Always Box Set

by Ward, Susan

  “You’re a very frustrating guy,” I snap, leaning across the counter to grab my coffee cup. “All sane people would be annoyed by you.”

  “I’m not trying to be irritating.”

  Crap, that sounded sincere and against my will it deflates my anger.

  “Well, you are. You shift with lightning speed from obscene rock god from hell to country squire, to I don’t know what the fuck you are trying to be today. What’s up with that? You’re like Sybil. Every five minutes a new personality.”

  Alan laughs as he whisks eggs in a bowl. He looks up, his eyes locking on mine, and my insides begin to heat. “Today is me trying to make you breakfast. That’s all. Nothing more complicated or sinister than that.”

  I laugh and I don’t want to. “Sinister, huh? Interesting choice of words.”

  Crap, that was said more sarcastically than I wanted, but Alan just smiles.

  “It fits those thoughts in your head, though, doesn’t it?”

  The kid has got a point.

  “So how did you meet Jack?” he murmurs.

  The question takes me by surprise. Why does he want to know that? I debate how to answer, and then decide honestly since the truth is less repulsive than the way I used to usually meet famous musicians.

  “On a beach,” I say peevishly, though a smile tugs at my lips because that sounds so ridiculous, so wonderfully ridiculous.

  Alan sets a plate of toast in front of me. “A chance meeting in the sand. Interesting.”

  “Yep.”

  “Why are you here and not with him?”

  I sit back on my stool. “How did you find out about me and Jack anyway?”

  “I told you. I had Sandy check on your background before he hired you. It isn’t exactly a guarded secret in the insider circles. In fact, it’s pretty common knowledge that Jack is involved with you.”

  Common knowledge. Crap. I’m more certain than ever it was right to leave the States until the custody battle over Chrissie is finished. I shudder, not wanting to think what Walter would do if he found out about me, and am stunned that he hasn’t yet.

  He studies my face. “I can tell by your reaction that you didn’t know that. Why does it distress you that people know about you and Jack?”

  That question I ignore and arch a brow. “What else did your nifty report about me say?”

  He doesn’t look the least bit apologetic about having rummaged around in my personal shit. He smiles. “I’ve told you everything. I didn’t request details on anything. It wasn’t necessary.”

  I search his face. “Necessary for what?”

  He shrugs. “To decide if I wanted Sandy to offer you the job or not.”

  I dip my toast into my coffee, my eyes fixed on Alan like a hawk as he sets a plate of scrambled eggs in front of me.

  “Speaking of him, where does Sandy not really being my employer leave me?” I ask. “He promised me a job when the tour was done, or has that changed?”

  “It’s yours if you want it.”

  The way he says want it puts my nerves on edge.

  “I definitely want the job. I start school in September,” I add.

  “Why? School is the trap of ordinary people, Linda, and you are not ordinary. You already have a degree from USC that will not take you farther than your brains will.”

  “School is what poor people do not to be poor forever.”

  He looks amused, a smidge insultingly so. “I don’t think that’s something you’re ever going to have to worry about. Even without your brains, your beauty could get you pretty much whatever you want.”

  The random compliment pleases me more than I want to admit to myself. Crap, Alan Manzone thinks I’m beautiful. I never expected to find two men on the planet with poor vision. Jack sees things the way he wants to, but Alan is a hard-core realist. Every thought that comes into his head he speaks whether he should or shouldn’t, and more often than not, unpleasant, but always honest.

  Alan sets his plate on a mat and sits on a stool across the island from me. “You are a very beautiful woman, Linda.”

  My flesh starts to heat, but I manage a cool glance and some surface composure. I stare down at my fork as I poke at the eggs.

  “Why does that make you uncomfortable?” he murmurs.

  I don’t look up. “It doesn’t, especially,” I lie. “I just would prefer if you didn’t pay me compliments.”

  “Do you dislike compliments in general or me complimenting you?”

  My brows hitch up. “Both. So knock it off. I don’t like it. I would prefer to keep our relationship of a business nature.”

