Everything You Want: Everything For You Trilogy 2 (46 page)

And I throw up all over the Egyptian cotton sheets.

“Fuck.” Jack wheels around and lifts me in his arms. He drags me out of the mess I’ve made and carries me straight into the bathroom, placing me down on the floor by the toilet where my knees instantly buckle and I sink slowly to the ground. He supports me, holding my hair out of my face as I heave the contents of my stomach repeatedly.

When I’m done I cling to the vomit-stained toilet, shivering and drained, all sense of dignity abandoned in despair. Jack settles me awkwardly against the bathtub, closes the plug and turns on the mixer. Steam rises off the water. As it fills he pulls the phone from his pocket.

“Blackstock. Whatever you’re doing can wait. Bring the car round to Claridge’s immediately. Prince Alexander suite. Straight up.” He hangs up.

He’s going to take me back to Belvedere. Going to make everything alright. Hope flares in my heart.

Jack lifts me from behind and glances down at the only garment I’m still wearing. He uses one hand to awkwardly remove my panties and I see in the mirror how he avoids looking, like he no longer has the right. He lowers me into the bathtub with the water still running. The movements I’m able to make remain small and limited as if I’ve given up all will to live. Nothing could be further from the truth. I don’t even try to speak again but give myself into Jack’s care.

He cares for me. I hold on to that thought like a life-preserver.

My eyes never leave his face but he can’t look back at me. I see everything clearly for the first time. Today, on the boat, he was showing me how much he loved me. The eternal knot pendant lies round my throat still. Can’t he see it there?

But he’s blinded by jealousy. Amanda has done her work well.

As he gently washes me and washes the strands of my hair using the spray attachment to rinse off the suds, I get a fleeting impression of a precious object about to be wrapped up and put away forever. I don’t like this feeling one little bit.

He finally speaks to me. “I understand how much I must have hurt you, when I left you four years ago. But I want you to know I did it for the right reasons, not because I didn’t care.”

Tears stream down my face.

He continues. “I loved you then. And I still do.”

My heart swells. Never more have I wished I had a voice than in this minute. I love you too, Jack.

“Enough to let you go.”

The coldest of chills strikes at my heart.

“When you ran from me at Belvedere there was no way I was going to let you go again. I was always going to come after you. You were mine. It was the right thing to do. Then.”

My heart stops beating.

“Now it’s the right thing to do, to release you.”

No, Jack. No. No. No.

“You’re still so young. It would be entirely selfish of me to expect you not to want to go and discover the world. Make mistakes. Learn from them.” He hesitates. “Live your life the way you ought to. The way you want. I thought I could be the one to teach you but I can see now that I was wrong. I was only thinking of myself and how much I wanted you.”

Water flows softly down my face. He finds the complimentary toothbrush and cleans my teeth, directing me to spit out into the bath water. He can’t bring himself to look at the woman who has suddenly changed his world view.

“I love you enough, Tabitha, to finally let you go.”

Our silence is poignant and raw. Both of us devastated. When he’s done he lifts me, wraps me in a towel and pats my hair dry. He sits me in front of him on the bed and dries my hair with the hairdryer.

He takes a bottle of water from the fridge, helping me to sip it slowly as I remember our time together at Lassec. Is this the last time we’ll be together? The time I will remember always with love and regret?

He collects my dress and panties from the floor and dresses me again, pulling his navy sweater over his head and pulling it down over mine. I soak up the residual warmth yet feel an acute physical pain every time I inhale his familiar scent and know, like I know myself, that he’s slowly distancing himself from me.

The gentle care he takes of my physical needs, despite what he believes I have done, breaks my heart in two. Finally we love each other. It is everything I wanted. But the eternal knot of karma has other ideas for our lives and she will never let us be together. Can I love him enough to let him go too? To release him from this pain?

Someone knocks on the door. Jack crosses the suite to open it and Blackstock enters followed by a maid carrying Jack’s pressed dinner suit. I see him frown at the suit and scowl back towards me. He tips the maid and she leaves as Blackstock takes charge of the garment.

Instructing Blackstock to remain in the sitting room for a moment, he lowers his voice. “You were planning dinner with that guy while I waited around for you to return to Belvedere? Were you even going to let me know it wasn’t me you wanted?” His quiet voice sounds incredulous and harsh in its accusation of my faithless inconstancy. “Or was this always only about the contract, for you?”

I try to shake my head in denial but I’m just too broken. Blackstock keeps a discrete distance from our drama.

Jack leans over the bed and cups my cheek tenderly in his palm. “I hoped… I thought –” His voice breaks.
I’ve waited too long
.

Did I dream the final whisper? I’ve never wanted to reach out and hold Jack as much as I do in this moment. But the drugs inside my body won’t free me from their chains.

