This time it really was just a room service lasagne.
No frills, but she really couldn’t give a toss. She tucked in anyway, savouring every mouthful and stuffing the whole thing including the hunk of garlic bread on the side. It was the best lasagne she’d ever tasted.
Afterwards she opened the door, wearing the sleep shorts and vest she’d brought along with her. This hotel was not the kind that laid on fluffy white bathrobes or complimentary chocolates. She knelt down and put the tray of empty crockery on the floor to one side of the door, as requested in the laminated room service instructions.
A pair of trainers came to a standstill next to the tray and she looked up from her hands and knees, past the jeans and tight-fitting grey T-shirt.
‘I don’t want it to just stay in the Highlands,’ Jack said.
* * *
Evie’s wide blue eyes stayed on his as she got to her feet. The vest-and-shorts combo she was wearing revealed smooth bath-pink skin and her hair lay in damp tendrils against her bare neck. She was utterly gorgeous and his head spun with latent desire for her. Reservations were left behind as he followed his instincts. In one swift movement she was in his arms. He slid his hands around her slender waist and groped for her mouth with his, found it and kissed and kissed and kissed her. As he picked her up she hooked her long legs around his back as he blindly walked her back into her hotel room. Her dinner tray clattered as he accidentally kicked it on the way past. Heedless of the cutlery flying across the hallway, he kicked the door shut behind them with his foot.
There were no cumbersome clothes to manoeuvre around this time. Steam hung in the air from the tiny en-suite bathroom. Through its open door he could see the steamed-up mirror and the pile of dark outdoor clothes on the bathroom floor where she’d left them. She smelled and tasted squeaky clean, like lemons, and he let himself sink deliciously into unconsciousness of everything except the way she tasted and smelled and felt beneath his hands. He took her in with all five senses, and everything about her was perfect.
Evie buried her face in his neck, breathing in the scent of his warm skin. Even scrubbed up, he smelled of the great outdoors. His aftershave had fresh woody notes, like the forest after rain.
He carried her to the bed as if she weighed nothing, not letting up for a second with his kisses. They were deep and hungry, as if he couldn’t get enough of her, and that sensation alone sent hot thrills curling through her. The feeling was inherent in his every touch of her that he was savouring this, that this wasn’t some quick throwaway screw. His tongue slipped softly against hers, his fingers tangled gently in her hair.
As he reached the end of the single bed he eased her slowly backwards, a dizzying sensation of softly falling, until her head was on the pillow and he was looming above her.
His hands found the hem of her vest and pushed it softly up and over her head to be cast randomly away in some corner of the room. Exposed, her bath-warm nipples scrunched in surprise at the sudden cool air and he took advantage, trailing kisses down from her neck and past the hollow between her collarbones to close his lips over the hard peaks. He sucked them gently in turn as she sighed and arched her back.
As he trailed a line of kisses down the hollow of her stomach her mind followed every movement of his lips while her breath shortened and her pulse jumped. Her loose sleep shorts were gone in one gentle tug and then his breath was warm at the tingling core of her as he parted her softly with his tongue. Gentle fingertips caressed her inner thighs and moved lower to lightly tease her entrance while he made lingering delicate strokes with his tongue at the most sensitive nub. Soon she was a writhing mass of desire on the bed, aching for him to go further, wanting him inside her. He played on that need until the wait was too much and she grabbed a rough handful of his T-shirt and tugged until he relented and stood up.
The gorgeous eyes held hers as he reached behind his head and removed his T-shirt while her breath came in short bursts. He removed his jeans and as he cast them to one side he pulled a foil packet from one of the pockets. He’d come here wanting this, then. Wanting her. He knew her without all the trappings that she’d relied on for so long to make her appealing and desirable. She was enough to hold his interest after all, the real Evie, trapped underneath all those years of trying to fit in, of trying to be everything to everyone, of vying for attention in any way she could.
As he slid smoothly inside her she raised her lips to meet his. His thrusts were slow and deep, building a delicious friction that took her higher and higher until she was curling her legs around him, raking her nails across the rock-hard muscles of his back, moving with him to find that perfect dizzying height of pleasure.
TEN
The evening crept towards night. She lay now in the crook of his arm, curled up tightly against him in the narrow single bed. Hours later and he was still there.
He’d thought this afternoon, making his way to her room almost on autopilot, that maybe it could just be about the sex. Because for all the deliciousness of their sleeping-bag encounter in the forest, there had been a sense of incompleteness about it. A night spent exploring each other in the firelight, an experience so in tune with his own most base pleasures—the fresh outdoor air on their skin, the green scent and night sounds of the forest filling his senses. The maddening desire to screw her, to go to that ultimate level, had been foiled at the time.
He’d wondered if this crazed inability to just let her go was down to that: a need for physical closure. Yet now he had that, her warm breath against his chest, her sleeping fingers entwined in his, and it wasn’t enough. He’d believed he could walk away and he was wrong. There was no place in the universe right now that he would rather be.
