The Ex Factor

by Laura Greaves

  His breath comes out all in a rush as he takes me in. The reflexive sound sparks a sweet throbbing between my thighs. I’d briefly considered wearing only my poshest underwear beneath my coat, but quickly dismissed the idea as clichéd. Plus, I’ve seen enough rom-coms and read enough romance novels to know that women who try it invariably get their coats stuck in car doors or are forced to reveal all to the airport security queue. I’ve made enough missteps in Mitchell’s presence as it is, so I decided to be a little more demure with my ensemble.

  But if Mitchell’s roving gaze is any indication, he approves of my choice of outfit: a fitted black pencil skirt, seamed stockings (held up by suspenders, not that he can see those yet), shiny patent-leather heels and a forest-green silk blouse whose top three buttons I’ve left undone to expose a flash of the red bra underneath.

  I was going for a ‘saucy secretary’ vibe; the look on Mitchell’s face tells me I’ve hit the nail on the head. All traces of fatigue have vanished from his expression; now his eyes are heavy-lidded with lust.

  ‘You surprise me,’ he says thickly, ‘every moment of every day.’

  In one fluid motion, he gathers me up and lowers his lips to mine, walking me backward until I’m leaning against the wall. His tongue probes my mouth and I feel his muscles ripple as his hands roam freely over my body. There’s unabashed need in his kiss. The realisation that I inspire such naked desire in a man who could have literally any woman he wants leaves me feeling shaky.

  Mitchell fumbles with the buttons on my blouse, his urgency palpable. I hear a faint pop as one is torn loose and falls to the floor.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says.

  ‘I’m not.’

  I tip my head back as his lips trail down my throat to my décolletage. He clasps my breast, pinching my nipple between his thumb and forefinger. There’s nothing tentative about the movement; for the briefest of moments it’s almost painful.

  ‘You’re not a very attentive host, Mr Pyke,’ I say when at last he comes up for air. ‘Do you always leave your guests waiting in the hall?’

  With a lascivious smile, Mitchell takes my hand and turns, leading me across the palatial living area to the bedroom. It’s every bit as lavish as the rest of the penthouse, but I barely register all the grand details because my focus is well and truly on the unmade king bed at its centre.

  I go directly to it, sit down and kick off my shoes. Wordlessly, I pat the sheet next to me. Mitchell takes a step forward, then stops, suddenly hesitant. He rakes a hand through his close-cropped hair.

  ‘Kitty, I . . .’ He looks troubled.

  I risk a glance below the waistband of his jeans. The straining fabric there tells me his thirst for me remains unquenched. Still, something tells me I’m not going to like whatever he says next.

  ‘Before we do this,’ Mitchell continues. ‘If we’re going to do this, I think there’s something we need to talk about.’

  My heart sinks a little. He wants to talk? He has a half-dressed woman in his bed and he’d rather chitchat?

  ‘You know I’m only going to be in Sydney for a few more weeks. Shooting on Solitaire is actually on schedule and I start another movie in LA as soon as I’m done here,’ he says.

  The penny drops. Mitchell is telling me he can’t offer me anything beyond his stay in Sydney. He wants nothing more from me than no-strings-attached sex. It’s the ‘I want you but I don’t want you’ speech. I feel my cheeks flush with shame. Of course he only wants a bed buddy while he’s in town. What’s the alternative – a long-distance relationship between Sydney and Los Angeles? He abandons his movie career to shack up with the crazy dog lady in Narrabeen? I must be the most deluded not-quite notch on a bedpost ever.

  I get to my feet, hastily buttoning my blouse and searching for my shoes. I find one, but the other seems to have vanished. Damn it. I’ll run out of here barefoot if I have to.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Mitchell says, jumping up. His face a picture of confusion. Someone give the man an Oscar.

  ‘What does it look like? I’m leaving.’

  ‘What? Why? Kitty, I don’t understand.’

  I finally locate the errant stiletto under a corner of Mitchell’s bedspread and jam my foot into it.

  ‘I do. I understand exactly what you’re saying, Mitchell, and I suppose I’m grateful to you for being upfront about it. But I’m not in the habit of sleeping with guys who put a use-by date on our . . . whatever this is. I’m not here to just help you pass the time until you jet back to Hollywood. I’m sure there are plenty of women in Sydney who’ll gladly play that role for you, but I deserve to be more than someone’s “arrangement”.’

