Even watching Jack pour her coffee was making her drool. And it had nothing to do with the aroma of espresso. Jack dropped into the seat opposite her as casual as if they were both fully clothed. Only his eyes gave away the remembrance of the way they’d indulged each other in the most intimate way. He offered her the plate laden with pastries and merely shrugged when Izzy shook her head to decline. It appeared Jack hadn’t overindulged in sweet stuff last night as he proceeded to devour the delicate pastries one by one.
“What?” He paused as he caught Izzy’s stare. “I worked up an appetite last night— didn’t you?” he asked.
The blush spread to the tips of her toes. That wasn’t the type of appetite she’d built up, and food seemed out of the question as indecision still roiled in her gut. Should she tell him?
Without thought, she leaned over, capturing a blob of lemon at the corner of his mouth with her finger. Jack grabbed her wrist and, with a smile that dripped sex, took her finger into his mouth and gently sucked, sending a shudder through her. She quickly averted her gaze before Jack noticed the flare of reaction. He hadn’t missed it.
“So shy all of a sudden,” he drawled as he dropped her hand but didn’t let go. “I’ve tasted you everywhere, Izzy, I think It’s too late to be bashful.”
“I’m not!” she retorted. “I didn’t expect the morning to start like this. I thought our one day was over now.”
“It is, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get to have one last taste of you, now does it?” he asked with a grin as he took her mouth with those devilish lips and kissed her slow and deep. He tasted hot and citrusy sweet, and of everything that should be taken in moderation for fear of doing harm.
Before she realized what she was doing, her bottom had left the seat as Jack’s lips continued to tantalize. Kneeling on the chair and arching shamelessly toward him, she was only reminded of her knickerless state when she felt the heat of his palm cup her bare bottom.
She tugged away and sat back down, wincing at the frown of confusion etched on Jack’s face as he too leaned back into position.
“I slept with Michael,” she blurted.
Jack paused with a half-eaten pastry held to his mouth. She could almost see the shutters close over stormy gray eyes. But then he popped the pastry in his mouth and continued to chew. “And why are you telling me this now?” he asked without meeting her eyes.
Izzy hesitated as the rapid beat of her pulse warned her to choose her words carefully. “I felt I needed to after what you said last night. After...well...everything, I thought you should know.”
Jack gave a harsh laugh. “You think because we had sex you have to share your sexual history with me now? Would you like me to share mine?”
No. God no. “I’m telling you because he’s your brother. I’m telling you because I don’t want it to be a secret between us.”
“Isabel, if you wanted to sleep with my spineless, pathetic brother then that’s your business. I don’t need to know. If you’re telling me out of some sense of guilt, then don’t. I never asked, so you haven’t lied. We had sex. It was good—now we’re moving on.”
“I’m glad you can so flippant about it! And yes, I do feel guilty about it, because I feel like I betrayed you,” she snapped as frustration caught her.
“But I was never yours to betray. And I know from every orgasm I gave you that he wasn’t man enough for you.”
Anger narrowed her eyes. “You arrogant... Do you want to know why I slept with him? Because I was so upset when you left. He was there and you weren’t.”
All arrogance stripped from his face. “He was your first?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” Izzy answered softly as regret at her outburst struck.
“He was gentle with you?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s all I need to know.” He picked up another pastry and continued to chew.
They sat in silence until he’d eaten every crumb on the plate and drained the coffee. He stood then and turned his back on her. His long fingers whitened at the knuckles as he gripped the balcony.
“Can we talk about this please?”
“There’s nothing to discuss. You said it yourself—the day is over. Don’t make this anything more than it is or you’re going to get hurt.”
“Wow, then I guess you’re better at pretending than I thought.” Surely he felt something?
“While we are in the mood for sharing...” he said before he turned his head to look at her. “If you want to know all of the reasons why I left—it was because of you.”
