“Yes, and now he’s having to, isn’t he? It might be at Seth’s expense, but this is a crash course your loser of an ex sorely needs.”
Her chest tightened. Jack had nailed it.
She’d left Seth in Blake’s incapable hands, and the kid would suffer for it as was so often the case. What had she done? The tightness didn’t go away.
Oh, no. No, no, no, please. Crying didn’t bring resolutions or solve problems. She needed to snap out of it before she made a fool of herself.
Jack’s arm came around her shoulders, and the small offer of comfort breached whatever defenses she had left. She dropped her head into her hands and squeezed her eyes closed in a fruitless effort to stem the flow of tears. They ran down her cheeks and dripped onto her lap.
She clenched her fists as the words tumbled out. “I can punish Blake, but it won’t fix anything. I can keep Seth from ever having to see him again, but what does it accomplish?” She sniffed and dabbed at her nose with the tissue Jack had surreptitiously tucked into her hand. “Is it really Blake’s fault his job kept him from being a first-class dad?”
Jack hugged her tight against him. “Of course, it’s his fault. We make time for what’s important to us. He made time for a mistress, didn’t he? Well, that should’ve been Seth’s time. Or yours. When did you get your time, speaking of? Being a husband is more than showing up with rent money every month, isn’t it? Having a job doesn’t automatically make you the poster boy for Husband of the Year. I’ve met happy couples who didn’t have a single pair of non-holy socks between them and miserable families dining on fine china. In fact, if I had a wife bringing in the bacon like you do, I’d take it easy. Take a hit in the career department to spend some time with my boy.” He tucked a finger beneath her chin and forced her gaze to his.
She sniffed again and prayed she didn’t have any wandering snot on her face. “I owe Seth better.”
“No.” Jack adamantly shook his head. “No, love. Blake owes him better. My mum did everything, too. Riding my bike, tossing a football, calling a girl. Mum walked me through every milestone because there was no dad around to do it, no man to guide me and give me answers. How fair is it for Seth to have a dad, but be raised like he doesn’t? In my book, Blake’s as good as my own pa, which is no good at all. He’s like a lace doily: there for show and utterly useless in any practical application.”
“A lace doily?” She laughed and settled into the crook of his arm. “Where do you come up with this stuff?”
“Mum taught me to be funny in case the acting gig didn’t work out. You can get far in life if you can laugh.” Despite a playful poke to her ribs, he spoke soberly. “I’m funny, but you’re genius at rebuttal. Dry as gin. I love it.”
He thought she was funny. She wanted to throw her head back and laugh hysterically.
Blake hated her sense of humor.
And Jack loved it.
Her pulse kicked up. Stupid charming man.
Stupid falling girl.
She was falling, and not a force on the planet could stop her. Not even denial. She’d probably been in love with him since meeting him in Hollywood. How she ignored it for this long was a feat of unparalleled proportions.
With any drug, the short-lived high would be followed by a hellish hangover, and this was her chance to figure out how much she was willing to suffer. Just like drinking whiskey. A few shots promised a headache for breakfast, a bottle might find you naked in a ditch the next morning. She had the choice to hold back and deal with a little ache, or go all in and navigate her way home from the ditch when this ended.
They didn’t have a future together. Besides a little chemistry, they didn’t have anything. If she survived the heartache, would she be able to tell herself he’d been worth it? She leaned back to fully regard him. His expression of intense consideration mirrored the battle waging inside her. The air in the room seemed to still.
A little chemistry could do a lot of talking. Neither one of them had to speak to reach the same conclusion.
One last chance to step away, one last chance to make the saner choice, one last chance to question her role of rebound.
But if she did that, he might not kiss her. And he was definitely going to kiss her.
Jack’s mouth came down on hers as if he’d sensed her permission. Not hard and fast like their earlier kiss, nor soft brushes like the ones before; a real kiss. A lover’s kiss.
