by Evie Hunter
Miffy smiled at the waiter as if he were an old friend. ‘We’ll both have Lobster Mac and the Harvest Salad.’
Great, why doesn’t she ask me if I want to go to the bathroom before I sit down? Another waiter appeared with their champagne. Abbie took a moment to try to settle herself. She was just going to have to get through this.
Miffy took a sip of her drink and replaced the glass on the table. She laced her fingers together and rested her chin on her hands. ‘Darling, tell me everything. I still can’t believe it. You must be devastated about losing William.’
Abbie took a sip of her water. ‘I’m good, actually.’
‘Good?’ Miffy sounded horrified. ‘How can you say that? You’ve practically been engaged since second grade.’
‘Maybe that was the problem.’
‘But William adores you and Dolores Dillard is simply distraught. I saw her at bridge on Thursday and she could barely hold her cards.’
Abbie almost choked on her champagne at the thought of scandalizing bridge night. She could just imagine the undercurrent of spite as the ladies who lunched pretended to be sympathetic.
‘It’s for the best, Miffy. Honestly.’
Miffy sat back in her chair. ‘It’s that man, isn’t it? Jack Winter? He’s done this to you. He’s attractive, I’ll give you that, but he’s not our sort of people, is he?’
Our sort of people. Now there was a thought. Abbie gave a little inward shudder. Just who were ‘our sort of people’? Was Kit right? Was she simply a wuss who was under the thumb of her family? After all, Miffy wasn’t really concerned about her, but about some set of unwritten rules about what was appropriate for their family.
Even though Jack was arrogant and overbearing, in the short time they had spent together she always felt that he was utterly focused on her. He listened to her like no one else ever had, not even Kit. Abbie stifled a smile at the thought of a Jack/Miffy encounter. Alien versus Predator came to mind.
‘I’m not seeing Jack,’ she said.
Miffy looked almost disappointed. ‘But he’s here, isn’t he, in New York? I saw his face on the front of the Post.’
The waiter arrived with their food and refilled their champagne glasses. Abbie dug a fork into her meal and wished she were somewhere else. ‘I have no idea.’
‘So you’re not … I mean …’ Miffy stared at her, but not a muscle moved in her face.
Abbie sighed. More Botox. Her sister couldn’t frown any more with the amount of stuff she had in her face.
‘No, I am not sleeping with Jack Winter.’
At the table beside her, a fork clattered to the floor.
‘There’s no need to be vulgar, darling.’
Miffy toyed with her food, moving it around the plate until Abbie wanted to slap her. How could she be on another diet? She was barely a size two. The waiter whisked away Miffy’s barely touched plate and brought their salads.
‘Now, darling. I know that you don’t want to listen to advice. I mean, if you did, you wouldn’t still be working at that newspaper and running around the world getting yourself into all kinds of ridiculous scrapes.’
Miffy examined the greenery on her plate. ‘Go back to William. I’m sure if you ask him to forgive you, he will. You can have a winter wedding. Somewhere quiet. But do it soon, darling, before he meets someone else.’
Abbie almost choked on her salad. It was the ultimate humiliation – love advice from her sister.
‘You’re not getting any younger, you know,’ Miffy said as she stuck a fork into her tiny dish of salad dressing first before attacking the carefully arranged circle of leaves.
‘If you just want to casually run into him, William will be at the Van Gogh exhibition opening next weekend. I’ve booked some tickets for you. It’s a very good cause. You’ve no idea how much it costs to stage an exhibition like that.’
More tickets. Abbie didn’t want to think about how much they would cost. If it wasn’t tickets for the museum, it was the opera or some other charity that she was involved with. Why did Miffy always think that she could do this to her?
Because you always let her. Idiot.
‘I’m not sure about the weekend …’
‘Darling, you know that I only want the best for you. Don’t let your involvement with that man destroy your only chance of happiness.’
Message delivered, Miffy sat back in her chair. ‘Now, after we have coffee, we can do a little shopping. Miu Miu have some darling shoes and you simply must try them.’