He turned and walked away, leaving Izzy with a tight band of hurt squeezing her chest and the sharp sting of tears hitting her wide eyes like needles.
She was the reason?
A sob caught painfully in her throat. She willed her feet to move but couldn’t. Questions tumbled through her mind, along with answers laced with regret.
How she wished she could turn back the clock. Have sought comfort in the arms of any other man than one who had been part of the continuous hurt of Jack. Jack might pretend he didn’t care but deep down she knew he did. Why else would he retaliate with a blade sharper than her own?
Michael had been there. He seemed upset about Jack leaving too. And although they only shared the same build, he was as close to Jack as Izzy could get. So when he offered her some fancy-ass wine she’d drank it as Michael listened to her woes and offered her comfort and him. So on her seventeenth birthday she’d lost her virginity with a man who would never be who she wanted.
It was something she had never regretted until now.
With a heavy heart she stood and padded silently into the bedroom. The sound of the door closing from the room next door told her Jack was in there packing his suitcase. Putting an end to what was her perfect day. She quickly gathered her belongings and shoved them into her case, leaving the beautiful wedding dress carefully laid out on the bed so it could be cleaned and returned to Rosa. Then she walked into the bathroom where the steam still carried the scent of Jack, flipped on the shower to full, and allowed those scents to cascade over her body. Unfortunately it didn’t penetrate deep enough to remove her ache.
* * * *
Jack drove Izzy home in the car Rafe had delivered to the airport for them. Tension thickened in the confines of the car, making him feel a strange kind of tightness in his chest. He should be grateful. He hadn’t expected to wake up in the morning still wanting her. Still needing to drive himself into her soft body and forget about the world. But when he saw her wearing his white shirt unbuttoned to reveal her lush cleavage, with her dusky nipples teasingly almost visible, he wanted nothing more than to wrap her legs around his waist and stay there for the rest of the day. A week. Longer?
He’d planned to hurt her. Give her reason to stay away from him, but when he found himself hurting instead, he knew he was treading in deep waters. So what did he do? Dragged her down with him.
She’d slept with his fucking idiot brother. And it was his fault. Now that he’d tasted and explored every inch of her body possession roared at him. She should have been his all along, damn it! So rather than tossing her aside and jumping the bones of the next available woman for the sake of scaring Izzy away, he’d hurt her even more by blaming her.
Yes, it was her fault he’d left, but did he have to use that weapon to scare her away?
His accusation had struck as solidly as a slap.
Izzy’s face remained a mask. Throughout their flight home she’d barely spoken. Dark shadows had smudged her eyes, and as before, he was relieved when she fell asleep. Now in the car her gaze was averted from him as she stared blankly through the window. She breathed a pent-up sigh as he finally pulled up outside her house. The signs of building work commencing gave him a sense of relief. At least he’d made part of her life better.
She turned to face him. Wearing jeans and ballet flats, her hair pulled into a ponytail and her face scrubbed of makeup, her vulnerability pulsed at him.
“As soon as I select the right photographs I’ll send them over to you,” she said calmly, except as she turned to lift the door handle the waver of her voice cut him raw. “Why me? Why did you leave because of me?”
Jack looked down at his hands gripping the steering wheel. He clenched his jaw. “Your father warned me you had feelings for me. He told me to stay away from you. After my mother’s enlightenment I decided it was best for everyone if I left—so I did.”
As he remained looking forward, in his periphery he saw Izzy’s hands clenched together.
“It wasn’t best for me, Jack.” She sighed. “I know what you’re trying to do. You want to shut me out and chase me away, because you’re scared of what happens if you let someone in.”
“I’m not chasing you away because I’m scared of you. I’m chasing you away because I don’t want you.”
“Bullshit,” she said as she whipped around, her eyes blazing.
“Letting you in was never an option. I’m not asking to be fixed.”
“I never thought you were broken.”
Oh, but he was. He wasn’t made to be loved. He had no idea how to love back. Faking it as Izzy’s Mr. Perfect was a step too far.