  Alan takes a sip of coffee and studies me for a while. “So who do you live with? Everyone shares a flat these days.”

  I have to fight to keep from visibly clenching my teeth. Hello, I said business nature. “Why? Do you want to hit on her?”

  He arches a brow. “Is she fun?”

  The way he says that makes me grin against my will. “Jeanette? Hell no. She has an old money bat up her ass bigger than yours.”

  Alan laughs. “Then why do you live with her?”

  I shrug. “She was my roommate at USC. We’re sort of friends. I didn’t know anyone here and she’s from London. Her parents offered me a place to stay rent free and it was better than anything I could afford.”

  “Ah, rich girl, poor girl. It doesn’t sound like you like Jeanette.”

  “I do like her.” I crinkle my nose. “Just not a lot.”

  His eyes sharpen on my face. “You envy her, that’s why you keep her around when you don’t really like her. You shouldn’t, you know.”

  I flush. “Shouldn’t what?” I’m enormously pleased that my voice sounds merely bored when in fact I’m sharply curious.

  He smiles. “Envy her. I don’t think I would like her. You, I like.”

  My cheeks warm since I’m foolish enough to internally gloat and savor a ridiculous flash of superiority over Jeanette. Alan thinks he wouldn’t like her. It’s ridiculous—they’re two silver spoon, British peas in a pod—but it makes me happy.

  Jeanette gets everything in life she wants, and Alan is right, I do envy her. As much as I dislike her at times, I try like the devil to be like her.

  I stare into my coffee cup. It hasn’t worked, the being like her thing. No power on earth could ever make me as flawlessly beautiful, fashionable and elegant as her. The unattainable gifts of good genes, good family, and old money.

  I peek at Alan as he lights a cigarette. Even the gestures of his hand as he does this are elegant. He’s just like Jeanette. They’d be perfect together. Damn, why does that thought bother me?

  “I should introduce you to Jeanette sometime,” I say.

  Alan smiles, amused. “You don’t need to fix me up. Attracting women is not an issue for me.”

  God, that was said conceitedly, and darn if it isn’t a smidge sexy the way he says that. He’s had me on the run conversationally all morning. It’s time to turn the tables.

  “Is that why you’re into the group sex thing? One man, too many women lusting after you,” I taunt.

  When he looks at me I’m laughing, but the expression in his eyes instantly silences me.

  “I prefer group sex because it is more physical, less intimate, and less of a risk for emotional complications. Fucking. Nothing more, Linda. It’s emotionally liberating. You should try it.”

  His voice is casual. The look he gives me is not. It’s enticing and intense and everything inside me starts to twirl.

  Oh shit! Did he just invite me to join him in one of his sexcapades again? Christ, I can’t tell for sure, and since I definitely don’t want him asking me or the unexpected internal reaction it generates, I frantically rummage for something funny to say.

  “So you only fuck two women at a time because you don’t want women to fall in love with you? Is that what you’re telling me?” I laugh, a little too loudly, scathingly. “Good luck with th
at one, Alan. You don’t understand women at all.”

  He gives me a hard stare, amused and enigmatic. He gathers the dishes and takes them to the sink.

  “No, Linda, you don’t understand me.”

  Seven

  I climb from the car after an early dinner out with Alan.

  I peek at him from under my lashes, standing there holding my door open for me. He can be quite the little gentleman at times. His manners have been impeccable the past three days, but I feel it even stronger, an undercurrent of sexual tension and a sense that he is trying in his own convoluted way to romance me.

  It’s in the way he looks at me, the way he touches me in those brief fleeting instances of flesh to flesh, but I feel his attraction to me even more intensely when he doesn’t touch me. Even separateness with Alan is a sexual kind of thing. The nearness he places his body to me, out of nowhere so I can’t escape it. How he leans in a chair while we’re having dinner or drinks, the elegantly languid arrangement of his long limbs, suggestive but appropriately without contact. An expert blending of closeness, with no contact, a sense of being hunted and not yet caught.

