Calling His Bluff (27 page)

She didn’t have the faintest fucking clue what would come next.

All she knew was that she didn’t want this crazy ride to end.

“Since when?”

For the first time, Sarah noticed that Lana looked as startled as she and J.D. did.
She’d dropped the smooth, self-assured drawl and was acting like a shocked bystander
who’d happened upon the scene of a terrible car accident. “I thought they were kidding.
When did
that
happen?”

J.D. just looked at her and raised an eyebrow. He was clearly willing to let her field
that one. He didn’t even look nervous about what she might say. Why wasn’t he nervous?
What if she said that they were married and madly in love and planning on having a
dozen babies in short order?

Sarah felt the roller coaster drop and spin of her stomach that had become her daily
companion over these past few weeks with J.D. She cupped her palms over her stomach
and felt a little sick.

Holy shit, she wanted to be married to J.D.

Maybe even throw in that baby thing at some point.

Something must have shown on her face. She couldn’t imagine what her expression looked
like, something between shock and awe she guessed, but J.D. dropped his hands from
Lana’s elbows and turned back to her, his dark eyes absolutely enormous and locked
on hers.

“Sarah?”

Her eyes felt hot and wet. A smile crept onto her face and she felt shaky and a little
nauseated for a moment. J.D.’s eyes got even wider and the sunburst of his smile was
possessive and heated as he strode over to her and stopped right in front of her.
He didn’t touch her, still waiting for her to say something, and suddenly she was
sure. So sure that the laughter erupted from her as she slid her arms around his waist
and rested her head on his shoulder, and for a moment her laughter sounded like a
shaky sob. She couldn’t get a grip on these emotions running riot through her system.
But with J.D. to anchor her, for once she wouldn’t stuff a lid on her out of control
feelings.

She didn’t even turn her head to look at Lana as she said it. She looked up at J.D.
and his eyes were all dark pupils, just a thin ring of brown around that black flare
of desire and heat and what she knew, what she absolutely knew was love.

“Yes, we’re married.” Her voice was a little shaky, but who could blame her? She got
the words out, which was all that mattered. “We’re married and we’re madly in love
and we’re going to have a dozen babies.”

J.D. made a sound like a growl and planted one on her. His hands slid under her hips,
lifting her up, and his mouth attacked her, his tongue sweeping inside to tangle with
hers. But a moment later he broke off the kiss, boosting her up with his hands until
she got the hint and wrapped her legs around his waist. His smile was wicked before
he leaned forward again and licked a hot trail up the side of her neck until his lips
stopped by her ear. His voice was soft and hard all at once. “Immediately.”

She flushed with heat and wrapped her arms around his neck as he turned and headed
for the stairs, Sarah still wrapped around him like a clinging vine. She could see
Lana over J.D.’s shoulder, staring after them with a clenched jaw and her hands balled
up at her sides. Sarah bit her lip to keep her shit-eating grin under control and
ducked her head until her cheek was pressed to the side of J.D.’s neck.

She could feel his voice rumbling through his body when he called out to Lana.

“Stay. Go. I don’t really care.”

“Where are you going?”

“Upstairs. To practice knocking up my wife.”

“Can I watch?” Her laughter was bitter and she was still trying to find a way to flirt
with J.D., but Sarah didn’t care anymore.

She felt her bones melt. Rubbed her cheek against his shoulder and inhaled the clean
soap smell of his skin.

When Lana kept talking, she wasn’t really surprised. It was probably too much to hope
that she would go gently into the night just because Sarah was ready to trip J.D.
and race him to the floor.

“Well, this visit is going to be even more interesting than I’d thought.” Her voice
had lost its singsong quality, flattening out. Sarah cracked a reluctant eyelid open.
Lana crossed her arms over her breasts. “You’re gonna wanna hear this one, babe.”

“No, I’m not.” J.D. planted one foot on the first step of the spiral staircase. Sarah
could feel his muscles tense in preparation for the effort of hauling her up the stairs,
but she found herself hooking a hand on the railing and tugging him to a halt.

“Wait,” she said.

J.D. looked down at her. Looked up at his loft bedroom. Licked his lips.

