspiring cosmic backdrop.
“Her name is Rachel,” said Jake, taking a deep breath and deciding to begin at the beginning. “I wasn’t expecting her to show up tonight. Haven’t laid eyes on her in almost six months, in fact. But she rang the doorbell unannounced, saying she wanted to buy something from me.”
“What?” asked Scarlett suspiciously.
“She wasn’t specific,” said Jake. Then, realizing how lame this must sound, added hastily, “There wasn’t time. She just said she’d got some cash and she wanted to do a trade. She’d only been there five minutes when you showed up.”
“Something she seemed pretty pissed off about,” said Scarlett angrily, her voice rising despite herself. “Look, Jake, I’m not stupid, OK? I obviously interrupted something. Rachel admitted as much over the speakerphone.”
“You didn’t interrupt anything,” insisted Jake, grabbing her hand and willing her to believe him. Perhaps this was karma, payback for all the times he had been fooling around and gotten away with it. Now here he was, innocent as a lamb, and about to lose the one girl he’d ever really cared for over nothing. If it was karma, it seemed a high price to pay. “She’s a spoiled little bitch, OK? She came on to me, I told her I wasn’t interested, and she got bitchy.”
Scarlett rolled her eyes disbelievingly. “She came on to you?”
“It’s the truth!” said Jake. “She only made out something was going on to you because she was jealous.”
Looking down at the lights of Hollywood twinkling in the valley below like a tacky, sequined carpet, Scarlett felt awash with conflicting emotions. She wanted to believe him, wanted it so desperately that she feared it must be clouding her judgment. Even if, by some miracle, he was telling the truth and nothing had happened—how could she know that it wasn’t simply because she’d interrupted them before he had a chance to give in?
“How old is she?” she asked, apropos of nothing.
“Nineteen,” said Jake, closing his eyes and waiting for the inevitable shit storm to hit him. But Scarlett seemed remarkably calm.
“I see. And have you slept with her in the past?”
Another long silence. Why did she have to keep asking questions that forced him either to lie or to dig his own grave?
“Yes,” he said eventually. “Last year a few times. We were never an item, though.”
“But she’s been to your apartment before, right?”
“Well, yes, but…”
“Unlike me,” said Scarlett pointedly. Suddenly the tears that had been threatening to overwhelm her all evening made an appearance. “I’m tired of being your dirty little secret, Jake,” she sniffed. “You don’t act like my boyfriend in public; you don’t let me stay at your place. I mean, what the hell am I supposed to think? Are we a couple or not?”
“Of course we are. Of course we’re a couple,” said Jake. He was about to add, “I love you,” but changed his mind at the last minute, opening and closing his mouth like an accused criminal being silenced by an invisible attorney.
“So what’s it all about?” sobbed Scarlett. “Why do you have to be so…so sly?”
He hated to see her cry. Without thinking, he pulled her into his arms and held her. Too tired to fight anymore, Scarlett let him. But she still wanted an explanation.
Now it was Jake’s turn to look away for inspiration. What was he supposed to tell her? Clearly the truth—that he was used to having his own space; that he would need somewhere Scarlett-free to retreat to and lick his wounds once she finally realized how much better she could do than him and left him; that flirting with female customers was an integral part of his business, and he couldn’t afford to appear too completely attached in public—was not an option. But no s
uitable white lie was leaping to mind either. “Look, I know I’m not perfect,” he said eventually, skirting the issue as deftly as he could. “But I’m trying, babe, I really am. I’m trying to be what you want. Can’t you just—”
“Just what?” asked Scarlett, drying her tears.
“Wait?”
He looked so hopeful, like a little boy asking his mother for a birthday present, knowing that what he wants is too expensive.
“Be patient? And trust me? I swear to you, on my life: I did not cheat on you with Rachel.”
His face in the moonlight was so unearthly handsome, Scarlett wished she had a fraction of Che Che’s gift for sketching. With his long, straight nose, hypnotic amethyst eyes, and thick pieces of blond hair falling forward, some as far down as his cheekbones, she wondered how on earth she’d resisted him sexually for so long. Magnus seemed like the palest of pale shadows by comparison.
She believed what he said about Rachel. She didn’t know why, but it felt true. Even so, the fragility of their relationship, whatever this thing was that they had together, had been brought home to her with renewed force tonight. It was time to face some home truths:
She would never be able to escape Jake’s past. Not while they lived in LA.
Beautiful, predatory girls would continue to consider him fair game.
He would continue to flirt with them, in the name of business.
And even if he did remain faithful to her, there would be a part of him that he continued to hold back. His fetish about the apartment was almost certainly the tip of a much bigger, much more worrying iceberg. He was hers but not hers. And that might never change.
“Don’t give up on me yet,” he whispered, reading her mind. But it was the unbearable slowness of his touch as his hand stroked her inner thigh, and not his psychic powers, that had her resolve crumbling like flaky pastry.
“All right,” she sighed, opening her lips to receive his kiss. Relief that she wasn’t about to lose him mingled with the desire sweeping through her body like radiation. Her hands reached up around the back of his neck.
Flawless Page 31
