The Pleasures of Winter (34 page)

She’s a bitch.

She has an empty fridge because she eats men for breakfast.

She can lie with a pretty tremble of her lips and a flicker of her eyes.

She’ll do anything to get a story, even allow a guy to tie her up and crop her and fuck her until she almost passes out.

There’s a name for someone like that.

The bottle was empty. Jack tossed it out the patio door, straight into the swimming pool.

Where was his staff? Why was no one cleaning up this shit? Oh yeah, he’d told them all to fuck off. Maybe he should tell them to come back and clean up. And get more booze.

He needed more booze.

When the door opened, he didn’t bother checking to see who it was. ‘Do you have any more whiskey?’ he called.

Kev stomped in and stood in front of him. ‘No, you’ve had enough.’

Jack considered that. He could still remember what a bitch Abbie was. ‘No, not yet.’

Kev looked grimmer than Jack had ever seen him. ‘What the fuck are you doing? Are you determined to kill yourself?’ Kev asked.

‘Might as well.’ Even as he said it, Jack was appalled at the words.

‘You’re a fucking eejit. You’ve spent two weeks hitting the bottle, getting into fights, practically fucking Kym Kardell in front of the paparazzi.’ Kev sounded more pissed off than Jack could remember. ‘I know how you feel about Kym Kardell. God knows you told me enough.’

‘She had cut her hair a bit like Abbie’s,’ Jack said. ‘Needed to see if she was wearing the same sort of bra.’

‘Some people don’t deserve to live,’ Kev announced to the room. ‘Kym fucking Kardell?’

‘Better than Abbie fucking Marshall.’ His voice slurred. Jack blinked. Christ! When had he gotten so drunk?

He peered up at Kev, who seemed to be thinking about something. Then he grabbed Jack by his arm, hauled him off the couch, dragged him through the patio door, outside, and threw him into the swimming pool.

Jack sank down, down, down into the clear water. He considered allowing himself to stay down there. Would Abbie be sorry? Would she come to his funeral? For a few moments, he allowed himself to imagine a huge Hollywood funeral with Abbie crying and blaming herself.

Then his sense of self-preservation kicked in and he pushed off the bottom of the pool and fought his way to
the surface. He grabbed the edge of the pool and pushed his sopping hair out of his eyes to glare at Kev.

He had enough time to take a breath before Kev pushed the top of his head and submerged him again. Fuck him. What was he playing at?

Jack struggled against the hand holding him down. Was Kev really trying to drown him? He fought harder, and grabbed Kev’s arm. One good yank and Kev was in the pool beside him.

‘Are you out of your fucking mind?’ he roared.

Kev grinned at him. The bastard had enjoyed doing that. ‘Are you sober yet?’

Jack cursed, then stopped. ‘Yes, I think I am.’

‘Great, then let’s get out of this pool. I came a long way to talk to you. The least you can do is offer me a coffee.’

Ten minutes later, sitting in Jack’s state-of-the-art kitchen and drinking extra strong coffee, Kev asked, ‘So, what’s going on?’

Jack had no defences left. ‘She betrayed me. I trusted her and she just wanted a story.’ He didn’t bother to say which ‘she’ he meant. There was only one woman who mattered.

‘Are you sure?’ Kev took a sip of his coffee, cursed, and dumped in three spoons of sugar.

‘She’d do anything for a story. You saw that.’ The memory of how ferociously Abbie had clung on to her laptop because she needed it for her story haunted him. Abbie was a born reporter.

‘Did you ask her?’

How could Kev ask that? ‘Why? Her name was on the fucking story. Who else could have done it? She’s the only
one who was there when that poncy little fecker O’Dwyer spilled the beans. And she fucking spent the night with me. Bitch!’

Kev looked at him in disgust. ‘O’Dwyer is the sort of little bastard who would have gone to the papers himself. I bet he was jealous that you’re a big star and he’s not.’

‘O’Dwyer is right. He’s a real actor.’

The words were harder to say than Jack had expected.

‘You’re a real actor,’ Kev said. ‘And people have heard of you. I bet that little fucker is still making minimum wage.’

Jack gave a dry laugh. The wages in theatre were a joke.

‘Look, we all got to know Abbie well in the jungle. And you’ve got to know her a lot better since. Besides, if she spent the night with you, when did she get time to write? I don’t believe she would have done this without at least asking for your side of the story.’

