‘So you didn’t approve of Sarah and Alistair’s marriage?’
He looks at me with the most condescending smirk I’ve ever seen. ‘The list of things women have done that I don’t approve of is endless, Miss Reed.’
‘You’re difficult to please,’ I murmur, wondering why a man like him ever decided to marry in the first place.
‘Did you know my Sarah hanged herself from the ceiling fan in Jasper’s playroom?’ he tosses out so casually, you’d think he was asking me if I thought it might rain. ‘That he’s the one who found her body?’
His tone might be casual, but my reaction is anything but. I flinch as if he’s just dealt me a physical blow, and can feel the blood draining from my face. My God. Tears burn at the backs of my eyes as I imagine how horrific that must have been for Jase. He’d only been six years old!
Harrison quietly laughs, but it’s a bitter, hollow sound. ‘And you wonder why I see women as spineless, vindictive creatures.’
‘She must not have been thinking clearly,’ I force from my tight throat, trying to comprehend how a mother could do that to her child. I swallow again, then pull in another deep breath and lock my burning gaze with his. ‘And you know as well as I do that that’s not Sarah on those canvases.’
‘No, it’s not,’ he agrees, resuming his walk around the room.
‘It’s not your wife, either.’
He arches an eyebrow at me from over his shoulder. ‘You’ve done your homework, Miss Reed.’
‘Enough to know that Sarah and Janine were both brunettes. And from what I’ve read, your wife was a mild-mannered woman who weathered your moods with a grace you didn’t deserve.’
‘That’s one way of putting it,’ he mutters under his breath.
‘So then it was someone you knew before you married Janine.’
‘Who says I didn’t have an affair?’ he drawls, stopping for a moment to drop his second only partially smoked cigarette on to the floor, which is bizarre on so many levels. Once he’s ground it out, he continues his odd stroll around the room as I follow behind him, his attention focused on his paintings as he goes on. ‘Who says I didn’t have endless affairs? Who says I wasn’t fucking a younger woman in my studio when Janine set the precedent for the women in this family and downed an entire bottle of sleeping pills upstairs in her bedroom?’
I’d read that Harrison’s wife and daughter both died in tragic accidents, but never was it mentioned that both women had taken their own lives. Swallowing against the lump of shock in my throat, I reach deep for my courage and say, ‘Maybe you were. Maybe you cheated with hundreds of women. But they didn’t mean anything to you, the same as your wife. Because no one has meant anything to you in years, by your own design.’
He stops, but doesn’t look my way. ‘You’re not short of opinions, are you, Miss Reed?’
‘When an artist puts their inner demons on a canvas and shows it to the world, they’re inviting us to peel back the layers and look inside. That’s even truer when the artist gives the world such a disturbing view of those demons. You want us to look at the canvas and feel, hurt, bleed. But when something makes us bleed, we can’t help but wonder how the weapon was forged.’
He lights yet another cigarette, then turns to face me, his dark eyes drilling hard into mine. ‘An artist makes a creation and gives it to the world. Some may like it, some may hate it. And the world is welcome to their opinions. To their praise and their rants. They’re welcome to be cruel or kind, and they will be both, often at the same time. But no matter their response, my work is done when the paint has dried. I owe them no explanations. Art is an engine, art is a mirror, art is a journey,’ he states in a low voice, lifting the cigarette to his lips. ‘But if you see art as a doorway into my soul, then consider that door slammed. Your eyes and curiosity have no claim to the meat and core of me.’
‘The world will continue to write a truth for you built on a mountain of conjecture.’
‘Let them,’ he sighs through a cloud of smoke. ‘What do I care about the world?’
I can tell that we’re done here, but I can’t walk away without saying, ‘Whoever she was, does she deserve this? Does she deserve your hate and your rage? Or does she deserve to live the rest of her life in peace, without your monsters breathing down her neck?’
