by Orla Bailey
His eyes travel the swell of my breasts down to where my cut-off t-shirt exposes an expanse of bare midriff. He stares at my navel and the now hollow curve of my abdomen exposed above the prominent hipbone-hugging band of my shorts and frowns.
I get a full, close-up on him too. His hair really is damp. He’s newly shaved. The dampness I thought I’d imagined in my bathroom? He wouldn’t have? Would he? While I slept next door, fitful and naked, having kicked off the skimpy sheet which covered me. I recall the mere shadow of some erotic dream. Was that kiss, that touch – being carried up to bed – only in my imagination?
“You used my bathroom.” I gasp the only accusation I dare voice as I recover, remembering how casually he broke into my apartment in Notting Hill, just a week ago.
His so what? expression reminds me he’s shared a lot more of mine than a bathroom. I stifle a groan. The night before I left Belvedere he made me orgasm so many times I had to beg him to spare my ravaged body a repeat performance. I bury my face in my hands unable to look at him.
“I needed to clean up. I jumped the first available commercial flight to Paris late last night, hired a car and drove through the night to get here.”
I push my chair away with the backs of my knees as I stand. It screeches its discontent against the terracotta flagstones. His hands slide down my thighs as I move swiftly out of reach so he can’t touch me again. “Well that’s too bad.” How the hell did he even know where to find me? “Get out of my house, Jack.”
He pushes to his feet and looks down at me. When he steps forward, I take step back. He halts. “My house.” He pauses, waiting for my challenge to his ridiculous claim of ownership.
He absolutely gets it. At least I can defend what’s mine. “This was Harry’s property. He left everything he owned to me in his will so it’s mine and you can get the hell out of it.” It’s the one and only place I can come to forget him.
His voice gentles. It always does when we talk about my former guardian and his friend and mentor, Harry Caid. “Not long ago Harry needed to urgently raise some capital. He wouldn’t accept a straight out loan so we agreed a transaction over his French chateau and the farmland at Lassec. He was planning to buy it back again from me before –”
He had a heart attack and died. “I don’t believe you. He loved this house. He would never sell it.” I’m too stunned to argue on.
“It wasn’t meant to be permanent. Not much more than a gentleman’s agreement to help Harry out. We trusted each other, but I have signed papers if you’d like to see them. I insisted on that for his protection and those of the tenants.”
I can tell by his tone it’s true. I’ve never checked out the minute details of my inheritance with the lawyers, beyond the fact everything came to me. It’s been too recent and too painful to deal with the cold, hard facts of Harry’s passing, without any of that. I just assumed Lassec was now mine, like CaidCo was. Jack obviously chose not to tell me. Until now.
As I turn to walk out of the kitchen, Jack catches me by the arm and swirls me back round to face him. I’m too shocked to fight. I lost my parents. I lost Harry. I lost Jack. I may even have lost my mind. Slowly I’m losing everything I am. Jack won’t be finished with me until I’ve lost everything.
“Where are you going?” he murmurs.
“I’m getting the hell out of your house.”
“You’re going nowhere.” He sounds adamant. “Someone needs to take care of you. I only have to look at you to see you haven’t been taking care of yourself.”
“You plan on keeping me prisoner then?” I raise my eyebrows to show him I’ve got him. “Because that’s the only way I’m staying anywhere near you.” There’s not a damn thing he can do to stop me. Just like last time.
“If I have to.” He manages to make it sound like he means it.
“Just because we’re in France, doesn’t mean they don’t have laws!” I spit.
He smiles salaciously. “Crime of passion,” he says as if that ancient and defunct French defence is still a valid enough excuse to cover anything he chooses to do to me.
The irony that modern civil courts prefer temporary insanity or provocation, isn’t lost on me. Except it’s me who has the excuse to commit crime. He’s already knifed me through my shattered heart. What else can he do to me now? I yank my arm from his grip and continue to stomp away. He follows me into the living room.
“Where are you going now? You know I’m not going to let you leave again.”
