‘So, you have a problem with my technique,’ Jack said, sounding calm but somehow frightening. ‘You do know I love a challenge, Evangeline, right? Because I’m taking that as a challenge. And I’m not against beds. Or kitchen benches, or floors, or showers, or couches, or beaches, mountains, valleys, alleyways. We can try them all, and you can score me out of ten each and every time. I like something to aim for.’
Back to ‘Evangeline’. For once, I was glad of the formality. Because when he’d called me Evie, it had done something inexplicably tingly to my insides.
I pushed at my hair. ‘No it’s not a challenge, because I’m not interested in a repeat performance,’ I said. ‘Look, I’m sure you’re the best lover on the planet – for someone. Just not me.’
He looked at me, with that unnerving intensity of his, like he was trying to dig the thoughts out of my head. Then he moved closer, touched my cheek.
And for the life of me, I couldn’t find the will to push him away.
‘I mean to have you,’ Jack said. ‘I’ve never waited this long for anyone … only you. I can wait some more.’
CHAPTER SIX
No chance of sleep that night, with images of what I’d done and questions about what I should do throwing themselves at me. How was I supposed to treat Jack with anything approaching normality? How was I going to look Drew in the eye? Should I tell Drew? Would Jack tell Drew? Drew would think – Who knew what he would think? And what was I going to do about Lachlan?
And did anything make sense at four in the morning when you were in a state of post-orgasmic shock? Everything just kept coming back to one core fact: I’d had pheromone-fuelled, hot-as-hell sex with Jackson J Stevens.
When I’d first met Jack, he’d had a girlfriend – not there with him on the night, but in his life nonetheless. Monica Farraday. Stunningly beautiful, lovely person, all-round ‘It’ girl – and even she hadn’t been able to hold onto Jackson J Stevens; within a week, she was out of Jack’s life. And hadn’t the gossip magazines had a field day with that! Poor Monica, putting up with the media poring over every aspect of her relationship with Jack despite both of them maintaining a dignified silence. And then when Monica started seeing a theatre director a month later, her relationship with Jack had been dredged up and thrown at her again.
Being with Jack would mean being in the limelight. Always. Well, I’d had my fill of the limelight with Sam, and I wouldn’t be put through such torture again. That would be taking desensitisation therapy a little too far.
All that was between Jack and me was a … a moment. And now it was over. He was just Drew’s brother. My friend. Sort-of.
A sort-of friend I’d just happened to have had sex with.
Passionate, frantic sex. Against a door.
Tired and emotional, but full of purpose, I went straight to my doctor the next morning for my blood tests. I knew there would be nothing communicable to report, but it was all about perspective. Keeping things fair. Straightforward. Clinical.
Clinical … except that by the time I reached my office, there was a message and an email from Jack, to go with the voice message and text he’d left on my mobile phone, all asking me to call him. I couldn’t seem to stop myself re-reading the email, the text, listening twice more to the message on my phone – even re-reading the scrawled Jack called (9.00am). Asked you to call him. Who the hell? Sounds nice!!! left on my desk by one of my colleagues.
But really? That was Jack’s idea of ‘waiting’, was it?
Well, I wasn’t calling him.
I wasn’t calling Lachlan.
I wasn’t calling Drew.
Or Chloe.
I was going to do what any self-respecting emotional wreck did at a time like this. Just as soon as I figured out what that was.
It seemed that what self-respecting emotional wrecks did was wander around the office in a daze, trying not to let their heart beat a hole through their chest as they ran their very own self-starred, high-definition porno flick in their head.
Because that was my day.
Right up until seven o’clock, when – still in the skirt and shirt I’d worn to work – I opened the door to Lachlan Davison, saw the pink roses in his hands, and almost screamed from the tension.
‘How lovely,’ I managed to get out, burying my nose in the roses and taking a deep breath, even though they had no scent.
‘Forgiven?’ he asked.
It took me a moment to work through my guilty conscience and realise that was a question. He was asking if I would forgive him. For staying at the party without me? Perhaps for ogling assorted models and actresses all night instead of staying by my side …?
