Wanting Mr Wrong

by Avril Tremayne

  Drew put an arm around me and cuddled me close. ‘He didn’t think you’d want to hear from him after … well, after the baby. Said it was best that he just disappeared so your life could return to normal, the way you wanted, as quickly as possible. He doesn’t want you hurt … or upset, or …’ His voice trailed off when I just stood there like a piece of abandoned driftwood, and he squeezed me closer.

  But I jerked away. I couldn’t bear to be touched, just then. ‘Yes, he said … last night … something about … about … I just didn’t think he meant …’ But I couldn’t bring myself to give voice to the last words he’d said to me. The implication of them was too painful. Jack had meant he was ruining my life. Saving me from hurt meant deserting me.

  ‘Well, anyway,’ I said, and tried – failed – to smile. ‘Onwards and upwards, right?’ I walked around the room, looking at all the flowers. Jacinta’s flowers. ‘I don’t need all these flowers, that’s for sure, in my little place.’ I came to a stop in front of Hamish’s gerberas. ‘Just these ones. I’ll arrange for the rest to be distributed to the other patients.’

  Nobody spoke as I gathered my few possessions together – and if they had, I wouldn’t have heard them. I was fighting to pull myself together and it was taking every ounce of strength I had. There could be media outside. It wouldn’t do to fall apart in front of the media. Jack would never fall apart in front of them.

  ‘So, we’d better get going,’ I said at last.

  In vain, Drew explained Jack’s careful planning with the hospital to guarantee a secret exit; exhibiting a steeliness that surprised even me, I insisted on leaving through the main doors.

  ‘So they take my photo – big deal,’ I said. And although I checked for a moment at the hospital entrance, my resolve held.

  ‘They might ask questions,’ Chloe warned.

  ‘Then I’ll answer them.’

  Chloe gave my arm a squeeze. ‘Bravo.’

  I felt some of the cloud around my heart lift. ‘It’s just time.’

  Media interest in me wasn’t high enough to sustain a camp of photographers outside my house. Nobody knew about the baby, of course, otherwise it might have been a different story.

  I declined the offer of Drew and Chloe’s company, insisting that I needed to be alone.

  Alone to face the wreck that was my life.

  I’d lost my baby.

  And I’d lost Jack.

  For months I’d been running away from Jack, but he’d kept right on coming for me.

  Until now.

  Now, when I’d finally stopped running, Jack had stopped chasing.

  Or, more correctly, I had driven him away with my complexes and phobias.

  And I had no idea how to get him back.

  I poured myself a glass of wine, turned on the television with the sound turned off, and sat on the couch.

  Drew called. Chloe called.

  My mother called, and that was an eye-popper. There was the usual how-are-you-feeling/as-well-as-can-be-expected exchange and then things went a little off the rails …

  MUM: How’s Jack?

  ME: Gone.

  MUM: Gone gone? Or just gone to Morocco?

  ME: Gone gone.

  MUM: Well, that sucks. The first one who hasn’t been a complete dickwad. ME: Mum!

  MUM: Well, it’s true. He’s so kind. And charming. And hot.

  ME: Mum! (Yep, repeating myself.)

  MUM: Well, come on! Pheromones to spare with that one.

  ME: Mum! (Okay, another repeat, but really? Pheromones? In relation to me? From my mother?) Have you been speaking to Drew?

  MUM: Well … yes.

  ME: Okay, I’m hanging up now.

  MUM: I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Drew loves you. And we love you. And we’re so proud of you. (Teary.) And I want you to go and get that man. So perfect for a right brainer like you. (Okaaaay, weird things happening all around here.)

  ME: Mum, are you going through menopause?

  MUM: How did you know?

  ME: Your hormones are showing. But it’s kind of cool.

  MUM: No, Evangeline, it is not.

  ME: Evie.

  MUM: When I’m hormonal, it’s Evangeline.

  I hung up, and snorted. Go and get that man. Oh sure. Easy.

  I turned up the TV volume.

  The news was starting. Great. A nice dose of Schadenfreude was going to do me a world of good, and the news was the place to get it. Turmoil in the Middle East, government corruption, financial crises – there were lots of things worse than a girl getting dumped.

