by Orla Bailey
“Listen, woman, and listen well. I don’t hate you. I love you. Do you hear me? I love you. And you love me. That’s all that matters. Everything else is unimportant.”
I scoff. “And where does Amanda fit into that seamless situation?”
“Nowhere.”
“You want your cake and eat it but that won’t work for either woman in your sordid little triangle. Why do you think she and I despise each other? Don’t you care what you’re doing to either one of us? Are you really so caught up in your own ego?” I stare at him. “I don’t know you at all.”
“You know me, Tabitha, and I know you. Do you really think I could make love to you the way I do if I was having sex with Amanda?”
Unfair question. “You’re insatiable.”
“For you. Only for you. Think about it.”
“I never stop thinking about it. Everything looks bad.”
“And we’ve learnt plenty about the way things look, haven’t we, Tabitha?” His voice is hard, his throat muscles twitching involuntarily with tension. His lips cut a grimly decisive scorn across his face. “You want me to trust you, no matter what, but you can’t offer me that same respect?”
“You’re turning it on its head; trying to make me out to be the guilty one. Is that how this works? I’ve never dealt with a cheat before.”
He bristles visibly. “You’re not dealing with one now.”
I shrug my shoulders in a deliberately off-handed manner. “How should I know? I’ve hardly been involved with anyone. It was always you.” I didn’t think I had any more tears left to cry but I do. A well of sorrow is very deep.
I watch him unstiffen; the hard lines blur. “Tabby, baby. Don’t. Please don’t cry. I hate to see you so distressed. Damn it, I want to hold you. Make this better. At least wait until I get back so we can talk properly.”
I seem unable to stop myself.
“Please don’t cry anymore, kitten.”
“I can’t –” I sniff, tugging up the bottom edge of the top I’m wearing to swipe at my eyes.
When he releases a strangled sound, I snap my head back to see his lips quirking in and out of a hesitant smile. He indicates with his forefinger and his chin but his eyes remain firmly below mine. “You might want to remember what you’re wearing.”
With no underwear beneath the flimsy little cotton top, I’m flashing him. I cover up, scowling as he tugs the wry bemusement from his expression. I’m here to tell him I’m done, not to provide a floor-show.
“You shouldn’t do that to an insatiable man who’s been deprived of sex with the woman he loves as long as I have.”
I glower, unwilling to let him hook me in with his practiced Irish blarney. “Don’t tell me she isn’t putting out after all the effort you went to?”
“She’d put out plenty –”
My eyes widen in horror at his admission.
“–If I asked her to.”
I wanted honesty but not that much.
“We both know that’s the truth,” he admits.
“Bastard.”
“Am I?” Jack asks. “You want me to be frank, don’t you? You just don’t trust me to handle the situation with honour. To do what’s right. The fact is I’m not asking her to put out. We’re strictly separate bedrooms. Strictly. Christ, I even lock my door at night just to avoid any misunderstandings.” His expression suggests even he thinks he might have acted like a chump. “However it would seem any misunderstanding isn’t between me and Amanda but between me and you. I’ve acted with honour.”
“Your sense of honour hurts.” He needn’t think he can turn this into some joke.
“Your lack of faith hurts,” he counters.
“It’s your secretive actions that have caused the problem. You want me to believe nothing’s going on but how can I when you go to such lengths to hide the facts?”
“Innocent ones. Like those you hid over that so-called birthday surprise at Claridge’s.”
Is he such an accomplished liar or did he really have nothing to do with that, after all? Can I give him the benefit of my doubt? “Then we should both have learnt a lesson.”
“If I’m to believe your version of events.” He pauses reacting to my stunned expression. “Which I do. So why can’t you believe mine?”
“At least I explained everything to you as soon as you gave me the chance. But you made me apologise to Amanda, which shows you think she’s innocent.” Or complicit. He might keep saying he trusts me but his actions contradict his words.
“Perhaps I just wanted her to think I believed her.”
I stare back at him. Did he? Was he testing her? Tricking her? Leading her into possibly revealing the truth? “You can’t believe both of us.” I challenge. “And you want me to accept what you’re telling me now but you’re offering me nothing. At least I had an explanation. You’re offering no explanation at all. Do you even have one?” I toss him a mocking glance.
“I’m trying to protect you.”
I’m incredulous. “That’s the great justification for taking your lover away with you and keeping it from me?”
“Ex-lover.” The word sits heavily on his tongue.
“Perhaps you’re protecting me from the fact you still want her to be? Perhaps you can’t make up your mind between us? Is she demanding you choose too?”
He rolls his eyes. “You’re determined to think the worst, aren’t you?”
“Like you did when you saw me with Laurent in Brittany? Or found me at Claridge’s? What about simply walking across a car park with Phil? You presume the worst case scenario every single time.”
He sighs. “I’m a jealous man.” His voice is soft. He almost sounds ashamed he would resort to such base reactions at finding me in the company of any other man. “Where you’re concerned.”
I recall him saying that even in the past he followed me because he couldn’t let me go.
