Everything You Want: Everything For You Trilogy 2 (9 page)

“Two hours tops,” he promises me.

I leave him to work in peace and find things to amuse myself. I start by washing the grime off my feet and painting my toenails scarlet. The colour seems to haunt me. Really I’m distracting my mind waiting for Jack to come home from work to me. It feels brand new and comfortably domestic and I like the relative normality of it all.

I slip on some pretty heeled shoes which make the sundress appear even shorter and sexier and make coffee for him to remind him his two hours are nearly up. I’m too impatient to wait any longer for him to emerge so I carry the tray through the house, popping it down on the table outside Harry’s study until I can open the door. Jack is speaking to someone inside. I presume he’s on Skype so I listen at the door for a suitable break in the conversation.

When I hear her saccharine-coated voice I freeze and a surge of rage burns through me. Amanda Devereaux. Sounding more than friendly.

“Jack, darling. Are you alright? You sound so tense. I should be there with you, darling. When you had to leave so suddenly I was frantic with worry.”

“Everything’s fine, Amanda. Nothing I can’t handle.”

He left me by myself to catch up with her? Anger overwhelms me. I’ve created some idealistic, cosy little scene of rural domesticity in my head but it isn’t real. Jack is back with Amanda already. He never really left her. He’s still using me.

I hear her voice again. I swear she makes it sound deliberately breathless only when she speaks to Jack. It didn’t sound anything like that when she bit my head off in the bathroom at the ball or again at Belvedere. “Do you need rescuing, darling?”

Oh, she’d just love to rescue Jack from me, wouldn’t she? Especially if she knew he’d been having sex with me too. How could he possibly play such mean games with both our emotions?

“I’ll be back Monday morning,” he tells her.

So he always planned to leave me and return to her. How could I have been so naïve? A little weekend sex with me to put me in my place for running off and then back to his woman. Both of us managed. That’s his way. My heart trips so fast I feel dizzy. I’m angry enough to throw myself through the door and scratch his cheating eyes out but I can’t move. I shake too much.

“Sounds mysterious. What are you up to, darling and should I be worried?” She trills off a laugh but I can hear the anxiety in her voice.

“No mystery. Just a little problem I have to sort out.”

A problem? He thinks I’m a problem he has to sort? Red mist descends over me. I turn and walk away. I need to get as far from Jack as I possibly can. Jealousy cuts at my insides with a dull serrated blade as I head straight through the kitchen, the back door and into the dark yard.

The little 2CV is still parked there. I climb inside wanting it to cocoon me from my pain. With the key dangling in the ignition calling out to me, I turn it without thought. As the engine springs to life I know what I want to do. Something I’ve done before. Get away from Jack. I no longer trust myself around him. Or him around me.

Let him return to Amanda tonight. If he’s going to be done with me by Monday, I’m done with him already. Desolation sinks into my bones drowning me slowly and painfully in its sea of despair. I had a short bitter-sweet breath of respite from anguish but I can no longer struggle to keep swimming towards the surface.

The car is in gear and rolling forward. I turn it round in one sweeping arc through the opaque film of tears in my eyes, flip on the headlights and take off down the road fast, towards the farm. As I drive I know exactly where I’m heading. Jack has had his fun with me already and it’s my turn now. It seems I’m going nightclubbing with Laurent and the boys in La Baule, after all.

Jack Keogh
is
a monster.

The farm cottages are mostly in darkness so I drive straight past them. Everyone will have left already but I know the roads here well. In twenty minutes I’ll be right beside them and I know how hard young farmers can party. It’s exactly what I need. To hell with Jack and Amanda. I’m glad my dress is short. And backless. And fits me tight as a glove. I’m glad to be free and single. Tonight I’m going to get very drunk. Tonight I’m going to get a life. And more.

