Steve looked surprised. "Of course, if you're Xan's partner, you're very welcome to join us."
"Wouldn't miss it," Jerome said sweetly. He kissed Xan's cheek. "Gotta go, babe. You have a think about everything I said, and when you're ready to admit you were wrong, I'll forgive you with open arms. I'll see you at the party."
Xan wanted to scream, or at least wash his slimy kiss off her face. Instead, she forced herself to remain calm and finish her beer before she headed back to the resort.
FIVE
The whole flight back to Romance Island, Xan debated whether she'd done the right thing or not. Sure, her head and every reasonable thought pointed toward a damn good decision to tell Jerome to bugger off, but if it was so right, why was her tummy clenching so tightly she thought she'd be sick? If she'd had sex at all in the last year, she'd wonder if she might be pregnant, but she was hardly a candidate for an immaculate conception. No religion to speak of, unless you counted her fascination with the deities of Ancient Greece, but that wasn't worship. More...rabid curiosity, fuelled by her father's stories from when she was little.
Shou wisely left her to her thoughts, for which Xan was thankful, until he broke his silence to tell her they were approaching the resort.
Such a relief to be home, Xan thought, before she caught herself. She was lucky to be able to call a luxury resort home, even if her unit was hardly in the same class as Jay's villa or even the standard hotel rooms.
She wanted to burn off some of the energy her body still seemed to buzzing with – one of those fight or flight reflex things, she guessed – and eyed the lagoon as they flew over. It was low tide, and a bit rough. At high tide she wouldn't have minded, but some of that coral was pretty brutal if the currents pushed you into it, and it broke the surface when the tide was as low as it was now. A walk around the island would have to do, she decided. A brisk walk involving several laps around the island.
Shou touched down on the helipad in one of the gentlest landings Xan had ever experienced. She glimpsed her own thunderous expression reflected in the window and almost laughed. Shou evidently didn't want to antagonise her further, or maybe he thought he was the source of her bad mood. As if he'd ever caused anywhere near as much trouble as Jerome did. Even Jay couldn't do that. Sure, Jay was a daily nuisance and the bane of her job, but he was a minor irritant compared to Jerome's ability to turn her life upside down. After all, she'd loved Jerome. Probably still did, at least a tiny bit, which might explain that sick twisted guts feeling. Either that or she'd eaten something off at the brewery, which just wasn't possible.
So she was still in love with Jerome. The two-faced, cheating bastard who possibly had unprotected sex with children. Who didn't deserve her. But who had also flown halfway round the world to apologise for being a wanker, and beg her to take him back. Sort of.
Or so he'd said. He could be a lying bastard as well as a cheating one. Who knew how much he'd changed in the time she'd been away? She'd been so starry-eyed when she last saw him. So eager to travel the world with him so he could teach wherever they wound up. Third world countries where teachers were scarce. The ends of the earth. Wherever.
People changed, she knew. After all, she had. Time and experience and circumstance and growing up and...
Xan almost ran into the same girl she'd seen this morning. The helipad gate wasn't big enough for the two of them, so they both backed up and offered to let the other go first.
The girl let out a breathy snort. "I should take that offer, or Shou might fly off without me and leave me stuck on this rock with the dickhead who still fancies himself a rock god."
"You're here to visit Jay?" Xan blurted out.
"He begged me to come before I head south again. I should've known better. He didn't understand the word NO then, and still doesn't. Men never change. Least of all him." She glared in the direction of the Pearls, as if Jay could feel the heat of her gaze through the jungle.
That didn't sound like the Jay Xan knew. He had changed in the short time she'd known him. Well, he'd changed a bit. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had to call Maintenance to help load him onto a wheelbarrow because he'd drunk himself into a stupor. Oh, that day on the beach with the auction girl, Flavia, but he hadn't been drunk. Maybe he just hadn't had a reason to get that drunk. It's not like his wife had left him...again. Not that she'd seen Penelope around the island much lately.
"Did you see Penelope while you were at Jay's villa?" Xan asked.
