Everything You Want: Everything For You Trilogy 2 (23 page)

“I bet she did.” I’m on my feet again and stomping around. I’ve underestimated her power.

“If you’re going to be ridiculous about it…” He stops and stares at me. “Anyone would think you were jealous.”

He hits a raw nerve. He’s pointing out I’ve got no right. It isn’t as if he loves me. “Jealous? Perhaps she’s jealous of me,” I retort. I’m dead jealous. Totally losing the plot jealous. Playing right into her clawed manicured hands. Jealous, jealous, jealous.

But she’s not so secure of his feelings for her either, that she doesn’t want to continue to make life hell for me. To see me off with my tail between my legs. I need to be more cold-blooded, less emotional if I’m to match her at her own game. It isn’t easy when I’m totally passionate about him.

He takes a step towards me. “You have nothing to be jealous of.” He lifts a strand of my wet, straggly hair.

I shrug him off. He needs me compliant for the next two hours. He’s no doubt comparing how pathetic I look to how amazing she does. She’s the perfect woman for the perfect man. His hand drops as tears well in my eyes. I just can’t stop them.

“Hey.” His voice softens. “I know this is a tense time. I understand you’re not used to this sort of press intrusion.” He wipes the first falling drop from my cheek with his thumb.

I know I should push him away but I can’t do it. Just being near him calms me even if he has been around her. I inhale the smell of Clive Christian and Jack as he gathers me in his arms and I rest my head against his shirt.

“I’m making you all wet,” I sniff.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“They’ll all think I’ve been crying. It won’t look good.”

“They’ll think we’ve had a lovers’ tiff. It’ll look romantic.”

I glance up at him and he’s smiling gently down at me. I slowly smile back. He makes me so mad but then he makes it all right again. “We’re not lovers.” I mean it in its most literal sense. I don’t know how he can play Amanda this way either, but I don’t care after what she’s done to me.

“We have been. All weekend. We can be again. It’s your call.”

Sex. Can I win him back that way? I claimed he was mine before he was ever hers, but I have to admit they would have been lovers first. She had him long before I ever did. “We’re sharing a bedroom,” I remind him.

He looks content about that. I’m not in any doubt he enjoys my body just as much as I enjoy his. There’s physical chemistry between us that neither can deny. But I need more.

His lips press against mine. His clever mouth casts out all thoughts that it was on Amanda’s such a short time ago: tasting and easing until I yield beneath him. He grazes my bottom lip between his teeth, plucking and releasing until I want to drag him over to the bed to ease all the other tensions he’s building inside me.

He opens my robe. “I want to feel your skin against mine,” he whispers. “It’s been too long.” His open palm strokes my breast. “You’re so beautiful and soft. I want to take you. Please say yes, Tabby.” He presses his erection into me and my hips react. He’s ready and I want him deep inside me so much.

He tears himself away, moving to the door where he flips the lock then turns and looks at me standing, flushed, with my robe hanging open. “You’re exquisite.”

I feel very wicked being locked in here with him like this, knowing Amanda is waiting outside. It heightens the excitement I feel. Is that why he’s doing this? For the illicit thrill of the game? CEOs live life dangerously. They’re risk-takers. He’s too hard to resist when he’s like this. I swear Jack could convince me to do almost anything.

He crosses the room to me and his gentle hands strengthen my arousal as his tongue does wicked things to the skin beneath my ear. My limbs grow tighter with need as I soften and swell inside. All these warring tensions grow until I have to fight to suppress the volume of my moans.

My traitorous imagination suddenly imagines me outside the locked door and him in here with Amanda. I know I can’t do this. It’s only a stimulating power game to him. I struggle backwards when he grinds his hips into mine and close my robe. “I can’t. Not with everyone outside. Listening.”

He freezes, dragging in a harsh breath. “Christ, Tabitha. You’re killing me.” His features are tight with lust. Haunted.

“Sorry, Jack. It’s just not right.” I need to make things right first. “Don’t be mad at me.”

