Her eyes widened. “Darth Vader…God, that’s ironic.”
“What do you mean?” He was just using a movie reference to dance lightly around a sensitive issue.
“Nothing. And please don’t say you love me…you can’t. You don’t know me, I don’t know you. I don’t even understand you.”
“I do know you.” Jack let his hands drop away from her. He was no longer feeling like Rhett. “Being with you, talking to you, getting to know you, you’ve changed the very foundation of my life, Jamie Peters. You showed me what’s important. That when I concentrate on other people and their happiness, instead of myself, my life makes sense.”
She skirted out past him, careful not to brush against him. “I’m glad if you feel like I’ve had a positive effect on your life. But truthfully, I’m sure generosity was there in you the whole time.”
“Maybe it was, but I certainly wasn’t using it.” When he reached for her again she moved right up to his front door. Why the hell was he always reaching for her and she was always pulling away? That was starting to irritate him. “Why won’t you let me love you?”
“I don’t trust you,” she said.
Well. That pissed him off. “Don’t trust me? Or don’t trust yourself? Look, you said you have a bad track record with men. But all those losers, and whatever went down between you and your father, it has nothing to do with me. Nothing.”
Her face leeched of all its color. “Maybe Beckwith’s prediction was right. I was destined to meet you.”
That sounded about right to him. So why did she look as if she’d eaten bad fish?
“You found a new career direction. I found my father and my conviction that I am happy with my life the way it is.”
“Uhh…” Shit, he had nothing left to throw out there. He was a pitcher about to be yanked from the game.
“I’m not interested in a relationship right now.”
Whoa. Dude. The ultimate brush-off. This was almost worse than the thank-you after his love confession.
No. Nothing was as bad as that.
But nonetheless, this pretty much sucked, too.
Jamie closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to relax so she could survive this ordeal.
“You look like hell,” Allison whispered to her from the chair next to her.
She knew that without Allison pointing it out to her. “Thanks a lot.”
Her eyes remained closed as she swished her feet around in the warm tub of water. They were lined up all in a row, all three roommates, soaking their feet in a midtown salon, the morning before Caroline’s wedding.
“Maybe you should call him or something,” Allison whispered.
Jamie nearly groaned with confusion and longing. How could she explain to Allison that she wanted nothing more than to call Jack and accept his offer of love, his promise of a future. But she couldn’t do that. Jack wasn’t who she had thought he was.
He was Jonathon.
And he had lied to her about several things, starting with being unemployed and ending with his chichi apartment. Which meant she couldn’t trust him, no matter how much her heart wanted to believe otherwise.
But Jack wasn’t the only liar. Jamie was lying to herself. She wasn’t staying away from Jack because he had money, or because he had lied to her the day they met. She was staying away because she was in love with him. Because when she looked at him, and talked to him, and watched him with his grandfather and Austin, her heart melted to mush, about the consistency of goetta or grits. She was that much in love with him. And terrified that if she told him that, he’d have the power to hurt her as much as her father had hurt her.
“I’m not calling him.” She was happy with her life the way it was, or she would be as soon as she got over being miserable.
“Well, you know you’re going to see him tonight at the rehearsal dinner.”
As if she hadn’t thought about that every second for the last six days. And regretted that she’d been so abrupt in her dismissal of him at his apartment. She’d never been so cruel in her life—he professed love and she said thank you?—but she had been desperate to get out of there with her panties still intact. “I know.”
Mrs. Davidson swept into the room, bringing a tray of fruit with her. “Here, girls, I brought you some goodies while you’re getting your pedicures.” She set the tray down on a table and smiled at them, beaming with maternal pride.
Jamie couldn’t look her in the eye for fear Mrs. Davidson would immediately know that Jamie had seen her son naked. The knowledge felt fairly burned all over her. Slept With Jack. In neon flashing lights across her breasts.
Caroline looked up from her own seat across from Jamie, her long, tanned legs showing under the feminine floral dress she wore. “Thanks, Mom. That looks great.”
