Men Like This

by Roxanne Smith

  She vaguely noted the lack of chicory coffee aroma drifting into her room. Maybe Jack had slept in.

  She chuckled. Jack could hardly sit still long enough to squeeze in six hours at a stretch. Sleeping in must be some form of unusual, if not cruel, punishment.

  Strange only became stranger when she entered a dark kitchen, devoid of both Jack and freshly brewed coffee. Her office door was closed, a sure sign Seth remained fast asleep on the other side.

  The last place Jack would’ve been lay bare. In fact, the couch appeared to have barely been touched. The blankets weren’t in the usual neat stack Jack left them in, but nor were they scattered. Sat on, maybe, but not slept on. It was like he’d gotten up in the night for a glass of water and hadn’t come back. A quick search revealed Biscuit was also MIA.

  Maybe he’d gone for a walk. It didn’t stop the ridiculous pang of hurt in her chest that he’d neglect to make her coffee. Stupid of her to take a mundane task so personally, but Jack always made her coffee.

  Signed, sealed, delivered with a peck on the cheek.

  She returned to the kitchen in low spirits and began preparations for the family breakfast she’d volunteered to host yesterday in a rash move to get everyone together. If Jack hadn’t returned by the time she started frying sausage, she’d brew the coffee herself.

  It wouldn’t taste the same, but she’d be the only one to know better.

  An entire day gone without a single word from Jack.

  A mass of tangled emotions—anxiety, anger, hurt, and bewilderment to name a few—distracted her the entire day. They were a frustrating element to what should’ve been one of the best days ever. Her dream city and her family close enough to hug. She couldn’t ask for more.

  Except, of course, the whereabouts of one Jack Decker.

  Dad, Emily, and Angie were back at Madeline’s. She and Seth were alone for the first time in months, and for several hours he’d been enough to keep her mind occupied. Once he slipped off to bed, however, her anxiety returned with force.

  Where the hell was Jack?

  She caved and dialed his cell. Disconnected. She scratched her head. Stranger and stranger. Next, she called Glen, his publicist. No answer, but she left a message informing him Jack was missing and to please get back to her with any information he had, no matter how late.

  A few minutes shy of midnight a knock sounded at the front door. If she hadn’t been stewing on the couch, she probably would’ve missed the quiet tapping. She nearly broke her neck racing to open the door.

  Her heart fell when it revealed a stranger. She figured him a particularly forward paparazzo.

  She greeted him with an uncertain smile. “Can I help you?”

  “Hello. I’m William. Jack asked me to come by.”

  William. “You’re Willie. He talked about you.”

  He appeared slightly taken aback. “I am, yes.”

  A muffled noise behind her caught her attention. Seth, rubbing his eyes, shuffled toward her. “Who’s it?”

  Their visitor cleared his throat. “I’m Willie, Jack’s mate. I’m here to collect his belongings. He mentioned some clothing and dog stuff.” He addressed Seth. “He said to tell the lad—I’m assuming that’s you—he’s sorry he couldn’t say good-bye in person. Something came up, and he had to leave immediately.”

  Quinn’s mouth fell open. “What do you mean, leave? Leave where?”

  “Portugal.” William swallowed. He seemed ill at ease with his job of messenger. “Early filming, he said. It happens in his line of work. He is sorry. There wasn’t time.”

  She plummeted straight into the depths of denial. “That’s absurd. Jack wouldn’t leave without saying good-bye. Besides, he has weeks before filming starts.” Or did he? She’d been too caught up in her schedule to pay any mind to his.

  William shrugged. “Production companies can do what they want, can’t they, though? The contracts are signed, and a broken one these days means lawsuits and lots of money. If they called him for filming, he didn’t have much of a choice.”

  She shook her head. No way. “He wouldn’t do this. You misunderstood.”

  “No, ma’am. I’m doing what he asked done, nothing more.”

  “You’re telling me he’s gone? Packed his bags, hopped on a plane, and left the country without a word to anyone?” William blinked at her. “Okay, is there a message for me?”