While I was having my brains banged out by Jackson J Stevens.
Yeah, right. Like I needed to forgive him.
‘No problem,’ I said. That was as far as I could go without having a meltdown.
‘Good,’ he said. And then he just had to go and add, ‘What a party, hey? Jack’s such a great guy.’
Arrrgggghhh. Jack, Jack, Jack. If I’d had a single brain cell that wasn’t already focused on Jackson J Stevens, it was now a clean sweep.
I headed into the kitchen; Lachlan followed. He took the flowers from me and placed them on the kitchen bench, then reached for me.
And it was crunch time.
Was I going to let him kiss me?
Into my disordered brain popped an image of Jack taking me into his arms, looking at me with stark, uncompromising passion.
That scream was building, building …
Maybe I needed Lachlan to kiss me. Maybe it would replace the memory of Jack’s mouth, hot and hard on mine. Maybe it was worth a try.
I slid my arms purposefully around Lachlan’s neck.
Lachlan was a few inches shorter than Jack.
Good, I thought; Jack was too tall.
Lachlan’s build was slighter, too.
Again, good; Jack was too … overpowering.
I liked Lachlan’s cologne – citrusy.
Jack didn’t wear cologne. Oh for God’s sake!
Hurry, I urged silently, a split second before Lachlan put his mouth on mine. He slid his tongue between my lips, tentative, searching, and I tightened my arms around his neck, urging him to do something more forceful. But instead he released me slowly and stepped back, looking pleased with himself.
I wasn’t exactly carried away on a tide of passion. Wasn’t exactly … well, anything. But I figured that maybe I was pheromoned out after last night. Not that pheromones mattered in this instance. Because Lachlan was a better option for me than Jack, with or without the ph-word. He looked like Guy. He had that wonderful job I respected. And no paparazzi. Distressing inclination to worship at the cult of celebrity aside, Lachlan was textbook perfect. I knew it in my head – and my head was the important thing. My body would just have to catch up in due course.
Lachlan touched my hair, and I only just stopped myself from flinching. Not that he seemed to notice.
‘So, Evie,’ he said, leaning in for another kiss. ‘How about we –’
‘Doorbell,’ I said, tacking on a silent thank God for the discordant jangle of it as I hurried to the entrance, Lachlan trailing slowly after me.
Drew and Chloe, complete with takeaway food – and one gimlet eye, one wild-eye between them. Fabulous!
‘What a surprise,’ I said, with a throw-back-your-head false laugh and my own special eye roll, done sideways in warning-mode. I dragged them both inside and added sotto voce: ‘Lachlan is here. And I will thump the first person who says the word “pheromone”.’
Chloe rose to the occasion, with a warm smile and an assurance that it was delightful to see Lachlan again, especially since they’d brought enough food for the greater metropolitan area and their pets.
Okay, all good. I figured I could deal with three people dropping in unannounced. I could even deal with pheromone-Drew being one of them. In fact, having all three of them in the house would take my mind off things. Force me to be
a properly functioning human being. Give me a reprieve from my near-constant thoughts about Jack.
Er … no.
Because over dinner, Lachlan asked so many questions about Jack, Drew ended up issuing his standard warning about never repeating, to anyone, any tales about Jack – true or false or in-between – given the propensity for ridiculous crap to end up in the press. He hadn’t really needed to add the threat of staking out Lachlan in the midday sun with his eyelids removed should Lachlan disobey the golden rule, but he’d added it anyway. And relished adding it, what’s more. I took this to mean that Drew had nailed his colours to the wall – he was for Jack, not Lachlan – and he was making sure I knew it. What was this, Game of Thrones?
It was exhausting and a little bit pitiful, watching Drew and Lachlan interact. Like a ping pong match where only one of the players knew they were actually playing – because Lachlan had no idea that Drew was whacking the ball at his mouth, very specifically, over and over again, every time he answered a question.
I was relieved when Drew shooed us all into the living room and went off to the kitchen to make coffee. I wasn’t even put out by Drew’s rider that my coffee was included on the official poisons list – just as long as coffee signalled the end of the evening.
