Wanting Mr Wrong

by Avril Tremayne

  ‘Hate you? Hate?’ Another of those broken breaths as he pulled me into his arms. ‘No, never, ever.’

  I sagged against him, held on, and on. The tears became sobs. I wanted to stop crying but I couldn’t. Because suddenly the grief over the baby was as fresh, as strong, as devastating as it had been that night weeks ago.

  Jack held me, waiting them out, holding me close, murmuring words, rubbing my back, until the tears started to slow. At last, they stopped, and he pulled back – but only far enough to look down at me, take my face in his hands, kiss the tears from my eyes, my cheeks. ‘I love you. Crazily, obsessively love you. Always have. Always will. Always.’

  And then he pulled stiffly away, like he was coming to his senses, his hands diving back into his pockets. ‘But remember, you said love wasn’t ever the issue. And it wasn’t. It wasn’t enough, that’s for sure. I kept telling you I would fix things, and I didn’t, I couldn’t. I hate that. Hate it. So much.’ He closed his eyes, drew a deep breath. And then he looked at me, so sadly. ‘You said you couldn’t live in my world, you said it would crush you, but I wanted you too much to listen. If I’d listened … but I didn’t … and I crushed you.’ He swallowed. ‘Well.’

  Well. Like a full stop. End of story.

  Oh no! This was not the end. NOT.

  ‘So tell me,’ I said, and my voice wobbled, despite my best efforts. ‘What do I have to do, Jack? Take out a theatre subscription? Get a part in a movie? Do a terrifying television interview? Tell me what I need to do and I swear I’ll give it a red hot go. Oh no, wait – I’ve already done the interview.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have.’

  ‘But I did! I did it to show you – not just tell you – that I know, now, what’s important.’ I took that step closer. ‘You were right all the way along, Jack – what a person does for a living doesn’t make them better or worse than anyone else.’

  ‘Evangeline, don’t –’

  ‘Listen to me. Please.’ I was desperate now, and the words came rushing out. ‘What happened with Sam and Lachlan – men I thought were so upright and principled … What does that tell you about how stupid I was? And yet Hamish – well, he was sweet and kind. And your friends, they seemed so unaffected and real and decent, like you. And so many of them do so much – even that bloody tuberculosis documentary.’ I stopped, took a quick breath. ‘And you were right about Sam – that I needed to move right along. And that’s another reason I did the interview. And I might not ever feel comfortable with that crap, but I don’t care. I want you. And I will take everything that goes with it because I’d rather have you than have my privacy. Like Chloe and Marcus, only … only … only more!’ Stop. ‘Am I making any sense at all, Jack?’

  ‘Yes, Evangeline, it all makes sense, theoretically. But remember that Louis Vuitton travelling case and the K-Mart backpack you said didn’t belong on the same trip?’

  ‘But I was wrong. All sorts of bags get loaded onto the same plane all the time.’

  ‘But they’re not all going to the same destination.’

  ‘So I’ll upgrade my luggage.’

  He hadn’t moved, but there was softening, a hint of it, there. His hands came out of his pockets.

  ‘You know what our real problem has always been, Jack?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. That I love you. And you –’ He stopped, shrugged. ‘Even if … Even if I loved you like crazy … You said that, and I knew, right then, that it might never be, might never happen. I just didn’t want to give up.’ Back went the hands. In the pockets.

  ‘But it did happen.’

  He ignored that. ‘So I’m fixing the problem, and staying away from you.’

  ‘The problem we have can’t be fixed. Because our real problem is a physical affliction,’ I said, and stepped right up to him. ‘It’s the reason you keep jamming your hands in your pockets. To try not to touch me.’

  Jack stepped back, watching me, warily.

  I stepped forward again.

  He stepped back.

  I stepped forward. He was not getting away. ‘Pheromones. You want to touch me, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, so simply.

  ‘So do it.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Right. I’m pulling out the big guns,’ I said.

  ‘Evangeline –’

  ‘The “cute” guns,’ I said. ‘Because I’ve been practising. See?’ I asked, and ran my hands through my hair until it was a wild, tangled mess.

  I could see his lips twitch. Good.

