The Couple Behind the Headlines

by Lucy King

  The bitterness in his voice stabbed at her chest and she went dizzy with a weird need to find out why he’d wanted her to change her mind about leaving.

  ‘Why do you want me to stay, Jack?’ she asked and held her breath as if everything hung on his answer, which was mystifying because it didn’t.

  Or did it?

  His eyes met hers and held them, the blue shimmering with something she couldn’t identify and wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to anyway.

  ‘For more.’

  ‘Of what?’ Her breath caught in her throat. ‘The same?’

  Jack frowned and yanked his hands out of his pockets to rake them through his hair. ‘Well, yes. But on a more permanent basis.’

  Her heart hammered. ‘How permanent?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he muttered, a rare flash of uncertainty darting across his face.

  Her heart then plummeted. ‘Well, that’s not good enough,’ she said with a shrug. It hadn’t mattered that much anyway.

  ‘Of course it isn’t.’

  ‘The university I’m going to is one of the top ten in the world,’ she said, ignoring the sarcasm. ‘They don’t dish out places to just anyone, and I’m not giving mine up for a fling that will last who knows how long.’

  Jack stiffened, then gave her a horribly sardonic smile and arched an eyebrow. ‘So how many strings did Daddy have to pull to get you one of those extremely rare and highly sought-after places?’

  For one long moment Imogen could do no more than stare at him as his words and the mocking tone with which they’d been delivered hung between them. She blinked, the shocked disbelief coursing through her gradually turning to deep outrage and excruciating hurt. To think that for one crazy second she’d actually considered suggesting he go with her.

  ‘Jack,’ she said, her voice cold and flat, ‘you’re a bastard.’

  And with that she stood up, snatched her coat and bag and walked out.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘OK,’ said Luke, planting two pints of beer on the table a week later and throwing himself into the chair opposite Jack. ‘This time I know something’s up.’

  Jack shot Luke the cool, brittle smile that seemed to be fixed to his face pretty much permanently these days. Given that inside he was as cold as ice, and had been ever since Imogen had stormed out of his office, it didn’t seem all that inappropriate. ‘Thanks for this,’ he said and took a large swallow.

  Luke shrugged and grinned. ‘Winner’s obligation.’

  ‘Don’t get too used to it.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Nothing’s up,’ said Jack, setting the glass down and calmly meeting Luke’s penetrating stare despite knowing that that couldn’t be further from the truth.

  ‘Right,’ said Luke, evidently knowing it, too.

  Jack fought back a scowl and concentrated on keeping the smile on his face. ‘I lost. It’s no big deal.’

  ‘On the occasions you do lose you don’t usually do it quite so dismally.’

  Jack shrugged as he mentally revisited the diabolical game of squash he’d just played. ‘So I’m having an off day. It happens.’

  He’d been having a lot of those lately. Seven of them to be precise. Because he’d thought that he’d had a rough time of it when Imogen had first told him she was leaving, but this … This was infinitely worse.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about her. About their last encounter, their last conversation, and, fuelled by the excoriating disappointment that nothing he could do would persuade her to stay, the dreadful things he’d said. The more he thought about it, the more it hurt. And the greater the guilt and shame he felt.

  ‘You know,’ said Luke, shooting him a disturbingly probing look, ‘the last time one of us lost that badly was me. Just after I’d met Emily and had my life thrown upside down.’

  ‘Was it?’ said Jack, glancing around the bar of the squash courts in an effort to avoid the question in Luke’s eyes.

  ‘It was.’ Luke paused, then added, ‘So I’m guessing your mood has something to do with Imogen.’

  Her name struck him square in the chest and he nearly doubled over with the pain of it.

  Dammit, why did it still hurt? It was over. Imogen was leaving and he’d be alone once again. Which was actually for the best because it was safer that way. Besides, he was used to it, so he was fine.

  Or at least he would be soon. With the intensity of a relationship such as theirs it was bound to take longer than a week to get over, but he’d succeed eventually. He had to.