  But it took three stories until I found what I was after: a high profile executive caught joining the mile high club with his fiancée in an aircraft toilet. And he got door-stopped coming out of the airport. He was going to totally stuff up and I was going to love it.

  Except that he didn’t stuff up.

  He didn’t squeal and bolt. Didn’t curse. Didn’t bluster or get defensive. In fact, he was honest and kind of funny and self-deprecating. Interesting …

  The story segued into another airport story – the reporter doing a piece to camera – but although my eyes were on the screen, my mind wasn’t. Because I was thinking Go and get that man. Mr Mile High Club had shown me a way to prove to Jack that I could have him and everything that went with him.

  Before I could think further, the image changed – and Jack’s face popped up on the screen. The fingertip-on-lip photo from welovejackj.com.

  I shook my head. Had I conjured the image out of my disordered, Schadenfreuded brain?

  Back to the airport – and Jack was definitely, definitely on TV!

  Heart racing. Palms sweaty. Head spinning.

  I pumped the volume higher.

  I’d missed which airport it was. Sydney? Or when he was in transit? He looked tired, dishevelled, unsmiling. He seemed to check as he saw a television camera, then walked grimly forward.

  I couldn’t hear the question Jack was asked, but I saw the effect. The rage that leapt to Jack’s eyes. ‘What did you say?’ he roared. But he didn’t wait to have the question repeated. Jack dropped his bag, reached out with one hand to grab the journalist by the shirt and let fly with his fist.

  Stunned, I stared at the television screen, until the presenter introduced the sports news.

  Jack had lost control with the media. The first time ever. And I knew, knew, it had something to do with me.

  I became aware that my doorbell was ringing. Ring, ring, ring, ringing, like someone was leaning on it.

  In a daze, I opened the door and Drew practically fell in.

  He grabbed my shoulders.

  ‘I saw it,’ I said, before he could speak.

  ‘Damn!’ He let me go so suddenly I staggered. ‘Jack wanted me to tell you first. To tell you how sorry he is.’

  ‘Because it was about me.’

  ‘The guy was a moron. But Jack said – and he’s right – that things will get less weird now that he’s gone.’

  ‘He thinks I can’t fill my own cup.’ I had to talk past a gargantuan lump in my throat.

  ‘Cup?’ Drew asked. Then, ‘No, I beg you, don’t explain that. You two are really trying my patience. He didn’t leave because he wanted to, you know – he left because he doesn’t want his little Evangeline having to deal with the tough stuff. You know, Jack never gives up when he wants something. And yet he’s given you up. Man, that is love. So open your goddamn eyes, Evie.’

  ‘They are open,’ I said, all weepy.

  Drew took my hands in his. ‘I’m going to ask one question. Just one, before I butt the hell out of this disaster of a relationship. Is it what you want, Evie, to not have to deal with the tough stuff? Do you want Jack out of your life? Are you happy to have your life back the way it was, nice and obscure? Because he thinks he’s giving you what you want.’

  ‘Strictly speaking, that’s three questions. But the answer to all of them is the same: no.’

  ‘Question four, then, and
you really are a smartarse: Are you in love with my brother or not?’

  I stared at him. ‘Well, of course I’m in love with him. How could you not know that?’

  ‘Well for a start –’ Drew covered his eyes for a dramatic moment. ‘No, let’s not go into the trials and tribulations of insane straight people, because I will bust an artery. Right. Jack the Fixer is in full altruistic mode. It’s a fucking mess. I could wring your neck for what you’ve put him through. I could kill you both for being so dense. I could –’

  ‘What you could do,’ I interrupted – because once Drew got into full-scale drama-queen mode it could last a while, ‘is shut up for a minute. Because I’ve got an idea about how to fix things myself.’ Ha! Me doing the fixing for a change! I liked it. ‘It was the airline guy being interviewed on TV tonight that gave me the idea.’

  ‘The huh? The airline guy?’

  ‘Yeah – he joined the mile high club.’

  ‘I’m a member of that.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re a member of every sex club, but don’t distract me. Can you just call Chloe? Oh – and I need Jacinta, too. And maybe some mega kind of tranquilliser – because, God, I can’t believe I’m going to do this.’

