The Couple Behind the Headlines (20 page)

‘Well,’ she began again, and then her courage clearly failed her because she gave him a shaky kind of smile and made a lame stab at humour. ‘Nothing apart from there being not enough …’

‘I see,’ said Jack, nodding slowly and letting his gaze drift over her. Her hair was down and tumbled over her shoulders. The jacket she was wearing fitted her as if she’d been stitched into it and her skirt was tight and short. Her endless legs were bare and he could see her red-varnished toes peeping out of her very high, very sexy shoes. As the memory of how those legs felt wrapped around him flew into his head, desire surged though him, and he pushed himself off the desk. ‘Then I suppose I’d better see what I can do to remedy the situation.’

Reaching out, he caught her by the waist. Imogen jerked her gaze to his and gasped, but he merely pulled her tight against him and twisted her round to press her against the edge of the desk. And before she got it into her head to demand to know what the hell he thought he was doing, before she could protest about the dozens of people on the other side of the door, and certainly before his common sense could wake up and object, he slammed his mouth down on hers, hot and hard and furious.

To his grim relief, Imogen put up no resistance. As their tongues met and tangled she moaned and melted against him. Her hands whipped up to bury themselves in his hair and his shot down to the hem of her skirt. Pushing it up, Jack gripped her thighs and lifted her onto the desk.

She let out a soft whimper and he reminded himself that this was what she’d come here for. This was what she wanted from him. All she’d ever wanted from him, would ever want from him and it would be the last time.

Imogen tore her mouth from his. ‘You know, I really didn’t come here for sex, Jack,’ she panted.

‘Are you sure about that?’ he muttered, slipping his fingers beneath her knickers, stroking her between her legs before thrusting them inside her.

‘One hundred per cent,’ she gasped, and as he felt her muscles instantly clench around his fingers another great wave of desire slammed into him.

‘Do you want me to stop?’ he said, his voice rough and unsteady with every volatile thing churning around inside him.

She pressed herself closer. ‘Don’t you dare.’

As he rubbed and stroked her hands shot to the buckle of his belt and wrenched it open. She yanked his zip down and then shoved his trousers and shorts down and wrapped her hand around the hot, hard length of him.

Jack inhaled sharply, lurched to one side to grab his wallet, which lay on the desk, and pulled out a condom.

And then he was tugging her knickers to one side, holding her hips in place and driving into her. He crushed his mouth to hers to swallow her hoarse groan.

As he pounded into her she clung to his shoulders and wrapped herself around him and his mind blew. It was frantic and raw, her desperation matching his own, and he couldn’t hold himself back. His thrusts became increasingly harder and faster, and then she was whimpering and moaning and letting out a harsh muffled cry and he was coming with a scorching rush of pleasure while she shattered and convulsed around him.

In the aftermath, with his head buried in the crook of her neck, her body shuddering against his and their ragged breathing the only sounds in the room, Jack shook and something inside him cracked open and fell apart. The vestiges of his crumbling defences vanished, and, with his pulse thundering and drowning out the voice in his head telling him he was insane, he heard himself mutter, ‘Stay.’

Imogen stilled in Jack’s embrace, her heart slowing right down and the heat and pleasure dissipating like a warm breath in cold air. Something told her he wasn’t talking about right now, and that something made her shiver, despite the heat of the body still plastered against her.

And come to think of it how the hell had that happened anyway? One minute he’d been all steely calm and icy control while she’d waffled and dithered and generally floundered in bewilderment at his attitude, and the next he’d been grabbing her and ravishing her right here on his desk. While she assisted.

But whatever the reason for it the intensity of his kisses and the frantic desperation of his movements had been irresistible. It hadn’t been soulless and she couldn’t regret it.

‘What?’ she asked, although she wasn’t at all sure she wanted clarification.

‘Stay,’ he muttered again.

‘I can’t,’ she murmured, fervently hoping that, as she had on so many other occasions, she’d got it wrong and he was only asking her to stay here now. ‘I have to go. Besides, what must your staff be thinking?’

Jack reached out and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. ‘I don’t mean now,’ he said with a crooked little half smile. ‘I mean, don’t go to the States.’

Briefly, Imogen’s heart sank at the knowledge she’d been right. And then she froze, because to her utter shock it was on the tip of her tongue to throw everything she’d worked for aside and say OK.

But no, she thought, setting her jaw as she put her hands flat on his chest and gently pushed him back. That wasn’t an option. She’d let her head be turned all her life and it wasn’t going to happen again just because the sex had gone back to being soulful. ‘I have to.’

With a frown, Jack stepped away and fixed his clothing. ‘No, you don’t.’

‘I do.’

‘Why?’

Imogen wriggled off the desk and pulled her skirt down. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’ How could he?

‘Try me,’ he said flatly.

She moved away from him to give herself room to breathe and sat on the arm of the sofa, watching him tuck his shirt into his trousers. ‘Do you have any idea what it’s like to wake up one morning and realise how pointless everything you’ve done is? How little you’ve achieved, despite all the privileges you’ve had?’

Jack glanced over at her. ‘I guess not.’

‘Well, I do. I’ve had pretty much every advantage going and what have I done? Absolutely nothing.’ She ran her hands through her hair and then crossed her arms. ‘I messed up at school, partied my way through my early twenties, the only jobs being a bit of modelling and writing the occasional article. It’s shameful.’ She tilted her head and regarded him thoughtfully. ‘You know, you were right when you accused me of being shallow and vacuous.’

‘I wasn’t, and you’re not,’ he muttered and stalked over to a cabinet in one corner of his office.

‘I have been. But I’m not going to be any more.’