  Like now, near enough to me that I feel surrounded by him, but no contact. It’s unnerving.

  Whatever this game he’s playing, it’s a good one. I’m completely off balance and too aware of him in every second we’re together. I don’t even know if he’s interested in me, if I’ve read a single signal correctly, and there is an alarming sense that this is exactly what he’s intending.

  We start walking toward the house. My gaze roams over him and I note how sexy he looks tonight. How it is possible for him to look even more gorgeous in that strange getup he put on today? Expensively tailored black slacks, a crisp, immaculate light gray dress shirt, with no tie and opened just the right amount. Spotless Italian-made leather shoes. Who the fuck dresses him? He looks like he fell out of GQ.

  Deciding a bit of distance might not be a bad thing, I inch away from him, stumbling off the edge of the walkway. He grabs me, clutching my shoulders to prevent a fall, and I am spun around as he pulls me into full contact with him.

  “Be careful,” he admonishes, holding me against him.

  I try to jerk back, flustered, but he doesn’t release me. “Careful won’t do a damn bit of good. It’s too dark out here. Do Brits have an aversion to light? Everything here is so dark, always.”

  He stares down at me, amusement flashing in his eyes. “I’ve always considered a dimly lit pavement romantic.”

  I notice how close our mouths are and I can’t move. I’m paralyzed and unwantedly captivated by the way he’s looking down at me, his gaze shimmering and darkening.

  I somehow manage to lift a brow. “Romantic, my ass. It’s a safety hazard.”

  He stares at me as if I’ve offended him on some level.

  “You see things too logically too much of the time. Most things in life aren’t logical. They simply are. When you try to give them order you ruin them. It’s better just to run with the way things are and not give it too much thought.”

  His breathing quickens and mine has stopped altogether, and it is as if he’s carefully watching my reaction to that. A sickening suspicion that he knows exactly how he affects me shoots through my veins.

  I step back and he lets me. “Everything in life is logical, kid. We pretend it’s not so we can cope with not wanting things to be the way they are.”

  There. A statement packed with subtle innuendo just like his to me. I’m enormously pleased with myself.

  “Things in my life are always exactly how I want them,” he murmurs.

  That statement unexpectedly make me think of Jack, how much my life isn’t how I want it, how much I miss him and wish I were with him now. I swallow down the sudden lump in my throat. The thought of Jack is a very timely thing.

  “What’s the matter?” Alan asks softly. “You’re frowning. Was the dinner not to your liking?”

  I shake my head to scatter my thoughts. “The dinner was fine. I’m just tired and ready for bed.”

  He checks his watch and gives me a smile that makes my heart somersault. “At nine thirty?”

  My cheeks flush at the way he says nine thirty, a hint of a suggestion that he thinks my eagerness to end the night has something to do with him.

  “It’s eight hours later in California,” I tease glibly.

  “No. It’s eight hours earlier. You should be well rested. Ready for anything.”

  Those black eyes hold me spellbound and I feel a little tingle there and then everywhere. Even when I don’t want to, the way Alan looks at me at times turns me into instantly lusting and overly-demanding flesh.

  Crap.

  Inside the house, I lift my chin. “Well, the only thing I’m ready for is my bed. Good night, Manny.”

  I move quickly toward the stairs and hurry up them. I can feel him watching me and I’m relieved when I am safely in my room.

  I sink down on the bed. My heart is thumping too quickly, and my sex is definitely more alert than I want it to be. Being with Alan is like nonstop sexual foreplay, whether he touches me or not.

  I drop my face into my palms and clutch my hair with my fingers. What the hell is happening to me? I can’t stand Alan Manzone, but he looks at me and I have thoughts.

  Fuck! Thoughts, Linda? What are you, in junior high school? You think about what it would be like to fuck the guy, if he’s half as much a turn-on in bed as he is out of it, and that’s not right.

