Jack

by Nancy Warren

  So, he’d do something that was foreign to his nature. He’d wait.

  When the cab dropped them off, he looked up at his house and said, “Oh, bloody hell.”

  “What is it?”

  “I didn’t leave a light on in the lounge room when we left.”

  She grasped his arm and whispered, “Do you think it’s robbers?”

  He shook his head, hearing his teeth snap together. “Worse.” Of all bloody nights. He ran up the stairs and Rachel followed slowly. “Shouldn’t we call the cops?”

  “Not unless you want to arrest my sister for illegal entry into her brother’s flat and impeding his sex life. Which, come to think of it, isn’t a bad idea.”

  “Your sister is here?”

  “The woman’s got the most amazing bloody timing.”

  She glanced back at the cab about to pull away. “Maybe I should find a hotel for the night.”

  He grabbed her hand. “No. I want you to meet my sister.” He shrugged, trying to make the best of things. “I’d hoped you’d do it in a more civilized manner, but it can’t be helped now.”

  He held onto her hand while unlocking the front door, then, to make absolutely sure it was Chloe and not some lout nicking things, he shouted, “Hallo?”

  “Thank God you’re finally home,” Chloe’s voice floated down to him, “I’ve been waiting ages!”

  “My sister,” he said, half sorry it wasn’t thieves so he could impress Rachel with his manliness in getting rid of them, and be spared his impetuous sister’s latest turn-up.

  She didn’t wait until they’d got inside properly before wailing, “I’m not marrying Mario. He’s vile. I threw that utterly vulgar ring back in his face and told him this morning, I won’t marry him. I should have realized when the man gave me a diamond the size of Lithuania that he simply wasn’t for me. I mean, really, it was so over the top that I literally couldn’t lift my arm!” As the words flowed, so did the hope he’d had that she might be here only for a bed.

  “Chloe,” he said, and then a little louder when the flow of words wouldn’t dry up. “Chloe. Shut up.”

  By this time, he and Rachel had climbed the stairs and his sister’s very pretty and very spoiled face was frozen in a state of surprise.

  “Oh, Jack,” she said, in the tone she’d have used if he’d brought her a martini made with gin instead of vodka. “Did you have to bring a woman home tonight? Of all nights?” She gazed at him with her big, violet blue eyes opened wide in an utterly helpless expression that made far too many men weak at the knees and only warned her brother that trouble was ahead. “I need you.”

  “Rachel, please forgive my appallingly bad mannered little sister. Chloe, this is Rachel. She is a top chef from America who is going to cater your wedding.” He put a slight emphasis on the is.

  “Hello, Rachel,” Chloe said from between pouting lips.

  “Hi, Chloe.”

  Great. The first meeting of the two women he cared about most in the world wasn’t a rousing success. They hadn’t exactly thrown each other at their respective feminine bosoms and wept for joy.

  There was a pause. “You’ll have to forgive me,” said Chloe. “I’m very distraught, having just broken my engagement.” Her voice wobbled on the edge of tears. It was one of her more successful tricks, but he was up to them all and merely crossed his arms at his chest and gave her a don’t try it, look.

  “I’m really sorry about your engagement,” Rachel said, glancing at him. “I’m sure you want to talk to your brother privately. I’ll go and stay at a hotel.”

  “That would probably be best,” Chloe agreed, brightening immediately.

  “If anyone’s going to a hotel it will be you, little sister. Rachel was invited.”

  She was all in black, to suit the drama of the occasion, though he thought she’d gone a bit heavy on the eyeliner. “But I need you.”

  “What you need, my sweet, is a man who won’t let you rule him, then drive you mad when he’s not commanding enough.”

  She sniffed. “You don’t understand.”

  “Probably not. Never mind. I am going to make you some hot milk, put you in the guest room and take Rachel to bed. In the morning, we’ll talk.”

  “Jack,” Rachel said, turning to him with wide, shocked eyes. “How can you be so cruel? Your sister just ended her engagement. Try and be a little supportive.”