“You confuse me. You say you’re jealous yet you spend time with Amanda? It doesn’t make sense.” I’m groping for a logical explanation. “It’s more like you want me to be jealous.”
“Are you?” He sounds so hopeful I don’t know whether to laugh or punch him on the nose. I make him wait. “I’m doing everything possible to make this work. Look, I may over-react sometimes.”
“–Sometimes?” I think about Phil; about Luc.
His eyes flash over mine. “Alright. More than sometimes. But I rein it back as much as I can because I always believe in the end you love me and don’t want to hurt me. Because deep-down, I know you, Tabitha. If you can’t show me that same understanding, then you’ll drive us apart in the end no matter what we both want.”
It all sounds so plausible, I have to remind myself what is happening here. “You didn’t trust me enough to tell me you were taking Amanda away with you.” I narrow my eyes at him. I deserve a better explanation.
“Okay, it was a mistake. I did keep it from you. But I did it with good intentions. I didn’t want you to read anything into it that wasn’t there.”
If I’m truthful I would have kicked off like a donkey if he’d told me beforehand. The trouble is he always sounds so plausible. That’s what makes me give in to him so much and gets me hurt in the process.
“I don’t suppose I need to ask how you found out,” he asks.
“Amanda took great delight in telling me. Especially about all the fantastic sex you were both having.” I close my mind to the possibility for my own sanity but I’m watching him intently for the faintest sign of guilt nevertheless.
He cringes. “Ouch. That must have hurt,” he concedes.
“It was meant to.”
“It never happened. I swear to you. It is never going to happen either. There’s no-one else for me. You’re the one I want to share my body with. Look at you. Why wouldn’t I choose you over her every single time?”
I cringe, hearing irony where perhaps there is none; thinking of the awful sight I must present in my shabby makeshift PJs with my smudged masca
ra, red eyes and wayward hair. Comparing that lot to Amanda’s, no doubt, perpetually perfect appearance makes me want to crawl under the covers but I bite back a grin that escapes all of a sudden.
“You still haven’t told me why you took her with you, if it wasn’t for the illicit sex.” I arch an impudent eyebrow at him, feeling sturdier by the second.
“I’m storing that eyebrow up for later, kitten. Don’t think I’m going to forget it.”
“You never forget anything. Except to tell your girlfriend you’re taking your ex abroad with you. And you still haven’t told me why.” If I have to nag him to death to get my answer, I will.
“I told you. To protect you.”
“Well that backfired. Royally.” I pause in vain, waiting for him to jump right in and lift himself off the hook. “So are you going to tell me what you mean or are you still holding out for unquestioning trust?”
He laughs. “That would be nice.” He lets the humour drain from his face. “I wouldn’t do anything deliberately to hurt you. I love you. You believe that, don’t you?” He sighs in frustration as I maintain my shield of silence. “But I suppose I ought to clear up any misunderstanding of this magnitude.”
“Are you playing word games with me, Keogh?”
He smirks. “If I wasn’t on the other side of the planet I can think of a few games I’d rather be playing with you right now. And the only words they contain are unfit for my lady’s ears.”
“Not getting enough sex from your ex?” I’m only half joking. Deep down I’m still probing piranha infested waters with a pinkie.
He admonishes me with a glower. “None from her and not nearly enough elsewhere. But I plan to rectify that immediately.”
Is he suggesting what I think he’s suggesting? I shake my head. “No way. Not happening. Tell me why you took Amanda to Singapore with you.”
“Still no trust, Caid?”
“Still keeping secrets, Keogh?”
He shakes his head and narrows his eyes at my stubbornness. Immoveable mountain meets irresistible force.
“If it’s all so innocent, why can’t you just tell me?” I can’t get past it. “What are you trying to hide?”
“I’m not hiding anything. Amanda isn’t important to what we have together.”
“Are you kidding me? She’s created every last bit of trouble between us because she wants you back and she wants rid of me. It seems to me she’s getting her way.”
“Only because you let her get inside your head. Only because you don’t trust me to be faithful. This is exactly why I didn’t tell you about it. I don’t want you to feel like this.”
“Stop over-protecting me. I’m not eighteen any longer. You don’t have to wait for me to grow up any more. Would you want me to protect you from the truth?”
“No! I want your honesty.”
“Then give me yours. Treat me like an equal; like someone who’s important enough to you to talk to, to share things with, no matter how unpleasant they are. That’s what I need from you.”
“Can you handle it?”
“Can you?”
“Everything?”
I can tell he’s cross with me for pushing him on this one, when he’s made up his mind but I won’t be swayed. “Everything.”
“Well you asked for it. Amanda has tried every trick in the book over the last two days to lure me to her bed. Or get herself invited into mine.” He pauses at my silence. “Are you happier for knowing that?”
Absolutely not. It plays to all my fears. Especially as I can well see, even now, he’s tempering the truth. Hearing him admit what I know in such stark, brazen terms pulls me up short. It delivers a good right hook to the chin but one I asked for. Demanded. I’m under no illusion this is how Amanda operates – why else would I be so upset about them alone together? Yet it’s still a shock to hear Jack admit it outright. It makes the situation more treacherous somehow.