Her lips parted for him, and she was back in Hollywood experiencing an unnerving and frightening, yet exhilarating sense of familiarity. She’d swear on her soul she’d spent a lifetime kissing that mouth, running her hands over that chest. She expected him, knew him. At the same time, he was shiny and new. It didn’t make any sense.
She quit caring about sense when he gripped her waist and pulled her onto his lap to straddle his thighs. The warmth in her belly returned with a vengeance. It blossomed like slow-motion fireworks.
She pressed herself against him. Fistfuls of his T-shirt, and his fingers digging into her sides kept her balanced while she urged him to move with the sway of her hips back and forth over his body.
He pulled away and regarded her with turquoise eyes gone soft with wanting. “Just one thing, love.” The words carried on a soft breath as he tucked the errant strand of hair behind her ear. “If you ask me to be gone in the morning, prepare to be disappointed this time.”
Chapter 14
At five o’clock the next evening, after hours and hours sitting locked in her office writing and simultaneously avoiding Jack, Quinn’s phone rang. For once, she was glad Emily’s name popped up on the small screen.
She stretched her fingers and answered. “Hello, dear sister. It’s seven in the morning. You give up a perfectly good sleep-in for me?”
“No, actually, I gave up the lovely morning I had planned for your son. Seth called last night to ask if I’d let him stay with me until he flew out to London. I got in touch with Blake since your phone went straight to voice mail. He’s okay with it, which is fabulous, but I’m now the caretaker of not one, but two boys who can’t wash themselves.”
“Aw, c’mon. Dad tries.”
“You aren’t nearly as funny as you believe you are.”
She allowed herself a smug grin. Jack might beg to differ. “I’m sorry, Em. It’s not long until Blake’s honeymoon, and you can ship him to me. Once he’s here, he’s here for good. If the judge or, God forbid, his own father, wants to make a fuss, I’ll come home early. My agent called a few days ago. My deadline moved up.”
“Oh? What does Jack say about it?”
Quinn bit her lip. “There hasn’t been time to discuss it. I’ve been busy.” Every time she remembered, something else popped up. A runaway teenager, hot sex . . .
Emily’s dry response broke in. “Oh, I bet. I caught Vickie’s latest attack. That’s one vicious lady.”
“Vicious Vickie. I like it. It definitely takes a special brand of evil to feed total lies to the press. I’ve never been inside Jack’s apartment, let alone his bed.” Not to mention the mere idea of sleeping with him in the same one he’d shared with Vickie made her shudder.
“How’s the whole pretending gig, by the way? Are you pretending now or still pretending to pretend?”
Quinn didn’t bother covering up her heavy exhale. She saved the current progress of her manuscript, padded over to the love seat, laid down, and mentally prepared herself for the closest thing she’d get to a therapy session. She squeezed her eyes shut and blurted her confession. “I did it again.”
A pause. “Did what?”
“It. The thing I said I wasn’t going to do.”
“Oh, my God, you fell in love with him.”
Quinn’s heart leaped. “No.” Moments like these were why little white lies were invented. Also, big white lies. “I slept with him, though. Inappropriate feelings probably aren’t far behind.”
Emily gusted out a great, dramatic groan. “I will never understand some of the things you co
mplain about. ‘Oh, no, I slept with a sexy movie star, woe is me!’” She issued an amused snort at her own mocking joke. “Relax, will you? Imagine you’re on a working vacation. You might be banging out some words, but for the love of Europe, have some fun. Jack looks like a lot of fun.”
“I’m trying, but I don’t trust it, Em.”
“Who said anything about trust? This guy gets under your skin like nothing I’ve ever seen. You have this weird attraction, how can you not thoroughly investigate it?”
“Am I supposed to not be bothered by the small, trivial fact that he was engaged? Do you have any idea what that makes me?”
“A home wrecker?”
“Try rebound. He’s using me to make her jealous. It’s working, too.”
“You rescued the poor guy. Getting away from Vicious Vickie is its own reward, no rebound necessary.”
“You don’t get over someone in a matter of days. It takes time to heal. Hell, sometimes I’m not sure if I’m over Blake.”