He releases a tense laugh. “You’d better get dressed then. If you’re accessible like that I’m going to forget I’m a gentleman and to hell with whoever’s outside. Listening.” He points me towards the walk-in and I slip inside, sliding the door behind me.

I can’t believe he’s so callous about Amanda’s feelings, he would have gone ahead if I’d let him. Yet it gives me hope. Perhaps her hold on him is not as strong as she thinks it is. Perhaps that’s why she has to be so sly and manipulative. She’s no more secure about keeping him than I am.

Maybe we’re more equal in the field than I imagined. I catch sight of myself in the full-length mirror. Amanda always looks so perfect. I can’t believe she’s ever let him see her in this state with a shapeless wrap, bare feet, scrubbed shiny face and soggy hair. Yet Jack still wanted me. I sift through the racks of clothes with new heart. I’ll need a battle dress if I’m going to war.

I know it the instant I see it.

A simple, classic shift dress in white linen. The low, square neckline and tapered waist accent my curves and the little capped sleeves above a low cut armhole look both sweet and sexy at the same time. It’s quite short but I’m young and with great heels it will make me look fresh yet innocently seductive. It’s perfect.

I apply make-up that enhances my sexy youthfulness. It’s exciting, with subtle colours that accent the dark allure of my eyes. My heated tongs put a few curls through my long hair to give it bounce and movement which is as different from Amanda’s rigidly sprayed platinum blonde bob as it’s possible to be.

I stare back in the mirror again. I’m not in advertising for nothing. If Jack desires me looking like a half-drowned kitten in a damp bathrobe, he’ll die if he can’t touch me now I look this tempting. It’ll put Amanda on her guard. Make her feel staid and lacklustre in comparison, for once.

I walk with a spring in my step. This is what a woman in love looks like. Jack won’t be able to fault me for that. I halt at the door and rush back for the ring. He’d never forgive me and I want to see Amanda’s face when she sees me wearing what she’s clearly after herself. The smile doesn’t need to be fixed on my face. It’s there naturally.

Jack is talking to a handful of reporters as I emerge. He glances up when he sees me and stops, mid-sentence, to stare. His face reflects everything I hoped for as he reaches out his hand to me and I take it.

Without shame he leans in and whispers. “You look stunning. I’m sorry we’re not alone right now. I want to take that lot off again.”

I give him my sexiest smile. “Can’t we get rid of them?” Yet there’s only one person I truly want gone.

“Soon.” I get his familiar promise.

It does all sorts of funny things to my insides. I’m reacting to his word like Pavlov’s bitch. On heat. And by his expression he acknowledges his understanding. He’s such a clever man.

I catch the strangled look on Amanda’s face too, which boosts my confidence, no end. She’s not the only one who can play games and now it’s my turn to deal the cards.

Jack turns his head back to the reporters. “My fiancée’s very talented. She plays the violin, you know.” He sounds proud but I suspect it is part of a strategy to distract them from more probing questions.

“Will you play something for us, Tabitha?” a female reporter asks. “It would make a nice photograph.”

I’m immediately reticent which is not an act. I’ve haven’t played a public performance in years and only then, as part of an orchestra. The last person I played for was Jack. The orgasm note. I squirm.

He whispers, disguised as a quick kiss to the temple. “CEOs sometimes have to do things they don’t want to do. And this will show people you’re cultured and talented as well as beautiful.”

Rather than the little trollop at the ball who couldn’t make up her mind which man to seduce, I suppose. I sigh and nod my agreement to the inevitable.

He turns to another onlooker. “Amanda, would you –?”

Her face clouds like thunder.

“–It’s alright,” I interrupt. I see her hard-faced relief that she’s not going to have to run another errand for me. “I’ll get it. It’s in our bedroom.” I purr my last remark, smiling up at him, which serves its dual purpose in making her bristle and giving Jack’s twenty-first century world what it expects of an engaged couple. But the simple fact is I wouldn’t trust her with it.

