‘Not any night when you’re drunk,’ I said grandly. ‘And I have a shocking headache in any case.’ Which was true – how could I not, after the night I’d had?
‘Headache, huh?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll bet Jack Stevens never has to contend with headaches.’
I gritted my teeth. Hard.
CHAPTER TEN
My phone was already ringing when I arrived at work on Tuesday juggling a coffee, the daily newspapers and my briefcase. I dropped the briefcase and newspapers and made a grab for it. ‘Evie Parker speaking.’
‘Evangeline?’
‘J – Jack?’ Breathe. Breathe.
‘Have you seen the Sydney Courier?’
‘No.’
‘Good. I wanted to talk to you before you saw it. To tell you I’m fixing it.’
Was that supposed to calm me? Because it had the opposite effect. ‘Fixing what? Am I – Oh God, no. I’m not in the paper, am I?’
‘No! Nothing about you. I just know how you are and I wanted to warn –’
‘You’re sure, right? That it’s not about me? I mean – Well, what could it be? Unless it’s about me and you. Oh God, oh my God.’ I collapsed into my chair.
‘Evangeline, it’s not about you. Look – have you got the paper?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well open it before you have a heart attack. Page eleven. Secrets & Truths.’
I sorted through the papers until I had the right one, flicked to page eleven, heart racing. ‘It’s Chloe. With you, at that dinner …’ My voice trailed off as I took in the headline. BLACK AND THROUGH. ‘Good God.’ It was more breath than voice. I jerked the page closer. ‘Good GOD.’ That was voice.
‘Yes, one photo with me. One solo, with her black eye photo-shopped to make it look worse. And a nasty dig about Marcus’s temper on the football field. And that, perhaps, jealousy over her relationship with me was the cause of him losing it off the field and assaulting her.’
I scanned the item quickly, gasped. ‘It’s sort of true – well, some of it. But not true. I mean, the basic facts are there. But the way they’re put together is – is – horrible. And the love triangle thing. That’s just wrong.’ My breath hitched. ‘I mean, it is wrong … isn’t it?’
‘Seriously, Evangeline? Seriously? Of course it’s wrong. You of all people –’ Jack broke off. I could hear the calming breath he took. ‘There’s no use trying to make sense of it. I didn’t call you to cross-check the facts – I called you to reassure you that your name won’t be mentioned.’
‘But why? I mean, why would my name be mentioned? There’s no reason why it should be mentioned, is there?’ Bells ringing in my head.
‘No reason at all. I just suspected you’d freak out when you saw the story.’ He laughed. ‘Imagine that!’ Another laugh. ‘Just don’t worry. Trust me to sort this. Drew will come by your place tonight and let you know how the repair job went. And Evangeline – really, truly don’t worry. I won’t let it touch you. Promise.’
I hung up, willed my stomach to settle, my heartbeat to normalise. I re-read the story. Nothing about me. What would I have been like if I’d rated a mention? Prostrate on the floor, rocking with my thumb in my mouth, probably. It wasn’t remotely edifying, that picture.
I read the story again. Frowned as my brain started operating again. Who? That was the question now. Who leaked the story? Not Chloe. Not Jack. Or Marcus. Not anyone in Jack’s family, that was certain.
So …
Oh. Oh no. Oh noooo.
No wonder Jack was so worried about my reaction. Because it had to have been Lachlan who’d talked. Had to! But why? What could he gain, unless he actually wanted Drew to stake him out under the midday sun without his eyelids?
I tried to call him, three times. But despite leaving messages, hours later I’d heard nothing from him. I was still stewing when I got home from work and changed into a pair of jeans and one of Drew’s old sweatshirts. I tossed the half-shrivelled salad vegetables from my understocked fridge with some bottled dressing, replaying the morning in my head.
Jack calling me to warn me.
Reading the story. Panicking, even though it didn’t mention me.
Phone call from Drew, then Chloe. Chloe putting Marcus on the phone, just to prove it was no big deal.
A total of four people worrying that I would leap off a tall building because of a story in a newspaper that wasn’t even about me. And one of them was coming by in person to check that I had not, in fact, leapt!
