A Touch of Spice (12 page)

Jackie thought about life at the all girls’ boarding school and the petty wars that had been waged over the most inconsequential things. Back then, she’d been an outsider—the colour of her skin and her fascination with everything goth had cost her points on the social ladder. But the other girls hadn’t bothered her much. There was something about Jackie that inspired unease and her peers had known not to stir her pot unless they wanted retribution. She wasn’t sure what game Clara thought she was playing here, but she had chosen the wrong opponent.

* * * *

She didn’t have to wait long for hostilities to resume.

“I thought we had an understanding,” Clara said, her shadow drawing itself long over Jackie’s desk. Everyone else had jetted off to lunch, leaving Jackie alone behind her computer to surf the Internet in peace.

The other woman’s remark ricocheted without success. Jackie barely looked up. “There was no understanding,” she pointed out. “You gave us an ultimatum and we decided to ignore it.”

Clara snorted. “You must be joking. You’re still texting him even though he said he’s not interested? What kind of pathetic loser does that?” Jackie glanced up to find her waving a smartphone—Marten’s text message was clearly visible on the screen.

That explained how she’d figured out Tony was seeing other people. She would have recognised Jackie’s number early on and known the hypothetical man of their conversations wasn’t so hypothetical after all. With every attempt she’d made to dissuade Jackie, she had only been looking out for her own best interest. It stung, but Jackie couldn’t deny she had put the bullets in Clara’s gun herself.

“You confiscated his phone?” It stretched imagination, but not, perhaps, if dealing with someone so desperate. Jackie rolled her chair back to face Clara head-on. “I think you may have answered your own question there, princess… What I think you fail to understand is that last night you made a fool of yourself. Marten and I weren’t impressed.” The lie came easy to Jackie, it just rolled off the tongue. “And no, we’re not going to back off your man because you thought to tell us. This isn’t middle school and Tony is not property. He gets to make his own choices.”

“He chose me,” Clara shot back, defiant. “You heard him.”

“Yes, the emotionless delivery was particularly persuasive.” The chair creaked as Jackie stood up. Now they were at eye level and Clara was the one to take a step back to keep her high ground. “What are you holding over him, hmm? A kid? Money? What kind of woman would force a man to stay with her and quit his job—”

“Quit?” Clara barked a laugh. “I
found
him his job. He had nothing before me. You should have seen the mess he’d made of his life!”

“Be that as it may—”

“No,
I
got him on his feet again. Me! And that’s after he up and abandoned me in Minsk.” Clara folded her arms across her chest. “I’d only just turned eighteen and he left me in a foreign country!”

Jackie rolled her shoulders into a shrug. “He said you dumped him.” It didn’t make abandoning her any less callous, but it was an explanation. Every story had two sides, including this one. “Did you really expect him to hang around after that? Be—what, your lackey?” They had been kids. Just kids. Jackie couldn’t imagine making a commitment to anyone at thirty, never mind being twelve years younger and in a foreign country. Relationships required maturity, patience—all traits she’d lacked in her teens.

“Don’t talk to me like you know me,” Clara shot back. “You don’t know what I had to do to survive. To get home…” She sneered. “To pay his
debts
. Oh, you didn’t know about that, did you? No, Tony likes to pretend he’s some teetotaller hippie. Well, he’s not. He got me in a bad way with some people in Minsk and the son of a bitch took off. Just like that… I had to tread on my pride to survive.”

“You were a British citizen in a foreign country—”

That didn’t fly with Clara, who tossed her hair with a snigger. “Yes, my parents could have put James Bond on the case.”

“He wronged you,” Jackie was prepared to recognise, though it didn’t go a long way towards pacifying Clara. “Fine, I’ll agree with that. He was a stupid adolescent boy who should’ve known better… Still doesn’t give you the right to play gaoler five years on.”

Clara smiled, but there was an edge to it. “Doesn’t it bother you?”

“What?”

“That he’s twenty-three and you’re thirty…”

“If you’re going to try and insinuate I could have been his mom, you should double-check your math.” She wasn’t going to give Clara the satisfaction of an honest answer. Two could play this game of half-truths and thinly veiled insults.