  I stride out of the bedroom and into the hall, pausing only to pick up my discarded trench. Mitchell is hot on my heels. He grabs my elbow as I reach for the door handle.

  ‘Kitty, wait! You’ve got it all wrong. Don’t you remember what I said last night?’

  ‘Oh yes. That was a nice touch. All that stuff about rushing to my side whenever I need you and how we could really be something? You’re certainly thorough, Mitchell, I’ll give you that. Inventing a whole story for us. And giving me a car! You’re quite the method actor.’

  He squeezes his eyes shut tight and rubs his hands over his face. ‘Kitty Hayden, you are easily the most exasperating woman I have ever met,’ he says at length. ‘Have you ever, in your life, stopped and waited to get the whole story before you fly off the handle?’

  I fold my coat over my arm and arch one eyebrow. ‘Go on, then. What am I missing?’

  Mitchell looks me straight in the eye. The ferocity of his gaze is quite unnerving. ‘You’re right about one thing. I do want you . . . that way. Right now and tomorrow and every day I’m in Sydney.’

  I roll my eyes. ‘I thought you said I had it all wrong.’

  ‘And every day after that as well.’

  Okay. That I was not expecting.

  ‘Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I’m trying to protect myself a little here. It’s well documented that I’ve been battered and bruised, emotionally speaking, and it’s taken me a long time to feel like I’m ready to get back in the game.’

  In spite of the anger bubbling away inside me, I feel myself softening ever so slightly. He looks so earnest that I almost believe him. Surely he’s not that great an actor? And damn that Vida Torres; somehow she manages to encroach on the most private of moments. Mitchell might be over his ex, but his memory of that heartache is still so raw.

  ‘Are you saying you haven’t . . .’ I can’t even finish the sentence. It seems impossible that someone like Mitchell Pyke wouldn’t have turned to his hordes of adoring female fans to soothe his broken heart. Then again, I’m learning that Mitchell Pyke isn’t the ‘someone’ I thought he was at all.

  He shakes his head. ‘Not since Vida,’ he says. ‘I’ve been too wrapped up in work. Plus, I haven’t wanted to. Not until I met you.’

  ‘So what are you saying, Mitchell?’ He’s so used to having screenwriters eloquently summarise his emotions for him, it’s as if he’s forgotten how to do it himself.

  ‘I don’t want this – us – to be an arrangement either, Kitty. I don’t want to take this next step if, in your mind, we have a sell-by date. I don’t want it to end when I leave Sydney.’

  I lay my coat on the hall table and take a step toward him, caressing his cheek with the backs of my fingers. The tangible vulnerability emanating from him is almost too much to bear.

  ‘Okay. You’re pretty clear about what you don’t want,’ I say softly. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you do want?’

  He takes a deep breath. ‘I want you to come back to LA with me when Solitaire wraps.’

  I frown. ‘For a holiday?’

  ‘No. To live. With me.’

  ‘Oh! Wow.’ I look down at the floor. There’s a trail of tiny divots where my heels have sunk into the carpet. I’m momentarily stunned into silence. Is he serious? I risk a glance at Mitchell’s face; he’s watching me expecta
ntly. How can I possibly make a decision like this right now? There’s so much to consider – the house, Frankie, the dogs. Not to mention the job I’ve just accepted. Plus there’s the not-inconsequential fact that I’ve known Mitchell less than a week. We haven’t even slept together, much less said the L-word. Who knows if we have a future together? Could I even get a visa to live in America? What would I do there?

  I need time to think it all through. I look up at Mitchell again and square my shoulders, ready to tell him all this. Instead, my mouth opens and I say, ‘Yes.’

  His eyes widen in surprise and delight. ‘Yes? You mean you’ll come with me?’

  I nod. ‘I will.’ I have no idea how – or even if – it’s going to work, but I feel strangely, wonderfully resolute.

  And then he’s kissing me again with the same passion as before. In seconds we’re back in the bedroom and all the buttons on my poor blouse are unceremoniously dispatched.

  ‘I’ll buy you a new one,’ Mitchell growls as he slips my bra straps from my shoulders and exposes my breasts.