Before she had a chance to get the words “I’ve got a bad feeling about this…” out,
Lana detonated her bombshell.

“I’ll contest the divorce. And California won’t recognize a Dominican divorce if one
party wasn’t present and contests. You’ll still be married to me.”

Looking over J.D.’s shoulder, Sarah had a perfect view of J.D.’s ex-wife. Lana’s lips
were compressed in a grim smile. She didn’t look particularly happy, but she didn’t
look like she was planning on giving in, either.

J.D.’s body had turned to stone with tension. Sarah pulled her head back to look at
him. He refused to meet her gaze. After a moment, he dropped his forehead against
hers and his breath feathered warmly over her face. He didn’t turn to face Lana, but
his words were clearly directed at her.

“Why, Lana? Even at our worst, we were never like this. Why are you doing this?”

Sarah could still see Lana, whose tight fingers were unconsciously twisting her expensive
coat. She saw it, the moment when Lana dropped all her defenses and stripped herself
as naked as she’d no doubt been while table dancing in Rio.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her voice wavered a little and her eyes were shiny bright.
“But no one wants to hire me. Everyone laughed at my drama until the thing with Jane.
It was all just a bit of fun, right? Only she thought I was single. That we had, you
know, an open marriage.” She blushed for once and avoided looking at Sarah. “When
she found out the truth, she cut my role and they sent me home. I didn’t tell you
because…well, you were in the hospital already and not really speaking to me. I was
pretty humiliated.” Lana had the grace, or the acting chops, to blush here. “Jane’s,
um, a nice person, I guess. At least, nice enough to not want to sleep with a cheater.
And people respect her.”

J.D. didn’t soften toward Lana for a second. “I still don’t see why you’re coming
after me.”

Lana threw her hands in the air. “It’s like I’m a leper. No one will take my calls.
I’ve had three auditions cancel on me already. Since I got kicked off Jane’s project,
I didn’t get an invite to the award ceremony, so I had to let that total sleazeball
paw me all night just to get him to bring me as his date. God, I was just fooling
around, you know?”

“You had to know you were going to hurt somebody eventually, Lana, right?” He still
hadn’t looked at Sarah.

“I know I hurt you.” She was crying a little now, but like they did in the movies,
tears trickling delicately down her cheek while her voice held steady. “And I’m sorry
for that. But I need your help, J.D. This is the only thing I’ve ever wanted. You
know that. I’m sorry I couldn’t want
us
as much as I wanted this. But you just have to help me one last time. I need a chance
to make it right and then that’s it. I’m gone. I promise.”

She felt it. The moment he decided to give in.

For a heartbeat, Sarah closed her eyes. She was dizzy, sick with embarrassment and
humiliation. Suddenly having her legs wrapped around his waist was ridiculous. This
wasn’t a melodramatic chick flick where the plain Jane takes off her glasses, gets
a good haircut, learns how to put on some eyeliner and steals the hot guy from the
prom queen. She’d spun herself a fantasy and because it was fun and it felt good,
she’d let herself fall into it as if it was real.

Even though she knew, she
knew
perfectly well that it wasn’t.

She was a fool. Sarah inhaled deeply and the warm, soapy scent of him nearly broke
her again. She could feel his breath on her face, his nose bumping into hers as they
stayed pressed together for one more moment. He was wrong. Misguided. Suddenly she
knew that all the worries she’d had since they returned from Vegas had been spot on.
Through her, he felt that he’d found way back to his childhood when they’d huddled
on the back stairs together, silently sharing cherry licorice and pretending that
the big bad world outside the Tyler house didn’t exist.

With her, he felt at home. And he loved her for that. J.D. had told her just that
in so many ways, and Sarah didn’t doubt him for a second. But it wasn’t enough. It
wasn’t really her that he wanted, no matter how much she wished it were different,
no matter how much he wanted to believe in her. In them.

He wanted to be a Tyler, but he wouldn’t abandon Lana for it, either.

She remembered that moment in Vegas, when he’d been ready in an instant to help Lana
with her handsy date. J.D.’s loyalty was one of the things she loved most about him.
It was clear, though, that Lana still owned the lion’s share of it.

Her heart stumbled in the silence and the pain in her throat couldn’t be swallowed
away.