The glow from the basic table lamp was soft as he took a lock of her hair between his fingers, twirling it, marvelling at how perfectly she seemed to fit in his arms. Lying with someone wasn’t usually part of the remit. For a while after leaving the army, free of its constraints, he’d had a run of very short-term relationships, generally with women he picked up casually, easy flings to walk away from. Staying the night had never been a big thing for him; he liked his privacy too much. The longer you spent with someone, the more questions they asked, the more of your life you were expected to share. He hadn’t wanted that so he’d kept his distance.
‘I didn’t think I’d see you again,’ she said, her breath warm against his chest. ‘Except possibly for on TV.’
He glanced down at the top of her golden head.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘What for?’
‘The round-up of the show that you did. For getting in the mention of the kids’ courses. You didn’t have to do that.’
Her voice was neutral.
‘You’re welcome. I thought it would make us even. Get through the show, clear your name, get my life back.’
‘The way I behaved back in the forest... I wanted to make you understand and I made a crap job of it. I couldn’t get a word in—you had the whole thing straight in your own mind, but I shouldn’t have let that stop me.’
She propped herself up on one elbow and looked at him.
‘I don’t have a great track record when it comes to men,’ she said. ‘Half the people they talk about in the press are just guys who happened to be at the same party as me, or who I’ve spoken to for five minutes. Then I open the newspaper the following morning and I’m meant to be having a relationship with them.’ She rested her chin on her hand, lying against his chest. ‘I never bothered contradicting any of it. Chester has this mantra that any publicity—’
‘Is good publicity,’ he said. ‘Yeah, I got that.’
Was there nothing her insane agent wouldn’t do?
‘The few that I actually have dated never amounted to much,’ she said, her face thoughtful. ‘It all starts out peachy and I’ll be lulled into thinking it might act
ually be the real deal for once, and then it turns out all they really want to do is party. They want to be seen out on the town. Then they might ask about being on the TV show. Or doing a joint photo shoot maybe.’ She put on a sarcastic voice. ‘That kind of thing. When they realise I’m not the party animal they thought I was, they lose interest.’
She kissed his chest lightly, sending a new wave of heat through his body.
‘The TV-image thing isn’t something I blab about to just anyone. I’d never met anyone like you before. You had no time for me at all when I was channelling full-on TV-show diva—you were far more interested when I was smothered in mud and stinky.’
He grinned.
‘You were never stinky.’
She smiled.
‘I really liked that so much about you, that you seemed interested in what I’m really like instead of the TV image. I used to put on an act when I was growing up too. I was sent to boarding school not long after my mother died, and it was really hard. Pretending to be someone else was the only thing that helped. I hid all my homesickness behind this crazy girl who would do anything for a laugh. For the first time in my life I was suddenly cool. I had loads of friends. I was the centre of attention.’
She looked across the room at the darkened window. Outside the wind was still blustering, whipping across the hotel car park, pattering the glass with rain.
‘Not sure I liked that crazy schoolgirl much myself though. Who would have thought that at twenty-five I’d still have an alter ego? Not so much crazy schoolgirl any more, though. More rich princess now.’ She shifted uncomfortably. ‘Not sure I like her much either.’ She sighed. ‘When you backtracked the morning after I just assumed you were like everyone else, saying what I wanted to hear at first and then backing off the moment you had time to think it through. Intrigued by me until the novelty was out of the way.’
He found her hand and wrapped his fingers around hers.
‘It had nothing to do with your TV image at all,’ he said. ‘Everything you said about your TV stuff made perfect sense. The way you acted up when you were on camera, how different you were when you were on your own with me.’ He paused while he dredged up the words from the depths of him. ‘It had more to do with the fact that I don’t make a habit of getting to know people. I don’t talk about my private life,’ he said.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I spent ages doing a detailed web and social-media search on you. You never talk about anything outside your charity stuff and your survival skills.’
‘That’s deliberate.’
‘Why? You have something to hide?’
She said it in a half jokey tone but he didn’t smile back and the light-hearted expression faded from her face.
‘What is it?’
She sat up, the sheet held across her chest.
He shrugged, looking up at her from the pillow.
‘In the car you talked about school, about how you acted up so you could fit in.’
She nodded.
‘I could relate to that,’ he said.
She raised her eyebrows.
‘Really?’
‘Not the posh school,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘I mean peer pressure. That need to be accepted, to fit in, no matter what it takes. My school was this hideous inner-city place, rough as hell. I didn’t want to be there any more than half the other kids did. I bunked off school more than I was there. The thing is, you take that structure out of a teenager’s life, take away any authority figures, throw in a group of mates all in the same situation. What you get is a melting pot of boredom. None of us had any money. It was all my mother could do to put food on the table.’
The usual gag of shame rose in his mouth at the thought of his mother, working three horrible jobs to keep a horrible roof over him and Helen while he was out all hours just hanging around with his horrible mates.
‘It must have been tough,’ Evie said.
He looked up at the ceiling, decorative swirls in the peeling plaster. She curled her hand into his and he liked it.
