Scandalous (29 page)

It was after midnight by the time Lottie staggered out of Mastro’s on Francis’s arm. Jackson had failed to show up at all, but after the first hour Lottie didn’t even notice his absence. It
was only when Francis had had to foot the entire table’s bill that it occurred to Lottie to be angry at Jackson’s rudeness.

“I don’t care who he is, ish rude. Ish fuggin’ disgraceful.”

“That’s Jackson. I’m used to it,” laughed Francis. “Besides, if I get a slice of this resort deal, it’ll be well worth the cost of a few dinners.”

“Thash not the point,” slurred Lottie.

“It was worth it anyway. Meeting you. I had a great time.” He leaned in and kissed her. Lottie closed her eyes and sank into the sensation. It was rather wonderful, the combination of the chill night air and the warmth of Francis’s body. He tasted of coffee and mints and smelled faintly of patchouli oil. Combined with her drunkenness the sensation was heady and delicious, as if all the pent-up tension of the last three days had been unlocked and was pouring out of her body into his arms.

“Lesh go to bed.”

Francis’s kind, funny face lit up. “Your place or mine?”

Five minutes later they were giggling and kissing their way through the lobby at the Stein Eriksen. Lottie was so drunk she kept bouncing off the walls. “Ish these damn shoooooes!” she kept saying. In the end she sat down on the floor and had Francis pull them off, a process that produced even more fits of giggles.

“What the hell’s going on?”

Jackson, who had just walked in with a used-looking blonde on his arm, marched over to Lottie and Francis.

“Oh, I remember you,” Francis teased him. “Weren’t you some asshole I agreed to have dinner with once?” Turning to the blonde, he added, deadpan, “Don’t sleep with him, sweetie. He’s a martyr to his crabs, our Jackson.”

Ignoring him, and the girl, Jackson grabbed Lottie by the arm and yanked her painfully to her feet. “You’re making a total
spectacle of yourself. Look at you. How much have you had to drink? And what the fuck did you do to your hair?”

“I dyed it,” said Lottie. “I wanted a change.”

“It looks like shit,” snapped Jackson.

“Hey.” Francis put his arm around Lottie and pulled her close. He was no longer smiling. “Take it easy, Lord Capulet. For one thing, Lottie looks fantastic. And for another, what she does with her hair is none of your business.”

“Don’t give me that protective crap,” snarled Jackson. “You don’t care about Lottie. You don’t even know her.”

“As it happens, I’ve gotten to know her,” said Francis angrily. “We had a long,
long
dinner at Mastro’s, waiting for
you
to be bothered to show up. Where the fuck were you?”

“Something came up,” said Jackson dismissively. There wasn’t a hint of apology in his voice. “But it’s nice to know I can trust my friends, Francis. You’ve clearly spent the entire evening getting Lottie drunk enough to agree to fuck you. Well congratulations. It looks like you succeeded. She looks like a hooker, and now she’s acting like—”

The punch was so quick and so forceful, Jackson had no time to react. Before he knew what was happening he was flying backward across the lobby. Not knowing what else to do, the blonde gave a halfhearted scream.

“Fuck you, Jackson.” Francis was shaking with rage. Lottie, who’d observed the whole scene with shocked dismay, felt herself sobering up fast. “If anyone made a fool of themselves tonight, it was you.” Francis took Lottie’s hand and led her toward the elevator. They’d only got a few paces when Jackson got to his feet, let out a roar of primitive rage, and hurled himself at Francis from behind, bringing him to the floor in a flying rugby tackle and knocking Lottie to one side. Seconds later the two men were writhing on the floor like wrestlers, throwing punches wildly.

“Stop it!” Lottie shouted. “For goodness’ sake. Can’t anybody do something?” She looked around for any hotel staff. Finally,
two barmen and the fat night-shift security guard at reception came over and broke up the fight. Lottie ran straight to Francis, who was bleeding profusely from what looked like a broken nose.

“We should get you to the emergency room.”

“I’ll drive him,” said one of the barmen. “You should go get some sleep, miss.”

Lottie protested, but Francis was insistent. “It’s OK. I’ll call you in the morning.” Meanwhile Jackson’s blonde was hovering around him like an ineffectual Florence Nightingale, murmuring “poor baby” over and over and stroking his hair. Eventually Jackson turned on her. “Look, Candice, I’m not in the mood, all right? Let’s just call it a night.” Instantly the girl’s face soured. “Fine by me, dickhead. You probably
do
have crabs, anyway.” She turned on her heel and stormed out.

“Will you be OK, ma’am?” the security guard asked Lottie, eyeing Jackson warily. He knew that the two of them were in the Mountain View Suite and was not at all sure of the wisdom of leaving them alone together there. “If you like I’d be happy to accompany you back to your room. Just till things cool down.”

“I’m fine, thank you.” Lottie glared at Jackson. She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of thinking she was afraid of him. “I’ll call if I need anything.”

Jackson and Lottie rode the elevator up to the fourth floor in total silence. The silence continued on the long walk down the corridor to their room and was only broken once they got inside and Jackson unwisely asked Lottie if she would like to use the bathroom first.

“Don’t speak to me! Don’t even look at me! You are a total,
total
jerk.”

“Why? Because I told you the truth?” Jackson shot back. “You were drunk and you were making an idiot of yourself. I know Francis O’Donnell a lot better than you do, and I’m telling you, he was trying to take advantage of you.”

“My God. Where do you get
off
?” Lottie didn’t think she’d ever been so angry in her life. “You of all people, judging someone else’s sexual behavior? Their morality? If it weren’t so outrageous it’d be funny. No one was ‘taking advantage’ of me. I was with Francis because I wanted to be. Because I was attracted to him.”