I don’t even turn around but keep on walking. “To get dressed.”
“You’re already dressed.” He sounds confused. Now he thinks I’m crazy too.
“Not enough to be around you, I’m not.” My clothes barely cover the essentials. I’m only too conscious of the fact I’m not even wearing underwear. My nipples have tightened in a simple, involuntary response to being near him and they’re poking through the thin white cotton of my t-shirt. I couldn’t signal my physical attraction any better if I was waving a red flag in his face.
And it seems I cannot even think about that particular colour around Jack without my face turning the same shade.
He snorts. I ignore him and keep on marching. I take the stairs two at a time while he stands at the bottom. I’m quite aware of him staring up at me as I move and wish the shorts weren’t quite so cut-off. Despite not eating, I’ve filled out since I bought these clothes. I hold my hands behind me to cover myself only to hear him chuckling softly. He thinks he’s got me exactly where he wants me.
As soon as I get to the bedroom I slam the door and stand behind it breathing hard. I wait for the thumping of my heart to subside before I dare move again. It isn’t that I’m scared he’ll force his way in. I’m certain he’s stayed down below. It’s more that I need to barricade myself against the shock of seeing him here. How did he find me? No-one knew I was here. Why won’t he allow me to mend in peace? It isn’t fair. What did I ever do to warrant all this misery?
I’ve suffered abject damnation over the past four days. My heart is battered and bruised but I’d finally accepted I must go forward without Jack in my life.
His arrival has derailed me.
For a week I’ve relived all the suffering I endured when I was eighteen and this time it has been ten times worse. I’d started to allow myself to believe in him. Poor, foolish idiot that I am. La petite folle.
Crazy, because I have accepted that I’ve never actually fallen out of love with him. That alone was momentous enough to show me I had to go.
Yet I know the score. He still intends to punish me and have his fun at the same time. Then he means to return to Amanda. This is probably all her rotten idea in the first place. How she’ll laugh at the sad little details when he shares them before they make love. I’m only surprised she hasn’t come along to witness my complete annihilation first hand.
Has she?
I ran from Jack on Monday and I must run again. He isn’t mine. He doesn’t even want to be. He just wants to make me suffer for my temerity and no-one gets between Jack Keogh and his prey. My desperate retreat, my sanctuary, has always been Harry’s chateau, in Brittany. It’s the place I first learned to live again after the desolation of losing my parents. Once more I sought it out by instinct. But even that is gone now because it’s not Harry’s place any longer. It’s not mine. My memories now belong to Jack. Lassec is his. Where is my refuge now?
I rip off my scrap of a t-shirt and my shorts and stand stark naked wondering what on earth I can put on that will protect me from him. There is no suit of armour strong enough to withstand an enemy like this.
I mindlessly pull on an ankle-length, figure-skimming summer dress from the wardrobe. It’s neon lime-green, has shoe-string straps and is nowhere near sturdy enough to offer me protection but it’s too hot already to wear anything more durable. It’s the closest thing to self-inflicted purdah, I can manage. I slather on copious dollops of lip gloss as an act of defiance because he hates it.
I slip senselessly down the o
ld back servant stairs and out into the yard. As I start walking up the dirt track towards the farm I feel the Sirocco. He’s behind me. His footsteps gain on me but I just can’t walk any faster.
He plops my straw hat on my head, slowing his pace to fall into step beside me. “You need to cover up in this sun. Have you got sunscreen on?”
“Have you?” I snap back without breaking my stride. He’s found a burnt orange coloured t-shirt and put it on and I’m grateful for that at least.
“Remember the rule?” His voice takes on a warning tone.
He’s got to be kidding me. I halt so suddenly he’s taken another step before he realises I’ve stopped. He wheels round to face me, blocking my path onwards.
I immediately turn and stomp off in the other direction back towards the house before being pulled to a halt. I feel angry. But anger’s good. When I’m angry I don’t feel pain. “Let go of me.”