  I unzip his jeans and they drop to the floor, his shaft springing free into my waiting hand. I caress the smooth, hard length of him, offering a silent thank you to the universe for disproving that age-old rumour about movie stars being less than stellar below the belt.

  He grabs his wallet from the bedside table and extracts a condom while I wriggle out of my skirt. I hear Mitchell’s breath catch in his throat as he takes in the sight of my stockings, suspenders and lacy knickers.

  ‘Help me out of these?’ I purr.

  But he shakes his head. ‘Leave them on.’

  So he’s a lingerie guy. I file that little tidbit away for future reference.

  Gently, Mitchell eases me onto the bed and then lowers himself on top of me, all the while showering me with exquisite kisses. He reaches between my thighs and pulls the flimsy silk aside, dipping his fingers into my wetness.

  ‘Oh god, Kitty,’ he whispers in my ear.

  ‘Now,’ is my reply.

  Mitchell glides inside me, and all at once, I’m lost. There’s nothing else in this moment but the movie star and me.

  11.

  It’s still dark outside when Mitchell wakes me with a kiss the next morning. I feel exhausted, as if I’ve run a marathon. Which I guess is to be expected given the entire previous afternoon and evening passed in a tangle of sheets in Mitchell’s bed. An impressive performance deserves an encore, after all.

  My stomach growls beneath the sheets. Did we even eat yesterday? I vaguely remember leaving the bedroom once, to place a call to a terse Frankie and ask her to feed the dogs, but I don’t recall eating anything myself.

  ‘Sorry to wake you,’ Mitchell whispers. ‘I have a ridiculously early call time today and Mack’s waiting downstairs.’

  Sleepily, I reach for him in the darkness and feel the rough fabric of his off-duty uniform: cotton T-shirt, hoodie and jeans. He smells soapy and clean from the shower. I slide my hand up under his shirt and run my fingers over his chest, circling his nipple with the pad of my thumb. His skin is still damp.

  Mitchell’s breathing quickens. I sit up in the enormous bed and push up the T-shirt, tracing the line from his navel to the waistband of his jeans with my tongue.

  ‘Kitty, I’ll be late,’ he says, trying to sound as if he cares.

  ‘You’re the star. They’ll wait.’

  I feel him hesitate a moment longer. ‘You’re right,’ he says finally. ‘They will.’

  He pulls me on top of him and another hour of my life disappears in the most delicious fashion. The sun’s first rays are peeking around the edges of the blackout blinds when Mitchell finally leaves for the set with instructions to order room service and make myself at home.

  I’m still bleary-eyed, but I know there’s no point trying to go back to sleep. Not when I feel so overwhelmed by everything that’s happened in the past twenty-four hours. The moment the fog of lust clears, my brain is crowded with thoughts, worries and what-ifs.

  I pull on Mitchell’s fluffy white hotel bathrobe and pad into the living room. We didn’t get around to drawing the curtains the night before and the room is bathed in an incandescent tangerine glow. Far below, Circular Quay is coming slowly to life; swarms of joggers pound the cobblestones as ferries pull in and out of their berths and café owners set out their al-fresco tables and chairs.

  I pick up the phone and dial the hotel kitchen, ordering waffles, poached eggs and tea. I can’t remember the last time I had such a ferocious appetite – and not just for food. I shiver as fragments of our night together flash through my mind like a slideshow. Never before have I been so wanton with a man; there’s just something about Mitchell that inspires total abandon.

  But although I feel sated in some ways, something else gnaws at the edge of my thoughts. I just can’t shake the feeling that there’s still so much I don’t know about him. And if I don’t really know him, can I trust him? Would I have gone to bed with Mitchell yesterday if he hadn’t asked me to move to Hollywood with him? I came to the hotel with seduction in mind, but I was halfway out the door when he made his offer of cohabitation. Did he only make it because he wanted me between his sheets?

  Frankie’s voice drifts to mind: ‘For god’s sake, Kitty, stop overthinking everything and just do it!’ Frankie wouldn’t hesitate to pack her bags and follow her movie-star beau to La La Land. She’s much more free-spirited than I am, much more comfortable throwing caution to the wind – as her many spontaneous purchases prove. But Frankie can afford to have a devil-may-care approach to life. She’s only twenty-one and has no ties, nobody relying on her. Not like me. I’m the one everybody relies on; the one always left behind to pick up the pieces.