“I don’t believe that,” said Jackson bluntly.

“Why? Because he isn’t on the
New York Times
’s Hottest Bachelor List? Get over yourself, Jackson. The rest of us have.”

Stung, Jackson backed away. He knew he’d behaved like a moron this evening, insulting Lottie and getting on his high moral horse with Francis. But seeing Lottie like that, with her punk hair and sexy, tight, black jeans, sprawled out on the floor…it had shaken him. Lottie was the good girl. Pure. Innocent. Some unnamed part of him needed her to stay that way. Certainly the thought of Francis O’Donnell’s hands wandering over her naked body was more than Jackson’s rational brain had been able to handle.

“I realize this may not compute for you, Jackson, but there are other qualities, apart from looks, that women can find attractive. Qualities that Francis has in spades, like decency and a sense of humor. Not to mention good manners. How dare you leave us all stranded at dinner like that? How dare you leave
me
stranded? Don’t you care how rude you are?”

“OK, OK, give it a rest, would you?” he grumbled. “You’re starting to sound like Sasha.”

“Good,” said Lottie. “You know, I’ve always defended you to Sasha. I’ve always said you weren’t as black as she paints you. But I guess I was wrong.”

“Oh really? So you hate me now too, do you?” Instinctively, without thinking, Jackson grabbed Lottie and kissed her. It was so unexpected, her brain found it hard to make the switch from anger to pleasure. Certainly it was nothing like the kiss that she had dreamed of every night for the last four years, since the day she started work at Wrexall. When he finally released her, overwhelmed with emotion, Lottie burst into tears.

“Oh, God, don’t. Please don’t cry,” said Jackson, hugging her. “I’m an ass, I’m a giant ass. I was jealous and I…I didn’t handle it very well.”

“Jealous?” Lottie dried her tears. “I thought you weren’t attracted to me.”

Jackson gave her a rueful smile. “I’m a sighted, adult male, Lottie. In what possible alternate universe would I not be attracted to you?”

“Then why do you keep ignoring me?” sniffed Lottie. “At work. Even here, this whole trip, you’ve looked right through me. I feel like a ghost around you.”

He kissed her again, more gently this time, his fingers lightly brushing the back of her neck as his lips pressed against hers. Suddenly Lottie wanted him more than ever. But then, just as suddenly, he stopped.

“You’re not a ghost. I see you, Lottie. You don’t need to do shit like
this
—” he touched her hair—“to get my attention.” Lottie blushed but did not deny it. “You have my attention. But you also have my respect. My friendship. I don’t want to ruin that.”

“You wouldn’t,” Lottie began, but Jackson cut her off.

“I would. You know, Sasha
is
right about me, on one level anyway. I’m not exactly the steady boyfriend type. I admire it in others, you know? My parents have been married forty years. But I think it’s important to know your own limits. I’d make a lousy husband, Lottie. And with you, I wouldn’t want to be anything less than perfect.”

Lottie stared at him, not sure whether to feel happy or sad. Jackson cared about her. Maybe even loved her. Move a few words around and that could have been a proposal. But they weren’t going to be together. “So what happens now?” she said glumly. “I mean, what happens tomorrow? Do we just forget any of this ever happened?”

“Yes.” Jackson kissed her cheek. “I think that’s exactly what we do.”

“You’ll have to apologize to Francis.”

That brought Jackson up short. “Apologize? Uh-uh, no way. I’m not apologizing. I never apologize.”

“Yes you are.” The shock of the last hour’s events had sobered Lottie up completely. “And you can prove you mean it by bringing him in to the new resort team.” Jackson opened his mouth to protest, but Lottie stopped him. “You owe me one, Jackson. In fact you owe me about twelve. If it weren’t for me we’d still be stuck in never-ending planning and you know it. I want Francis on the team.” Her cute, pixie-like chin jutted forward defiantly as she drew herself up to her full five feet one inch. Jackson wondered how anyone ever refused her anything.

“Fine,” he said grumpily. “You can have Francis stupid O’Donnell. But I want something in return.”

Lottie felt hope surge up within her. “You do?” she trembled.

“Yes. I want you to keep Sasha Miller off my back and as far away from this project as humanly possible.”

Lottie flew back to New York the following evening. After everything that had happened, it felt too awkward to stay. Jackson stayed on in Utah for four more days. Officially he was tied up in a whirlwind of on-site meetings. Unofficially, he was taking his old friend Piers Dellal up on his ski bunnies offer, ricocheting from party to party and bed to bed like a sex-crazed boomerang. By the time he’d worked off his sexual frustration over Lottie sufficiently to catch a plane home, it was Friday afternoon. He’d called a special meeting of the board to discuss his triumphant new hotel deal, and stepped off the plane feeling more energized and alive than he had in months.

The feeling didn’t last.

Jackson’s first thought on walking into Wrexall Dupree’s offices was that there must have been a fire. That or some sort of
terror attack. On the street outside, crowds of people were milling around. On close inspection Jackson saw that well over half of them were press. When they saw
him
, they turned as one like a swarm of bees, jabbing microphones and cameras in his face and shouting questions that made no sense to him.

“What will the repercussions be for the new firm?”

“Will Wrexall do business with them?”

“Lucius Monroe this afternoon called the poaching of your clients ‘theft.’ Do you agree with that? Will you be making a statement?”

Pushing past the reporters into the lobby, Jackson ignored the receptionist’s frantic arm-waving, hopped into the nearest elevator, and marched straight into his office.

“Would someone like to tell me what on earth is going on? It’s pandemonium down there.”