They shared a smile, which made Jamie feel even worse. This was Caro’s big day, and she had done the utterly distasteful by sleeping with the brother of the bride.
Mrs. Davidson was an attractive woman of fifty-something with blond hair shot with silver. She was wearing a sleeveless dress in turquoise, showing well-defined arms that made Jamie feel like a soft down pillow. Caroline and her mother were long and slender, with firm everything, while Jamie was soft and squishy. Jack had called her lush, which had sounded wonderful in the moment.
Now it sounded fat.
Her lip trembled. She felt the signs of a serious pity party descending on her.
“Jamie, honey, are you all right?” Mrs. Davidson asked, picking up one of her hands and rubbing it maternally. “You look a little tired.”
Jamie wiggled her toes in the bubbly water and attempted a smile. “I am tired. I think I’m getting a cold.”
Allison made a coughing sound behind her hand.
Mrs. Davidson patted her again. “Oh, summer colds are the worst, aren’t they? Get lots of rest this afternoon and take some echinacea. Here, have a strawberry.”
She accepted the fruit Mrs. Davidson was pressing on her.
“Thank you.” A tight smile was all she could manage, but fortunately Mrs. Davidson moved on.
“Mandy, you look absolutely adorable. Motherhood agrees with you, and wherever did you get those cute maternity capri pants?”
Her mother might have accepted her lame excuse, but Caroline frowned at her. “Are you sure you’re okay, Jams? You haven’t looked good all week. Maybe it’s the flu. I’d feel terrible if you were sick for the wedding.”
“I think it’s just a cold. The flu would have me knocked out flat. I’m sure I’ll be fine.” Jamie held the strawberry with one hand and rubbed down the front of her loose, long skirt with the other. She didn’t have so much as a sniffle, but she couldn’t exactly tell the truth.
Caroline leaned forward, cupping her hand so her mother wouldn’t hear. “You’re not…pregnant or anything, are you?”
Oh, Lord.
The strawberry fell out of her hand, tumbled down her skirt, and landed with a plop in her feet water.
“No!” She wasn’t, she knew that for a fact. Jack had used protection every time, and it had been the wrong time. Of course, Caroline knew none of that.
Caroline grinned. “Just checking. You’d be a great mom, of course, but I can’t imagine you raising a baby Scratch.”
Not that she had ever actually slept with Scratch. “I haven’t seen Scratch in months.” The implication, of course, was that she hadn’t had sex since then, which made Jamie feel like a Big Fat Liar.
This was awful. The very second Caro stepped off the plane after her honeymoon, Jamie was going to come clean.
Time to change the subject. She fished the strawberry out of her water. “So, everything’s all set, Caro? No last minute things we can help you with?”
Caroline smiled in satisfaction. “Everything is set for the rehearsal tonight and the whole day tomorrow. Oh, I forgot to tell you. You know I’ve packed up all my stuff in the apartment, and I thought Brad would just get it when we got back from Paris. But Jonathon
offered to move everything to the new apartment for me while we’re gone.”
Allison gave that horrid fake cough again, her brown eyes dancing with amusement.
Jamie saw nothing funny about it. “Oh, great. Have him call ahead so we can let him in.” And so she could be on the other side of Manhattan when he showed up. Maybe even in Queens just to be safe.
Mrs. Davidson leaned against Caroline’s chair. “I don’t see why you just can’t hire a mover, Caroline. It’s not like Jonathon knows a thing about moving furniture. Unless that’s something else he kept from his family.”
Jamie couldn’t imagine why anyone would keep the ability to lift wardrobe boxes a secret from their family, but Mrs. Davidson looked serious.
Caroline pursed her lips. “Jonathon actually has hired a mover. He’s going to let them in and oversee the loading and unloading so we don’t have to deal with it when we get back. It’s a wedding gift.”
“I’m surprised he has the money since he lost his mind and quit his job.”
And Jamie thought she had issues. Clearly, Mrs. Davidson hadn’t been thrilled when Jack left Wall Street.