I can’t stop imagining the means she will employ. The same things I would have done once: glimpses of a naked body; softly spoken sexual innuendo, disguised as a jest; an offer to massage tense muscles in a seductively enticing manner or an overt proposal to relieve his frustration – no strings attached. Amanda would lay her hands on him relentlessly, her purple claws to his flesh, until he couldn’t help but respond mechanically. They were lovers once, after all. They know each other’s bodies – needs and desires – only too well.
I steady my voice so as not to betray my turmoil. “No, I’m not happy that Amanda is trying to screw you.” I phrase it as insultingly as I can. “It eats me up inside. But I’m happier you told me before I learnt it some other way.” I hate her so much for making me wonder if he really resisted her advances. He’s not likely to tell me if he didn’t, is he? I guess I’ll never know.
“Tell me what you’re thinking, Tabitha.”
“Nothing.” I’m too busy replaying the whole hideous scenario in every possible variant.
“Trust and sharing works both ways,” he reminds me. “Tell me.” It’s a clear demand. “We’re not leaving things this way.”
“You must have found her attractive and exciting enough once. You were lovers after all. Why should that change?”
“What you’re really asking me is if I refused her propositions, aren’t you?”
I can’t admit it out loud but suspect my face betrays everything he needs to know.
“It won’t matter what I say will it, Tabitha? You’ll make up your own mind. I had hoped I meant more to you than that.”
He does. Oh, God, he does. Can’t he see that’s why I’m being gnawed away whole? “Jack.”
“What?” He sounds so let down. How did this get so twisted around that it’s him acting the injured party? He looks burdened, dropping his chin to his chest as if he’s suddenly too weary to field any more conflict.
I can’t bear to see him this way. “I’m lousy at trust.” I didn’t anticipate such a future but my parents left me, by dying, when I was just a child. Then Jack abandoned me on the brink of womanhood. And Harry passed on far too soon. I haven’t yet learnt to trust anyone but I want to trust Jack. I really do. Can there be love between us without it? I know there can’t be.
He raises his head until those Arctic blue eyes capture mine again. “Yes. You are.”
We stare at each other.
“I want to abandon myself to trust. For you.”
He seems to relax. “I wouldn’t compromise myself over this to anyone else, do you know that? I don’t do explanations.” He huffs a sort of harsh laugh. “And you doubt that I love you? You change me, woman. You change me.”
“Jack?”
“You were mad at me for misinterpreting Phil’s motives. Even madder that I put security cameras into your office. But I was doing it to protect you from harm. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you. Things have been so crazy recently I wanted to build a wall of steel around you. I needed to. It was for me too.”
“Is that a confession?”
His laugh is without humour. “I need you, Tabitha. I want you. In my life. In my head. In my bed. I’ve always needed you. I need you far more than you need me.”
“That must be pretty damn exponential.”
“If you swear in front of me again I’ll fly back this minute and deal with your language issues personally.”
“Promise?”
He grants me a half-smile for my clumsy attempt to tell him how crazy I am for him.
“When I knew I had to come to Singapore, I knew I wouldn’t be around to protect you. That’s why I had the cameras installed overnight.”
“That must have cost you a packet.”
“And then some. But you’re worth everything. Your safety is always on my mind. More so since I let you down.”
“When did you ever let me down?”
“I let you leave after our boat trip. I shouldn’t have done that. You ended up in that hotel. Alone. I should have been there to save you.”
“It was
n’t your fault.”
“It was. I should have protected you. That’s why I got so crazy when I saw Phil man-handling you like that.”
“He was walking me to the bus stop.” I want him to get things in perspective. But how can he, when I can’t do it myself?
“You should have waited for the car,” he rebukes.
“I’m a big girl. I know how to get home on a bus by myself.”
“Even so. You wouldn’t let me protect you the way I needed to. It went against my better judgement but I listened. I turned all the cameras off. But I wasn’t going to be around for a few days and I had to do something about that. For my own peace of mind.”
“I don’t understand. What has that got to do with you and Amanda?”
“There is no me and Amanda!”
“You know what I mean.”
“You’ve told me she’s out to get you but you won’t accept security measures. It drives me insane. So I made an instant decision to remove the source of danger.”
Is that why I haven’t been able to discover Phil’s whereabouts? What the hell has Jack done with him? “And?”
“Amanda poses a threat to you.”
He believes me. “So why did you make me apologise to her?” I’m still bitter about it.
“It put her off the scent. Allowed me to keep a closer eye on her. Perhaps prompt her to reveal her hand.”
“Did she?” Hope flares that I’ll finally have all the proof I need.
“She’s far too smart for that.”
I’m disappointed to even suppose it might have been that easy. “So?”
“I phoned her from the car after I dropped you off at work and told her to throw some stuff in a bag. I picked her up on the way to the airport.”
“You didn’t plan to take her with you before that?”
He gives me a look of mild reproach. “No, I didn’t. The only thing I planned in advance of my trip was to make your office cameras non-operational and write a few cards.”