  What was it Frankie had said to me during our shopping trip? ‘Maybe you should try and be a bit more like me, big sister. You might like it.’ She was absolutely right, of course. My sister wouldn’t be moping in a sumptuous hotel suite the morning after having the most incredible sex of her life. She wouldn’t be consumed by thoughts of all the things that could go wrong. She definitely wouldn’t be on the verge of convincing herself the man who offered her the world hours earlier did it only to deceive.

  No. Frankie would jump straight onto her laptop and book herself a one-way ticket to California. First-class, naturally.

  And I’m going to do the same.

  As I glance around the room looking for Mitchell’s laptop, the doorbell rings. I race to admit a cheerful porter who rolls a cart draped in white linen into the room. Mouth-watering aromas drift from the silver-cloche-covered plates and my stomach emits another unladylike growl. The porter hesitates by the door on his way out and I suddenly realise he’s expecting a tip. I rummage in my handbag and come up with a two-dollar coin. He’s probably more used to receiving crisp hundreds from the high-rolling inhabitants of the penthouse, but I’m not about to go helping myself to the contents of Mitchell’s wallet.

  I finally spot Mitchell’s computer shoved under the coffee table and settle onto the sofa with it, my credit card and the plate of waffles on my lap. I call up the Qantas website, select a date six weeks from now and click the ‘First Class’ option, which gives me a little thrill. I hit ‘search’ and almost choke on my breakfast at the price displayed on the screen.

  ‘Thirteen thousand dollars!’ I scream into the empty apartment. ‘Tell’em they’re dreaming.’ Trying to emulate my sister’s off-the-cuff approach to life is great in theory, but not if I have to mortgage my house to do it. I select ‘economy’ and charge a much less terrifying fourteen hundred dollars to my credit card instead.

  It’s only after the payment has been processed that it dawns on me that Mitchell probably doesn’t fly commercial. He no doubt jets around the world by private plane. But I’m glad I’ve booked my own flight. I might have agreed to move to the other side of the world with Mitchell, but it doesn’t mean I have to be beholden to him for every little thing.

  Just as I’m about to
close Mitchell’s laptop, a telltale ding sound indicates the arrival of an email. A preview window pops up in the lower right corner of the screen.

  SENDER: Vida Torres

  SUBJECT: Hello stranger

  Oh.

  My appetite suddenly vanishes and I push my breakfast plate away. Just when I think I’ve escaped the spectre of Mitchell’s ex, here she is again. Even in a luxe penthouse on the opposite side of the world, Vida manages to haunt me.

  The preview window reveals the first line of her email: Mitchell, I know it’s been months, but there’s so much I need to . . .

  Seconds later, the window fades from view and I’m looking at Mitchell’s screensaver once again – an aerial shot of a packed Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the Indy 500 car race. So much she needs to what? Tell him? What could Vida possibly have to say to Mitchell after all this time, after the way she treated him? Unless . . . has she finally realised she owes him an explanation for the callous way she trampled on his heart? But why now, six months later?

  A cold fear grips me like a hand around my throat. Does Vida want Mitchell back?

  My finger hovers over the computer’s trackpad. With a single click I could open Mitchell’s email and solve this little mystery. I could read Vida’s email and discover exactly what it is she’s playing at. But then, like a good angel on my shoulder, Frankie’s voice is in my head again: ‘Don’t be that girl, Kitty. Don’t be so needy.’

  I snatch my hand away from the keyboard, slam the laptop closed and push it back under the coffee table. Of course I can’t read Mitchell’s emails. It’s none of my business what Vida has to say to him. I hope her message is an explanation, or at least an apology. She owes him that at the very least. And if – when – Mitchell wants to talk to me about it, I’ll be ready to listen.

  I won’t be that girl.

  I shake my head in an effort to shift the sense of unease that now plagues me. Suddenly, the idea of spending the day languishing alone in Mitchell’s penthouse isn’t quite so appealing. Who knows what I might do with that email mocking me just an arm’s length away. Besides, I should really get cracking on planning the rest of my move stateside. Yes, that’s it. Planning. Planning is what I’ll do until I drown out the evil angel on my other shoulder; the one whispering, ‘This is a competition you can’t possibly win’ in my ear.