He pulls me close to his body to stop me struggling and glares down at me. “You ran away from me. Don’t ever run away from me again, Tabitha.”
“I’m not running. I’m walking, actually.” I manage to sound completely calm and so reasonable it makes him appear the exact opposite as far as I’m concerned. He looks at me so askance I can’t help adding a bit more. “But it is to get away from you. As far away as possible.”
“You got away from me in London. That won’t be happening again.” He sounds very certain of that. He might be wearing shorts and designer flip-flops but he’s still the Boss in every way. In fact he never felt more so.
“It’s my life. I can do what I want with it.”
“Not at the weekend.”
“You’re unbel...” I see his bemused expression and rephrase it. “You can’t be serious.”
He’s reminding me of our noxious little arrangement whereby I allow him to do whatever he wants to me under the guise of mentoring me, so that CaidCo will win the opportunity to bid for Zee-Com’s advertising contract again.
“I’m deadly serious.”
“You can’t hold me to that.”
“We have a deal.” He sounds like he thinks it’s legal or something.
“Had.”
“Still have. You already paid me for mentoring you, remember. I won’t forget that in a hurry.” He cocks his eyebrow as if he’s daring me to deny it. “Now I’m obliged to execute my part of the bargain.”
What a bastard. He’s maliciously reminding me how I naïvely fulfilled one of his fantasies by sitting naked at his breakfast table, eating peach yoghurt. I said I did it in payment for his services. Neither one of us believes that any longer.
“Paid? I release you from our agreement. It’s over. Keep the change. You can go on with your life now and let me go back to mine.”
He smiles. “Can’t do that. My house. My rules. And our agreement doesn’t end for another three weekends.”
I’m astounded. “I want out.”
“I won’t even discuss that in France, only back in London. Different laws apply here I believe.”
I swear he’s laughing at me but his eyes hold me fixed and immobile. He’s being completely unreasonable.
“You’re bending the rules to suit yourself.”
“Only one rule, baby.” He tells me again as if he has to. “I decide.”
“Fuck you, Jack!”
“Have you still got any of that written on my property?” He unashamedly cups his hand over my sex holding me tight against him. His fingers explore gently for any remaining evidence of the Bollywood with gems, through my dress. The vajazzle. He reminds me of something else too. “And watch your manners. Harry raised you to be a lady.”
He’s standing in the middle of a dirt track leading from the chateau down to the farmhouse, groping me possessively and he tells me to mind my manners? I’m speechless.
And turned on. I don’t want to get turned on. I want to be angry. Very angry. I haven’t thought about the devastation and pain of the last four days for at least four minutes. It’s been replaced by fury. But the nakedness of my waxed, hair-free skin makes every touch of his dexterous fingers super-sensitive. And I neglected to put on any panties.
A spiral of tension coils within me.
He nuzzles in closer and closer, slowly raises one hand to my face and with his thumb, scours the lip gloss thoroughly from my lips. When he’s satisfied all my gleaming defiance is gone, he uses his warm lips to take complete possession of mine.
Chapter Two
“I want to walk.” My words become garbled as I attempt to remove my mouth from his. I need to think too but can’t do that when his hands are on my body and his lips over mine.
“Talk? Most definitely. I have plenty to say to you.” He settles back into the kiss, like it can wait though.
I plant my palms against his chest and push hard. “Walk.” It takes some effort before he takes the slightest notice and relaxes back. I get the feeling he does this like everything else. In his own good time.
“You need to eat,” he counters. “You’ve lost weight. I can feel your ribs.”
“Down there? That’s worrying,” I counter, only for him to laugh. He walks beside me. “I’ve only been gone a few days. I’ve hardly lost weight so as you’d notice.”
“I notice. Haven’t you been eating at all?” He frowns down at me.
I ignore his false concern. It’s a bit late for him to get all worried about what he’s done to me.