  Chloe blinked and suddenly, before his bemused gaze, he saw the instant bonding he’d wanted. She sniffed. “He can be such a beast, my brother, but he’s the only one I could turn to in my hour of greatest need. Don’t let him throw me out.”

  He’d offered her hot milk and a bed, not tossed her out on the street, but it didn’t seem to matter. Rachel was promising to stand by his sister and he was clearly to be cast in the role of that horrible brother who didn’t understand. Chloe patted the couch beside her, and soon she and Rachel were seated side by side and Rachel was getting the full benefit of Chloe in crisis mode.

  With a shrug, he went into the kitchen and made cocoa, something he’d been doing for Chloe since she broke her first heart at thirteen.

  When he returned, the two women were deep into the minute dissection of Chloe’s relationship, with some very good advice from Rachel, who wasn’t as blind to his sister’s antics as he’d feared.

  He gave them an hour, because he was a good brother and he loved his sister. But he was also a man blindly in love with a woman he’d recently met and burning to be naked and intimate. Sixty long minutes passed, and the cocoa was nothing but a memory, when he began yawning extravagantly and turning out lights.

  When that went unnoticed, he said, “All right, Chlo. Let’s get you tucked into the guest room.”

  “All right. I mustn’t interrupt your date, must I? Thank you, Rachel. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  His cleaning staff kept the guest room ready and the bed freshly made, and Chloe used his flat like a second home often enough that some of her things were permanently installed, so the only difficult part was getting her actually in the room and getting her new best friend Rachel out again.

  Another quarter of an hour and he’d managed it. And finally, finally, he had his woman alone with him in his bedroom.

  “Sorry, about that,” he said, when they had the door shut. And, in case Chloe remembered something else she absolutely must tell Rachel, he surreptitiously locked it.

  “It was fine. I like her a lot.”

  “She’s completely spoiled, but deep down she’s very sweet.”

  He unwrapped the red shawl Rachel still had round her shoulders, folded it and placed it on a leather ottoman in the corner.

  “Will she really cancel the wedding?” she asked as she unzipped her dress. It struck him that they were acting like a long-term couple, chatting things over while they got ready for bed. He was glad they’d got the urgent shagging out of the way earlier, so he could savor the sight of Rachel undressing before him in this matter-of-fact way that somehow struck him as dead sexy.

  Odd, how love changed a man’s view of things.

  He’d never found himself filled with such tenderness as when he lay her back on his bed, never found his emotions tangled with his physical desires as he now did.

  She lay beneath him, her hair a dark cloud on the pillow around her, her eyes large and serious. He wanted to say things he’d never said to another woman, but he wasn’t sure she was ready. And yet, when he entered her, felt her so hot and wet, clinging to him as though she’d never let go, surrounding him, he felt pulled into her much more than physically.

  He loved her slowly, at a less harried pace than they’d yet managed, filling himself with her sounds, her tastes, her scents. She gave herself over completely to the moment, to the sensation. She was the most utterly sensual woman he’d ever known.

  He fell asleep curled around her, his hand on her breast so he could feel the heavy beat of her heart against his palm.

  Chapter 9
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  Rachel wasn’t a morning person, but there was something about waking up to Jack kissing his way down her spine that added a definite lift to the morning doldrums.

  “Morning,” she said lazily, stretching as his mouth did delicious things to her.

  His reply was indistinct, but she could work it out in context.

  When he flipped her to her back, she was more than ready.

  “Ssh,” she said, when he banged his elbow against the wall. “I don’t want Chloe to hear.”

  “It’s a bit like having a child in the next room. Which is truer than you might think.”

  “Be nice to her. She’s going through a hard time.”

  “When you know her better, you’ll understand that drama is as necessary to Chloe as Perrier Jouet.”