15
The party at the Honduras Friendship Society was not the sort of thing that Jack Winter normally attended, so Abbie was astonished when she got there and saw him stepping out of a car on to a red carpet.
Betsy had sent her to cover the event on the basis that she had a better chance than anyone else of getting an interview with Jack Winter. Abbie hadn’t believed he would actually show up.
When she saw him, she couldn’t help but drink in the sight of him. He looked stunning in a tuxedo. She was torn between gazing at the way his sharp cheekbones gave an air of danger to a face that was almost too beautiful to be real, and imagining the body underneath the hand-made suit. In the end, she settled for his eyes. Jack’s eyes were so blue, so intense, that she would be tempted to claim they were coloured contacts if she hadn’t seen the exact same blue in the jungle.
His thick hair had been cut and styled, but nothing could make this man look tame. She shivered. Every time she saw him, he reminded her of the big cat that had prowled so dangerously close in the jungle. They were both beautiful and lethal.
And you are going to bring him down. When she was finished with Jack Winter, he wouldn’t have hordes of adoring fans chasing him around with notebooks begging for his autograph. People would know he was the sort of man who dragged women into caves and spanked them.
But looking at him as he bent down to talk to an elderly woman, she couldn’t get herself riled up as she had been before. Right now, she wasn’t sure what she wanted from him. A tiny part of her wanted him to drag her away and do it all over again. She blamed D and his questions for keeping her libido awake and sending it in directions she didn’t want it to go.
Jack moved towards the building and then spotted her standing on the steps. He paused and his eyes widened for a second, then he started to move towards her, all that heart-stopping intensity focused on her.
She forced herself not to flinch and to hold her position. Jack would not intimidate her. At least this time, for the first time since she met him, she was properly dressed. She wasn’t a fan of heels and pencil skirts, but they looked good, and her red silk blouse was both dramatic and comfortable. She had styled her hair and gone for a smoky look with her eye make-up.
The expression on Jack’s face said that she had succeeded, but when he approached her, he was a model of decorum. ‘Ms Marshall. How nice to see you again. What are you doing here? I thought you’d still be working on that Tabora story.’
She scowled, though she was pleased he had remembered what she was working on. ‘This wasn’t my idea. My editor wanted me to get an interview with you.’ She clutched her digital recorder, the one he had returned to her.
He bowed. ‘I’m always ready to service you –’
She gasped. Just when she thought she was safe, he came out with something like that.
‘But I’m not doing any interviews tonight. Still, you might make some good contacts for the Tabora piece.’
She turned away from him and marched up the steps, conscious of his eyes on her back, then took her place in the press row.
The speeches went on for longer than she had expected. It seemed that every political figure connected to Honduras was making the most of the press turn-out prompted by Jack’s presence to talk about nothing at great length. She recorded and took notes. It might be boring but there were a few snippets worth following up.
As the night dragged on, she got restless. It didn’t look as if she was going to get
out by ten. She fidgeted, torn between the need to get back to her laptop on time, and reluctance to leave the party while Jack was there. Even at his most aggravating, he drew her towards him so that she hated having to leave.
Get a grip, Abbie. This obsession is not healthy. She knew it, but it didn’t help when she was in the same room as him. Despite herself, she watched him all night. She noticed that Jack checked his watch as often as she did. No doubt he had another date set up for when he was finished here. The thought hurt her on a level she hadn’t expected.
Finally it was time for Jack to say a few words. He stood up, looked at the audience and spoke. Abbie jerked upright so hard she thought she had twisted something in her back. Jack in the jungle was imposing. Jack at the pool was gentle. Jack in the cave was scary. Jack in her hotel room was sexy. Nothing had prepared her for this.
Jack in front of an audience was mesmerizing. His speech was short, reminding them of the people he had met in Honduras and why they needed help, but the way he delivered it made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.
She was getting aroused. In front of a hundred people and not even touching him, she was getting turned on. God knew what she would have done if Kevin O’Malley hadn’t slipped in and sat down beside her. ‘Sorry I’m late, but I’m glad you kept the best seat for me.’ She laughed, as much in relief from the sexual tension as anything else.