  Rallying, Jack sat up and took another gulp of beer. ‘Seeing as Imogen and I are no longer seeing each other you couldn’t be more wrong.’

  Luke paused, his glass hovering an inch from his mouth as his eyebrows lifted. ‘Oh?’ he said. ‘That’s a shame. I liked her. Emily liked her.’

  He’d liked her, too. More than liked her …

  Jack grunted and determinedly didn’t think about that. Or about the dinner out the four of them had had and the way Imogen had effortlessly got on with the two people he cared most about in the world.

  ‘So what happened?’

  His jaw clenched. ‘I don’t particularly want to talk about it.’

  ‘Fine.’

  As Luke lapsed into silence in that annoying way he had Jack brooded and bristled and then eventually gave in, the perverse urge to talk about it too insistent to ignore. ‘She’s leaving,’ he said when he couldn’t stand it any longer.

  ‘Leaving?’ Luke echoed, his eyebrows shooting up.

  ‘Going to study in the States.’

  ‘I see. Right. Well, good for her.’

  No, it wasn’t. ‘I asked her to stay.’ His jaw tightened and his chest squeezed at the memory of how weak he’d been. ‘She said no.’

  ‘And?’

  It was a good thing he hadn’t been looking for sympathy because if he had he’d have been disappointed. ‘What do you mean “and”?’

  ‘Well, what was your counter offer?’

  Jack frowned. ‘Counter offer?’

  ‘Surely you didn’t leave it at that? Didn’t you ask if you could go with her or something?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t.’ The idea of begging her to let him go with her smacked of desperation and he wasn’t desperate. At least not that desperate.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because she made it pretty clear that I wouldn’t be welcome,’ he muttered.

  ‘Really?’

  Jack scowled into his beer. ‘And even if I was, I can’t just leave everything here.’ It was impossible.

  ‘Why not?’ Luke asked. ‘Don’t you have an apartment there?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘And weren’t you looking at opening a US branch at one point?’ Luke added, undeterred.

  ‘That was years ago.’

  ‘Could be a good move.’

  Luke made it sound so easy, but Jack could still see the expression on Imogen’s face the second before she walked out, and knew it was anything but. ‘The whole thing is immaterial anyway.’

  ‘Why?’

  He could feel a weird kind of pressure building inside him and his head went fuzzy as the undeniable truth hit him all over again. ‘Because she doesn’t want me.’

  And that was really what was at the heart of it all, wasn’t it? Imogen didn’t want him. At least not enough. He’d seen it in the set of her jaw and the look in her eye when she’d told him this was her chance and she wasn’t going to screw it up for anything. Basically, she’d let him know in a roundabout kind of way that he wasn’t as important to her as studying in the States, and it had nearly crucified him.

  He’d come to care about her, and like everyone else he’d ever cared about she was abandoning him. The difference was that this time he couldn’t seem to switch himself off and shut himself down. This time every muscle in his body ached with the pain of it.

  To all appearances he’d been carrying on as normal. He’d gone to work, handled meetings and traded with his usual e
fficiency but inside he was a mess. Inside he was falling apart. His self-control was in bits and his grip on his sanity was fast unravelling and there didn’t seem to be a thing he could do about it.

  Luke shifted, then sat upright and leaned forwards and took a deep breath as if preparing to say something unpleasant. ‘Right. As we don’t ever do this sort of stuff, I’m only going to ask this once,’ he said, fixing Jack with an unwavering stare. ‘Do you love her?’

  Jack’s heart stopped and then began to beat triple time as his blood roared in his ears. What kind of a question was that? At some point during the last horrendous week, he’d come to the dizzying realisation that he adored her. Imogen was everything he’d ever wanted. Everything he’d ever dreamed of in the moments of weakness he’d allowed himself to dream.

  He’d been in love with her for weeks. Possibly since the minute she’d told him to find some other victim to devour and stormed off. Why else would he have pursued her when she’d been—and had put up—such a challenge?

  And since then it had grown and developed into something much more, which was undoubtedly why this all hurt so much.