“Of course I have.” If you count the two tiny exhibition bites of omelette aux fine herbes I swallowed under Madame’s watchful eye yesterday, to pacify her and halt her threat to call the doctor out to me if I didn’t. I hid the rest to dispose of later and she took my empty plate away, happy I was over the worst. The deceit was an act of kindness on my part really. I simply couldn’t force food past the huge lump lodged in my throat.
“Your belly’s hollow,” he observes.
“A la Parisienne.” I use accented French to make a comedy out of tragedy. “Bones are a desirable thing in a woman, no?” I can’t help picturing Amanda’s fashionably emaciated figure. He seems to like them on her all right.
“No. They’re not.” He scowls at me. “Not on you.”
I feel like sticking my tongue out at him but don’t have any sense of fun. I don’t know what to make of myself. The acute pain of the last few days has miraculously disappeared. Jack removes it simply by being here. I know this isn’t right. All he will do is delay the agony. I’ll have to go through withdrawal and recovery all over again, if I allow myself to accept any temporary truce between us.
I’m like some raving alcoholic tempting herself with one last glassful before I give up the demon drink and Jack is very cruel to offer it to me. I can’t fight this addiction.
Last night I tried to read A Midsummer Night’s Dream to take my mind from heartache and encourage thought-numbing sleep. Although nothing seemed to sink in, one line has stuck with me. Puck had the right of it. My mistress with a monster is in love. It made me cry a whole heap more.
“We should forget the whole deal.” I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life. “Just pretend we never met.” I’m good at pretending.
He stops short and clasps me by the wrist. “I can’t do that, Tabitha.” He looks perplexed. “Can you? Can you pretend none of this ever happened?” His annoyance simmers. It reminds me how he looked at me at Belvedere the day I fled.
Of course I can’t. I never will. But. “This is too hard. I can’t do it.” I choke back my emotion.
“We always knew it would be. You’re a young woman who’s had a lot of responsibility thrust on her before she was ready. I have only three more weekends to teach you so it’s bound to be tough.”
We’re talking about completely different things. Naturally. I divert to the safer topic as I walk on again. “So what does it take to be CEO of a successful company, Jack?” I ask listlessly. Ruthlessness. A complete absence of mercy. Innate cruelty.
“A variety of things
.”
“Such as?” I pin him down to specifics.
“You need to be a risk-taker, for one thing.”
“I’m not a risk-taker, Jack.” He needs to understand I’m not fit for purpose. Perhaps then he’ll release me. “I have panic attacks at the slightest sign of stress. You know that.”
“I can teach you to handle that.”
My eyes fly to his. I force them to focus on the path straight ahead again. I know his diversion tactic of choice. He gave me one very distracting orgasm in the limousine on the way to the ball when I first freaked out about the red dress. My face begins to glow and aware of it, his hand comes up to softly graze my cheek with the backs of his fingers. It would appear the memory pleases him as much as it embarrasses me.
“I want to touch you,” he whispers.
I bet he does. I widen my eyes but keep them fixed forward as I walk on. No chance. I begged him to take my virginity when I was eighteen, and he ran a mile. He held back on me last weekend until he was good and ready. Then it was way too much. We never seem to be in sync about anything. But I’m the one that always lives to regret it. I divert to safer territory. “CEO. What else?”
His hesitation is momentary. “Most bosses like attention,” he says.
I shoot him a wry glance. A moment of honesty? Is he making fun of himself?
He grins and waggles his eye-brows. He looks so endearing when he does that, I find myself half-smiling back at him. I cut it off. I mustn’t let him use his easy Irish charm on me. He’s too dangerous to my well-being.
“Well I’m no attention seeker. Look how I reacted when you tricked me into wearing a red dress to a Black and White ball.” My accusation is a reminder of the disaster that turned out to be.
“It’s more about how people react to you.” His blue eyes stare off into the distance as if recalling the events. “Look at how they reacted to you in that dress.”
“I’d rather not look at it. You weren’t so flaming pleased with me yourself, when you found out how they reacted.” I remember only too clearly the newspaper photographs and the awful recriminations.