Jack stilled, his alcohol-fuzzed brain struggling to pull together what he knew. Abbie had been going mad waiting for a comment from … he gave up trying to remember who, but he did remember she wanted a comment from someone before she ran a story. She said it was good journalism.

‘She knew I wouldn’t give her a comment.’

Kev stirred his coffee again. ‘Well, what did she say?’

Jack blinked, trying to remember. She must have admitted it. Hadn’t she? But his memory came up blank. ‘I don’t remember,’ he mumbled.

‘You’re a fucking danger to yourself, do you know that?’ Kev wasn’t mincing his words. ‘You go on a bender without actually finding out what the hell is going on? Jesus, I’m going to dine out on this for years to come.’

‘Her name was on it. Abbie Marshall, in black and white.’

Kev shrugged. ‘So what? I’ve seen enough of the media to know that bylines are often about politics, not who wrote the story.’

Jack swallowed. ‘Why would they use her name if it wasn’t Abbie?’

‘How the fuck would I know? I wasn’t sleeping with her. All I know is that I’d have asked her before I went on a bender that is making headline news all over the world.’

Mind made up, Jack stood up. ‘You’re right. I’ll ask her now. Is she still in LA?’ He reached into his pocket for his phone and was vaguely surprised to find it wasn’t there.

‘No, and she’s not in New York either. She’s vanished.’

Jack hadn’t expected this. ‘What?’

Kev looked grimly satisfied at breaking the news to Jack. ‘No one has seen her in over a week. No one knows where she is. Kit’s very upset at not hearing from her, and her office says she has taken leave of absence. If her family knows anything, they aren’t saying. So, good luck tracking her down.’

Sobering up was more painful than Jack had expected, but he didn’t spare himself. He had to get sober so he could find out where Abbie was. He put the gym back together, spent agonizing hours working out, and got himself back to normal.

As if he’d ever be normal again, he reflected bitterly. His life was completely fucked-up. He was being reviled in every newspaper and gossip show as a sexual predator. Zeke took a certain pleasure in telling him that he was unemployable: no one would hire him to wait tables. He had also, he discovered, trashed his house pretty thoroughly and it would require tens of thousands of dollars to repair. But none of it mattered when he thought about Abbie.

He was completely fucked-up. He still didn’t know if she had betrayed him and sold him out for a newspaper headline.

He did know that he was obsessed with her. He couldn’t rest until he had her back under his roof and in his bed. He wanted her naked and trembling and begging him to do whatever he wanted to her. And he would.

Every time he closed his eyes, his dreams filled with her and all the things he would make her do. All the things she would want him to do to her. All the things she would do to him. The way her eyes darkened when she was aroused.
The way her skin flushed when he shocked her. The delicious colour her ass turned when he spanked it. The noises she made when he pushed her out of control. The sassy responses she would zing at him as soon as she got her breath back.

First, he had to find her.

He rang her cell phone, but wasn’t surprised when she didn’t answer. He guessed he wasn’t on her list of favourite people right now. He kept trying but she never picked up.

Next he tried the paper. Like Kev had said, no one there knew where she was, only that she had taken a leave of absence.

Kit was bound to know where she was by now. Abbie told Kit everything. Of course, Kit was bound to hate his guts, but that was too bad. What the hell was Kit’s surname?

He called the one person who would know. ‘Hey, Kev, do you have a number for Abbie’s friend Kit? She might have heard from Abbie.’

Kev sounded breathless, as though he had been interrupted in the middle of a workout. ‘Bad timing, bro. And she still doesn’t know.’

Jack pushed his hair back off his face – when had it got so long? ‘I want to ask her myself.’

‘She doesn’t know.’

‘Just give me her fucking number. I’ll ask her myself.’

He heard a scuffle, a muttered curse and then a feminine voice came on the line. ‘I don’t know where Abbie is, and if I did I wouldn’t tell you. You’ve caused her enough heartache.’

Another brief scuffle and Kev was back. ‘She really doesn’t know. She’s worried. If Abbie contacts us, I’ll let you know.’

Us? When had Kev and Kit become ‘us’? Jack thanked them and hung up, feeling more desolate than ever.

He wandered around the house, remembering Abbie there. The more he thought about it, the harder it was to believe that she had sold him out. He needed to talk to her.