I park up near the esplanade and walk straight to La Nova. Already I attract male attention with my bare legs on show but I’m glad. It’s only when I get to the entrance by the red carpet and the potted topiary shrubs that I realise I have no money. I didn’t even pause long enough to grab a bag. But I’m not going to let that stop me. If I can find Laurent and the others, they will see me right.

I start to explain my predicament to the two huge guys on door security. They smirk at me like they’ve heard it all before.

“Yeah, we let you in to find your friends and you disappear. Not buying it.” The local dialect is fast but I follow it well enough.

His colleague is more biddable. “She’s a babe. She’ll pull the guys in.”

I’m both flattered and insulted but I smile sweetly up at him, knowing the way to get what I want. He’s my best chance of getting through that door.

“Still trying your luck and everyone else’s patience?”

I freeze. I know that voice. A waft of something dry and familiar catches in the back of my throat as I slowly turn. I squeal. “Luc!”

He looks up unhurriedly from lighting a cigarette between his hands and gives me that same sultry predator’s smile that curled my toes when I was a teenager. He was the only boy Madame kept me as far away from as possible. At all times.

Leaning back against the wall he has one leg bent up behind him, so his biker-booted foot rests flush against it. Dressed in a black leather biker jacket with its collar turned up over an Arab scarf wound around his neck, he has belted drainpipe jeans slung low over narrow hips. He’s what everyone would imagine if they thought about crossing a darkly sexual, French male model with a rebel-without-a-cause.

Luc stares me up and down, unblinking, as if he’s planning to rip my knickers off with his teeth at the first opportunity. A frisson of fear shivers up my spine. But he’s exactly what I need right now.

I skip over to him, lean in and kiss him on both cheeks. He turns hooded eyes on me.

“Have you come to
dance
with me, Cherie?” He says the word like he means something else.

I ignore his insinuation. “I forgot to bring money and they won’t let me in.”

He laughs low. “Then you are with me tonight, I think.”

What he says makes me think instantly of Jack. I shove the thought violently out of my head. Jack is with Amanda. It spurs me on to greater recklessness. I know Luc is a dangerous man. He was a dangerous teen, always existing on the edge of life. But what I need is to revenge myself on Jack’s faithlessness and consume my wounded heart with a deeper, darker passion.

Am I being fair? I don’t care. Is Jack being fair to me?

“Tonight I want to
dance
.” I pronounce the word exactly as Luc does and his eyes flare minutely before they settle again into accustomed indifference. “And I want to drink too. Lots. I’ll cost you a fortune.”

I flirt outrageously smoothing what there is of my skirt down over my hips to outline their feminine shape. I toy with my long hair. This demonstration of mine isn’t innocent. Luc doesn’t understand that kind of amusement, like Laurent and the boys from the farm do. Luc is serious and sexy. Luc is trouble. But I don’t care.

“You will be worth it, I think, Cherie.” He looks me over, shifting himself minutely.

I ignore another insinuation but can’t help picturing a wolf in wolf’s clothing.

He takes one last long draw on his cigarette, inhales the smoke deep into his lungs and exhales in such a leisurely manner I expect him to choke any minute. He doesn’t. I’m enveloped in that recognisable odour which catches in my throat again. The dark, pungent depths of Middle Eastern tobacco. And reckless endangerment.

He pushes off the wall with his foot and stands close, staring down at me. I feel the intensity burn off him. He grabs my hand and pivots towards the entrance of the nightclub.

I see the way the security guards view him. It’s that moment of recognition between males that acknowledges a conquest and I feel my first real twinge of awkward concern but I’m inside. I’ll find the farm boys soon enough and they’ll look after me.

“I need a drink, Luc.” I really need a drink.

He takes me with him to the nearest bar, keeping a tight hold of my hand. He knows enough not to let a woman out of his sight, I think. The place is packed and heaving with people dancing and drinking. It’s a popular place with locals but the tourist trade is alive at this time of year too.