She opened the door. “But really there’s no need to play asshole on my account. One way or another we both got what we wanted.” She slammed the door, took her bags from the back seat, and walked away without looking back.
He didn’t know why but he willed her to turn back around. Of course, she didn’t.
* * * *
Resisting the urge to turn around had been the hardest thing for Izzy to do.
In her heart, she hoped Jack would chase after her and take her in his arms and tell her how foolish he’d been. When the front door closed behind her, her body seemed to sag within itself. She dropped her arms to her sides, releasing the bags in her hands to the floor without care. Her face remained tight and unflinching as her memory holding photography equipment dropped with a thud.
She cast a quick glance around the rooms which were now repaired, noticing the replaced woodwork. She briefly acknowledged the builders who were clearing their equipment away. They’d achieved far more than the brief she’d given them and she knew Jack must have paid a fortune to have such a large team achieving so much.
Her throat thickened as she took in the scent of building materials merged with new wood. The walls were all completely bare and perfectly smooth. It struck her like a ton of bricks that this wasn’t her home anymore.
With leaden legs she trudged into the kitchen, relieved to see that the trusty table was still there. She grasped to that familiarity, trailing a hand over the only solid part of her life.
Armed with a mug of sweet tea, she headed to the place she sought comfort. Her parents’ room. She opened the door tentatively, peering through cautiously until she caught sight of the familiar floral wallpaper and the crochet blanket on the bed. She walked over to the bed and lay on it, dragging the blanket on top of herself.
Thankfully this room had been free from fire damage. This was the room of memories. Every reminder of her mother was stored in the antique wardrobe. Izzy, clutching the blanket around her shoulders, walked over to the wardrobe and opened the door, sliding a hand inside a garment bag to brush the backs of her fingers over her mother’s lace wedding dress and veil.
Dropping to the floor, her legs folded under her, she dragged out a huge wooden box. With a heavy sigh she lifted the lid and felt a wave of sadness as she carefully looked through every photograph, each drawing and painting that she and Ellie had made at school. She lifted an album from the bottom and took it back to the bed.
She smiled at her parents’ wedding photographs, ones of family picnics, and ones of them playing in the garden. Having fun—laughing. And Jack—he was there too. She stroked a finger over his face. He was smiling yet the image had captured the sadness behind his eyes. He must have been twelve, or thirteen? For it was the last photograph in the album. No more photographs had been added into this album since her mother had died.
Izzy had become family photographer after that and with a frown she wondered if that was why she’d gained such an interest in photography? Had she taken on her mother’s role? Or was it borne of desperation to capture images of a past that could never be regained?
Looking closer, she began to realize even more how that time of her mother’s death had seem to be etched on the present. Until the fire happened, every room had remained untouched, every piece of furniture in exactly the same place. And there she was lying in the room where her mother had passed away.
It looked exactly the same as it had when they’d cared for her mother at home as she battled cancer. At first her parents had assured her that Mummy was just feeling a bit poorly, and yes she was going to be fine. She’d believed them until Ellie had finally snapped and through floods of tears had told her it was all lies. That their mother was dying. These were the lies that hurt. The reason why telling the truth was so important to her.
Her mother had insisted she wanted to be cared for at home to spend her last days with her family. They spent many hours in this room with her. Ellie singing her the songs she’d practiced during her lessons. Izzy reading to her, or showing her the photographs that always made her mother smile. Her father never smiled at that time, or since.
Izzy was starting to wonder if living in the past was a good thing. She wouldn’t be like her parents. After all, she wouldn’t be married to the man she wanted. She wouldn’t be feeling that mutual love her parents had felt. The man she wanted didn’t want her in return. And she didn’t want to live in the past anymore. She wanted her happily ever after. She had to put Jack behind her and move on.
And to do that she needed some answers.
