Before

by Nicola Marsh

  Jack McVeigh graced TV screens the world over these days, a constant reminder of what she’d once wanted and couldn’t have. With that bad boy stubble, murky green eyes and lazy smile, no great surprise he’d won the hearts of viewers glued to his gourmet cooking show with the same ease he’d won hers.

  Pity the celebrity chef preferred to break hearts along with eggs.

  “Trust me, babe. If this chef can’t get into your panties, no one will.”

  Unease rippled down Jess’s spine like a premonition. “Who’s this mystery guy?”

  Zazz glanced at her watch. “You’ll see for yourself in five minutes. I asked him to meet us here.”

  Jess ignored the persistent tingle that maybe, just maybe, Zazz’s chef could be Jack.

  Impossible, considering Jack was based in Sydney and had enough gigs to keep him busy into the next century. Yeah, she Googled him, so what?

  Besides, Zazz had said the chef catering the wedding was an old friend of Dorian’s so the guy had to be the same vintage.

  She didn’t know what bothered her more: the sliver of disappointment she wouldn’t see Jack face to face after a decade or the inhuman leap of her libido at the thought of a little one-on-one island time with the sexy chef.

  “I need to check my final show times with Chantal.” Zazz slipped her dainty feet into a pair of marabou feather mules and tightened the sash on her robe. “I’ll be back in time for our meeting.”

  “What’s his name—” Jess called out to Zazz’s retreating back, wishing she had half the hip wiggle the sassy dancer had.

  When Jess walked, men didn’t stumble or gawk. She didn’t warrant second glances or come-ons. She achieved exactly what she wanted to—anonymity and serenity, two qualities far removed from her boisterous, cringe-worthy mom.

  With a sigh, she stood and wandered around the room, her fingertips stroking the satins and silks, savoring the lush fabrics she could never wear in a million years.

  Her fingers snagged on a set of gold spangled pasties complete with sparkly-fringed tassels and she picked them up, held them over her nipples, and grimaced.

  So not her.

  “Hey Jess.”

  Shock ripped through the carefully constructed poise Jess had honed to a fine art over the years as her hands fell to her sides.

  She’d envisaged her first meeting with Jack over the years. Kinda inevitable, with her brother Reid being his best mate.

  In her scenarios, their first meeting after a decade didn’t involve nipple pasties. Or a smoother-than-whisky voice that made her palms sweat, her skin prickle and her inner bombshell want to strip on the spot.

  “Hey you.”

  Not quite the scintillating opening gambit she’d imagined. Then again, having this big, bronze Aussie cross the room to stand less than a foot away had thrown her brain into chaos and her body into meltdown.

  “Nice tassels.”

  His fingertip toyed with the nipple tassels hanging limply in her hand and she stiffened.

  In the past, she would’ve responded with a blush. But after what he’d done to her? The way he’d humiliated her? Not a chance in hell she’d give him the satisfaction of seeing her cave again.

  She held them over her breasts, vindicated when those impossibly green eyes widened, the pupils constricting. “Care to see them on?”

  He took a step back. “Don’t play with fire.”

  She took a step forward. “Maybe I’m in the mood to get hot?”

  He swore. “You and me? Not going to happen.”

  “So you’ve said before,” she drawled, giving the tassels a twirl for good measure, reveling in his discomfort as he tore his gaze away from her breasts. “But a decade is a long time.”

  “Not frigging long enough,” he muttered, casting a desperate glance at the door.

  So she ramped up the tension.

  “These?” She waved the tassels in his face, deliberately taunting. “Tip of the iceberg in my new wardrobe. You should see me in the purple suspenders and sheer, crotchless—”

  “Enough.” A low, warning growl she had no intention of obeying. “Is this the way you treated your fiancé? Not surprised he bolted.”

  Just like that, her bravado faded, replaced by the dogged insecurity that tainted her botched relationship with Max, and fury at Jack for judging her.

  “Fuck you.” She eyeballed him, willing away the incriminating tears stinging her eyes.

  That’s when she saw the glimmer of victory in his eyes and knew he’d deliberately insulted her to push her away, like he had ten years earlier.

  He turned and headed for the door, but not before she heard his murmured, “Babe, you have no idea how much I wish for that.”

  Chapter Two

  Jack wanted to punch something. Hard.

  He settled for pacing the ridiculously narrow hallway backstage at Burlesque Bombshell.

  The revue venue channeled a bordello with its crimson walls and filmy curtains and muted lights. And then there was Jess, standing in front of a mirror holding a pair of pasties to her nipples…

  He stumbled and kicked out at a stray lead from a pink-fringed lamp tucked into a blind corner.

  Wasn’t Jess’s fault he’d taken one look at her with those frigging pasties and imagined her modeling them, naked. He’d been hard in an instant, his cock’s betraying response catapulting him back a decade when all he had to do was look at the naïve Yank to get a hard-on of crippling proportions.

  Looked like nothing had changed.