“Mom, please, don’t start like this…” Caroline started to rub at her temples.
“I think that’s awfully nice of Jack,” Jamie blurted out, darting an urgent “Help Me” look to Allison. She didn’t want Caroline and her mother getting into a fight in a salon the day before her wedding.
Mrs. Davidson tilted her head and looked at her in surprise. “How did you know Jonathon’s nickname was Jack? No one really calls him that anymore.”
Jamie froze. Oh, help. She was busted. “I…”
“Jamie works for an agency that requests funding from Hathaway, Mom. I’m sure she understands why he quit his job.”
Okay, uncomfortable family undercurrents. Would Caro’s contempt shift to her if she found out Jamie had slept with Jack? But this was her opportunity to at least partially come clean. “Yes, and this week I actually met Jack in person. He’s working with one of my teenagers.”
Caro looked smug, Mrs. Davidson looked appalled. “He’s doing what?” she said.
“Oh, yeah, Jack and Jamie have been working very closely on this project,” Allison said, humor in her voice.
Turning, she shot Allison a warning look. Allison was the one who had gotten her started on this whole secret sex thing, and now she was about to force questions Jamie didn’t want to answer while her feet were soaking in a salon. Or actually, she did not want to answer them ever.
Saved by the pedicurists. As four technicians stepped into the room, Mandy asked, “Why aren’t you having a pedicure, Mrs. Davidson?”
Jamie could have kissed Mandy for taking the conversation off of Jack/Jonathon.
“Oh, I had a spa day yesterday. I knew I would be too nervous to relax today.”
A woman dressed all in black sat on a little stool in front of Jamie and pulled her right foot out of the water and dried it with a fluffy white towel.
She tried to relax, forcing herself to take deep breaths and listen to the classical music playing softly above her head. Okay, that was better.
This was not a big deal. So she was lying. No biggie. So she had bolted out of Jack’s place like a redheaded chicken. So she was in love with him. Not a problem.
All she had to do was spend an entire weekend in a wedding party with him and pretend they were platonic acquaintances. Of course, that was no mean feat, considering she had touched every inch of his glorious body and had begged him to make her come.
She had been certain he’d been exaggerating when he’d said he loved her. Sure she’d been doing the right thing. She had thought it wasn’t a good idea for them to get involved, but now she couldn’t really remember why. The only thing she did know was that she wasn’t handling this whole thing very well.
Jamie had always prided herself on being a clear-headed person. Sitting in that chair she felt about as thick as Derby pie.
She had sort of run out on Jack twice.
A flush raced through her.
Maybe she wasn’t as mature as she liked to think.
Mrs. Davidson started across the room. “My cell phone is ringing. Excuse me, girls, I’ll take this in the lobby.”
Caroline closed her eyes as a pedicurist started massaging her feet. “She’s driving me crazy.” Then her eyes reopened, fists relaxed, and Caroline looked determined to ignore her mother. Her tone was brisk, efficient, purposefully pleasant. “Mandy, you’re partners with my cousin, Steve.”
“Is he cute?” Mandy joked, flipping her wispy hair back. “Damien will be jealous if he is.”
“I do think he’s cute, yes, even though he’s my cousin. He’s something of a flirt, too. I don’t want to cause problems, Mandy. I can partner you with Finn, Brad’s awful cousin from Ireland.”
“No, no, leave me with Steve.” Mandy grinned, her hands resting on the baby bump below her waistband. “It practically guarantees that Damien will want to shag me when we get home that night. Branding, you know. And reminding me that I made the right choice in picking him.”
Jamie was appalled. Torturing your husband all night just sounded so cruel.
Allison just laughed. “You’re too cute to be so manipulative, Mandy. I love it.” Then she turned to Caroline. “So, who do I get? The awful cousin or your brother?”
“The awful cousin.” Caroline winced. “I’m sorry, Allison, but the thing is I trust you to control him. Jamie, well, sweetie, you’re just too nice.”