“I’m sorry for everything I put you through, Tabby. I have to let you go now. To say a final goodbye.” He places his lips briefly over mine and I breathe him into the very depths of my soul. I can’t tear my eyes away.

He straightens and my lovely Jack fades away. In his place, the
Boss
appears before my eyes. “I’ll sever all ties between us as quickly and painlessly as I can. Then you can live whatever lifestyle pleases you and be with whomsoever you wish.”

He’s rigid. Resolute. Unyielding. “Until then, you won’t make any attempt to contact me and I’d appreciate it, until we announce our separation publically, that you do nothing to humiliate either of us further. You’ll act like a complete lady. Is that understood?”

All my motionless body can do is cry.

For a second he looks like he’s about to step towards me, comfort me, tell me he forgives me. I’m certain I see his hand shake; his arm waver slightly towards mine. It’s an illusion. A mirage in an emotional desert. He collects himself, the mask of cold indifference that slipped for a single second, replaced once more. He turns from me as I sob uncontrollably.

He walks to Blackstock and I stare after them through the doorway and the opaque curtain of my tears.

“Sober her up. Get her back to Belvedere. Call Amanda in to help if you have to. The fewer people that find out about this the better. Understood?”

“Completely, sir.”

He glances back like he can’t help himself and I recognise the misery beneath the contempt and injured pride. He can’t hide his truth from me. Poor, poor Jack. I know precisely how excruciating total rejection feels.

Where is he going? Why does he discharge me into Blackstock’s care? I see him react to my wide-eyed expression of shock. The fact I’m shaking visibly.

And he sources one of my fears exactly. “You may have an irrational dislike of Amanda, Tabitha, but she’s the one woman I can still trust in all of this.”

That hurts. Desperately. He may love me but he no longer trusts me. Amanda Devereaux has won. Yet he doesn’t recognise my greatest terror. My love is leaving. Just at the very moment he was mine, I’ve lost him. All over again.

Jack stands like granite, holding my gaze for ever as if it’s the very last time he’s ever going to see me; as if he wants to burn an image of my adulterous and treacherous nature into his heart to fuel and sustain his departure. The last vision of my beautiful, angry Jack frightens me to death. How will I ever bear this pain?

Don’t leave me. Please still love me, Jack, as I love you.

I love you.

I understand in this moment how little I’ve come to terms with the legacy of insecurity he left behind him four years ago. I questioned everything I thought I knew and ran from it: his wrath and his passion; his feelings for Amanda and his lack of them for me. But I was wrong. He came for me. He rediscovered our love. He was ready and willing to give us both a chance. Only my own lack of confidence prevented me from seeing what I had until it was far too late.

Jack turns and walks away from me.

The expression of hurt betrayal when he takes one final haunted look will tear me apart forever. What he thinks he sees is not who I am.

I am everything he has taught me to be. Strong. Determined. Able to pretend I’m not dying inside.

I love you, Jack. You’re everything to me and this isn’t over.

He is gone.

But I’ll always know where to find him too.

The passionate

Everything For You Trilogy

By

Orla Bailey

concludes with the final, thrilling instalment:

#3

Everything You Are

Get it NOW on Amazon

Jealous rivalry has wrecked all Tabitha’s dreams.

Unyielding, Jack is done with her. But she’s learnt a trick or two from the master.

Risking everything on the two things he can never resist – a good deal and what he can never get enough of – Tabby offers him a proposition.

She may be asking the impossible but this time karma’s a kitten… with claws.

Everything For You

The Trilogy

by

Orla Bailey

Everything You Need #1

Everything You Want #2

Everything You Are #3

Get them NOW on Amazon

#1

Everything You Need

Inheriting a company has its problems. Not least of these for Tabitha, is having to confront her most difficult client – the mega successful businessman who once spurned her pitiful attentions without a backward glance.

Now she’s infinitely more guarded.

As magnetic and uncompromising as ever, Jack has a clear idea about what he can do for the beautiful Tabby.

And what she can do for him…

#2

Everything You Want

Breaking free of Jack’s allure is the hardest thing Tabitha has ever had to do.

But he’s already tarnished her reputation in business, made her his willing plaything under the nose of the woman he really wants. And shattered her trust once more.

Her biggest mistake yet, may be to underestimate this man’s determination to punish her reckless defiance.

Because until Jack’s through with you, he isn’t through…

#3

Everything You Are

Jealous rivalry has wrecked all Tabitha’s dreams.

Unyielding, Jack is done with her. But she’s learnt a trick or two from the master.

Risking everything on the two things he can never resist – a good deal and what he can never get enough of – Tabby offers him a proposition.

She may be asking the impossible but this time karma’s a kitten… with claws.