  ‘And what about this?’ I asked, and pouted. ‘That’s a pout.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that.’

  ‘You like it when I pout, don’t you? Because if you don’t, I am going to be very embarrassed.’

  ‘Yes, I like it.’

  ‘Weird but whew. Okay, so here’s a frown.’ I lowered my short, straight eyebrows. And then, for good measure, I looked up at him with a tiny eyelash bat (not at all easy when you’re frowning, let me tell you).

  Stepping forward, I placed my hand on his heart, and felt it do a whacking great leap.

  Excellent progress.

  I looked up at him, pouting, frowning, and batting my eyelashes, and I added a lick of my lips, and his heart thumped again.

  ‘Jack,’ I breathed out, ‘in the past few weeks, I have made peace with a paparazzi photographer, put myself through a very personal interview, sung “Good Morning” with your brother in a gay bar, and bought a plasma TV that I could not afford just so I could watch you in The Trouble With Susanna, A Walk Into Love and Midsummer Zombies –’

  He recoiled, horrified. ‘Jesus, Evangeline, please tell me you did not find Midsummer Zombies.’

  ‘I liked the eye make-up – sexy.’

  Jack covered his eyes with an unsteady hand, laughing. And blushing – first time for everything!

  And then he stopped, dropped the hand. ‘Wait – the plasma TV. The movies. Are you saying you have a crush on me, Evangeline?’

  I nodded. ‘I even signed up for newsletters on the welovejackj website.’

  ‘You did not.’

  ‘I did too. And even Guy McKinsey never got me to do that. So this crush is gigantic, and you know I don’t like having crushes, so you have to do the decent thing and help me exorcise it.’

  A smile glimmered.

  Yes!

  ‘And I do this … how?’ he asked, that smile in his voice.

  ‘Well, you know from the Guy experience that I have to, like, gorge myself on you. But it would be helpful, while I’m doing that, if you do all that stuff that makes you so infuriating.’

  He smiled at me – the full one – and my heart swooned. ‘Such as?’ he asked.

  ‘Like the up and down eyebrow, that makes me feel like an insect. And maybe mix it up with one of those intent looks that makes me wonder if I have a cockroach leg stuck to my face.’

  ‘I do not look at you like that.’

  ‘Sure you do.’ But I couldn’t hold the giggle in.

  ‘Funny, is it?’

  ‘Well, not when you’re right in the middle of the look, like you are now.’

  ‘What, like this?’ he asked, and the breath stuck in my lungs. I could only stare at him, wide-eyed.

  ‘Because this look, Evangeline,’ he said, prowling around me, ‘is all about wanting to see you without your clothes on. I look at you like I want to drag you into my body, and suck on that pouty little mouth of yours and shove myself inside you, and beg you, beg you, beg you to touch me, to come for me, to melt and scream and want me so much you will do anything.’

  ‘Oh.’ That sounded so insanely good, my whole body was throbbing.

  ‘Get it?’ he asked.

  I nodded. Swallowed.

  He smiled – a small, tight, smile. ‘So, you’ve got a crush on me?’

  Nod.

  ‘Good,’ he said savagely. ‘Because you’ve driven me insane from the first moment I saw you. The way you look, the way you smell, the way you spe
ak, the way you laugh at anything and everything, like you can’t help yourself.’ He glared at me. ‘And the way you point-blank refused to see me as anything more than Drew’s low-life-actor brother. I was tagging around after Drew like a sniffer dog waiting for you to get over Sam, to notice that I was in the wings, ready for you. But you didn’t see me, not even when I was scouring obscure shops for impossible-to-get DVDs featuring a man you claimed to be wildly in lust with just to score some one-on-one time with you –’

  ‘Oh. I never stopped to think about how you always had a DVD handy,’ I interrupted.

  ‘– because I figured – hey, maybe actors aren’t out of bounds after all, and Guy himself is no threat because he lives in bloody London. But you still didn’t notice me. Not even when I damn near killed myself at my own party, keeping your boyfriend out of your way, and out of mine.’

  I goggled at that.

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘My friends were primed to keep you and Lachlan separated all night.’

  ‘That’s …’

  ‘Despicable?’

  ‘Awesome!’