  ‘Okaaaay, feeling a little like I’ve wandered onto the set of a Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney movie – “let’s put on a show!” Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m into show tunes.’

  ‘That is so unoriginal,’ I said, but I laughed – and it felt wonderful. ‘Tell you what, if we nail this, I promise to go karaoking with you. I’ll even stump up for a Judy/Mickey duet.’

  ‘You are on, sister! Let’s do “Good Morning” – but I’m doing Judy’s part. And I’m wearing my red spangled trainers.’

  ‘Red spangles? Different movie!’

  ‘So what? I want to wear the shoes.’

  When I turned up at the television studio, I was so nervous I almost puked.

  Even being professionally ‘done’ with my hair straightened (don’t ask how long that took!) and smoothed into a chignon (chignon, not kidding!), and wearing a new red satin shirt with a charcoal pencil skirt and elegant Louboutin heels (thank you, Chloe) didn’t make me feel any less gawky.

  But this was the most important part of my grand plan, and if I didn’t get it right, I might as well cancel my flight to Morocco.

  Chloe had media-trained me to the point that our friendship was hanging by a thread (my new nickname for her, the fragrant ferret, may have had something to do with that). But that didn’t mean Rowan Petersen, no slouch in the ferret stakes herself – who’d jumped at the chance to pre-record an interview with me – wouldn’t throw me a curve ball. But in the end it was relatively straightforward, kicked off with a simple question about Jack’s career.

  I was off the starting blocks with a few superlatives about his performance in Stormy Sunday. I was wearing the lovelorn look of my Acadian namesake, which Chloe had told me would work like a charm on Jack when he saw it.

  A few other questions back and forth, and then Rowan asked me if I’d seen the ‘recent incident’ with the photographer.

  ‘Yes, I saw it,’ I said, with a beautifully nuanced half-shrug, half-grimace. ‘You have to understand that it was a very stressful time. Jack had done a lot of flying. And we’d been blindsided by how the news of our relationship got out and, of course, the accident. Jack has always been so protective of the people he cares about and he lashed out.’ I looked directly at the camera. There’s a message here Jack – get the message. ‘He doesn’t realise that I – that we don’t need to be protected from life.’

  The interview moved on to the past – my relationship with Sam was touched but not dwelled on. My pride in my impressive family. My friendship with Jack’s brother.

  ‘And you met Jack …?’

  ‘Around five months ago now. At a charity dinner.’

  ‘Was it love at first sight?’

  I looked directly at the camera again – the same trick Jack used when he was playing decoy with those starlets. Message, Jack, message. ‘That one’s off limits, Rowan. Between me and Jack.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I knocked on the heavy wooden door. Shifted nervously from foot to foot.

  What if Drew was wrong and it wasn’t altruism that had made Jack leave me? What if he simply didn’t love me any more? Or didn’t love me enough? Or had decided I was too high maintenance?

  But I’d sat through a terrifying interview and another pep-talk from my hormonal mother in which she’d actually referred to Jack’s ‘buns’ (shudder), so I wasn’t about to give up without a fight.

  And Chloe had promised that Jack would rip off my dress within ten minutes of seeing me in it. What was more, she was so sure of it, she’d committed to doing a karaoke duet of ‘Islands in the Stream’ with Drew, complete with Dolly Parton wigs and cowboy boots, should he not – which would at least be some compensation, should I fail.

  Not that I was going to fail.

  I straightened my spine. Get. My. Man. That’s what I was going to do.

  Jack would have seen the interview by now – Jacinta had promised to make sure of that. And I had to hope he understood what it meant – that it was my vow to him that I was ready to take on what life with him meant.

  It had already aired, so there was the risk of complete mortification should things not work out the way I’d planned. But what was a little mortification, when everything you wanted was at stake?

  So! There I was, waiting outside Jack’s house in the outskirts of Fez, wearing the green Quasimodo dress, with the same boots I’d worn that night. And no bloody coat, just so he could get the full, uncovered, rip-it-off-me effect of my dress when he opened the door.

  And I was cold, dammit.