He can’t quite hide the scowl that twitches between his brows, and I know I’ve struck a nerve. And in that moment, I see the true driving force of this man’s work as clearly as if he’s spoken the word himself: regret. He’s drowning in it, battered by it, like a cancer inside his body that’s consuming him from the inside out. Somewhere along the way, one or two or countless times, this man made choices that led to where he is now. Alone. Unloved. So bitter it haloes him like a toxic cloud.
In the end, loss is something that affects us all, rich or poor, loved or unloved. We can’t change it, can’t stop it. All we can do is control the circumstances of its birth. At the end of our days, will we regret that we’ve experienced loss because we made the wrong decisions . . . or because we made the right ones? Will we have taken chances and enjoyed the good in our world while we had it . . . or will we have painted it black before the color ever even had a chance to touch us?
I almost stumble, I’m so overwhelmed by everything burning through me, blazing and bright, breaking and shattering pieces in every corner of my being. I’m seeing so clearly now it hurts. Seeing that I’ve used my past to breed a wall of prejudice that I thought would protect me, but instead, just keeps pushing me farther and farther away from the real world. From the good things that come into my life, whether they’ll be there forever . . . or only for a matter of days.
When I’m back in San Diego, wouldn’t I rather regret the loss of something beautiful than the emptiness of something that never even was? That I was too cowardly to grab on to and enjoy while I had the chance?
I’ve been given a stolen moment in time with a man who truly gets me . . . and I don’t want to waste that. Yeah, I might want to keep Jasper Beckett forever, but just because I can’t doesn’t mean I have to pretend that we haven’t been given this time together now. When I’m old and gray and taking my last breaths, I want to look back and remember beautiful losses that were vivid and full of color – not an empty wasteland of nothing.
Needing to get to Jase, I head for the door and open it, but stop just before I leave the room. Looking back, I say, ‘To thank you for your time, Mr Harrison, I’m going to clue you in on something you’ve obviously been too blind to see.’
‘And what’s that?’ he asks, the way he arches one eyebrow reminding me so much of his grandson.
‘Jase – you’re wrong about him.’
‘Am I?’
‘He’s not like them. He’s not like anyone I’ve ever known.’
‘He’s Alistair’s. Like father, like—’
‘Bullshit,’ I say with a harsh laugh, cutting him off. ‘He’s nothing like his father. But you don’t have a clue, do you? Because you’ve never crawled out of your misery long enough to learn one goddamn thing about him.’
‘And you think that you do? That you know him?’
I lift my chin, hoping my conviction is written over every inch of my face. ‘I know there’s a goodness in him that judgmental idiots like us don’t deserve. But unlike you, I’m not going to waste what little time I’ve got left with him.’
As I walk out of the gallery, I realize that I mean those last words more than I’ve ever meant anything I’ve said in my entire life. They play on a continual loop in my head as Anna drives me the short distance back to Beckett House, and my pulse is racing as I thank her and quickly start up the stairs.
The front door opens as soon as I reach the top step, and Jase grabs my hand, tugging me inside. We’re alone in the foyer, and as I stare up into his handsome face, I can’t for the life of me focus on anything other than what I want from him. What I need.
‘Jase,’ I whisper, pressing my free hand against the cen
ter of his chest, over the thundering beat of his heart. ‘Take me back to your room and keep me there until we have to leave.’
He sucks in a sharp breath, and the look he gives me is so fucking hot I feel burned.
Scorched.
God, I don’t know how I’m not melting into a puddle of molten, liquid lust on the floor.
Without a single word, his hold on my hand tightens – but we’ve taken only one step toward the staircase when Caroline enters the foyer on her stiletto heels, her expression pinched with rage.
‘Why in the hell aren’t you in the garden?’ she snaps. ‘The wedding’s about to begin.’
Chapter Eight
EMMY
I’ve never known a wedding to be such a long, uneasy affair. Honestly, it takes forever to get through the ceremony and the elaborate photographs, and I’m torn the entire time between wanting to drag Jase upstairs, where I can rip that delicious suit off his mouthwatering body, and pushing poor Lottie toward the door, shouting, ‘Run! Get the hell out of here!’