  “He asked for his stuff and mentioned the kid. Nothing else. Sorry.”

  A sudden rush of panic blossomed from her chest. It reminded her of the time she’d lost Seth at the mall when he was four. Helpless, stop-her-heart fear. Seth had been hiding in a rack of clothing, but Jack wasn’t playing games.

  He’d left her.

  No warning, no explanation, no farewell. Their time was nearly up, but it wasn’t supposed to end like this. Never like this, a cruel blindside when she was already on her knees.

  A swift, hard dose of self-reckoning doused her growing ember of anger with glacial force. Who was she to be indignant? Had she truly expected Jack to sit around and wait for her to be the first to leave?

  Without realizing it, yes. She definitely hadn’t expected him to disappear in the dead of night without a word. He loved words. He employed them every chance he got. When Jack Decker chose silence over speech, something was terribly off.

  She ignored the wad of emotion in her throat and her shaking hands while she and Seth collected Jack and Biscuit’s scattered belongings for William. The guitar, the food bowl with the little paws on it, and the pet bed she’d purchased were gathered and placed in a box. When William took off with it under his arm, the guitar strapped across his back, he took with him every trace of Jack’s presence.

  Like he’d never been there. Whether to spare her the reminders or make one last dig, it had been deliberate.

  Seth sat on the couch. His thin eyebrows were drawn in concern. She sat beside him and willed herself to console his feelings before confronting hers. Because she was a coward, she stuck to William’s story. They’d been fed a line, but better to buy it than have to blurt out a truth Seth wouldn’t likely understand, anyway. Jack hadn’t left for some dumb movie.

  He’d left because she’d told him to.

  “Read this?” Quinn’s dad plopped the paper onto the table in front of her. The front page split four ways to reveal a face in each corner, the top right spot an unflattering picture of herself. Vickie wore dark shades and a frown in the photo below Quinn. Beside her, the notorious Vino with slicked-back black hair and a serious expression.

  Finally, top left, a photo of Jack, smiling and handsome as ever.

  In fact, they both appeared happy. She frowned at the creative photography and pushed the magazine away. One ugly hit after another, after another. No more.

  “Read it.” Her dad’s stern voice surprised her.

  She pushed her hair back from her face. “Don’t tell me. Seth is our love child from many moons ago. No, wait, he’s shagging my sister. That’s it, isn’t it? Oh, I have it now. Seth is Emily’s love child from many moons ago.” She smacked her palm down. “I should be a writer.”

  She hadn’t considered it possible to smugly sip coffee, but her father proved her wrong. “You really want to read it.” He placed it in front of her again.

  Jack’s stupid smiling face had her stomach twisting into knots. The horrible, stone-cold silence continued. His phone remained disconnected, and Glen refused to return her calls. She’d never been so helpless in her life, like being surrounded by dangling plotlines she didn’t have the power to weave into satisfactory ends. She lacked closure.

  “I really don’t.” Again, she shoved it away.

  Finally, she exhausted her dad’s patience. He snatched up the paper and smacked it down one last time. “Quit pouting and read.”

  With gritted teeth, she gave in to the steely demand and flipped through until finding their story and read.

  And read.

  And reread.

  And
read again.

  She sucked in a mighty breath, and weeks’ worth of strain and stress rode away on her exhale. It was over. How much money did Vickie earn for opening the floodgates of truth?

  The article, a virtual tell-all, had her copping to every lie she’d told. She admitted to her affair with Vino and offered a public apology to her fans, to Quinn and her family and, finally, to Jack.

  Vickie’s confession wasn’t the only bombshell the article had for Quinn.

  Jack had dropped out of his film contract. Some postulated he’d been let go due to recent bad press, while others fingered Clementine as the reason he was reluctant to leave the country. His agent set the record straight by revealing Jack had dropped out of the project several weeks ago for reasons unrelated to media hype.

  At the bottom, a single paragraph inset next to a fuzzy photograph of him questioned his recent absence from the Hazel residence, a whopping two whole days, with some already speculating a bad breakup had taken place. She rolled her eyes.

  What a bunch of Sherlocks.