  So he’d better be home. He’d better not have gone out for dinner. And he’d damned well better not be entertaining another woman in there.

  I was so busy castigating Jack in my head, I jumped in shock when the door whacked open and he stood there. Blazing with utter, utter fury.

  Uh-oh.

  Every carefully rehearsed line, from the almost-casual ‘Hello, Jack, can I come in?’ to the earnest declaration of love, decamped from my brain.

  I stared at him, mouth dry, heart pounding. As the fury drained. As his eyes lit. As he took one step forward. As one hand reached towards my hair – but stopped.

  He looked at me intently. But he didn’t touch.

  And then he shook his head. Frowned.

  And we were back to uh-oh.

  I had no idea what to do next, but I felt my body start to shiver – reaction, and cold, and fear.

  ‘You shouldn’t be wearing … that.’ Eyes down. Up. Swallow. Another shake of the head as he jammed his hands into his pockets. ‘Where’s your coat?’

  I started to turn towards the car, but he stopped me with a sharp, ‘Don’t go.’

  ‘My coat,’ I said. ‘It’s in the car. I have a driver. I should –’

  ‘Come in – it’s warm inside. I’ll get your things and tell the driver to go.’

  Tell the driver to go – that had to be a good sign, right?

  When Jack returned, I was in the hallway, running my hands up and down my arms, trying to subdue my screaming, jumping nerves. ‘It’s lovely,’ I said inanely. ‘The house.’

  ‘It’s very private. I got it because I thought you –’ His quicksilver smile flashed and was gone. ‘Never mind. Doesn’t matter.’

  I followed him into a large room that had a soaring, arched ceiling, and tiled floors strewn with exotic rugs. A long, red sofa sat in the middle of the room. The walls were covered with beautiful hangings in rich, deep colours. I walked around, looking, stopping, touching ornaments – anything to play for time while I marshalled my thoughts ready for battle should he tell me it was irrevocably over.

  Because it wasn’t going to be over.

  Dammit!

  Jack made some sound – a muffled curse – as he came up behind me, and i
t startled me so much, I dropped the ceramic dish I’d just picked up off a long low cabinet. It rolled off the rug onto the tiled floor, but didn’t break. I bent to pick it up.

  He stiffened as I straightened and put the bowl back in position – which was when I saw the button badge I’d given him at his party. Sitting on the cabinet, on a beautiful silver plate.

  He reached across me, grabbed the badge and pocketed it. Then he cleared his throat. ‘Can I get you a drink?’ he asked. Formal. Distant.

  I shook my head, too choked up to speak. Because he’d kept that stupid button badge.

  ‘A glass of wine. Or port. Brandy. Whatever you want. I – I’ve got some of that apple tea you like.’

  He had apple tea! Which he hated. Did it mean something? It had to. Had to, right?

  I gazed up at him, putting every melting thought I’d ever had about him into my eyes, and said the words he’d once said to me. ‘You’re not going to break my heart, are you, Jack? Don’t. Please, don’t.’

  He dragged in a broken breath. Nothing formal about that. ‘You know I’ll end up breaking it, Evangeline. Not because I want to, but because of who I am. If not for me, you wouldn’t have done that interview – I know you didn’t want to.’

  ‘So you saw it.’

  ‘I tried to call you. I tried to call everyone! But nobody answered.’

  ‘That was part of the plan. My plan. Because I did want to do it. And I wanted to be the one to explain it to you. It’s why I’m here.’

  ‘Why?’ He ran both his hands through his hair. ‘Why put yourself through that?’

  ‘For you,’ I said simply.

  ‘Why would you do anything for me? We lost the baby because of me.’

  Tears sprang to my eyes. ‘No, Jack. The doctor told me the accident and the miscarriage were most likely not even connected. But if the accident did cause it, then I caused it because of my stupid fears. Not you.’ They fell, the tears. For the baby. For Jack. For me, and what I’d lost. ‘I’m trying not to hate myself, but I’m not quite there yet. Is that why you left me, Jack? Do you hate me for it, too?’ I forced the question out, dreading the answer. Because his hating me was the one thing I couldn’t fight, couldn’t fix.