Unfortunately, I can’t do either. Jase and I are both aware of the fact that we can’t disappear until the bride and groom do, and Lottie is a grown woman, capable of making her own decisions. It’s not my place to tell her that she’s making the biggest mistake of her life. But I can tell that more than a few of the guests here are thinking it – including Callan – and it fills a part of me with sadness, while the rest is consumed by need. A burning, pulsing need that threatens to make me say something outrageous, like Jase, take me upstairs and fuck me until I can’t even remember what city I live in.
If I say it, I know he’ll do it. And we still have the freaking luncheon and toasts to get through!
I only take a few sips of my champagne, wanting to be completely clearheaded when he takes me apart. I don’t want a single second of the memory to be blurred when I’m back at home in San Diego, missing the hell out of him.
We’re standing off to the side of the crowd while everyone’s trying to find their seats in the reception marquee, far enough away that we can’t be overheard, and I seriously need something to help me focus. So I say, ‘Are you ever going to tell me what happened last night?’
He sighs and works his jaw in that way that men do when they’re tense. ‘My family is fucked up, Em.’
‘Jase, whatever happened, I’m not going to judge you for it. I know you’re nothing like them.’
He exhales a rough breath of air, his narrowed gaze focused on the head table, where his cousin sits with Lottie. ‘A nineteen-year-old girl showed up at the front door last night in tears,’ he tells me in a low voice. ‘She’s six months pregnant.’
‘Oh, God,’ I whisper.
‘Yeah. Seems she works as a maid in a building in Edinburgh where Oliver keeps a flat. He spends a lot of time up there when he’s pretending to work, but really he’s been spending all his time with her. The girl, Grace, thought he was going to marry her, until her mother caught sight of his and Lottie’s wedding announcement in the paper. Grace showed up last night in hysterics, demanding an explanation.’
‘Is she all right?’
‘She will be,’ he says with another heavy sigh. ‘Callan had seen Oliver take her into the library, and we got there just in time to hear the little prick tell her that men like him don’t marry “the help”. When she pointed out that she’d heard Lottie is a waitress, he told her that was only so Lottie can pay for her degree, and that she hadn’t stooped to scrubbing his piss out of a toilet. I started to tell him to shut his mouth, but Grace picked up one of those heavy-arse tumblers that Alistair’s always leaving around the house and threw it at his head. Thing hit him so hard it knocked him clear off his feet, and when he got up he had blood running down the side of his face.’
I normally don’t condone violence, but I find myself sending Grace a mental high-five. ‘Is that why he looks so nauseous today? I thought he was just hungover.’
‘It’s probably both,’ he mutters. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the fucker’s got one hell of a concussion.’
I shift my attention from a queasy-looking Oliver to his new wife. ‘Lottie knows, doesn’t she?’ I ask, noticing the way she keeps shifting away from him whenever he leans too close.
‘By the time Callan and I got to the library, Oliver and Grace had been screaming loud enough that it’d drawn a crowd out in the hallway. I’m sure most of them could figure out what was going on, and one of them was Lottie’s maid of honor, so I’m guessing she knows. She just must not have cared enough to call things off.’
I shake my head in disbelief. ‘That’s . . . crazy.’
‘I know,’ he murmurs, nodding at an older gentleman who’s walking by.
‘What happened to Grace?’
‘Callan and I were worried about her, so we drove her to the local A&E. We waited while they checked on the baby, and when she was given the all-clear but told to lie down and relax, we took her to a hotel by the station and got her a room for the night, along with a first-class train ticket to Edinburgh this morning. She should be home in a few hours, and if she’s smart, she’ll file a paternity suit against Oliver, get some money for her and her kid, and never see his pathetic arse again.’
‘Do you think she’ll do it?’
‘I don’t know,’ he admits with a grim twist of his lips. ‘Right now, the poor girl believes that her heart is broken, so she’s not thinking clearly. But she finally saw Oliver’s true colors last night, so hopefully that’s helped get her head out of the clouds.’