From the podium, Jack’s flinty gaze caught hers and she could tell that he wasn’t pleased. He wrapped up his remarks quickly. She checked her watch – 10.05pm. D was going to be unhappy. Tough, she had a charming Irishman beside her handing her his card, and an irate one who was scowling at her from a podium. She had too many men in her life.
Jack posed for photographs afterwards, and Abbie enjoyed just watching him while Kevin made ribald comments about the other guests. Then a photographer asked Kevin and her to pose with Jack. Reluctantly she agreed. She hated being photographed, especially after the stories about their supposed jungle dalliance. Still, that was more or less yesterday’s news. In more ways than one, she thought with a pang.
As she stood there she was pretty sure that Jack was sniffing her hair. He was unbelievable. She checked her watch again.
‘Got another date?’ he murmured to her. ‘Just tell him I’ve got dibs on that ass.’
She glowered at him. ‘You are a pain in the ass.’
‘And you love it.’
Kev put a protective arm around her and smirked at Jack. ‘You’re losing it, bro.’ He turned to her and said, ‘Come on, I’ll give you a ride home.’
She nodded and picked up her bag. She was not going to hang around like a pathetic loser, waiting to talk to Jack, even if leaving him hurt like a knife wound. The strength of her desire to stay wherever he was frightened her.
She was glad she had D to take her mind off Jack Winter. She wondered what he would say when she logged on late.
‘So, I was wondering if we could have lunch together soon, catch up on what’s been happening since Honduras?’
Abbie dragged her attention away from the traffic and back to Kevin. It was 10:45. D was going to be angry, if he had bothered to wait for her.
‘That would be nice,’ she said, distracted by the cab that had just cut in front of them.
‘Great. How about lunch on Saturday?’
‘Saturday?’ She had envisaged a quick coffee midweek while she tried to keep up with Betsy’s ever-increasing demands. Oh, why not? Kevin was nice and it wasn’t as if she had been inundated with requests for dates since she broke up with William. It would be the perfect opportunity to talk to him about Jack.
‘Saturday would be lovely.’
‘Great, I’ll pick you up at noon.’
The car pulled up in front of her apartment building and she reached for the door handle.
‘Abbie.’ Something in Kevin’s tone made her turn round. He dropped a light kiss on her cheek before pulling away quickly. A smile quirked the corner of his mouth. ‘I’ll see you on Saturday.’
The kiss hadn’t been anything other than friendly, but there was an undercurrent of something else behind his smile. Abbie shook her head. She would think about Kevin later, right now she had to deal with an angry Dom.
Back in her apartment, she switched on the laptop and waited for it to boot up. Kicking off her shoes, she hurried to the bedroom, dragging off the blouse and unzipping her skirt and the hated pantyhose as she went. She didn’t have time to change. Oh, what the hell, it wasn’t as if he could see her.
She grabbed a glass of water and hurried back to the couch to log on. The chat-room icon winked at her. Abbie took a deep breath and began to type.
She was torn between indignation and laughter. How did he do this to her?
She paused. That was true. It was just a game to him.
She got a perverse pleasure from switching the names around.
Was it her imagination that there was an edge in that line? Abbie wished she could hear his words, not just see them written down. What sort of voice did D have? She’d bet it was a deep rumble, strong and authoritative.
She hated to admit it, but it was true. Kit had said it, and now D was saying the same thing. It was time to admit that there was a side to her personality she had never acknowledged. She took a breath.
Rules. Her breath left her body. She didn’t know if she was scared or aroused. She had to keep it light, not let him know how his words affected her.
Abbie stared at the screen. Is that too difficult? He had no idea what he was asking. The mysterious D wanted control of her lingerie drawer and expected her to hand it over, just like that? Maybe this was a test to see if she was submissive. Her hands hovered over the keyboard.
She was torn between anger and an intense desire to giggle. In a way, it was flattering. No one ever had the slightest interest in what she wore. William often told her she looked beautiful, but he never really looked at her. OK, Marshall, are you really going to do this?