I didn’t like the picture that painted. Of a snivelling, pathetic wreck. The phone rang, and I deserted the salad and raced for it.
‘Evie? It’s me.’ Lachlan. ‘Sorry I’m so late getting back to you. I –’
I cut him off. ‘Why did you do it?’
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. ‘It’s not what you think.’
‘Then tell me what it is.’
‘I went to see Rowan Petersen. Nothing to do with Jack or Chloe, but she sort of asked a few things. I wasn’t playing ball, but when she asked me about Chloe’s black eye, I thought … Look, it was the smallest story I could think of, just so she wouldn’t think I was holding out on her. The way it’s reported – that’s not what I said. Maybe I made a joke about what Marcus said – about being jealous. But I didn’t tell her about the new film role.’
‘Oh, Lachlan.’
‘Anyway, she’s TV.’ Defensive. ‘She didn’t write the story.’
‘No,’ I said through my teeth. ‘But she would have mentioned it to someone else, and that person would have mentioned it to another person and – hey presto! That’s how these stories end up in the paper.’
I paused. It wasn’t right to do this on the phone, but I knew I had to call it quits, the way I should have the moment I’d realised I couldn’t stand the thought of having sex with him –hello, giant flashing warning beacon, anyone? I was never going to love him; I’d only wanted to love him. And now, I wasn’t even sure I liked him. ‘Lachlan, it’s not working between us,’ I said gently.
‘But it’s not that big a deal! Jack was cool about it.’
I closed my eyes. He’d called Jack. Spoken to Jack before me.
‘He was more concerned about your reaction,’ Lachlan added. ‘Which is crazy. You’re not even in the story.’
‘He obviously knows me a lot better than you do.’
‘I’ll come over. We’ll talk.’
‘Not now. Drew will be here any moment so if you want to keep your eyelids, stay away. Tomorrow. After work. Okay? We can talk, but I won’t change my mind.’
After I’d hung up, I contemplated pouring myself a glass of wine while I waited for Drew – but my stomach rebelled at the thought. So not only was I tired and emotional and depressed, but to top it all off, I really probably did have an ulcer. Stress-induced, no doubt.
The last thing I needed was Jackson J Stevens arriving at my house in lieu of his brother – but that’s what I got.
Jack, standing in my doorway.
Jack – the cherry on the icing of my cake of shame.
And, really, I probably deserved to have Jack be the one to confront me about the drama my date had caused. About my selfish phobia, which had made me the focus of concern when Jack, Chloe and Marcus were the victims. About my skewed prejudices that were so wrong, when the fine upstanding doctors turned out to be the cads, and the actors and star football players were the knights in shining armour, rescuing me.
‘I guess Drew’s not coming,’ I said.
‘I was in the neighbourhood.’ Shrug. ‘So I decided to come instead.’
‘I see. But you – Did you drive? I can’t see your car.’
‘Protection. For you. I parked two streets away. Not that I’m aware of any paparazzi knowing what car I drive, and I’m pretty sure nobody’s following me ’round the clock.’ He gave me the quicksilver smile.
I didn’t return the smile. Couldn’t.
‘If we’re g
oing to succeed in protecting you, however, you’d better let me in,’ he said. ‘One of your neighbours is bound to be onto the media if they see me standing out here like a lovesick troubadour.’
‘Oh, of course.’
I opened the door wider, Jack stepped in, I closed it. As usual, he sucked all the air out of the space just by being there. He looked so gorgeous, my heart actually lurched. Dark jeans, a black shirt that looked soft enough to melt, black leather slides on his feet that were casual but probably cost the total of my entire shoe collection.
He cast a quick glance at the staircase leading upstairs. ‘Am I interrupting anything?’
‘What? No!’ Blush. My sweatshirt was slipping off one shoulder, so I adjusted it. I gestured in the direction of the living room. ‘Can I get you anything?’
Jack shook his head.
I waited for him to move further inside. Instead he stood there, saying nothing.
‘I’m sorry,’ I blurted into the silence.
‘What for?’
‘Lachlan.’ Hitched my slipping top. ‘It was Lachlan. I know you know. He told me.’
