Jack & Jilted (9 page)

Chloe left the room and headed for her old bedroom, her heart pounding with nerves and frustration. It was one thing for Gerald to humiliate her, to decide that he didn’t want her and leave her in the lurch. But for his family to screw over her parents, who had done absolutely nothing to them except give birth to an unsuitable wife for their golden son….

She pounded Gerald’s phone number into her cell phone.

“Hello?” she heard him say.

“How could you?” she asked without preamble.

He took a second. “Chloe,” he said with a low, rumbling sigh that clearly said he had been waiting for this to happen. She was surprised he had picked up the call at all, but then, he never checked his caller ID. She imagined he wouldn’t make the same mistake next time. “Listen, things just…happen sometimes.”

“No, things don’t just happen,” she countered. “You deciding to cheat on me doesn’t just happen. You deciding to not come to our wedding doesn’t just happen. And your rich family sticking my poor parents with the bill for that damned reception certainly doesn’t just happen, Gerald!”

“That’s my mother, not me,” Gerald said, and at least there was the slightest note of apology.

“So you pay for it, then!”

“You know I don’t have that kind of money,” he said and then stopped at her snort of disbelief. “Not liquid, anyway. I can’t get my hands on that kind of cash!”

“Yes, you can,” she said. “I’ve seen your books, remember?”

“That’s the architectural firm’s money,” he said dismissively. “And you were just a secretary.”

Her blood boiled at that. “I might’ve been just a secretary,” she said in a lethal voice, “but I know more about accounting than you ever did.”

“Well, I don’t have the money,” Gerald said. “And I didn’t get married…I didn’t eat any of the food, I didn’t use the hall, none of that. You and your family did!”

“We couldn’t get the money back, you idiot!” She couldn’t help it. “What, did you think I’d get a refund because my fiancé didn’t show up?”

“Listen, all I know is you’re doing plenty of things that I didn’t do and you’re expecting me to pay for it!” Gerald’s voice grew irate. “Like your little honeymoon jaunt!”

That sentence hit Chloe like a bucket of ice water. “What was that?”

“I got a call from that ship captain saying you went ahead and took the cruise without me,” Gerald said, his voice sharp and vaguely triumphant. “I could’ve gotten a refund on that, but no, you just went ahead and took it!”

Chloe felt her cheeks redden. Yes, she had gone ahead and used the cruise—among other things. “I suppose you’re right there,” she said.

“Damned right I’m right!”

“So I’ll pay for the cruise,” she said, “and you can pay me for the rest of the wedding stuff, and we’ll call it a day.”

“No, you’ll pay for the cruise and then you can just call our lawyers,” Gerald said. “There’s nothing in writing that says the Sutton family is responsible for half of those bills. You don’t even have a legal leg to stand on.”

Chloe knew that Gerald had a mercenary side—she’d seen it occasionally at the firm. But this wasn’t him. This, she could tell, was his mother. He was all but channeling her words. And for that woman, it wasn’t about the money. It was about punishing the classless little “secretary” who had believed she could social climb by marrying the precious Sutton son. No matter how much Chloe had tried to convince the woman she was marrying Gerald because she loved him, the mother had refused to let go. And now she was doing everything she could to crush Chloe and her family into the ground.

“How is it,” Chloe mused, “that I never noticed what an unbelievable liar and cheat you could be?”

“Yeah, well…” Gerald spluttered, then stopped, obviously unable to come up with a reply.

“All right then,” she said. “The house. We just bought a house together. What about that?”

“I don’t feel like talking about all this right now, Chloe.”

“Well, you’re going to have to!”

“No, I won’t,” he said. “I’ve got a dinner date with Simone and I don’t have time to talk.”

He threw that in just to hurt her—to force her to hang up. Simone. Chloe remembered seeing her around the firm occasionally. She was the daughter of a family friend. She had to be maybe twenty-three years old, just out of college. She would have the right breeding. Hell, they had a house in the same neighborhood as the Suttons. She probably was handpicked by Gerald’s mother.

“Besides, I think that’s also being handled by our lawyers. I don’t think we should talk again, Chloe,” Gerald said, finishing off his one-two punch of cruelty. “This has all been way too upsetting.”

Well, God forbid you get upset by all of this.

“This isn’t the end of it,” Chloe said.

“It is for me,” he said. “Goodbye, Chloe.”

And with that, he hung up.

Chloe sat there for a second, on the edge of her childhood bed, listening to the dial tone ringing in her ear before finally shutting off the phone.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

It was a good thing she didn’t have an action plan, she thought inanely, because anything she could’ve planned would have been torpedoed after a conversation like that. She didn’t know he was capable of that kind of meanness. She didn’t know anyone was.

Chloe plowed through her archived boxes of paperwork. She hadn’t moved the boxes to the new house, thankfully. With her retirement fund, her savings and selling a few things, she should be able to cover the wedding bills so her parents wouldn’t have to. She’d even be able to cover a few months’ worth of mortgage on the house. Of course, with Gerald’s logic, if I’m not living there I shouldn’t have to pay a dime, she thought, depressed. But she got the uneasy feeling that he’d let the place foreclose and ruin her credit out of spite, so she budgeted for that, too. Leaving her with…

Not very much. Actually, less than not very much.

I have got to get a job, she thought frantically. Something that paid as well as her last job, if not better. Oh, and there was another thing—what kind of reference was she going to get when her last employer was the same slimeball that had put her in this position? Not to mention the fact that the economy in town wasn’t that great. She’d looked into temping, just a little, after she’d quit working for Gerald. Despite her skills, she didn’t have the degree or the title necessary to command the top-dollar hourly rate. And it could be a while before she got another permanent job, with all these obstacles.

She could just cry.