  She shoved the paper away a final time. Stupid article. How about some useful information? Like where had Jack gone. She rose from her chair. Restlessness ran through her veins like a lazy tornado. A walk would do her some good. Yeah, a nice, long walk.

  Maybe one that ended at a steep cliff.

  Quinn came to the conclusion she’d never find the time to write her ending with her family around. She handed over her apartment keys to Emily and checked into the Mountain View Guesthouse in Islington for a week. The last week. In no time she’d be booking flights back home and saying good-bye to her London flat.

  The little inn was fabulous. Quiet, cozy, and attached to a little café. With only three rooms available to rent, it afforded her the solitude she required to complete her manuscript.

  But she didn’t want solitude.

  She didn’t want peace and quiet; she wanted busy and loud.

  She wanted Jack.

  She missed more than his coffee-brewing skills. She missed how his accent made the dullest statement sound interesting. He could give her goose bumps with the mention of laundry day. It pained her to admit it, but her family hadn’t come close to filling the void he’d left. The opposite, actually. They’d been a reminder that her days with Jack were over. When they went home to America, she’d be right beside them.

  Damn him.

  She was in love and mad as hell about it. For Jack to have ripped himself so callously out of her life had been nothing short of cruel. She’d considered herself done with cruel men. Obviously not.

  She’d pored over the papers and trashy mags during her week of solitary confinement in search of snippets about Jack, but the attention had shifted to Vickie and Vino. Small insets sometimes mentioned Jack or herself, but since the split there wasn’t much for them to go on.

  The sudden lack of public interest came uncannily close to Jack’s original plan.

  Pretend to breakup, the press forgets them in a matter of days. Turned out, he was right. She sat up straighter. Maybe that was why he left. It was the final act.

  If so, well played, Jack Decker. A most excellent performance. When he convinced the coproducer the props were real, he’d truly outdone himself.

  Bravo, sir. Bravo.

  Her lonesome, albeit productive, week ended on a fine day with the sun shining, and her heart lighter than it had been in days. As she carelessly packed her bag, tossing clothing and items in at random for the short drive home, the shrill ring of the room’s telephone nearly sent her into conniptions.

  Curious, she picked up the old, weighty receiver. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Quinn.”

  She wound her fingers through the spiraling phone cord and grinned. Couldn’t do that with a cell phone. Then she remembered who’d called, and the smile faded. “Hi, Blake.”

  He issued a nervous, throat-clearing cough. Awkward silence ensued while she waited for him to say something. He finally broke it. “Hunter isn’t mine.”

  She winced. “I know.”

  “Oh? Okay. Well, I suppose Emily told you, too. She said Jack tipped her off.” He laughed humorlessly. “Which is a little weird.”

  Quinn frowned. Weird, indeed. When did Jack talk to Emily? “Seth told us. Jack got it out of him.”

  “He told Jack, huh? Not you or me, but some stranger.” That laugh again. “Go figure. I didn’t believe her when she called to tell me. We argued, me and Em.”

  “Em and I. And maybe that’s why Seth didn’t come to you when he found out. What’re the chances you’d have believed him?”

  For the first time since meeting Blake Cobb in ninth grade, Quinn heard the unmistakable sound of regret color his voice. “Believe it or not, I figured that one out on my own. To prove Emily wrong, I confronted Kira. I’ve got a new story idea for you.”

  Quinn snorted. “Oh, yeah?”

  “I call it a horrormoon. It’s when a honeymoon goes horribly wrong. Anyway, I called to apologize. It’ll never cover the damage done, but I’m sorry, Quinn. I truly am. For everything.”

  An earnest quality to the words almost had her believing. “Are you sure you’re not sorry because the victim turned out to be you this time?”

  “No. Although, I’m sure it’s helped me to understand the things I’ve done from another angle. This is karma, Q. Pure and simple. I deserve this.”

  He sounded tired and defeated. The first stirrings of pity slid through her. “Well, now, that’s a little extreme. No one deserves what Kira did.”

  “If anyone ever did, though, it’d be me, right?”