The girl laughed bitterly. "The last time I saw Penny, she tried to kill me. If I saw her again, I'd break her other arm myself. Meier wasn't desperate enough to hire her again, was he? She spent more time shagging the chefs than doing her job last time, and I bet that hasn't changed."
"Meier's gone. I manage the resort now," Xan said coolly. She stuck out a hand. "Xan Lane. And you are?"
"Audra. I used to work here, and pick up the pieces when Penny didn't do her job. Now, I'm happier than ever that I left."
Xan recognised her name. "You're the first girl who lost her job for sleeping with him, aren't you?"
Audra bristled. "No, that was Penny. I resigned to take up a graduate position before I did anything with Jay, not that it's any of your business." She sniffed. "I notice a lot of staff missing from when I worked here. I take it he didn't just restrict himself to fangirls – he slept his way through the staff, too? Is that how you got your job?"
Xan figured she deserved that. "No," she said. "Meier hired me. If I'd known who the owner was, I wouldn't have bothered applying. I've seen better behaved toddlers."
Audra grinned. "He painted Shakespeare on the wall in ketchup and chocolate for you, too, did he? I wonder how many girls he's won over that way."
Xan shrugged. "I'd have to ask Jackie. She cleans his villa. But she hasn't mentioned anything about wall art. Maybe he's run out of chocolate. Or lost his copy of Shakespeare."
"He still spends plenty of time in the library, though," Audra said cryptically. "Not that it's done him much good. I still said no. Good luck. If you're the last woman left standing, he'll target you next. Don't bet against him, is my advice." She headed through the gate and climbed into the helicopter beside Shou. She gave Xan a nod as they rose from the helipad.
More confused than ever, Xan wanted to head to her house and dig out that last bottle of rum. She deserved it after a day like today. Instead, her feet headed for the Penguin jetty.
With each step, she debated her choices. Forgive Jerome. Stomp. Ditch the cheating bastard. Stomp. Give him another chance. Stomp. Knee him in the groin so hard he'd never get it up again. Stomp. Accept that he'd made a mistake that he was now heartily sorry for, and –
"Cheaters never get the girl," Jay seethed, hurling something out over the ocean. He bent down and picked up a rock from the pile at his feet, before pitching that, too. "Did you know that? In all the romance books you've ever read, can you name one where a bloke who cheats, wins?"
Xan didn't need to think hard. "No," she answered.
"So I'm doomed, then. Doomed to never find love because I fucked up without even knowing." Jay dropped the next stone over the side of the jetty where it sank like...well, a stone.
"You didn't know cheating on a girl is bad?" Xan found it hard to believe even Jay could be that stupid.
"Of course I knew that. That's why I don't do it. Have you ever seen me doing anything even remotely unfaithful to any of the girls I've been with at the resort?"
Xan combed her memories. The problem was, he never seemed to be with a girl long enough to be unfaithful. Well, there was the reality TV show, where he'd had to date multiple girls at the same time in order to meet the show's tight production schedule, but cheating would imply that he'd had a clear favourite among the contestants, and nothing she'd seen of Jay with the girls had led her to believe that was the case. She'd watched the first episode when it aired last week, and only because she'd known he'd choose Penelope in the end had she noticed that the girl got a few
seconds more screen time than the others.
Speaking of Penelope...had Jay told her about Audra's visit?
"No," Xan said slowly. "But what did Penelope say when you invited Audra to visit?"
Jay's hand swooped down, seized a stone, then sent it flying out to sea. "Nothing. Penelope hasn't said a word to me since she left the island. She just left me a fucking note. No proper goodbye, nothing." Another rock soared away, narrowly missing a seagull.
"Planning a wedding can be stressful, or so I've heard," Xan murmured.
"She's not planning a fucking wedding. She left me, I said. Said she doesn't want to marry me. After what she saw on the show and how I said similar things to the other girls to what I said to her. Says I can't really love her, and I betrayed her by letting her fall for me with my rehearsed lines. When I was fucking honest with all of those girls!" A rock splashed into the sea beneath the jetty. "So what if I said the same thing a few times? I'm a rock star who's awesome in bed. I'm not supposed to spout spur-of-the-moment sonnets for every fucking girl I meet! I'm not fucking Shakespeare!"