“I’m just thinking of how this is going to work out for you. How will you introduce him to your parents, hmm? Or your friends? Will you tell them he’s a friend of Marten?” Clara perched on Jackie’s desk, careless of the keyboard and the papers strewn about. She didn’t seem to notice that her hand narrowly missed the sharp end of a paperclip. “Or is he going to remain your hypothetical man? The person who doesn’t really exist in your lives except when it’s convenient for you?”

“Now who’s talking like they know me,” Jackie bit out. “I liked you better when you were all ditsy and didn’t know how to work the phones.”

“Ouch. Don’t change the subject. How can you possibly think you can offer him what he needs?”

They were veering into dangerous territory. Jackie eyed the clock on her computer screen. Lunch break would be over soon and people would be filing back into the office. She didn’t want to make this more public than it already was. “The nature of my relationship with Tony doesn’t concern you.”

“Very diplomatic,” Clara mused. “Also complete bullshit.”

Jackie rolled her eyes. “You got him doing porn.”

“He had to help support his daughter somehow.”

There had been one too many surprises. Jackie didn’t even flinch at the news. “Frankly, I don’t even know if I believe she actually exists at this point. But for the sake of argument, let’s say I do. How does that justify what you’re doing to Tony?”

“The porn? I had no idea you were such a prude, Jackie…”

The urge to rearrange Clara’s face burnt hot in Jackie’s veins, but she bit it back. “You know I’m not. I thought he got into pornography because he liked the work. Now that I know it’s got your dirty hands all over it, I’m not so sure anymore.”

“Do you honestly think I could force a man like Tony into doing sex work?” Clara asked, arching both brows. For a moment, she looked like her old self again, bewildered and slightly wary.

“Until last night,” Jackie answered, “I would’ve said no. But you’ve got some sort of hold on him…”

“Oh, please.”

“You do,” she insisted. “You think it’s a game, but for him it’s real. He thinks he’s committed himself to you and you’re playing him like a two-dollar banjo.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you care?” Clara rolled her eyes. “If Tony hasn’t figured it out, you’re not going to help him. He’s weak—”

“See, I don’t think that’s true.” Jackie vividly recalled watching him take all that Marten had to give and coming back for seconds. She had an image of him licking his wet lips as he waited on his knees until Jackie or Marten gave him permission to touch himself. He was all willpower, that man. He hadn’t dropped Clara’s hand last night, though it visibly pained him to be put in that position. Jackie narrowed her eyes at the other woman. “I don’t think you believe he’s weak, either. You’re just looking for a way to justify what you’re doing.”

“I do what I need to do to survive,” Clara protested, her gaze flinty.

Voices filtered in from the hall—their co-workers were starting to return from lunch. So much for privacy.

Jackie took a step forward, blocking Clara’s exit. “That’s your prerogative. But you don’t do it at his expense, understand?”

“Or what? You’ll make me regret it?” For a little slip of a girl, Clara had spunk. There was also something slightly venomous in her gaze that Jackie couldn’t help but feel hinted at a more troubled past than she cared to know about. Clara wasn’t someone she could help with kindness and she had nothing else to offer. What was more, Jackie wasn’t sure she cared to try. Choices had to be made—Tony took priority.

Still, she had to admit it was a valid question. Intimidating a co-worker could get her into trouble. Clara would find a way to cover her bases, she was too clever not to.

“You’re going to regret it a lot more the day he leaves you. I know right now it feels like you’ve won, but Tony isn’t blind. He knows you’re using him and sooner or later, resentment is going to outweigh whatever guilt he feels about leaving you in Minsk.” Jackie smiled. “And believe me, I’ll be texting and emailing and fanning smoke signals until that day comes. Getting him to parrot a few words doesn’t mean we’re through.”

“Are you threatening me?” Clara quipped, thrusting out her chin.

Jackie didn’t look away. “You’re sitting on my desk, little girl.”

* * * *

“That’s what you called her?” Marten asked around a mouthful of toothpaste, poking his head around the bathroom door.

Jackie covered her face with her hands. “I was on a roll!” And she hadn’t been thinking straight. At the time, highlighting their age difference had felt like scoring a point. Now she wondered if she hadn’t simply emphasised Clara’s point about being too old for Tony. Really, that was the least of their problems. “I’m going to get fired, aren’t I?”