  Oh, no. She felt sorry for him. She needed to change the subject before the pity strengthened its grip, and she did something stupid like offer to be there for him. “Confronting Kira, huh? One of my worst nightmares. How’d it go?”

  “Nightmare covers it. Kira is . . .” He paused, exhaled loudly. “Kira is practical. She’s a very sensible woman beneath the post-pregnancy rage. She poignantly explained herself and made no excuses.”

  “Oh, I’m dying to hear this.”

  “Simply put, status. She’d been seeing me and a guy named Carter Scotes. When she found out she was pregnant, she did the math and decided I’d be the better candidate for fathering her child as a partner in the firm, while Carter is relatively new to the group. She did it for Hunter.”

  “Wow. That is one calculating woman. If she hadn’t pulled this stunt, you two would’ve gone far.”

  He ignored the small dig and continued in a thoughtful tone. “It’s an excellent quality in business. Not so much in personal relations. I understand her motives, I guess, but the thing is we were having problems before any of this came to light. The rushed wedding, the strained honeymoon, which ended abruptly after we had our little talk. We covered more than Hunter’s parentage. Apparently, she had some issues of her own, and it didn’t take her long to start spelling out every one of my flaws. Number one on her list was my lack of passion.”

  When Blake’s pause went on a second too long, Quinn discerned the real reason behind this enlightening phone call and ensuing chumminess. Her ex-husband was shopping for a second opinion.

  A second later, he confirmed her suspicions. “Quinn?” A pause. “You never accused me of lacking passion. You and I were plenty passionate, weren’t we?”

  Had he posed the question little more than a year ago, she supposed the answer would’ve been an emphatic yes. Now, though, she had Jack on which to base a comparison. Blake fell so short of the line he wasn’t even in the race. Kira had nailed it.

  Quinn cleared her throat and tried her hand at diplomacy. “Well, uh, as a writer, I understand passion manifests through several outlets. The firm, for example, is something you’re very passionate about. I’m sure—”

  “Goddamn it, Quinn, I’m not talking about my stupid job.”

  She sank into the white wicker chair in the corner. Had the ambitious, motivated, driven, and highly respected businessman extraordinaire, Bl
ake Cobb, referred to his prestigious lifelong career as a stupid job?

  She was floored. Had he fallen, smacked his head on something hard? Did he have a concussion? Was he under duress? “I—I’m not sure.”

  “You’re only saying that because of your boyfriend. I still don’t get it. You can do so much better. You’re stunning; you’re intelligent.” She didn’t reply, and Blake switched tactics. “I won’t lie, Q, I’ve kept tabs, mostly out of curiosity. It doesn’t seem like he’s been around much lately. Maybe I’m not the only one with trouble in paradise?”

  Her defenses went up in record time. “We’re not talking about me.”

  He turned apologetic. “You’re right. I have some nerve to even bring it up. But, hey, if you ever do want to talk about it, I guess I owe you one after this.”

  She let the small, uncomfortable silence stretch out while internally searching for an escape route. “Listen—”

  “Listen—”

  Blake laughed nervously, she assumed, at their simultaneous efforts to end the awkward silence.

  The forced chuckle only worsened the effect. She briefly considered hanging up and putting them both out of their misery but decided even desperation didn’t warrant rudeness. “I need to go. The inn has a checkout time.”

  “Right. Yeah, I do, too, but, listen. When you and Seth get home I want to sit down and talk. The three of us. I owe him an apology. I screwed up. I understand if making it up to you is impossible, but I need to try with Seth. I believed you when you said you were taking him from me. I love Hunter. Losing him is harder than I imagined it would be, and it reminds me of Seth. I missed so much.”

  She didn’t hesitate to correct him. “You missed everything. His first steps, his first words. Even when I tried to bring you in, show you the dozens and dozens of pictures I took, you didn’t have time. I was so proud of him. I wish you would’ve been, too.” She stopped. Old emotions, old resentments. Too old. “It’s up to him. If he wants to wash his hands of you, then I’m sorry. He’s mine, and I’ll fight.”