Until …
Ringing freaking doorbell.
I had a premonition of disaster, and stayed where I was, frozen, halfway to the couch. Another ring. I hadn’t moved a muscle, so Chloe, throwing me a look that was too arch by half, went to the door.
‘Jackson J Stevens and macarons,’ Chloe announced, with what I considered excessive enthusiasm. ‘Does life get any better?’
Yep – my night was officially a disaster zone.
‘Is that Jack at last?’ Drew called out, all sweetie-pie, from the kitchen. The absolute fiend.
Jack walked straight up to me and smoothed an escaped curl. ‘Evie, sweetheart, do you want to take these in to my brother, or shall I?’
Sweetheart? Evie?
Lachlan was looking at Jack as though he were the answer to a prayer. If he’d ever looked at me with even an approximation of that expression, I was fairly certain last night’s humongous mistake with Jack would never have happened, because I would have been flat on my back and under Lachlan instead.
And Chloe, who’d sensed the momentousness of those two little words – Evie, sweetheart– not to mention the hair-smoothing, looked at me with an unholy combination of awe and delight.
I took the macarons from Jack and somehow made it to the kitchen despite my traitorous knees, which threatened a major-league buckle.
I closed the door and leaned against it, holding out the box to Drew, who took it.
‘I am going to kill you, Andrew,’ I said through my teeth.
‘Not before we eat macarons, though,’ Drew said and had the gall to laugh. ‘Now go out there and make a choice that will prove to me that you are not, in fact, insane.’
I would have swapped my coffee for a giant glass of straight gin if I hadn’t been afraid I’d vomit it straight back up.
The living room was now officially too small for me and Jack to be in together – let alone in the company of three other people, with all of us jammed around the coffee table like air commuters waiting, waiting, waiting in an airport security line. Lachlan, Jack and I were on the three-seater couch. Chloe in the armchair. Drew on a dragged-in dining chair.
I sipped as though the coffee in my cup were the most interesting thing in my life, while the conversation carried on around me. Innocuous. Harmless. I was almost starting to relax …
And then Jack, apropos of absolutely nothing, bowled out: ‘I guess you know about Evie’s crush on Guy McKinsey, do you, Lachlan?’ and I almost spat my coffee across the room.
‘Um, no,’ a startled Lachlan replied.
‘Oh, I just figured, since you look so much like him …’
‘Lucky me, I guess,’ Lachlan said, with a clueless laugh.
I was beset by the strangest combination of feelings just then. Guilt over what I’d done with Jack. Sympathy for Lachlan, for whom nobody seemed to be barracking at that point. Intense irritation at the way my friends – and Jack – were trying to ‘manage’ me.
I didn’t want to feel guilty, and I didn’t want to be managed.
What I wanted was for the man of my dreams to be the man of my dreams. And nobody – not even me – was going to stop me giving a relationship with said dream man a go, just as soon as my exhausted pheromones replenished themselves.
‘Not that much like him,’ I said and heard Chloe choke. ‘But there is a resemblance. Actually I have … I have some DVDs. We can watch one later, when everyone’s gone –’ nice and pointed ‘– and you can see for yourself.’
Drew and Chloe were looking at each other. Lachlan was hero-worshipping Jack with his eyes. Jack was trying to fix my attention. I kept my gaze deliberately on Lachlan.
It was, in a word, ghastly.
All I wanted was to clear my overcrowded house of everyone except Lachlan. And I didn’t even know what I was going to do with him when I got him alone. I seriously did not know.
Jack was the last to finish his coffee, as though he was deliberately taking his time. The moment he put down his cup, I was on my feet. ‘Jack, you won’t mind giving Chloe and Drew a ride home, will you?’
Drew smiled. Smug to the back teeth. ‘Actually, Marcus is picking us up, Evie,’ he said.
‘Oh, then, I’ll just –’ Actually, I had no idea what I would ‘just’. ‘Um … I’ll just … just clear this stuff away.’
‘I’ll help,’ Jack said.
‘No need.’ Me, sickeningly pleasant.