From his words, I get the feeling that Jase doesn’t put a lot of stock in deeper emotions, like romantic love – not that I can blame him. I find it a difficult concept to understand myself, having never felt it before. But while I do believe in its existence, I’m not so sure that he does. And if I’d been surrounded by his crazy-ass family all my life, I might feel the same way. Hell, my own family is nearly as twisted as his. But I have friends, both in London and back at home, who are in true, committed relationships where love is the driving force, and it’s undoubtedly a beautiful thing.
It’s also something I find it difficult not to feel envious of, even though it’s the last thing I’m looking for at this point in my life. My time with Jase this weekend has made it clear that I need to work harder at tearing down my protective walls and opening myself up a bit more to the world around me, but I imagine it’s going to be a long process and isn’t something that will just change for me overnight.
As he lifts the glass in his hand to take a drink of his iced water, I glance at his bruised knuckles. His older cousin is sporting a nasty-looking shiner today that he’s tried to conceal with make-up, but it hasn’t worked. When Jase notices I’m staring at his hand, he says, ‘Right after Grace clocked Oliver with the tumbler, Cameron showed up and started laying into her. I tried to get him to leave, but he took a swing at me, so I knocked the bastard out.’
I lift my gaze to his, but he keeps talking before I can say anything. ‘Not my finest moment, I know.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that. Call me bloodthirsty, but it sounds like the jackass got exactly what he deserved,’ I drawl, lifting my glass of champagne to my lips. ‘And, hey, just think, only one more day of this crazy wedding, and then I’ll be gone and you’ll be able to get back to your normal life where you don’t have to rescue Americans from muggers or deal with your obnoxious cousins.’
I’d hoped he would laugh, but that’s not the reaction I get. Instead, he takes my free hand and holds it tight in his, as if he’s trying to keep me right where I am. Or at least that’s what I’m fantasizing it means when he leads me over to our table. We’re sitting with almost the exact same group from last night, and even though I know the food must be incredible, judging by everyone’s reactions, I don’t taste anything that passes my lips. Jase and I are in a focused little bubble, counting down each second, simply going through the motions until we can finally be alone.
When the last toast is made, an
d the bride and groom take to the dance floor, I feel the hunger building in Jase’s body kick into overdrive. The music starts, and I can barely keep my breathing normal as I say, ‘I was right about the song. So what do I win?’
He leans over and puts his warm lips against my ear. ‘My mouth between your legs, Emmy, for as long as you can take it.’
My breath hitches as I blush, and the last of Jase’s restraint snaps. There’s still the cutting of the cake to get through, but we won’t be here for it. Taking hold of my hand, he pulls me to my feet and out of the marquee, pushing me against the wall the second we enter the house through the terrace entrance.
This part of the mansion is empty and still, and with the first touch of his tongue against mine, my senses surge back to life, his taste so devastating it makes me cry out. I want to swallow him whole. Want to take every part of him into my mouth and make him shudder with pleasure. Make his beautiful head shoot back, the tendons in his strong throat straining, as I suck his thick cock so hard and deep it destroys him.
‘Damn,’ he curses against my mouth, as if he’s just tasted every one of my filthy, provocative thoughts on my lips. ‘We need privacy for this, Em.’
The next thing I know, he’s tugging me down the central hallway, and I’m practically running in my heels to keep up with him. Then we’re upstairs, and he shoves the bedroom door closed behind us, locks it, and turns to look at me. I just stand there in the middle of the room, panting, flushed, unable to take my greedy eyes off him. Both sets of French doors have been left open, letting in the humid summer breeze, the band’s bluesy rendition of Muse’s ‘Starlight’ filling the air. I can feel the throb of the bass in my body, my pulse pumping a hard, heavy beat in my veins, my skin so sensitive I swear I can feel the heat of his heavy-lidded stare like a physical touch.
‘Lose the fucking dress,’ he growls, his jacket and waistcoat already dropped on the floor, his big hands working at his tie. ‘I want you in nothing but skin.’
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