  Why did he keep saying these things to her? When you know her better? As if that was going to happen. A week or two from now, some Lufthansa flight attendant would be with Jack, writhing under the buzz of the living room vibrator, lathered up in lemon scented massage oil. And she’d be sourcing local organic greens for the next scheduled function at Hart House. Did he think she was one of those women – if there were such women – who wanted to hear lies and empty promises?

  She might have called him on it, but he was deep inside her body and when he moved he nudged her G-spot and she couldn’t possibly think of anything at all.

  Afterward, she ran her hands idly down his back while they caught their breath. Her head on his chest. “I feel so good I never want to move.”

  He played with her hair, and without pausing said, “Then don’t.”

  She’d had enough of this. Now, that she could think, was the time to put an end to this nonsense.

  “Are you suggesting I should stay in this bed for the rest of my natural life?”

  “Don’t be daft.” He shifted her and raised himself onto an elbow so he could look at her. “But you could stay with me forever.”

  Her heart stuttered which irritated her. “Yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes a la sophisticated woman of the world.

  He didn’t respond a la sophisticated man of the world, but stayed where he was. She felt he was struggling to say something, and finally he did.

  “I love you, Rachel,” he said, looking deep into her eyes, his hand touching her shoulder as though he couldn’t bear not to touch her.

  “Oh, give me a break,” she snapped.

  He blinked, and his hand fell away. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I am not one of those women who needs love words. I’ve always known what this is and I accept it. Please don’t piss me off with a load of false sentiment. It only cheapens this relationship.”

  He seemed genuinely puzzled. “I’m not entirely sure what you mean. You think love cheapens sex?”

  “I think false declarations take away from the basic honesty of what this relationship is.”

  His gaze sharpened. “And what is it exactly?”

  “A purely physical, mutually beneficial convenience.”

  Outside, she heard traffic, the low vroom of an airplane. Church bells from a distance. “So, you don’t love me?”

  There was a pause. Her heart beat so hard it hurt. “No.”

  He touched her breast lightly, softly. “Your heart is completely untouched?”

  Her swallow sounded loud in the sudden quiet. “Yes.”

  “I see.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that brave, wounded bullshit. Every guy I’ve ever known wants exactly what you’ve got. Sex,” she gave a tiny, smug smile, “lots of sex, with no strings attached.”

  Instead of laughing, or stomping off, or engaging in any remotely predictable behavior, he traced her cheek with one finger. His eyes were serious and understanding. “I’ve never known a woman who yearns for love more than you do, and is more terrified of it.”

  She leapt off the bed and her laugh was harsh and sudden. “I don’t have time for this. I need to –”

  She found herself cut off as he flipped her to the bed so fast her back hit the mattress before she remembered moving.

  He was on top of her, not pinning her exactly, but forcing her to make a big deal of it if she wanted to move. She didn’t feel like making a big deal about it. She wished she was clothed though, and that her heart wasn’t beating quite so fast. It made her feel vulnerable and a little foolish.

  “I don’t need love,” she said, staring up at him. “I don’t want it.”

  “I’ve seen you around your sister and George, you know, and even around Arthur and Meg.”

  “And when have I ever given any indication that I want what they have? That I want to be so besotted, so blinded by emotion that I lose my common sense?”

  “Oh,” he said, “your words do a fine job of portraying what a cynic you are, but your eyes give you away.”

  She rolled those eyes now, to give him a good idea what she thought of his notion.

  “I thought at first it was irritation I was witnessing, but it’s not, is it?”

  “You tell me. You seem to have the keys to my inner thoughts and feelings after knowing me for one week.”

  “It’s jealousy.”

  Fury, hot and molten spurted within her. She shoved at his shoulder, so he moved away, letting her up.

  “I’ve been married. I couldn’t be less jealous. It’s pity you witnessed. Pity for anyone fool enough to fall in love knowing that the chances of disaster outweigh any hope of lasting happiness by about two to one.”