She knew her parents were worried about her, but she also knew they were in no position to help her, and she wasn’t going to ask. She didn’t want to beg money from her relatives, either, even if they could help…the Wintons weren’t really all that affluent a clan. There was a solution here, she thought as she took out a pad of paper amidst the piles strewed on her parents’ kitchen table. She just had to find it.

Then, out of nowhere, one part of her conversation with Gerald hit her.

So I’ll pay for the cruise….

Which meant that Gerald had stiffed Jack, as well. And she got the feeling Jack was in no position to lose a couple thousand dollars.

She felt immediately guilty, even though Jack had persuaded her to go ahead with the trip. Of course, Jack had a lot better chance of breaking even than she did. If he did some things differently…advertised differently, made a few changes, he would probably not only break even, but do very well financially.

And then, the smallest ribbon of hope started to curl through her. He could do well if he had the right partner. And she had an idea of just who that partner could be.

JACK WINCED, EVEN though the chef he was interviewing over the phone couldn’t see it. “Wow. That much, huh?”

“I think you’ll find my services well worth it,” the applicant said haughtily.

For that damned much money, the guy had better be serving the food on gold platters, Jack thought. “Well, I’m afraid that’s out of the price range I was hoping to offer.”

The chef gave a considering sniff. “What range did you have in mind?”

Jack said it and then winced again when the guy laughed. “Hey, you get to cook on a private yacht,” Jack added defensively. “A lot of people find that to be a perk.”

“Well, I think I’ll keep looking,” the chef said dismissively, and then hung up.

Jack crossed the name off his list. Most of the calls he’d dealt with this week had been more polite, at least, even if the outcome had always been the same. He’d gotten lucky when he’d found Kenneth—a young guy fresh out of culinary school and a cooking genius. He would try the school again, but they were midsemester, and he needed a warm body ASAP to cook for his next charter clients. They were already being difficult, right up to writing specifically what menu they wanted and what sort of sheets. If he tried to pass off grilled cheese sandwiches on them, he got the feeling they would not only not pay him, they’d probably bring him to court for false advertising or something.

Why couldn’t they all be like Chloe? he thought with a note of anxiety. She had been the perfect passenger, the perfect client…just great to have around.

Then the mere thought of her brought up a whole stew of emotions that he’d been trying to keep buried, so he quickly switched gears. At least he’d found a masseuse, also a recently graduated type who was willing to take a lower rate in exchange for “experience.” He hadn’t met her, but he hoped she’d work out. He’d been lucky with Helen, too. The new masseuse had made it quite clear that she didn’t clean things—and since he wasn’t quite sure how he was going to pay for the chef at this point, he figured he’d be cleaning cabins by himself until his financial situation improved.

Well, idiot, you’re the one who wanted his own boat.

He sighed, ignoring his conscience’s mental castigation. Yes, he had dreamed of having his own private charter yacht. He loved his life…most of the time. But he had to admit the life of a sea captain was a lot less sexy and free than he’d originally thought back when he was a teenager in military school. Then, the thought of having his own ship and doing what he wanted when he wanted had seemed like heaven on earth.

Little did he know that heaven apparently required a lot of money and a butt load of paperwork.

Stay focused, he counseled himself. He could bitch and moan later. The important thing now was making sure this cruise went off without a hitch so he could get paid, so he could get the bank off his back and quiet some of his more wily creditors. The worst being the loan holder for the Rascal.

As much as he might complain about the problems and hassles of ownership, it would be even worse to lose his ship completely.

Two hours later, he had to admit he was starting to sink into despair. He had to find a chef and he was running out of time. He needed a miracle.

“Jack?”

He looked toward the voice calling out from the dock. And for a second his mind went completely blank. “Chloe?” he finally said, uncomprehending.

“Yup,” she said shyly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt with a pair of canvas tennis shoes, looking bright and casual and nervous. “I bet you weren’t expecting to see me back this soon.”

He wasn’t expecting to see her back ever, he thought. “It’s a surprise,” he finally commented.

“A bad one?”

He shook his head quickly. “No! No. Of course not.” And it wasn’t—he felt better in the flash of a second than he had in the past three days. “Come on up.”

She walked up the gangplank much more nimbly than she had the first time she came on board the Rascal. Good grief, had that only been ten days ago? It seemed like a lifetime.

“How are things going?” she said when she reached him. Her whiskey-colored eyes almost glowed in the setting sunlight.

He almost hugged her, but considering how he’d said goodbye to her, physical contact probably wasn’t the brightest idea. “Things are going…” He thought about it, how he might put a good face on it. Then he sighed. “Things suck, actually. How ’bout you?”

She laughed, a short, harsh sound. “I’m right there with you, pal.” Then her laughter cut off and she looked sorrowful. “I hear that Gerald wouldn’t pay you.”

That son of a bitch, Jack thought—but if anybody would know about Gerald’s qualities firsthand, it’d be his ex-fiancée. “Yeah,” he said.

“I went on the cruise, so I ought to be the one to pay you,” she said.

For a second, Jack felt a ray of hope. Of course she’d be take-charge and pay for the cruise. He might have guessed that not only would Chloe be a cool passenger and an amazing woman, but his financial savior to boot!

Then he remembered—she wasn’t working and she’d said she was too broke for massages. “I don’t want you going under just because you feel you owe me,” he said quickly.

Did I just say that? he thought. He didn’t think he was a bad guy or anything, but practicalities and business generally came before emotions, women and especially emotional women.

So how did Chloe keep bringing out this foolish, noble side of him?

“I’ll admit it, I don’t have the money,” she said, and his spirit sank a little.

“No problem,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll figure out something. After all, I twisted your arm to get you to come—it’s pretty much my fault.”