And it didn’t even matter if Lana was lying about how far she was willing to take
this or whether or not the courts would uphold their marriage if she followed through
on her threat and contested the divorce. Sarah was sure J.D. could talk her out of
it. That wasn’t the real problem.

The problem was he didn’t belong here with Sarah. J.D. had a whole life and a network
of friends and professional contacts waiting for him back in California. He might
have left that all behind him for a while, but it was time to stop playacting and
go home. This wasn’t Vegas.

“In real life, nobody goes all in on a bad hand.” She didn’t realize that she’d said
the words out loud until his harsh whisper interrupted her.

“Sarah—”

She tilted her head back, feeling the loss when her face was no longer pressed to
J.D.’s, and blinked until she knew she could look at him without her eyes shining
suspiciously. She pressed her mouth gently to his, once, twice, three times. Each
time meaning it to be the last.

He was shaking his head
no
before she even started to speak.

She set her feet on the floor and let her own body weight pull her from his hands,
taking a step back before he let her go, so that she didn’t have to feel the slide
of his body against hers. Her hands unlinked from around his neck, sliding down his
arms to tangle her fingers briefly with his. She squeezed his hands.

His skin was pale and his hands tugged her back, trying to pull her close again. And
her heart was breaking.

“Sarah. Christ, Sarah—you were just saying—
we
were just saying—”

She nodded. She knew. And it made her sick to her stomach to see him stuttering, staggered
by her emotional one-eighty. She kept her voice level and her eyes on his, even though
she wanted to duck her head and vomit with shame. Jesus. She could scarcely figure
out what to do next. She just knew she had to try to make this entire mess better.

Her hand found its way to the side of his face.

“You need to deal with this.” She spoke quietly, but she was sure the other woman
could hear her anyway. “Whatever else happens, you have to straighten this mess out.
And then—”

He waited.

And then we have to put an end to our own mess too.

She couldn’t say it. He was waiting and she knew what needed to be said, but she couldn’t
do it. Couldn’t put an end so decisively to everything she’d started to hope for these
past few weeks. The poured concrete floor was cold under her bare feet. She felt the
chill creeping up her body, spreading like she’d been shot by a comic-book villain’s
icy ray gun.

She couldn’t say it.

“And then—” her heart was pounding in her temples and she struggled to keep her voice
steady “—we’ll figure things out. But you need to get a handle on your life right
now and I need to take a step back while you do that.”

And it was so hard. Because she didn’t really believe that there would be anything
left to figure out after she took that step back. J.D. had gotten caught up in her
fantasy world of love and passion and family, the same way he’d been sucked in while
they were in Vegas. But while a red dress, a hot poker game, some scorching salsa
dancing and a liberal dose of ouzo had made a Britney Spears drive-through wedding
seem like a good idea, the stakes here at home were higher. This was the rest of her
life, the rest of
his
life, and once she brought them back to reality, J.D. would see that there was nothing
to hold him in this city after all.

She was telling him that they were separating for a little while, but what she meant
was goodbye.

She turned to give a brisk nod to Lana before heading up the spiral stairs to gather
her things, and that was when Sarah realized that any lingering hope she had that
J.D. might fight for her was wasted.

Because Lana wasn’t triumphant or gloating. Instead, her mouth was set in a grim line
and her eyes were almost soft with reluctant sympathy as she shook her head slightly.

* * *

He watched the color drain out of Sarah’s face in an instant.

He reacted instinctively, turning to scan the room for the threat he couldn’t see.
Lana he dismissed as irrelevant. He felt sorry for her, yes, and he’d straighten her
problems out if he could.

While his back was turned, Sarah kept going. The slap of bare feet on metal stairs
rose behind him. Good. He couldn’t think with her standing next to him, the smell
of his shampoo rising from her hair and slamming him back to the steam and heat of
the shower. Her slick, wet skin pressed against his.

Focus.
She couldn’t leave without getting past him. And he needed to get Lana out of here
before Sarah came back downstairs. He leaned back against the curved metal handrail
of the staircase, crossed one ankle in front of the other and his arms over his chest.
The look he shot his ex-wife was meant to skewer her in place.