Not true. She was over him with a capital O, confirmed each time he spewed another jackass comment, or she saw, came near, or merely imagined Jack. What was one more fib in the interest of proving a point?
Silence. “Em? You there?”
When Emily spoke again, her playfulness had been replaced with a sharp edge. “Not everything in life is as twisted as one of your stories. Quit digging for an ulterior motive. What are you so afraid of?”
She grunted in disgust. “Have you seen Vickie? I’m not some angel-faced model available to romp around the world with him. I’m a single mom who taps her life away on a keyboard. How long do you expect it to last?”
“Why does it have to be all or nothing? You don’t have to marry him or have his babies for this to be your great love affair.”
“Some affair if he’s only using me to make Vickie jealous.”
“Why you? Wouldn’t another supermodel better serve the purpose?”
“Convenience? I’m here. I’m involved.”
“Have you considered how he feels after you turned him away the last time? What if he’d asked you to vamoose by sunrise? If anyone should be gun-shy, it’s him.”
She laughed drily. “Jack isn’t afraid of anything, certainly not my rejection. I gave him an easy out. Chances are, I’d have woken up alone no matter what.”
“You’ll never find out, will you? You were a chicken then, too.”
Quinn frowned at the taunt. It was like a school-yard dare. What was she supposed to say? Call me a chicken, will ya? I’ll show you. She refused to be baited. “I’m not a chicken. Remember Nicholas’s proposal? It was the most painfully awkward thing I’ve gone through since high school. Those aren’t shoes I want to wear.”
Emily tsked and let fly another comment designed to prick Quinn’s pride. “He put his heart out there. It didn’t work out, but no one can call him a coward.”
Without weighing the decision, Quinn clicked the End button.
The conversation had taken a decidedly uncomfortable turn, and having her sister call her a chicken and a coward was more than she was willing to take. It certainly wasn’t going to spur her into action as Emily seemed to have hoped it would. What did Emily understand about repeating the mistakes of her past? Quinn didn’t recall her ever making any.
Her sister would never understand the full impact of Blake’s actions. In return for Quinn’s unflinching loyalty and blind, unquestioning love, he robbed her of everything: her home, her sense of self-worth, and her faith in her personal judgment. She doubted every decision, overanalyzed every emotion, and questioned every motive of those around her.
And for good reason.
Consequences were real. Broken hearts, broken homes, and crushing self-doubt were real. She wasn’t a chicken for protecting herself. More like an intelligent lab rat who’d figured out real fast which buttons granted treats and which ones led to a nasty shock. Jack was a big, shiny button she hadn’t figured out yet.
When there are no cameras to smile for, do we smile anyway?
Poetic, sure, but what did it mean? She needed an answer to the bottom line: What did Jack want?
Vickie begging on all fours?
A fling with his favorite author?
A media sensation to further his career?
It came back to Vickie. If she disappeared into a cloud of glitter dust, what would Jack do? Would their relationship dwindle into nothing, or would he plow ahead on his current course, the one pummeling toward Quinn at breakneck speeds?
What if Vickie found out about their ruse? She’d either be enormously relieved or angrier than ever.
Worse case, Vickie didn’t believe her. Whether or not she went nuclear hardly mattered since she was already on the warpath. What was one more bad story at this point in the game?
Quinn made up her mind. Jack wouldn’t like it, but his method of handling things seemed to be ignoring them until they faded away. Vickie wasn’t going to fade or quietly disappear from the front lines. Not in her own battle.
Face-to-face, woman to woman, Quinn would confront her nemesis. And Jack couldn’t stop her because she wasn’t telling him about it.
Two weeks.
It took Quinn two whole weeks to work up the courage to knock on her nemesis’s front door and force a confrontation. Something about Vickie’s empty, shark-like gaze made her skin prickle in a swim-at-your-own-risk kind of way.
The day had come. The perfect excuse had ridden in on Jack’s announcement he’d volunteered to escort Madeline to a doctor’s appointment for Dawn to have an afternoon off. Quinn waited until his taxi had disappeared from sight before dashing out and hailing one of her own.