  He’d acted like a jerk to cover his reaction, to ensure she backed off before he did something stupid like haul her into his arms, back her up against the velvet wall and enter her.

  She’d caught him off guard. His excuse, he was sticking to it. Anything to ease the guilt burning his gullet like acid at the hurt bewilderment he’d glimpsed in her expressive brown eyes.

  He’d lashed out deliberately, an instinct that had served their tension-fraught relationship well during her one month vacation in outback OZ ten years ago.

  For as much as he’d wanted the refined, softly spoken girl with the shy smile and steady stare, she’d been off-limits. Way out of his league.

  He owed Reid Harper, big-time. No way would he screw up with Reid by screwing his sister.

  So he’d lied. Pushed Jess away. Done everything he could to stop her hanging around him.

  She hadn’t listened. Somehow she’d seen through his act, had seen down to his soul sometimes. And they’d talked and laughed and eventually kissed.

  It had been inevitable.

  And wrong.

  Now he had to march back into that barf-worthy frou-frou room and apologize. Because Reid had asked him to cater Dorian’s wedding as a favor and Dorian had said he had to meet the wedding planner here today at five.

  Which only added up to one thing. He’d be working with Jess to ensure this wedding went off without a hitch.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. It did little to alleviate the pressure building there. Along with Reid, Dorian had had a hand in launching his career into the stratosphere.

  What Reid had seen in a lowly outback station cook he’d never know, but the guy had secured him an apprenticeship under a Michelin starred chef in Sydney and he hadn’t looked back.

  Dorian had been the first to invest in him too, with a sizable financial chunk that enabled him to set up Cookie’s, his own restaurant, and build a cult following.

  Jack owed these two men everything.

  He couldn’t let them down.

  Muttering a string of inventive curses under his breath, he squared his shoulders and marched back into the room.

  To find Jess dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. That sight more than anything she’d said earlier hit him like a punch to the gut.

  Feeling worse than a dry-mouthed and desperate blue-tongued lizard slinking through the Simpson Desert, he strode toward her.

  “Jess, I’m really sorry—”

  “Screw you.” He
admired her feistiness as she stared him down and flipped him the bird. “Newsflash. If you can’t take a little heat, get out of the kitchen.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched. “You’re using cooking puns to get rid of me?”

  “I’ll use anything I goddamn like to get rid of you,” she said, a flash of fire darkening her eyes to ebony before she blinked and the telltale cool he remembered returned. “We can’t work together.”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “You’ll get no argument from me.”

  “Okay then.” She nodded. “You leave, I’ll invent an excuse, something along the lines of your rotten green peppercorn rib-eye gave the entire eastern seaboard of Australia food poisoning.”

  “Picking on my signature dish is harsh, don’t you think?”

  “No harsher than deliberately pushing away someone who cares about you.”

  Wow. She’d never been this outspoken back then. He liked the new sassiness. Very sexy.

  Not helping the hard-on situation, dickhead.

  “Why don’t you leave? We’re in Vegas. There’s a wannabe wedding planner on every corner.”

  “I can’t. Zazz trusts Chantal implicitly, and my cousin’s from my hometown.” She plucked at her sleeve cuff, a vulnerable tell he irrationally remembered. “Mom’s the best wedding planner around but she’s sick so I’m it.”

  “How’s Pam doing?”

  “Driving the physical therapists nuts at rehab. Bossing around the nurses. Making life hell for the doctors.”

  He laughed. “Reid said the same.”

  Her eyebrow rose slightly. “You guys still close?”

  “We hang out when our schedules tee up.”

  “Because he never mentions you.”

  Duh. That’s because Jack had made certain of it all those years ago, telling Reid about Jess’s crush on him and how he didn’t want it to affect their friendship.

  Reid had respected him for it. While Jack had felt like a heel, lying to the guy who’d soon become his best mate.

  For Jess’s crush hadn’t been one-sided. They’d had some serious chemistry. Their one explosive kiss had been testament to it.

  Exactly why there could never be a repeat. Jack had spent his childhood and teen years making mistake after mistake, being shunted from one foster family to the next, being a screw up.

  No way in hell would he stuff up the lifeline Reid Harper had offered him. Even if it included pushing away the one woman he’d ever let get close enough to seeing the real him.

  “Guys aren’t real big on chit chat,” he said, gesturing for her to take a seat.

  Standing this close, he could smell lilacs, the memories of the way it had clung to his skin making him want to touch her so badly he ached.

  “Yeah, so I’ve learned.”

  Her slumped shoulders made him want to shake the defeatist out of her and bring back the sass.

  “I presume you’re talking about your ex?”

  “I’d rather not talk about him at all,” she said, the slightest quiver in her neutral tone belying her control.

  “Reid said the guy was an uptight prick.”

  “Reid says a lot of things he shouldn’t.” She shook her head. “I won’t discuss this with you.”

  “Might help to get it off your chest.”

  Poor choice of cliché as his gaze strayed there and bam! The nipple pasties were front and foremost in his mind again.