  “You had a rotten marriage, Rachel. It happens. It happens all the time to clever, successful people who you would think would choose wisely. But, for every bad marriage there’s a good one, one that makes you keep believing. I think Max and George have every chance of happiness. You can see that too, that’s what’s making you sick with jealousy.”

  “That’s an awful thing to say. I love my sister. I’m not jealous of her.”

  “She has something you want. Worse, you know it’s within your reach.” He reached out his arm to illustrate his point. “And that makes you crazy with fear.”

  She snorted. “Make up your mind. Am I jealous, afraid or yearning? Pick one.”

  “You, my darling, are all three.”

  “I can’t figure you out. Why are you doing this?” She shook her head. “Of all people, you are the last one I would have dreamed would play the love card.”

  “It’s not a card, darling, and this isn’t a game. I think I’ve finally found the woman I was always certain I’d meet. It was a bit of a surprise that she turned out to be you, but there it is.”

  She straightened, tossed back her hair. “So, what are you saying? You want to marry me?”

  He looked at her for a long time. “And what if I am?”

  Her skin started to prickle all over, as though she were breaking out in hives.

  “If you believe in love and marriage so much, then why did George and Max both warn me that you’re a womanizer? Why are you always in the wedding party but never the one getting married?”

  “Because I never found the right woman.” He rested back on his elbows. “I wouldn’t keep turning up in wedding parties if I didn’t believe in and respect the institution, now would I?”

  “I don’t know. Wouldn’t you?”

  “No. Give me credit for some integrity.”

  “So, you’re saying that in all this time you’ve never met a woman you wanted to marry?”

  “I always believed that I’d meet a girl one day, and I’d know. Pow! There’d be some cosmic bang, sparks would shower the air and I’d know that she was the one.”

  “You mean you’re a total romantic?” She was horrified. She felt she’d been led astray somehow, lied to in the most basic way, but of course he’d never lied. She’d merely assumed that his lengthy bachelordom meant one thing, when, in fact, it meant another.

  He grimaced. “It sounds a bit soft, when you put it that way, but yes, I suppose I am. In the last couple of years, I admit, I began to feel that
it wouldn’t happen after all.”

  She almost dreaded what would come next, but still had to ask. “And?”

  His smile was tender, and uncomfortably intimate. “And then I met you.”

  “I don’t recall seeing sparks flying, or a cosmic shakeup when we met.”

  “If you’d had a potato hit you in the balls, believe me you’d have felt a cosmic shakeup, and seen stars.”

  She grinned, as he’d meant her to, and the atmosphere lightened a little. But she also felt utterly confused and vaguely wronged. “I don’t know what to say.”

  He turned his head, regarding her. “At the risk of sounding ridiculous, can I ask if you felt anything at all?”

  “When we first met?”

  “Mmm.”

  She thought back to the first moments when he’d come across her, irritable and twitchy in the kitchen. The sense she’d had of instant attraction. Not more. Surely not more. “I felt attracted to you,” she admitted.

  He flopped back onto the bed so he was staring up at the ceiling. “You never think, when you read about meeting the one person who was meant for you, that it might be a one-sided affair. Nobody ever warns you that you might feel love at first sight while the other person thinks, ’what a wally.’”

  “Since I don’t know what a wally is, I certainly never thought of you that way. Like I said, I was … attracted.”

  “You don’t sound very happy about it.”

  “I wasn’t. At the time. Very inconvenient. I felt like I’d been kicked around by life, and then Maxine had manipulated me into coming to England to work on, of all things, a wedding. I admit I was pretty down, and Max is a relentless do-gooder when she thinks she knows best for a person. Which is far too often.”

  “So, your sister encouraged you to shag me?”

  “No. She hated the idea. She thought I’d be too vulnerable, that I might end up hurt again.”

  “And you knew different?”

  Did she? Had she? It was so difficult now to look back to a week ago and recognize anything she’d felt. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what I thought or felt except that you made me feel excited about something and a fling seemed uncomplicated. Easy.”