  That surprised a laugh out of him. And then he said, ‘Right,’ with sudden, fierce resolve. He grabbed my hands, dragged me in, toe-to-toe.

  ‘If we’re going to step over the line, Evangeline, we’re not stepping back. So you need to have your eyes wide open.’

  ‘My eyes are open, and they’re seeing you. Only you.’

  ‘Just listen. You need to know that not all the paps are nice like Hamish. Some of them are exactly like the bastards you think they are. Intrusive. Harassing. Opportunistic.’ He stopped, looked down at me. Smiled, and batted that argument away with a blithe, ‘But we can manage that.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed enthusiastically. ‘I know we can. I can.’

  He pulled me full against him, wrapped me in his arms. ‘And the actor thing? Yes, I have some amazing, decent, high-minded, philanthropic friends. But for every one of them there’s a Jessamyn French – vapid, selfish and useless.’ Quick breath, and another bat away: ‘But so what? We don’t have to associate with them, Evie.’

  ‘Yes. Or no. Whatever,’ I said, and then it hit me and I looked up at him, beaming. ‘Evie,’ I breathed. ‘You called me Evie. Thank God! I thought I was going to have to drag out the heavy artillery.’

  Up went his eyebrow.

  ‘You’re doing the eyebrow thing,’ I said calmly.

  ‘Is it infuriating you?’

  ‘No. Hey, this could be a crush for life.’

  ‘So tell me about this heavy artillery. What is it?’

  I did the pout/frown/eyelash bat thing. ‘Well, for one thing …’ I grabbed him by the front of his shirt, dragged myself up and kissed him hard on the mouth. ‘I’m not wearing any underwear.’

  Jack froze. And then, in a series of forceful strides, I was backed up and shoved onto the couch, Jack coming down on top of me. We were nose-to-nose, my knees spread on either side of his thighs, my dress bunched up, his fingers climbing up, up, up the outside of my thigh.

  ‘Say it,’ he said. ‘I want you to say it.’

  ‘I’ll say anything,’ I said desperately.

  He adjusted his position so that his fingers could reach the inside of my thigh. Climbing, climbing … I strained against him. Almost there. Almost …

  He shook his head, impatient, fingers hovering but going no further. ‘Say it.’

  ‘Jack, please, touch me there. Please.’

  ‘I will – as soon as you say it.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘You said that even if you loved me, you wouldn’t take me on. I waited. I hoped. And now I need to know. The even if …’ He took a deep breath in, out. ‘Evie … Do you? That’s the question.’

  Giggle. ‘Oh. Haven’t I said it?’

  ‘I think I might have remembered if you had, since I’ve been hanging out for it for so long.’

  ‘Well, I do.’

  His fingers inched higher, slid along the crease of my inner thigh. ‘You do what, Evie? What?’

  ‘Love you. I love you.’ And then as his fingers slid, wham, inside me, I moaned out a more shuddery, ‘I loooooovee you.’

  The expression on his face was scorching as he plunged his fingers in and out of me. I thrust myself against him as I came in one long delicious moan, crushed my mouth to his.

  Slowly, slowly, I collapsed back on the couch, looking up at him and smiling. ‘You know, Drew is so right about getting laid,’ I said dreamily. ‘It really does cure everything.’

  He didn’t smile back. ‘That’s not even an approximation of how I am going to get you laid, Evie,’ he said, and moved between my thighs. ‘No more running, now. You had your chance. You blew it.’

  ‘The only place I want to run is wherever you are. And the only thing I want to blow is … well, you.’

  ‘Oh, Evie,’ he said, laughing shakily as he drew me tightly into his arms. He kissed my cheek. ‘What am I going to do with you?’

  ‘What – you need me to tell you? That’s disappointing.’

  To my amazement, he sat up, pulled me up. Looked at me very seriously as he put his hand on the side of my face, slid his fingers into my hair. ‘Just to be clear. You’re with me. All the way. Better or worse. Richer or poorer, sickness, health, as long as we both shall live – you know the drill.’

  I climbed onto his lap, straddling him, taking his face between my hands and kissing him, over and over.