  “Reid was right.” She sighed, a wistful sound that reached deep into his chest and tweaked at his hardened heart. “Uptight prick sums up Max nicely. Along with mid-life-crisis, philandering bastard.”

  Jack’s hands curled into fists. “He cheated on you?”

  She nodded, the wobble of her bottom lip reaching out to him like nothing else could. If she cried again, he was toast.

  “We’re done and I’m glad.” She sucked in a deep breath. “So, where were we? That’s right, you heading back to Sydney.”

  Grateful for the change of topic so he could regain control of the irrational rage coursing through his body at the thought of any asshole being dumb enough to cheat on Jess, he leaned back in the armchair and draped an arm across the back of it.

  “I’m not leaving.”

  Her chin tilted up. “Neither am I.”

  “Hundred bucks says you can’t last an hour working alongside me.”

  “A thousand says you won’t last a day.” She thrust out her chest for emphasis.

  Damn, she didn’t play fair.

  “Low blow, Jess.” He shifted in his seat. “You can’t go using your sexiness as a weapon.”

  Her eyes widened and her delectable lips parted a fraction. “You think I’m sexy?”

  If he hadn’t heard her tentativeness with his own ears he wouldn’t have believed it. For all her bluster and teasing earlier, she sounded exactly like she had a decade earlier: unsure, hesitant, innocent.

  “Hell, you want me to make a damn list?” His gaze roamed her body and he wrenched it back to her face with effort.

  “Please.”

  How could one whispered word slug him harder than a knockout punch he’d sustained in his last foster home before he’d run away to the outback?

  He shook his head. “I can’t play this game with you.”

  “Why not?” She deliberately focused on his lips, licked hers.

  “Because I’m not a dumbass twenty any more and you’re no longer a naïve eighteen.”

  Rather than backing down as he expected, she did the one thing guaranteed to make his libido sit up and howl.

  She placed her hand on the top of his thigh, one inch shy of his crotch.

  “Don’t sweat it. I’ll have a week on the island to change your mind.”

  “What frigging island?”

  Her teasing, sweet smile filled him with dread. “Didn’t you know? Dorian’s flying us to the wedding venue, his private island in the Caribbean, so we can finalize details.”

  “No way.”

  Fire sparked her eyes to caramel. “Fine. If you’re not up to the challenge…”

  Her fingertips edged closer to detonation zone and he leaped to his feet.

  “Dorian and Zazz are counting on us.” Her smug smile as her gaze zeroed in on his hard-on made him want to haul her over his knees and spank her. Hard. “You can’t say no.”

  His cock twitched in agreement.

  He was so screwed.

  After BRASH, check out Jess’s brother Reid’s story in BLUSH

  Laying it all on the line for love…

  Adele Radcliff has worked hard to erase the sins of her past. The ex-burlesque dancer is now an accountant in Vegas and has her life on track. Until one steamy interlude with her friend’s brother changes everything…

  Reid Harper may be tired of the hand-shaking, back-slapping and baby-kissing, but politics is all he knows. His job consumes him. Until he meets Adele and the gorgeous redhead becomes his new focus.

  Reid wants a relationship, Adele doesn’t. A decision reinforced when Adele discovers she’s pregnant. She has too many secrets to hide and can’t risk Reid getting too close.

  But Reid has other ideas and when he learns the startling truth, how far will he go to prove their future is more important than the past?

  If you’d like to read more of Nicola’s books, they’re available from all e-book suppliers.

  Her complete booklist is here: www.nicolamarsh.com/books.html

  An e-newsletter is also available and she’d love to hear from you: nicola@nicolamarsh.com

  About the Author

  USA TODAY bestselling author Nicola Marsh writes flirty fiction with flair for adults and riveting, spooky stories for teens.

  She has published 43 contemporary romances with Harlequin, Entangled Publishing and indie, and sold over 5 million copies worldwide. Her first mainstream romance BUSTED IN BOLLYWOOD was nominated for Romantic Book of the Year 2012. Her first indie romance, CRAZY LOVE, was a 2012 ARRA finalist.

  Her debut y
oung adult novel, a supernatural thriller BANISH, released with Harlequin Teen August 2013, and her YA urban fantasy series kicks off with SCION OF THE SUN, November 2013, with Month9Books.

  Her debut new adult novel, BEFORE, releases December 2013.

  She’s also a Waldenbooks, Bookscan and Barnes & Noble bestseller, a 2013 RBY (Romantic Book of the Year) and National Readers’ Choice Award winner, and a multi-finalist for a number of awards including the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, HOLT Medallion, Booksellers’ Best, Golden Quill, Laurel Wreath, More than Magic and has also won several CataRomance Reviewers’ Choice Awards.

  A physiotherapist for thirteen years, she now adores writing full time, raising her two little heroes, sharing fine food with family and friends, and her favorite, curling up with a good book!

  She loves connecting with readers online:

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  https://www.nicolamarsh.blogspot.com