He didn’t know what to do with himself. He picked things up and put them down again. He put his hands on the mantelpiece and leaned on them, trying to figure out what to do with himself. Then he spotted a cell phone. It wasn’t his. He picked it up and turned it on. A screensaver of a white feather showed up. It was Abbie’s phone. Had she left it behind? He couldn’t imagine that. She never went anywhere without it. She had joked that she’d rather lose an arm than her phone.

He scrolled up and down through the contacts list. It was impressive. Private numbers for the White House and international movers and shakers, just about every senator and congressman in the country, most of the big-city mayors, all the political names that counted, and quite a few of the criminal ones too.

This was her business phone. It must have fallen out of her bag when she dropped it. Now he had the means to find her. He started dialling.

After the seventh call Jack wanted to hit something. Or someone. Possibly that ultra-annoying sister of Abbie’s. How could two women who were so unalike be related? The bitch knew where Abbie was and wouldn’t tell him.

He remembered the break-in at her apartment, the
push into traffic. Someone didn’t like Abbie. His bones ached with the need to protect her.

There was one person in her personal contacts list he kept avoiding. He’d rather lose his left nut, but it was time to man up.

‘Hey, William. It’s Jack Winter here. I need to ask you something.’

The voice on the other end of the line was as annoying as he remembered. ‘How did you get this number?’ he asked, as if Jack were something he’d picked up on his shoe.

With a supreme effort of will, Jack restrained himself. If the dweeb knew where Abbie was, he would be polite. He asked him if he knew Abbie’s whereabouts.

William sniffed. ‘Why would I tell you anything? You have done nothing but drag Abbie’s name through the mud.’

‘Hey, she was the one who hitched a ride on my plane. I didn’t ask her.’

William’s voice got even more pinched. ‘She wouldn’t behave like that. Abbie wouldn’t disgrace her family in any way.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Jack found it next to impossible to let this twerp talk about Abbie. ‘You don’t know her as well as you think.’

‘You are a bad influence on her. She never behaved like this until you came along.’

‘There’s a lot of things she never did until she met me.’

Memories of Abbie begging him to punish her harder rushed through his mind. And then he thought of her with her legs splayed, her pussy open and glossy and pleading with him to make her come. He couldn’t believe he’d never
smell her or taste her or fuck her again. Or that any other man would. And the thought of this guy sleeping with Abbie, putting his hands on her, putting his – No, he couldn’t go any further with that thought or he’d commit violence.

William spluttered. ‘No wonder she ran away from you.’

Jack winced. It was true.

‘At least she’s too far away for you to find her now.’ There was a wealth of satisfaction in William’s voice.

Wait. The twerp knew where she was?

‘Where is she?’

‘I have no intention of telling you.’

He did know. Jack straightened up. ‘Where is she?’ he repeated, his voice edged with a subtle threat.

William laughed. ‘She’s better off without you.’ He was gloating.

Oh fuck. He was going to have to do this. Jack shoved his hand through his hair and braced himself. ‘Please, I’m begging you. Tell me where she is.’

The bastard laughed again. ‘Not so much fun now, is it? How does it feel to know there are some things your Hollywood charm can’t buy?’

‘It’s not fun,’ Jack said. ‘Where is Abbie?’

‘What do you care? You’ve made her a byword for scandal, ruined her marriage prospects and upset her family. She’s better off without you.’

It was true, and hearing it cut like a scalpel. Jack winced. ‘At least tell me that she is well, and safe. There are some bad people after her.’

‘She’s fine. I always knew that job of hers was dangerous. But unless those bad men of yours are leprechauns, they won’t bother Abbie.’ William hung up on him.

Jack stared at the blank phone. Leprechauns? There was only one place in the world with leprechauns. Abbie was in Ireland.

Abbie pulled back the curtains and stared at the snowy landscape. As far as her eyes could see, the rolling countryside was white with snow and frost. Martin said that this was the first white Christmas the country had seen for years, and she had to land right in the middle of it.

Two weeks of snow. Two weeks in which she had barely stepped outside the house. Two weeks in which she hadn’t stopped thinking about Jack. Her aunt had known what was wrong with her straight away. Barbara was so much like Abbie’s dead mother that it was scary. That same intuitive instinct for how another person was feeling. She had taken one look at her woebegone expression in the lobby of the Shelbourne Hotel and said, ‘Broken heart, is it? Poor pet.’