Funny. Audra had mentioned Shakespeare, too. "So you got lonely and invited another girl over who you knew Penelope wouldn't like to make her jealous?" Xan guessed. That sounded like a Shakespearean plot, for sure. She should know – her father might have made a Classical scholar of her, but her mother had introduced her to Shakespeare almost as soon as she could read, or learn to keep quiet in the university theatre.
"Fuck, no!" Jay shouted, then dropped his voice to a more normal volume. "No. Audra is...my friend. A friend I thought might help me, but she said she prefers the elephant seals at the South Pole to being with me, after she says I cheated on her." Jay sighed heavily. "But it's not cheating if you're apart!"
Yes it is, Xan thought. It didn't matter that Jerome was in the UK while she was here in Australia. The moment her fiancé climbed into bed with another girl, he'd cheated on her. "It doesn't matter how many miles apart you are," Xan said slowly. "If you're in a committed relationship with someone, you don't fool around with someone else, or it's cheating."
"Yeah, but when there's no commitment or relationship or any fucking thing like that, it's not the same. I went on tour. I'm supposed to...what'd she call it? Make myself accessible to my fans or some shit. Make the dreams of as many fangirls come true as I can. It's not easy, you know, having to make sure you're better than their best daydream. Takes skill, you know? And a shitload of stamina. So when I'm finally finished with the farewell tour, and I get to just be me for a bit here at the resort, I find she's fucked off to Antarctica without telling me. Like I don't matter!"
Xan didn't blame Audra at all. In fact, she wanted to cheer the girl on, and wished she'd known a bit more so she could say so in the brief conversation they'd shared on the helipad. "Sounds like you showed her she didn't matter first, sleeping around while you expected her to wait for you. That's a double standard right there, Jay."
He fell to his knees, spilling rocks over the side of the jetty. "I didn't expect her to wait. I figured she'd do whatever she was doing before we met, like I was doing, but when we met again, there'd be fireworks all over again. Good ones, not that she'd blow up in my face and say she'd rather sleep with a seal. A fucking seal!" He lifted his shirt. "Do seals have six-packs? Do you know a single seal who has abs like this?"
Though Xan admired Jay's toned tummy as much as the next girl, she definitely sided with the absent Audra. "You're hardly the most subtle bloke. What do you expect, asking a girl you haven't seen in months to sleep with you the moment you meet again?"
"I didn't ask her to sleep with me!" Jay protested. "I asked her to fucking marry me!"
SIX
Xan took a moment to stop herself from laughing. How much had Jay had to drink this time? "Why are you so set on getting married?" she asked carefully. "The mail order bride, the virginity auction, the reality TV show...and now an old friend who worked here before Meier hired me. If you ask me, it smacks of desperation. Which is pretty strange, considering how easily you seem to charm the women you want. What am I missing, Jay?"
"Angel's wedding," he mumbled, so quietly she barely caught the words.
"Your bandmate, right? But if it's her wedding, she's the one getting married, not you."
"The invitation said to bring a partner."
Xan waved her hand. "But you know that's just a courtesy, right? If you don't know the name of your guest's partner when you write the invitation, which can be printed a year in advance, that's what you put on it, so they can still bring a partner along if they want, and she or he still has an invitation."
"Not this time. Not when it's from Angel. It's her telling me to bring a partner because she thinks I need one." He eyed the jetty boards, avoiding her gaze.
"And you always do what she says?" Xan asked.
He looked up. "Fuck yes! I like living, with all my bits attached, thanks."
"But it didn't say wife, did it? Your invitation? It just said partner, right?" Xan pressed.
"Yeah. The wife bit...that bit...that was me." He kicked a rock off the jetty. "I said I'd come with my wife, and we'd be so in love we'd put the other couple in the shade."
Tempting fate, of course. The beginning of a true Greek tragedy. Or a Roman farce, seeing as this involved Jay Felix.
"You could just bring a partner for the night. You don't seem to have a problem keeping a girl interested that long. I'm sure there are hundreds of girls who'd kill for the chance to attend a wedding with you."