‘I ended up getting mixed up in some bad stuff.’
‘Stuff?’
He took a breath.
‘Vandalism. Stealing cars. Stuff that was a springboard to more trouble.’
She didn’t move, although he’d half expected her to stand up and head for the bathroom. To get in a bit of distance.
‘It was just a matter of time before I got hauled in by the police. Then one day we torched a car and the police picked up a couple of my mates. I was this close to being taken in too except that they only had circumstantial evidence.’ He held up his thumb and forefinger with a tiny gap between them. ‘The police came to the flat and horrified my mother. And then my grandfather stepped in. Gave me a real talking-to about turning my life around, told me I was responsible for my mother and sister.’
‘And what did you do? Did you get yourself sorted out?’
‘Yeah, I got myself sorted, all right,’ he said. He could hear the contempt for himself lacing his own voice. ‘No doubt about that. I’m not sure it was exactly what my grandfather meant though.’
‘How do you mean?’
She was staring at him, sharply interested.
He shrugged.
‘I joined up. I got the hell out of there. And I did turn my life around.’
She was nodding.
‘I read about your military record. It was impressive.’
He shook his head at her, dismissing that. Any pride that he might have had in his military performance was tainted.
‘It was the responsibility for my mother and sister part that I screwed up,’ he said.
‘How do you mean?’
He chanced a glance her way. Her blue eyes were screwed up in a frown.
‘My grandfather meant keeping my nose clean, finding a job, taking some of the burden away from my mother. I should have stayed in London, turned my life around and been there for my family. But I knew I wasn’t strong enough to avoid the guys I hung around with and so I took the selfish option.’
‘In what universe is joining the army the selfish option?’ she said, holding up a hand.
‘You don’t get it,’ he said. ‘It was all about starting a new life instead of fixing the old one. For me. I left my mum and Helen behind in the same place. Same poverty trap. Same three jobs for my mother, same awful prospects for Helen. And the worst of it was that I didn’t give either of them a second thought. Finding the army was a revelation, all the things I’d been missing. Training, structure, hierarchy, consequences. And I loved the physical side of it. It was exactly what my life lacked.’
‘I don’t understand why you feel bad about that,’ she said. ‘Surely your family must have been so proud of you, taking control of your life like that, pulling things around. I know how I feel about Will. The army is everything to him—it’s what he was born to do. I’m sure your sister must feel the same about you.’
‘It’s not the same for your brother,’ he said. Of course she saw it that way because she had her own military family background to reference things by. Her brother would have gone straight in as an officer from Sandhurst after public school. It was a whole different world from Jack’s experience. ‘Leaving you to join up meant leaving you with your own secure flat and a trust fund to look after you. I left Helen behind with nothing. Gradually I stopped hearing from them. Letters tailed off. Phone calls got skipped. It didn’t even register at first, I was so preoccupied with my work. I only realised how bad things were when my mother finally got word to me that Helen was in hospital. She’d overdosed.’
‘A suicide attempt? Oh, Jack.’
He shook his head. That had been his own horrified first reaction too, when he’d heard.
‘A drug overdose,’ he said. ‘Not intentional. She was an addict. H
er dealer was one of my so-called mates and I wasn’t there to stop it.’
She frowned as if she was making sense of it all.
‘That’s why your charity work is all for youth drug organisations,’ she said.
He nodded.
‘I wasn’t there when Helen needed me. As soon as I realised how bad things were I left the forces, came home and looked for a new direction. I got Helen into rehab, found somewhere new for them to live. All things I should have done months if not years earlier, except that I was too busy doing what I wanted. The kids’ courses came a long time later. By then I had the TV interest in my survival stuff. I thought the courses might be an alternative for vulnerable kids to spend their time instead of hanging around street corners, getting into trouble.’
He forced himself to hold her gaze.
‘I’m crap relationship material, Evie. I let down the most important person in my life because I was selfish. My work is my way of making up for that. I can’t let myself be distracted from that. You deserve to be with someone who will always put you first and that’s not been my strong point.’
She wasn’t walking away. Had she not heard what he said? Instead she leaned in slowly and kissed him on the mouth. His heart turned over in his chest at the gentleness of it.
‘You’re not responsible for Helen’s drug addiction,’ she said quietly. ‘You weren’t even there. So you made a mistake in the past. We’ve all done that, Jack. Just look at me with my foot in my mouth. You can’t control how other people behave, and you’ve done all you can to put things right. Who’s to say she wouldn’t have had the same problems even if you’d been living at home?’
‘She wouldn’t,’ he said shortly. ‘I would have looked out for her.’
Evie could tell just from the stubborn subject-closed tone of his voice that he wasn’t about to be convinced otherwise. Sympathy for him flooded through her, along with a happy little flash that this, with him, this really was different after all. He’d been trying, in some crazy way, to protect her by backing away. Her mind processed all that he’d told her and in a flash of clarity she realised why he didn’t give interviews, why the publicity around him only vaguely touched on his past.
Man vs. Socialite Page 13