Jack shrugged. ‘You don’t have to apologise for him. We’re over it. All three of us. I told you I could fix stuff like that. And it doesn’t matter anyway.’
‘It matters.’
He touched my cheek briefly, which set off a riot of nerves. ‘No, Evangeline, it doesn’t.’
‘H– How did you fix it?’
‘My agent, Jacinta, called the paper and had a bit of a laugh with them. We gave them the real story – the big story, about Darkest Dusk – and allowed them to take our photo. Together, nicely staged. They were happy. Marcus and I are resigned to it. And Chloe … she says the only way to avoid this stuff is to give up Marcus, and she’d rather have Marcus. Simple.’ He watched me carefully as he said that last bit.
Yeah, I got it. Chloe was normal, I wasn’t.
‘Evangeline, believe me when I tell you these things are no big deal. And it was easily corrected – just read the paper tomorrow.’
‘But it’s my fault. For bringing him into our circle.’
He was still watching me. Closely. Intently. ‘Our circle,’ he repeated slowly.
‘Yes – me, Drew, Chloe …’ I swallowed, dipped my head. ‘You.’
Jack took a step closer. Emphysema, anyone? ‘And … Lachlan?’ he asked.
I pulled at the slipping shoulder of the sweatshirt again. ‘It’s over. You can feel vindicated about that, I guess.’
‘I don’t feel vindicated. I’m too furious to feel vindicated.’
‘But you said –? You said it was no big deal.’
‘Evangeline, I don’t give a fuck about the media story. It’s not about that. It’s about – Ah, goddammit!’ He paced away, then back. Stopped in front of me, one hand tearing through his hair. ‘Goddammit! It’s still about the timing. Every time, every single time, it sucks.’
‘What –’ Stop. Swallow. Nervous. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It means I’m going to Morocco. It’s too late to back out.’
Another swallow. My throat had gone dry. ‘But why would you want to back out?’
He started to adjust my top, which was slipping off my shoulder again, but his fingers stopped, gripping the cotton. ‘You know why. So I could have you.’
Ohhhh. ‘But what –’ I had to pause, take a breath, because my heartbeat was going crazy. ‘What happened to the new normal?’
‘The new normal? Well you see, the new normal got old the second you were back on the market, Evie.’
‘Evie,’ I repeated, and it was practically a sigh. That was all it took – him calling me that name, the same name everyone else called me every single day – for my insides to turn to mush.
And in that one moment, I knew that the timing didn’t suck; the timing, in fact, was perfect. He was leaving. Even he seemed to know that fact made a relationship impossible. But with a relationship off the table, there was something we could have. One night, two nights perhaps. A finite fling. Then he would move on, and I would move on, and nobody else would ever know it had happened. And I wanted him in that moment, under those exact circumstances, so much that it almost scared me.
My hand came up, covered his where it was still gripping my sweatshirt. ‘Remember Drew’s project?’ I asked.
He looked confused.
‘The Get Evie Laid project?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘What about it?’
‘Well I want to get laid, Jack. Now. By you.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
His fingers tightened so convulsively on my sweatshirt, I thought it was going to rip under the pressure – but then, in a split second of scrambling madness, we were hard against each other. Arms clutching, legs tangling, stumbling against the wall, mouths kissing hard enough to bruise, hands searching for skin, fingers fumbling ineffectually with buttons and zippers, breaths catching.
I had a moment of complete sensory overload – the soapy smell of him, the strength of his arms, the insistent push of his erection, as though he would thrust inside me on the spot – and my whole body felt electrified and just plain desperate for him.
I thought, half-hysterically, how funny it was that the two times I would have sex with Jack would be standing affairs. But as the heat flooded between my thighs and my nipples tightened to points so hard they ached, I knew that I wouldn’t say no to having him any way I could get him, or to anything he wanted to do to me.
But then, ‘No,’ he cried, and tore himself away from me, chest heaving.
‘Yes,’ I said urgently, trying to drag him back.
‘Not like this, Evie.’
A sharp dart of paralysing doubt speared through the haze of lust in my head – and as usual, Jack read my thoughts.