Luc shouts over the throng and his manner with the bartender is one of long acquaintance. He’s served straight away. When he turns to me he has two squat glasses in his hands.

“What is it?” I whisper, leaning close enough to be heard over the pulsating music. He hooks his arm around my neck and ducks his head against mine. With my cheek against his, I feel the rasp of roughly shaven skin.

“Cognac Sour.” He throws the content of his own glass down his throat in one go and gives me a hand signal to drink up too.

I take a sip. It’s strong. He removes the glass from my hand and holds it to my lips himself. “In one,” he says. He pulls my hair gently back until my head tilts, and pours it straight down my throat.

I can’t do much but swallow. I cough wiping my lips with the back of my hand. He laughs at me. “Good?”

I nod. He turns and motions to the barman to fix the same again. I’m so sure they must be doubles that I watch them being poured and I’m right. The first one is already beginning to hit the spot by the time he hands me the second. I take it. He takes my free hand and draws me after him to a nearby area with an arrangement of low leather sofas around a lamp lit table.

I recognise some of the people sitting.

“Tabeetha,
bonsoir
.”

My eyes sweep round and I spot Laurent with relief. He stands and leans towards me and we embrace.

“
Bonsoir
, Laurent.”

“You came.”

I nod. He looks past me and when he sees Luc his brow wrinkles in a quizzical manner. He knows Luc very well. I shrug to show him I’m unconcerned.

“You don’t come with Jack?” Laurent asks.

“Busy. Working.” It’s hard to speak over the noise. Besides I didn’t come here to talk about Jack. I came here to forget him.

Laurent stares at me. He saw me cross the fields with Jack earlier today. He saw Jack hold me tight beside him. He knows there is more to our relationship. He gives a fatalistic twitch of his chin, glances suspiciously at Luc and sits again.

Luc leans in and whispers to a couple of other guys already seated. They chuckle at him and leer across at me before getting slowly to their feet and stalking off, one slapping Luc on the back as he passes.

“What did you say to them?” I ask, as he pulls me into the space behind him. He sits himself between me and Laurent, I notice.

“That you will pass out if I don’t lay you... down.”

I look at him in mock horror and he laughs. I eventually smirk back, swat him on the arm and slide into the vacant seat beside him. He shifts closer. His ability to joke doesn’t entirely convince me Luc didn’t say exactly that.

“Drink up. You wanted to drink, no?”

I did. I do. I take another sip.

Luc looks at me as if to tell me that is a pathetic way to drink. I show him I’m game for anything and down my second in one go. Before I have a chance to wipe the drops from my lips he leans over and takes my mouth with his. His tongue travels across my lips to lap up the excess.

I gasp. He’s moving pretty fast, I think. I push him firmly backwards and I’m relieved to find he goes without a fight.

The guys that gave up their seat to me return with another round of drinks. They include Cognac Sours for me and Luc. He must have asked them to fetch drinks for us as well.

We sit and talk and sip our drinks for a time. I follow the conversations as best as I can. I’m happy to see Laurent and some of the farmers with their girls. Luc chats too. He’s very attentive and hands me my drink often. One of his arms is stretched out behind me on the sofa and he plays with my hair or gently caresses my neck. His other hand rests casually on my thigh but after a while I hardly notice it.

I feel happier as time passes and lose count of the number of glasses that are brought to the table. Drinking hard is just something young farmers do to unwind.

“I want to dance,” I say.

Luc nods his agreement then holds up his drink. “Get rid of this first.”

I wait while he takes a tiny sip and travels his tongue around his lips suggestively. He holds his own glass to my lips and encourages me to drink it. I just do. One more won’t do any harm. He keeps it tilted until I’ve finished it all.

How many is that, I wonder? Doubles. Better slow down. Yet I feel carefree and twenty-two again. I haven’t felt like that in a while.

“You want to dance?”

My hesitation is only momentary. “Yes, please.”

Luc burns his slow smile at me. “Then dance with me.”