Whipping round, he held up a decanter of what she presumed was either whiskey or brandy. ‘Want one?’ he said.

‘No, thanks.’

He poured himself a large measure and knocked it back in one. ‘Fine,’ he said curtly. ‘So study here.’

Imogen blinked and fought back the urge once again to give in. ‘I’m going to the States, Jack, where I can live and study without the scrutiny of the press.’

‘Stay and I’ll protect you from it.’

‘You can’t. You know what they’re like. Over there I’m a nobody. They won’t give a toss about my past or who I am. They’ll leave me alone. That would never happen here.’

His jaw tightened. ‘I’ll think of something.’

Imogen sighed and sat up straighter. ‘Look, Jack,’ she said, deciding she needed to be firm, more for her sake than his, ‘this has been fun, could still be fun for another couple of months if we go back to the way things were before, but I’m not going to throw this opportunity away. This may be my only chance and I’m not going to blow it. Certainly not on a whim.’

For a moment there was silence as Jack simply stared at her. He went still, his face draining of all colour so swiftly that she wondered if he was all right.

And then it was as if he sort of exploded. The glass he’d been gripping flew across the room, crashed against the wall and shattered. Imogen jolted, her heart thundering with shock.

Colour slashed across his cheekbones. Fire blazed in his eyes and waves of anger rolled off him. He took a step towards her, then stopped and thrust his hands in his pockets as if not trusting himself not to throttle her. ‘You think this is a whim?’ he said roughly. ‘You think asking you to stay is easy for me to do?’

Imogen blanched in the face of his fury and struggled to work out the reason for it. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ she said, genuinely baffled. ‘Things come easy to you and you’re used to getting your own way.’

He glared at her. ‘Things don’t come easy to me and nothing since I met you has gone my way.
Nothing
.’

At his scathing tone, through all the shock and the bafflement, Imogen felt her own anger begin to stir. ‘And that’s
my
fault?’

He let out a harsh, humourless laugh. ‘Oh, no. Don’t worry. It’s all been entirely my own fault. Everything from getting involved with you in the first place to the foolish hope that you might want to stick around.’

She flinched. ‘Did I ever give you the impression I would?’

‘No. It was stupid of me. Incredibly stupid. But then that’s nothing new when it comes to you.’

The bitterness in his voice stabbed at her chest and she went dizzy with a weird need to find out why he’d wanted her to change her mind about leaving.

‘Why do you want me to stay, Jack?’ she asked and held her breath as if everything hung on his answer, which was mystifying because it didn’t.

Or did it?

His eyes met hers and held them, the blue shimmering with something she couldn’t identify and wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to anyway.

‘For more.’

‘Of what?’ Her breath caught in her throat. ‘The same?’

Jack frowned and yanked his hands out of his pockets to rake them through his hair. ‘Well, yes. But on a more permanent basis.’

Her heart hammered. ‘How permanent?’

‘I don’t know,’ he muttered, a rare flash of uncertainty darting across his face.

Her heart then plummeted. ‘Well, that’s not good enough,’ she said with a shrug. It hadn’t mattered that much anyway.

‘Of course it isn’t.’

‘The university I’m going to is one of the top ten in the world,’ she said, ignoring the sarcasm. ‘They don’t dish out places to just anyone, and I’m not giving mine up for a fling that will last who knows how long.’

Jack stiffened, then gave her a horribly sardonic smile and arched an eyebrow. ‘So how many strings did Daddy have to pull to get you one of those extremely rare and highly sought-after places?’

For one long moment Imogen could do no more than stare at him as his words and the mocking tone with which they’d been delivered hung between them. She blinked, the shocked disbelief coursing through her gradually turning to deep outrage
and excruciating hurt. To think that for one crazy second she’d actually considered suggesting he go with her.

‘Jack,’ she said, her voice cold and flat, ‘you’re a bastard.’

And with that she stood up, snatched her coat and bag and walked out.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

‘O
K,’
said Luke, planting two pints of beer on the table a week later and throwing himself into the chair opposite Jack. ‘This time I
know
something’s up.’

Jack shot Luke the cool, brittle smile that seemed to be fixed to his face pretty much permanently these days. Given that inside he was as cold as ice, and had been ever since Imogen had stormed out of his office, it didn’t seem all that inappropriate. ‘Thanks for this,’ he said and took a large swallow.

Luke shrugged and grinned. ‘Winner’s obligation.’

‘Don’t get too used to it.’

‘So?’

‘Nothing’s up,’ said Jack, setting the glass down and calmly meeting Luke’s penetrating stare despite knowing that that couldn’t be further from the truth.

‘Right,’ said Luke, evidently knowing it, too.

Jack fought back a scowl and concentrated on keeping the smile on his face. ‘I lost. It’s no big deal.’

‘On the occasions you do lose you don’t usually do it quite so dismally.’

Jack shrugged as he mentally revisited the diabolical game of squash he’d just played. ‘So I’m having an off day. It happens.’

He’d been having a lot of those lately. Seven of them to be
precise. Because he’d thought that he’d had a rough time of it when Imogen had first told him she was leaving, but this … This was infinitely worse.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her. About their last encounter, their last conversation, and, fuelled by the excoriating disappointment that nothing he could do would persuade her to stay, the dreadful things he’d said. The more he thought about it, the more it hurt. And the greater the guilt and shame he felt.

‘You know,’ said Luke, shooting him a disturbingly probing look, ‘the last time one of us lost that badly was me. Just after I’d met Emily and had my life thrown upside down.’

‘Was it?’ said Jack, glancing around the bar of the squash courts in an effort to avoid the question in Luke’s eyes.