He laughed, but it came out harsh and fraught. ‘Evie, you know how much I want you.’ He grabbed my hand, brought it to the front of his jeans, pressed it there. ‘I’m dying for you. Dying. But not like this. I want you upstairs. In bed. Not. Against. The goddamn. Door.’
‘I didn’t mean what I said. I wouldn’t mind. Door, stairs, couch, anywhere.’
‘Bed, Evie.’
For one heated moment we stared at each other. And then I grabbed his hand and started tearing up the narrow staircase, dragging him behind me.
We stumbled into my room, and within two steps, he’d reefed my sweatshirt up and off, flinging it across the room.
I reached for his shirt, started feverishly working at those buttons I hadn’t managed to free in the entrance hall, but Jack took the task out of my hands, and simply ripped the two halves of his shirt apart, sending the buttons flying. He kicked off his slides impatiently, as though they hadn’t cost as much as my complete shoe collection.
His eyes were focused on my face as he shed his jeans. Hard. Determined. And then he paused, his hands at the hip band of his boxer briefs. Bright white stretched like a second skin across his hips, over his straining groin, to the top of his muscular thighs. Underwear that anyone would catch!
He was the hottest thing I had ever seen. Arms long and strong. Chest broad and well-muscled, with a slight smattering of hair. Six-pack – it was the first time I’d ever seen one. Line of dark hair, arrowing down to disappear beneath the stark white.
He looked like an underwear model, but in an X-rated catalogue, erections allowed.
I had a split second of foreboding – I was in deep trouble here – and then he slid his underwear off and my breath jammed in my throat. I hadn’t actually seen him, that fateful night. And now I saw. He was huge and hard and perfect. There was not one part of him that wasn’t mouth-watering.
I looked down at myself. I was wearing a sturdy, turn-off of a bra. My jeans were half undone and gaping open – Jack’s unfinished handiwork from the entrance hall – displaying the cheap, lime-green boy-leg briefs I would never have worn if I’d thought Jack would be seeing them.
‘I like your underwear, remember?’ he said, reading
me effortlessly. ‘I want to see it. I want to suck you through it.’
‘Jack!’ I said unsteadily, as my knees threatened to buckle under me, just from his words. God help me when he got his mouth on me!
‘Shhh,’ he replied, dropping to his knees and pulling my jeans down my legs until they bunched around my ankles.
And then he gripped my hips and buried his face against me. His hands moved to my bottom, tugging me forward, wedging me against his mouth. He breathed in deeply. Breathed me. And then his teeth nipped gently, through the fabric.
‘Oh,’ was all I could manage to get out. My hands went to his shoulders, and the feel of his hot, smooth skin had my legs threatening to buckle again. He was so beautiful. And for tonight, he was mine. Nobody else’s. Mine. Just for tonight.
Jack looked up, face hard with strain, eyes commanding me. ‘I want to kiss you,’ he said. ‘Here.’ His teeth nipped me.
I’d never felt so damp and restless and achy. Why wasn’t I already naked? Why hadn’t I opened the door naked?
‘I want to taste you,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Open your legs for me, darling,’ he whispered, nudging his nose against the front of the stretch-cotton.
God, I wanted him to touch me. So badly. But, ‘I can’t,’ I said, caught between embarrassment and sudden sexual frustration. ‘My feet are caught.’
Jack looked at my feet, trapped in the denim, and laughed. ‘I can fix that.’
He got to his feet, swung me into his arms, freeing me from my jeans in the process, and strode to the bed. He lay me down, then pulled the bedclothes from under me so I was laid out on the cool sheet.
I opened my arms to him, wanting to draw him down against me, needing the sure weight of him, wanting him up tight against my sex.
But he shook his head and imprisoned my wrists, bringing them up over my head before positioning himself on his knees between my legs. ‘I’ve imagined you like this so often, Evie. Waiting for me to touch you. Let me look. Let me see you, just like that.’
Waiting for me to touch you – words that touched me as surely as any physical caress. That threatened to choke me with tenderness, even as my body wept to have him. Irresistible. And even though that premonition shimmered through me again – trouble ahead – I nodded, wordless, wanting to give him this. And Jack let go of my hands.
Wanting Mr Wrong Page 11