  ‘Does it matter?’ he said tightly, because Luke might be wanting to talk, but he had no intention of expressing the tangled heap of feelings coursing through him.

  ‘Jack, you and I have known each other a long time, and you’re my best friend, but if you love her and you’re not going to go after her you’re a jerk.’

  Jack’s eyebrows shot up and he glared at his so-called friend. Luke, however, looked unperturbed. ‘You can glower all you like, but you are.’

  ‘I asked her to stay,’ he said again, because this seemed to him to be the crux of the matter. ‘And she said no.’

  ‘So what is this? A question of pride?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then what is it?’

  ‘You know what it is,’ he muttered and frowned into his glass. Once, many years ago over too many beers, they’d had a brutally frank discussion about their pasts and their hang-ups. It had been a one-off, and neither of them had referred to it again.

  Luke tilted his head and regarded Jack thoughtfully. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘So is that why you sabotage every potential relationship before it has the time to develop?’

  What the …? Jack snapped his head up. ‘I don’t.’

  Luke arched a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Really? Then why has no woman ever lasted more than a week?’

  ‘I get bored easily.’ It was a line he’d told himself many times, but actually it wasn’t true, was it, because Imogen hadn’t bored him in the slightest.

  ‘Rubbish. You deliberately put an end to things before you can get involved.’

  Jack opened his mouth to deny it, then closed it, his mind racing as his dating technique over the last ten years flashed through his head. Short-term didn’t begin to describe the brevity of the relationships he’d had, the relationships—if they could even be called that—he’d been the one to end before they’d ever had the chance to get off the ground.

  ‘And I bet you sabotaged things with Imogen, too,’ Luke added.

  Jack stopped and stared at Luke, momentarily rendered speechless, because that was true too. By making that hideously unfair remark about her father fixing her application that was exactly what he’d done. He’d deliberately made sure she left. She was the best thing to happen to him and he’d sent her away without even considering how they could make it work. And why? Because he’d been too weighed down by his own emotional baggage.

  Luke was right. And not just about that. He had been a jerk. In fact, he’d been worse than that. Caught up in his hang-ups, he’d been a self-centred jerk, and that wasn’t him.

  Jack’s heart began to hammer as the realisation of just how stupidly blind he’d been slammed into his head. Which was swiftly followed by the clamouring need to put things right. That the situation might not be fixable wasn’t something he was willing to contemplate. It had to be.

  ‘Since when did you become such an expert?’ he said, his voice cracking a little beneath the onslaught of everything he felt.

  ‘Since I married Emily. She likes to discuss you.’ Luke grinned for a second, then sobered. ‘She cares. We both do. Look, Jack, if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that your past needn’t screw up your future. It nearly happened to me. Don’t let it happen to you.’

  Jack set his jaw, his mind teeming with ideas about how to undo the massive mistake he’d made. ‘I don’t intend to.’

  Scumbag, thought Imogen, pummelling the punchbag and imagining it was Jack. He was a lousy—punch—selfish—punch—thoughtless—punch—scumbag. She gave the punchbag a kick for good measure and then stumbled back, breathing hard. Sweat trickled down her back and her muscles ached. As well they might. She’d been a member of the gym for years but had gone so rarely that each visit worked out costing her a fortune.

  Well, she was making up for that now. And how. Since the afternoon she’d marched out of Jack’s office, she’d spent every spare minute taking out her anger, frustration and hurt on the pleasingly resilient gym equipment.

  Not that her efforts were making a difference to anything other than her muscle tone, she thought as the adrenalin drained from her veins and misery returned. It had been a week since that horrible scene in Jack’s office, but every word of it was still so fresh in her memory it might as well have been five minutes ago.

  How could he have said that? she asked herself as his parting shot and the cold harsh tone of his voice with which he’d flung it at her slammed into her head yet again. Did he really think that about her? After everything they’d shared? After all the conversations they’d had about reputations and gossip and misconceptions and the nasty people who knew nothing about anything yet felt qualified to judge them?