Jack raises a brow to salute my quick mind and makes a golden remark of his own as I go off. “She treats that instrument like a baby.”

I cringe as I think he’s just given the reporters an opening for a particularly intrusive question; then I wonder. It’s not like him. He’s an expert in PR. More world-building, I suppose.

“Are you planning a family immediately, Mr Keogh?”

I strain to hear his answer before I go through the door.

“Naturally we want time together first, just the two of us. And you’ll have to ask Tabitha about her plans for children. I want what makes her happy.” The reporter’s question is well fielded by Jack. He’s definitely a pro when it comes to handling and charming the press.

I see the reporter smile dreamily. Amanda looks like she’s about to combust with rage. Her face has reddened which is not a pretty look for her. The cool blonde mask is slipping. I can’t help thinking she deserves everything she gets as I’m still convinced this was her bright idea in the first place to try to alienate me from Jack. The trouble for her is she never thought it through to its logical conclusion.

If that is an example of Advance’s expertise, I realise I’m in with a good chance at the presentation for Zee-Com’s account.

I return with the violin already out of its case. All eyes turn and I feel my devil rising when Amanda’s vicious ones land on me. I spend a few seconds tuning up and everyone gradually ignores me until I segue seamlessly into a few bars of
Hips Don’t Lie
.

Surprised eyes flash in my direction as I wriggle side to side staring seductively at Jack all the while I do it. All those childhood years of classical ballet lessons and meticulous isolations have ironically made me a passably raunchy belly-dancer. Jack’s features turn to stone in a caution I find highly amusing. He can’t believe me sometimes. For a shy girl, I can’t believe myself.

The largely young reporters seem delighted at my antics whilst Amanda looks aghast. But the spirit of competition brings out the best and the worst in me. Jack knows I’m a high achiever and I know there’s more than one way to rise to the top. It’s enough Amanda can’t second guess me and now knows I won’t be a complete push-over. Her eyes bug.

Jack strides over, wrapping an arm around my wayward hips, pulling them hard against his to stop the gyrations. I drag the bow across the strings in a final note of release; the one he claims is the sound I sing to him when I orgasm. I see from his stunned expression he recognises both it and the genie that’s escaped the bottle.

“My girl has a wicked sense of humour.” He laughs artificially for the crowd and pats my rump hard enough for me to know I’m being warned. He whispers against my temple so only I can hear. “I’m trying to rescue your reputation, not confirm it.” He’s smiling at everybody all the time he speaks so they think his whispered threats are endearments.

I’m delighted with myself but chastened at the same time. Any man that would have sex with me with his girlfriend and a host of reporters on the other side of a door might not hesitate to paddle my behind under the same conditions. I’d rather avoid that with Amanda looking on, I think, although there is still enough of the mischievous sprite in me to wonder if it might be fun to try.

“The fact is she can play anything.”

I turn to the reporters sweetly. “Any requests?”

They ponder, clearly out of their depth when it comes to violin music.

“How about Paganini’s Caprice Number Nine?” I suggest, to help them out. I play five minutes of it for them and everyone smiles and applauds. “Or Sibelius’ Concerto for Violin, Movement One?” I move instantly to that and play on. These are pieces I know well.

Jack looks on with pride. I think I have fulfilled remit number two, to show them I can be refined, despite former appearances. I smirk at him in triumph.

I move into a third piece; a composition of my own. Everyone listens intently until I become virtually lost in the powerful sadness of the music. When I finish there’s silence in the room. I lower my violin, returning slowly back to conscious awareness.

“What was that one called?” one reporter asks.

I pause for a second. “
Jack’s Melody
,” I murmur. We stare at one another. I’ve never told him about my composition before. He looks stunned.

We’re being recorded but I notice a couple of the reporters scratching notes on pads.

Amanda moves into my line of sight and interrupts with a cool request. “What about
Don’t Hold Your Breath
?”

She and I both understand the significance of her choice but I meet her skirmish steadily. The violin is a friend who gives me confidence. “Nicole Scherzinger?”