Everything You Want: Everything For You Trilogy 2 (3 page)

“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.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he admits, lowering his tone.

“Well you did.”

“I’m sorry.” He stops walking. He stops me. Waits until I look his way. He’s not teasing this time.

I can’t believe he just apologised. “You were pretty enraged, as I recall.”

“It was myself I was livid with, not you.”

“Yourself? Why? You didn’t kiss Benn Gunn.” I throw it out there just to test his claim. I didn’t kiss the man either. He kissed me.

He shoots me a look of horror. “I should hope not.”

But you kissed the evil queen, Amanda, and she’s a thousand times worse. “Don’t pretend you weren’t angry with me. When it happened and when it got recorded for posterity in the press.”

“A bit,” he admits. “But I was even angrier at myself for allowing it to happen in the first place.”

Oh? Not angry with Amanda then? He has no idea she probably engineered the whole thing.

“I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

Is he saying he can’t trust me? I give him a raised eyebrow. “Really?”

“It wasn’t fair to you. You had absolutely no idea how irresistible you looked. I should have known the minute I turned my back some guy was going to pounce on you and try his luck.”

“It wasn’t some guy. It was Benn Gunn. You know? That ambitious young executive that works for Advance? The same company that wants to take your advertising account from CaidCo. The same Advance, that Amanda works for.” I say it like I’m talking to an idiot waiting for the penny to drop. It doesn’t. Or he isn’t biting.

He shrugs. “Gunn’s a young risk-taker. The boy might go far. If I don’t kill him first.”

He actually admires the louse that compromised me. The only note of scorn I hear is that as far as Jack is concerned, Gunn’s a boy not a man. I’d better not point out that he was doing Amanda’s evil bidding then or he might have even more reason to respect the old witch.

“Why did you leave me alone then if you were so hell bent on protecting my honour from all the men I was bound to inflame?” I drip with sarcasm.

“I was called to the phone. Remember?”

So simple. I know that already. What I want him to tell me is why and by whom. I have my suspicions. The co-incidence is just too perfect.

“Was it bad news?” He never did tell me.

“It was bad timing.”

Something tells me Amanda doesn’t do bad timing. But Jack’s not intending to tell me about it anyway. He’s making excuses for someone and I can guess who. The devil woman herself. The thought of him protecting her upsets me all over again but I’m not going to attack her directly. That would only make me look the jealous bitch and play right into her territory. Maybe I’m wising up after all? Jack will have to learn for himself what she’s really like. Unless he already knows but is so besotted, he doesn’t care.

“You gave me hell over Ben Gunn. Now you sound like he’s your protégée.”

“If it wasn’t him, it would have been someone else.”

“Great. That makes me sound like a complete tart who can’t keep her hands off any passing male.” He makes me so mad I want to hurt him back. “Okay, so I kissed him.” He doesn’t believe the man forced me, so I might as well tell him what he wants to hear.

Jack wheels me about to face him. His grip on my upper arms is lethal. He’s not joking now. “Do not ever do that again. I’m serious. It is not something I handle well.”