Jack stood. ‘I insist.’
Lachlan stood, too, shifting from one foot to the other. ‘Why don’t I help, Evie?’
Jack’s eyes snapped towards Lachlan and they weren’t friendly.
‘I don’t need help,’ I insisted desperately.
‘I’ll carry the tray through for you,’ Jack offered evenly.
The whole scene was becoming undignified, so I gave up and cast a look of entreaty at my goggling friends. ‘Drew, Chloe – can you keep Lachlan company for a few minutes? And music. Maybe put some music on.’ To drown out the fight that is about to occur in the other room.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I stalked towards the kitchen.
Jack followed me in, put the tray down and closed the door, cutting us off from the others.
I turned on him, hissing in a fierce whisper, ‘What do you think you’re –’
But I didn’t get any further. Because Jack grabbed me, dragged me close, and kissed me. I was aware of the clean, masculine scent of him, the rough feel of his hands as they pulled my shirt from the waistband of my skirt and slid across the skin beneath to hold me. I was aroused – instantly, impossibly. My hands gripped his shirt, mouth strained against his.
And then, just as suddenly as he’d started, Jack stopped, lifted his head, moved his hands out from under my shirt. He drew me slowly against him. ‘Sorry. I just – Sorry.’
I was trembling. ‘Jack.’ I said his name unsteadily. ‘What is this? What?’
A low, harsh, non-laugh, but no words.
I stayed where I was, held in Jack’s arms, my cheek against his chest, my eyes squeezed shut as though that could block everything out of my head. ‘What changed, Jack? When?’
‘It was always like this, Evie. Just … waiting. And now …. Well, now it’s too hard, to not touch, not kiss.’
‘But I don’t –’ I stopped, swallowed. ‘I don’t want anything to change.’
Jack dropped his arms from around me and stepped back, tucking his hands into his pockets. ‘It’s too late to go back.’
‘We have to. I – I want to. I can’t do this with you. I just want a normal life, with a normal man.’
‘I’m normal.’
‘You’re an act –’
‘Don’t say it, Evie.’ His eyes flashed. Danger and f
ury and warning. ‘I’m flesh and blood and bone, just like your doctor in there. What I do for a living is one fraction of who I am.’
‘You come with baggage. The whole media circus.’
‘Everyone has baggage. You have baggage.’
‘I know I do. That’s the point, and the problem. My baggage doesn’t sit well with yours. We’re like a Louis Vuitton travelling trunk and a K-Mart backpack – we just don’t belong on the same trip. I don’t want to live my life in public. I don’t want to share my relationship with millions of people.’
‘I can fix that stuff. It doesn’t have to be like that.’
‘You think you can fix everything, but you can’t,’ I said, my voice low and intense. ‘And I’ve seen enough to know your life is not the life for me.’
‘You’re pushing me away for the wrong reason, Evie – the same way you’re choosing him for the wrong reason. Because I know, I know you don’t want him.’
‘At least with him, if it doesn’t work out, we won’t need a media release to make it official.’
The look he gave me was excoriating. ‘Tell him what happened. Do it.’
I could feel the blood drain from my face. ‘That’s the crux of it, isn’t it? Because I should tell him. It wouldn’t be fair to not tell him. But how can I? How?’ I shook my head, lost. ‘You’re famous. What if Lachlan tells someone? And they tell someone. It will be everywhere. All over the news.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘But I do, Jack! I do.’ I turned away from him. ‘And we’d go through that for what? A fling?’
‘I’m not interested in flings.’
I snorted.
He gripped my arm, spun me to face him. ‘Goddammit, Evie, it’s true.’
‘You get what you want, Jack. I know that. Always. But how long will you want me? Plain, ordinary, me? And then what happens, after I’ve been through the media wringer for it?’ I focused myself. ‘Well, I’m not some carnival prize to be won in a game.’
‘You are a prize. You just don’t get it.’
Aaarrrggh was the only coherent thought in my head. Which wasn’t exactly coherent. ‘Jack, just leave it. Please. I – I can’t … think. I can’t think with you here.’
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