“She’ll have a hard time getting it to stick. You’ve been working there how long?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jackie said, because seniority was meaningless if harassment became an issue. There were pretty stringent policies in place to prevent abuses. She wouldn’t put it past Clara to find a way to convince HR that there had been improper conduct.

“At least you can be sure your life isn’t going to get any less exciting,” Marten called from the bathroom, the sounds of water splashing against porcelain providing the background track.

Jackie rolled onto her belly on the bed and reached for the wine glass on the night stand. “You can say that again.” She listened as the tap shut off, as Marten’s footsteps padded into the bedroom. The bathroom door closed with a click.

“Did you mean it?”

“Mean what?” She took one glance at Marten and understood. “Yeah. Well… What else can we do? I’m not going to let her run me out of town.”

“What if we left on our own?” Marten asked, nudging her hip. It took a couple of tries, Jackie being already on her second glass of wine and deliberately slow to shift her weight off the comforter so he could get into bed, but eventually she obeyed, settling against the headboard with the glass balanced on her belly. A sharp, humourless laugh shook the crimson surface of the goblet. “I’m serious,” Marten insisted.

“Where would we go?”

“How about…back to the States?” He cleared his throat. “You could get a job at the regional office in Seattle. We would only be a few hours away from your family…”

“Marten?”

“I was made an offer.” Secrets didn’t last long between them. Marten delivered this one with a wry smile, his shoulders hunching. “It’s not a promotion, really, but it’s still an honour to be asked.”

Jackie found herself incredibly glad for the wine all of a sudden. “When did this happen?”

“Today.”

“Oh.”

Marten huffed out a breath. “Yeah. I didn’t know how to bring it up, so… I guess I made a good impression on the new boss.”

“Well, you are the life of the party,” Jackie murmured, trying to be positive. She squeezed his knee. Much as she didn’t want to be the one to say it, she felt she had to. “What about staying and fighting for Tony?” They had both paid lip service to the idea last night at the restaurant and Jackie had all but made it into a
cri de guerre
in her conversation with Clara. Now they were talking about reneging on that vow and literally fleeing the country.

Beside her, Marten shrugged, jostling his shoulder against hers. “I really don’t know what to tell you.”

How about that we’re not abandoning him?
Jackie wanted to shout.
How about that you told me you were in love with him?
She let her hand drop from his knee and fall back down to the bed. Marten hadn’t actually said anything about loving Tony or wanting to be with Tony, only pretty phrases about refusing to be told what to do by a perfect stranger. Jackie wondered, suddenly, if that had been just another instance of her boyfriend telling her what she wanted to hear, of placating her so she wouldn’t cause a scene in public. Precedent spoke in favour of Marten taking it upon himself to manage her moods.

“He left her in Minsk,” Jackie heard herself say.

“What?”

“Tony. He left Clara in Minsk. That’s what happened.” She took another sip of wine, barely tasting the sour vintage, then poured what was left straight down her gullet, proper conduct be damned.

“Why would he do that?” Marten prompted gently. If he noticed her staring into empty space, glass perched perilously against her knees, he chose not to say. He knew her too well to imply that she might have had too much to drink.

Jackie shook her head. She didn’t know what had possessed Tony to behave so callously or why she was still defending a man who obviously wanted nothing to do with them. Clara had his phone, but she didn’t have his balls. He could have come to see them in person if he had missed them.

Now Marten was talking about leaving Rotterdam and starting over in Seattle. She was fighting a losing battle. “I’m going to turn in,” Jackie announced.

“Okay.”

She didn’t move. The muscles involved wouldn’t cooperate, and before she could smother it, an inhuman sob burst free of her throat. The glass teetered in her lap. Jackie tried to steady it, but another ragged, wet moan hit, like an earthquake shaking free from deep within. Her body curled upon itself, helpless against the sudden onslaught. Dimly, she could feel Marten’s hands on her shoulders, pulling her into his arms and plucking the wine glass from her trembling fingers.
Thank God for Marten
. He didn’t baulk at the sight of her snivelling and baying, didn’t try to hush her irrational, staccato attempts at speech. Nothing intelligible came out, only gibberish, but he understood.