Finding Jack’s old flat had been easy enough with recent photographs and articles furnishing the borough and street. The flat was the end unit of a row of townhomes sitting along the riverbank lush with greenery. A deep breath. In. Out. No matter how much her stomach turned to Jell-O, at least she had on her no-nonsense Jimmy Choo boots.
As her best friend had once said, they’d force her to keep her back straight.
Quinn handed the driver a bill and exited the cab. A short walk up a concrete path edged by dark brown mulch led her to a door painted black and embellished with an ornate brass knocker. She bypassed it in favor of the doorbell, which reverberated like a gong. No backing out now.
She pulled her black pea coat tight around her. Naturally, she’d chosen to confront the chilliest woman of her acquaintance on the chilliest day of the entire month. She hoped the bleakness of the gray sky wasn’t some kind of foreshadowing.
She exhaled a misty cloud of pent-up breath as the knob twisted and pasted a disarming smile on her face. Then dropped it. This wasn’t a social call and Vickie wasn’t a friend.
The door opened in a rush, and the deep breath Quinn had taken stuck in her throat, threatening to choke her. She gasped and her hand flew to her to chest like it might protect her heart.
“Quinn?”
“Jack?” She barely managed to get his name through her constricting throat.
Vickie slinked up behind him and peered at Quinn over his shoulder. She appeared to be wearing a white silk sheath hanging low and revealing cleavage that seemed somewhat redundant since her breasts were clearly detailed through the sheer fabric.
A venomous smile overtook her plush mouth. “We have a visitor, honey.”
Jack flinched away from her voice and practically shoved her back inside. He slammed the door. He and Quinn were left face-to-face on the front stoop. He stared at her without his trademark smile. “What are you doing here?”
An excellent question. What was she doing there?
Her cheeks blazed as she realized the magnitude of her mistake. She’d stared right at the truth and somehow convinced herself it was a lie. Jack was a natural-born charmer, a flirt, a pretty boy used to getting his way with women.
She was no exception. She’d let herself fall for the playfulness, the joking, the teasing, the meaningless cr
ap amounting to nothing more than Jack being Jack.
Had she done this before? Spied evidence of Blake’s affair and turned a blind eye rather than face an ugly truth? Was she so adept at self-deception she’d fooled herself into believing a man like Jack would favor her over the half-naked supermodel on the other side of the door? She didn’t have a hope of competing with Vickie’s tunic, let alone anything beyond it.
She wanted to respond, to say something, but her jaw refused to work. Her Jimmy Choos had failed her.
“What are you doing here?” Jack demanded a second time.
“I came to . . .” Her jaw worked, but her throat might as well have been stuffed with cotton.
“You came to tell her the truth, didn’t you? Damn it, Quinn, how can you expect to reason with an unreasonable person? Telling her we faked the affair is like handing her a cannon to replace the peashooter she’s been using.”
“What happened to your mother’s appointment?” Too late, Quinn realized the answer didn’t matter.
He plunged his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and took his sweet time staring at the ground while he considered the answer. “It’s not for another couple of hours. I’m here for the same reason you are.”
She hugged herself and fought back the nausea building in her stomach. “Right. Sure, Jack. You’re here for a little talk. Probably a slightly different version of the one I intended to have.”
He cocked a brow and stood straighter. “You want to explain what you mean by that, love?”
She had no right to the jealousy ripping through her. She took a steadying breath and shook her head. “It’s nothing, Jack.”
She turned to walk away. She’d hail the first cab to roll by, go home, and give in to self-pity, but she didn’t have it in her to stand here gawking at Jack any longer. Or at his forehead, the spot where she’d been pointing her gaze since eye contact was out of the question.
“Quinn.” His voice came out laced with anxiety as he caught her by the hand. “I know what you think’s going on. You’re wrong.”
She shook him off and kept walking. That was some acting. Her breath caught with every inhale. She needed to get away. “Don’t. I’m going home.”
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