  ‘Way to string out the suspense, Evie. Come on – I’ve got the apple tea. I’ll trade the Audi in for a four-door car. Pick a cause, any cause, and I’m there. I’ll get you a meeting with Guy McKinsey. Hmm. Actually, scrap that one. No McKinsey. Just say yes. I’ve been waiting so long for you, I’m going to need Botox soon. Say yes before I’m past the help of Botox and am up to prosthetic pecs and a butt lift.’

  ‘I guess I have to say yes, then, because your butt is just the way I like it and I don’t want anyone mucking around with it,’ I said. ‘In fact, I’d much rather you lift my butt. Like right now,’ I said, unbuttoning his jeans. ‘Unless you didn’t mean what you said earlier about all that shoving. If that was only talk, I am going to have to spank you.’

  ‘Oh it’s not all talk. Unless you count what I’m about to whisper in your ear …’

  I gasped as he slid into me in one smooth stroke. ‘And what would that be?’

  ‘What I’m going to do to you. And, Evie, spanking is not out of the question …’

  The Contract

  by Avril Tremayne

  Lane Davis has never had time for love. Hard work, dedication and focus got her through uni and now she’s a successful economist with qualifications in all areas – except the bedroom.

  When a colleague airs those bedroom sheets in public, Lane decides it’s time to upskill. She’s always studied her way to success, so why not hire a teacher to help her out now? It’s just a business deal – three months of private tutoring, no strings attached. Easy – or it would be, if the lessons didn’t make her weak at the knees…

  Her proposed teacher, Adam Quinn, has his own agenda. His sister – one of Lane’s best friends – wants him to scare Lane into giving up her crazy scheme. But once he meets Lane, he can’t quite bring himself to reject her.

  If Adam’s going to teach Lane just one thing, it’s that love can get in the way of even the best intentions…

  Learning the art of seduction has never been so much fun.

  Available now!

  Read on for an extract…

  CHAPTER ONE

  Where was he?

  Thirty minutes late was too late.

  Late enough for Lane to wonder if, perhaps, Adam had changed his mind and wasn’t coming.

  Lane swallowed, trying to get her head around that. Around the idea she might have to go back to the drawing board. She didn’t want to face that possibility. It had been excruciatingly embarrassing getting to this point; the thought of starting again was enough to make h
er feel faint.

  She took a deep, calming breath as she looked around her living room, checking again that nothing was out of place—which she’d already done a dozen times—and calculating how long it would take Adam to drive from his house in out-there Newtown to her house in not-so-out-there Mascot. Fifteen minutes, tops.

  Still … he may have been caught up on a building site. Or stuck in traffic somewhere – it happened sometimes, people getting caught up near the airport, when they were driving to her place.

  She took another deep breath. Settle down, Lane. There’s no reason for him to back out. Any man would jump at the chance—that’s what her friend Sarah had said. Sarah had told her that he, specifically, had jumped. He knew the score, and had already agreed. Tonight was just a formality. Signatures on the page.

  Lane felt her hands start to clench, and wiggled her fingers to ease the tension.

  Nerves. She hated nerves. Had perfected the art of not letting them show, no matter how much her insides rioted, because the flustering, dithery fluttering of them made her look like a twit.

  Logical, rational financial economists did not flutter. Or pace floors, or chew fingernails. They crunched numbers and analyzed data and predicted trends so high-yield decisions could be made, built on a sound base.

  A sound base. That was one way of looking at the succinct checklist she’d prepared for tonight, to review with Adam before they signed the contract she’d drawn up.

  The checklist. She would just have one more read. That would help calm her down.

  She walked swiftly to the glass-topped coffee table, bent to reach into the briefcase beside it and slid out the paper-clipped pages. Three of them. Neat. Error-free. Black type on white paper.

  He’d already agreed, she reminded herself, drawing in another one of her silent, secret, calming breaths, as she skimmed the words she knew practically by heart. It was a straightforward arrangement—nothing to panic over.

  Adam didn’t even have to like her. Liking wasn’t a prerequisite on either side. Although, of course, it would be easier if they did like each other. And really, they probably would. Lane liked his sister, Sarah. Sarah liked Lane. And Sarah adored Adam. Logic suggested there would be a mutuality of liking in there that would encompass Lane and Adam in some way, right?