  I reach for the phone. For some reason, calling Jeanette seems like a really good idea. Nothing hits me like a cold shower faster than talking to my bestie. She doesn’t approve of anything I do. Not my affair with Jack, not my current profession, and definitely not the type of guys I’m hanging out with. She’ll snap me back into sanity with her acerbic lectures.

  I punch her number into the phone and wait. Ring. Ring. Ring. Shit, maybe it’s too late to call.

  “Hello?”

  I stop slouching on the bed and straighten up. “Hello, Mrs. Grayson. It’s Linda. Is Jeanette around?”

  Silence comes through the receiver for a moment. Then, she says, “We were expecting you to arrive four days ago. A call would have been polite. Are you all right?”

  She rattles off the words coldly, rapidly like bullets from a machine gun. Jeez, I can definitely see where Jeanette gets her very not warm and fuzzy manner.

  Tension runs through my body, instantaneously pushing away those other things I didn’t want to feel in my flesh. “I got stuck at work. Sorry I didn’t call. I know I should have.”

  “We’re pleased to have you stay with us, but we are not pleased to be worrying about you. Don’t forget to call again.”

  My cheeks burn. Crap, she isn’t even my mother and she has made me feel two inches tall.

  I make a face at the phone. “Is Jeanette home? Can I speak with her?”

  “One moment, please.”

  I stifle a laugh since that sounded like an operator, and Mrs. Grayson is far from working class. The first time I saw the fancy white house with the massive wood door and black iron gates in Belgravia and met the Graysons, it suddenly made sense that Janette is the way she is.

  I crinkle my nose as I listen to dead silence through the phone as Mrs. Grayson makes her way through the house to find her daughter. I wonder if Jeanette thought the same thing the first time she met my mother, Doris, and saw the hovel I grew up in in Reseda. I so get why Linda is this way!

  “So you finally decided to turn up,” Jeanette says in that vacuously polite yet deeply cutting way.

  “Sorry my working interferes with your routine, Jeanette.”

  There’s a pause. “It doesn’t especially, but my mother was concerned even after I told her she didn’t have to be.”

  Oh, I bet you told her. I don’t even want to know what other things my bestie let spill about me.

  “Where are you?” she asks. “What have you done now?
”

  I clench my teeth. “I told you. I’ve been working.”

  She gives a long, heavy, aggravated sigh. “I have messages for you.”

  Oh crap.

  I hear through the phone her rummaging around through her things. “Sorry. Hold on. I can’t find them. Mother dropped them somewhere…ah. Your mom called. She wants you to call immediately.”

  Doris? Doris sprang for an international call? Alarm hits me.

  “Is she all right?” I ask in welling panic. “Why did she call?”

  “How am I supposed to know?” Jeanette says, irritated. “I didn’t take the message. Mother did. Oh, and Jack called. Three times.”

  Oh fuck.

  “What did you tell him?” I ask anxiously.

  “Excuse me?” she snaps, snotty.

  “Just tell me what you said to him.”

  More silence and I can almost feel through the phone her enjoying this.

  “I’m not your answering service, Linda. And I don’t enjoy being involved in other people’s drama.”

  Drama. Damn.

  “For once can you just be a good friend, Jeanette?”

  “Fine,” she says, clipped. “He called, and when I said you weren’t here, he wanted to know where you were.”

  Oh fudge. “What did you tell him?”

  “The truth, Linda. I told him I didn’t have a notion where you were. He’s called every morning since.”

  Way to go, Jeanette. Way to fuck up my relationship.

  “If he calls again, what do you want me to tell him?” she asks.

  “Nothing. You’ve done more than you should.” I say that with just the right amount of bite.

  “Are you coming back to Town?”

  “No. The tour starts again tomorrow. Two more weeks. I’ll be back then.”

  “Then I’ll see you then, won’t I?”

  I can’t tell if she wants me to return or is dreading it. Maybe it’s time to part ways with Jeanette. Maybe we’ve outgrown each other. Not that we ever fit together very well.

  I shake my head. “I’ll be back in two weeks. I’ve got to run, Jeanette.”