Nice. Sure. That’s what she was. Lying and running out on men. She felt just sweet as sugar.
Why had she bolted like that? She might have ruined her new friendship with Jack, except that she knew despite their best intentions, neither one of them could claim they were purely friends.
Allison rubbed her hands together. “Controlling a man sounds like it could be fun, actually. So what do I have to do? Keep him from draining the Cristal, or from trying to look up skirts of fifteen-year-old girls?”
Eew. Jamie wasn’t too nice to handle a guy like that, but she sure in the heck didn’t want to.
“Allison, he’s not that bad. He’s not a pervert, just a jerk.” Caroline’s mouth drew down in a frown, and a hand went back up to rub at her right temple.
“So what’s so terribly wrong with him?” Mandy asked.
There was no hesitation. “He’s rude, he turns everything into a joke, he’s underdressed in scrubby clothes at every occasion, and he’s an artist, of all things. A broke, mooching artist, and for some reason Brad thinks he’s the coolest thing since MP3s.”
“I can handle that type, no problem.” Allison waved her hand in the air. “I’ll prevent him from making an embarrassing toast at the reception, I promise.”
Wait a minute. It suddenly occurred to Jamie exactly what that meant.
It meant…
“So, that means Jamie is with Jonathon.”
Gak. She’d thought that’s what it meant. Her heart slammed into her gut. No, no, no. She could not spend the next twenty-four hours being forced to walk with, sit next to, dance with, and pose in pictures alongside Jack.
It had been hard enough to resist him the first week, when he’d just been friendly and pleasant at Beechwood. It had been damn near impossible to say no to the silent plea he’d had in his eyes after he had kissed her, told her he loved her.
Put him in a tux, with champagne swimming through her system, and she might as well throw her skirt over her head and let him at it.
A gurgling sound came out of her mouth. The pedicurist glanced up at her, her eyebrow lifting.
“Are you sure that’s such a good idea, Caro? It might make Jack uncomfortable since we know each other in a…professional capacity.”
Allison gave another hideous cough. “Maybe Jamie has a point, Caroline. I can partner up with Jonathon. It will be fun, since I’ve known him for years, and he’ll feel comfortable.”
Bless Allison’s heart. She was trying to
save her.
“No.” Caroline shook her head. “Jonathon will be fine with Jamie. I seriously need you to baby-sit Finn. God, why do we even have relatives?”
Jamie was dead. That’s all there was to it. Unless she invoked the three R’s. Reduce, reuse, recycle? No, that wasn’t right. Resist, reject, retreat. That was it.
Clearly, she had been right in saying she wasn’t ready for a relationship. She was a total emotional mess, and it wouldn’t be fair to either of them to race down a relationship course that would leave them both bruised and bleeding when they crashed at the bottom.
Sinking back in the chair, she resigned herself to her fate—a really uncomfortable, sexually frustrating weekend.
Jack huddled in the backseat of his cousin Steve’s SUV and tried not to grimace. He, Steve, and Pops were on their way to the wedding rehearsal, then dinner, and Steve’s driving was making him sick.
Or maybe his life was making him sick.
His empty, lonely, meaningless life.
How could Jamie have left him like that? After he’d handed her his bleeding heart on a bloody stick.
It was the question that had been repeated a thousand times in a thousand different ways.
And he had yet to come up with an answer.
Steve took the corner at forty miles an hour, nearly annihilating a group of tourists trying to cross the street to see the Rockefeller Center.
“Slow down,” he growled, pushing his sunglasses firmly back up his nose.
Steve glanced at him. “What’s the matter with you? You don’t look so good.”
“I think I ate bad chicken.” It was a total lie, but was better than blurting out the truth, that he was mooning over Jamie. Steve would spend the whole damn night telling him I told you so.
“Uh, bad timing, Jack. You can’t be puking at your sister’s wedding. It won’t look good on the video.”
Unwrapped Bundle with You Don't Know Jack & Bad Boys in Kilts Page 41