  Sighing deeply, Imogen pulled off her gloves, then picked up her sweatshirt and headed for the showers. It had hurt. God, it had hurt.

  And it still did, even though there was no point. Jack hadn’t been in touch, which was just the way she wanted it, she reminded herself, stepping into the shower and switching on the water, because she had a bright new future to look forward to and she didn’t need someone who thought that about her in her life.

  No. It was a good thing that their relationship was dead in the water. An excellent thing, in fact. And besides, she’d never wanted anything long-term anyway. So why was she unable to stop thinking about him? And why was what he’d said still affecting her so badly?

  Massaging shampoo into her hair, Imogen let the question roll around her brain as she tried to work it out. It didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t the first time someone had suggested that nothing she’d achieved had been on her own merit, and it certainly wasn’t the worst accusation she’d ever received.

  So why did what he thought matter so much? Why did he have such power over her thoughts? Why was he so important?

  Imogen suddenly froze beneath the needles of hot water as the clouds parted in her head and clarity hit her brain like a flash of lightning.

  Oh, dear God.

  Her pulse slowed right down and all the blood rushed to her feet. Of course. It was obvious. So blindingly obvious she’d completely missed it.

  She’d fallen in love with him.

  Clutching a hand to her chest, Imogen locked her knees and made herself take a deep breath, because the last thing she needed was the mortification of passing out in the gym shower.

  That was it. She was in love with him. Of course she was. As her heart rate steadied and her vision cleared, her mind picked up a gear and raced through all the evidence. Look at everything that had happened since the moment she’d met him. And look at the way he’d made her feel … as if she were on top of the world and at the bottom of a pit of despair and everything in between.

  A series of images flashed through her head, of the way he’d sometimes glanced at her, the smiles he’d given her, the things he’d done for her, and her heart turned over. She was in love with hi
m, all right. Deeply and helplessly. And how could she be anything else? Despite the recent blip, she loved everything about him, from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes. She loved his constant strength and his occasional vulnerability, his sense of humour and his fierce intelligence.

  When she’d found out that her application had been successful Jack had been the first person she’d thought of telling. The first person she’d wanted to tell, above even her family. And it wasn’t just that news she wanted to share with him. She wanted to share everything with him and have him share everything with her in return, and had done for weeks.

  So where did this leave her? she wondered dizzily, switching off the water with suddenly trembling hands. And what might it mean for her plans to go to the States?

  Thoughts thundered around her head as for the first time her dogged determination to follow the path she’d chosen wavered. The notion of giving it all up flitted through her mind and Imogen felt her knees wobble.

  It didn’t upset her nearly as much as she’d have thought. Did that mean she would really give up everything she’d worked for, everything she wanted, for love? She let out a long shuddery breath as the idea took root in her head and spread. It seemed she would.

  For a moment she felt her heart soar. And then, as reality snapped her back, it plummeted right down to the floor. What did it matter? Any question of giving anything up was utterly and heartbreakingly irrelevant because she wouldn’t be doing anything of the kind, would she?

  Feeling strangely cold, and not just because she’d turned the water off, Imogen plucked her towel off the hook and roughly dried herself.

  Realising she was in love with Jack left her nowhere and meant precisely nothing for her plans to go to the States because whatever brainstorm she might have had, whatever heady conclusion she might have come to, the fact remained she’d fallen in love with a man who didn’t know the meaning of the expression. Whose heart had remained intact for years and in all likelihood would for years to come. A man who’d promised her nothing, who’d offered her nothing but an extended fling on his terms.

  An icy kind of numbness spread through her body as she pulled on her clothes and ran a brush through her hair. The whole thing was completely hopeless, wasn’t it? Even if Jack should turn up and tell her that his offer was still on the table—which was not likely—it wouldn’t make a scrap of difference. He’d never be able to offer her anything more than a fling, and a fling, however extended and whatever the terms, would never be enough for her. Therefore she had to get over him, because what alternative was there?