"Bring a fangirl to Angel's wedding?" Jay's eyes widened in horror. "She'd crucify me. Once Jo was done with me, because she'd never forgive me, either. This won't be a public wedding. You'll see. Angel won't allow any media on the island. Shit, she'll probably have armed security guards stationed along the beaches, ready to shoot down any aircraft within range, drone or manned."
Xan still didn't understand what passed for logic in Jay's mind. "But she'd be happy have a reality TV show starlet or some girl whose virginity you bought in an online auction at her wedding." She almost added something about his black widow mail order bride, but stopped herself in time. Phuong's betrayal was a low blow that still had the power to upset him. Xan might not like Jay, but she wasn't that cruel.
"She wouldn't have known," Jay said.
Xan snorted. "That reality TV show aired its first episode last week. The whole country knows about your very public search for a wife. Paige told me the studio is in talks to sell the rights to this season to one of the big networks in the US. Everyone wants to watch the music world's hottest bachelor find a wife, live in their living room. Your Angel would have to be living under a rock in a bunker with no access to the outside world not to know about THAT."
Jay sighed heavily. "She's not my angel. Never was, never will be." His shoulders slumped and all the fight went out of him.
Finally, Xan understood. "How long have you been in love with her?"
"What's it matter?" Angrily, Jay swept the remaining rocks off the jetty with his foot. "She's marrying that psycho, not me. And Audra says cheaters never get a happily ever after, so I'm fucked on all sides now. Doesn't matter who I go to her wedding with, because whoever she is, we won't be happy." He laughed bitterly. "Because if I cheated on Audra by getting with fangirls on just that one farewell tour, I've cheated on Angel hundreds, maybe thousands of times. Doesn't matter that there was no love or relationship involved with any of them. She'll never want me."
"Sometimes the one person we want is the one we can't have," Xan said. That was the whole bit about the hero's quest in all the ancient stories, right? A hero haring off after some impossible goal?
"Would you get back with a guy who cheated on you?" Jay challenged.
Xan hesitated. Would she get back with Jerome? "No," she answered finally. "It's too big a betrayal. I hope his dick shrivels up and no one ever loves him again."
Jay plucked at his shorts. "You want my dick to do what? Hey, there's nothing about
that in any of the books. Never being loved is enough, don't you think?"
Yes. Maybe it was. Xan would settle for never seeing Jerome again, to be honest, let alone any shrivelling. Except....there was the problem of the reopening of the Mangrove Hotel. Maybe she and Jay could help each other out.
"You know what?" Xan said. "If you come with me to an official function in town next month, I'll make a deal with you. If you still can't find an acceptable partner to attend your bandmate's wedding with, I'll go with you."
"And marry me, too?" Jay realised his mistake as soon as the words left his lips. "Okay, sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Forget I said it. She'll already know you're the hotel manager here, and she won't believe..."
"That's right," Xan interrupted. "What do you say? Is it a deal?"
"Yeah." Jay eyed her with what Xan might have called relief. "Thanks, Xan. I guess that makes us friends, doesn't it?"
Xan nodded, biting her tongue before she blurted out the bit about her friendship coming with an absolute lack of benefits. Instead, she wished him a nice evening, and headed back to her house, vowing to help him find a better date for the wedding than her. Whatever it took.
And she had to meet this Angel, who had the power to both terrify and enthral a man like Jay Felix.
SEVEN
Xan didn't have long to wait before, once again, she stood by the helipad, watching Shou guide his aircraft unerringly to the X marking his spot. The hatch cracked open and Xan met the eyes of...a man who jumped out of the helicopter like someone accustomed to it. Between his buzz-cut and a bulked-up body that would put Jay Felix to shame, she marked him as military – or ex-military, perhaps.
He surveyed his surroundings, pausing briefly to offer Xan a nod of acknowledgement before he completed his circuit. Only then did he step forward to take Xan's extended hand. "Trevor Sullivan, security consultant," he said with a strong American accent. Northern, not Southern, but that's all she knew about American accents.
The Rock Star's Wedding Page 2