The journey to her father’s nursing home went by in a blur. She signed the visitors’ book with a scrawl that in no way resembled her name and dashed down the corridor to his room. To her frustration he wasn’t there so she decided to try the day room. What she saw had her stopping in her tracks.
It wasn’t the fact that Joyce, another resident, had her hand covering her father’s, and she was smiling up at him in adoration that stunned Izzy the most. It was the huge broad smile on his face that did that. For a moment Izzy thought her heart had stopped beating. She almost felt like an intruder.
When her father saw her, the twinkle in his eyes faded as fast as his smile.
“Isabel,” he said gruffly before sliding his hand free from Joyce’s.
“Hello, Isabel dear,” Joyce said as she rose from her chair, concern wrinkling her brow. “I’ll leave the two of you to chat,” she said softly, as she took hold of her walking stick and left the room.
Izzy froze. The look of guilt on her father’s face filled her with dread.
“Sit down, Izzy. We need to talk.”
Numbly she forced herself to sit in the chair next to him.
“Dad, what’s going on? You and Joyce?”
His gaze lowered to the floor as he reached for her hand. She let him take it, wincing inwardly as she felt the fragility of his once strong hands. Although, fortunately, his stroke was a mild one it had affected his speech, so she gave him time to talk, not wanting to cause him any stress.
“I’m going to sell the house.”
Izzy felt her world spin. “But you love that house!” She loved that house.
“I did,” he said slowly. He stroked Izzy’s hand with his thumb as if he was trying to smooth away the hurts he could see beneath her skin. “I loved it when we were there together as a family. But we aren’t anymore.”
“But I’m there,” she replied thickly.
He shook his head and smiled softly. “No, you’re not. Not really. You’ve been travelling and you have your business. I feel you only come back because you are tied to the place. To the past.”
“No, that’s not true! I love that house. I’ve been working my backside off to get it ready for you to come home to. For Ellie to come home to.�
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“It’s not home anymore. It’s just a shell. A shell that was holding all of us back. I’m not going back there. I want to stay here.”
“But you were always so insistent things stayed the same. That you wanted to keep things the way Mum left them.”
A film of moisture covered his eyes that made her own tears rise to the surface. “I was wrong, so wrong. I thought you girls needed that to feel close to your mum. I know now it was the worst thing I could have done.”
“No! It wasn’t.”
“Yes, it was. It held you back, and I know that now. We all need to get on with our lives. Me, you, and Ellie. I found it hard coping with my grief and two teenage girls. I always feel I let you both down.”
“You did a great job, Dad.”
“Hmm...well...I wished I could have made things easier for you both. Ellie had a hard time and I should have dealt with it better.”
“That wasn’t your fault, Dad. Ellie made her own decisions. She’s always been headstrong.”
“Yes, well, she had her reasons for behaving the way she did.”
“I know,” she said softly. “I know what happened the night Mum died.” Of course she knew. It was the reason why Ellie was allowed to get away with everything she did as a tear-away teen. Unfortunately it seemed to be the reason why Ellie had continued on the path of destruction.
She remembered that night well. Her mum had been in so much pain even though she tried to hide it. Izzy had snuck in and sat on the floor at the side of her bed when her father was downstairs. Her mother, too wracked with pain to notice Izzy, had heard Ellie was outside of the door, had called her in and asked—well, pleaded with Ellie to push her tray closer. So she did. Izzy watched in silence until Ellie walked away and snuck back out.
The next morning her mother’s bed had been empty. Medication had been on the tray and her mother had taken it all. Although it felt terribly wrong, because she missed her with a pain that was sharply physical, her passing was a relief.
At the time Izzy was too young to understand the ramifications of Ellie’s actions and only suspected that something terrible had happened because of the way Ellie and her father had clung to each other with Ellie’s face marred with the pain of grief and guilt. As the years went by, Izzy had often wondered if Ellie had blamed herself for her death.
Best Fake Day Page 12
