Everything You Need: Everything For You Trilogy Book 1 (14 page)

“That’s it.” He sounds pretty irate. He heads off sideways, nudges open a doorway with his shoulder and tosses me down onto a bed. He throws himself down beside me as I roll and scramble to my knees to crawl out of reach as we grunt and puff like a couple of all-in wrestlers. The darned dress won’t let me move fast enough. Jack presses me face down into the mattress with a huge palm planted squarely in the small of my back.

He has me pinned down so hard I can’t move despite the strength of my temper. I can barely breathe and nothing is about to change any time soon. He won’t give up and neither will I.

“Stop struggling. I’m not going to hurt you.”

At his terse words, I deflate. I bury my face in my arms on the bedcover, mortified. An awkward silence expands around us. The longer it lasts, the worse I feel. Jack, with a strength built of innate sureness waits for me to make the next move.

“Are you going to let me up?” I force myself to sound calmer than I feel. The graceful swan’s elegance of hurt pride I display belies the flapping great webbed feet of emotion paddling furiously beneath the surface.

“Are you going to start acting like a lady?”

His condescending attitude annoys me no end. “Drop dead.” I’m not willing to capitulate that much.

Jack eases his hand from my back gradually as if he’s not convinced I’ve calmed. I roll over and push myself into a sitting position, blowing my hair out of my eyes whilst creating space between us. It isn’t easy trying to maintain my dignity being swallowed alive by this great blue whale of an unzipped dress.

“This evening is a complete mistake.” I’m tetchy as hell and it shows; disturbed by the extremes of emotion he’s capable of stirring up in me and my frustration isn’t only mental.

“This evening is essential.”

I’m incredulous. I turn and glare at him, reminding myself of the reason I’m here. “You’re never going to give CaidCo your business back, are you?”

A flicker of confusion crosses his face, swiftly swept away, as if his mind is anywhere but on business. “I haven’t informed you of any decision yet.”

Why didn’t I face facts sooner, like back in that boardroom for a start? I’d allowed myself to get too angry to see straight and too disturbed around Jack Keogh to get a proper hold of my emotions.

“You think I’m stupid, but I’m not. You’ve already made up your mind not to renew your contract and nothing I say or do will ever change it.”

Knowing Jack is right about my business inexperience, makes me angry as a pulled-tail cat, with myself as much as with him. I heft myself sideways turning my back fully. I can’t bear him to look at me. What else is there to say? He tried to use me, to put me in my place – beneath him – and I’ve just had another lucky escape.

So why do I feel so miserable?

“On the contrary, I think you’re incredibly bright. Far too smart to throw away your opportunities for a little hurt pride. You were intelligent enough to be awarded a first class honours degree for a start and didn’t you get the national award for the highest percentage in your final year? I’m banking on the fact you’re intelligent enough to know what’s good for you.”

“And you think that’s you?” I twist round to face him, wondering who informed him of my academic results. “The one person I can’t trust.” I cross my arms defensively as he searches my face for something.

“Stop this, Tabitha. It isn’t like you.” He gently touches my shoulder but he doesn’t deny my accusation. How could he?

His touch causes a reaction; just not the one he might be expecting. I shrug him off violently. “What the hell would you know about me?” I shift further off.

He simply grabs my arms and heaves me back round to face him, pulling me closer, making my senses reel. “I know enough. I plan to find out the rest.”

“You don’t even know me.” What do I really know about him either? The thought makes me wretched.

“I know you’re kind and generous, determined and ambitious. Impulsive.”

“Being impulsive is suddenly a quality? You threatened to paddle me for it a minute ago.”

He laughs, ignoring my taunt. “That was to stop you kicking me and I apologise for suggesting it. I wouldn’t. I was raised to respect women. I respect you.”

I huff my disbelief of the claim.

“Despite all your bravado, you need someone to guide you. Someone older. Someone more experienced. Someone who won’t be daunted by your tough little protestations. Or go easy on you because you’re young and sexy.”

“Someone like you?” It’s as if the whole world suddenly stops turning, only it’s forgotten to tell me and leaves me whirling round and round in it, all alone. I feel sick. “I wouldn’t ask you for help if I was dangling off a cliff by a paper chain. In the rain.”

The last four years have, at least, proved that true. No matter how many times I felt myself falling, I kept my pride and stayed away.

He shifts himself closer, frown deepening. “I thought you might have come to me after Harry died. I figured you needed more time.”

I hold my ground, chin up, vindicated. “Don’t hold your breath.”

“After your dangerous little stunt last weekend, and who knows how many weekends before that I’m well beyond waiting.” Jack looks like he’s struggling between kissing me and slapping me senseless. “You have an alcohol problem, madam, and God Almighty knows what else.”

“My life is none of your business.”

“Your business is part of my life.” He arches his eyebrow arrogantly at his adroit counter claim.

But I did a year on the university debating team. “You and your business walked out on both my business and my life.” We trade words like we care.

“My hand might have been forced sooner than planned but you are my business now.”

“You are quite unbelievable.”

“You’ve told me that before. I liked it, remember?” His lips hover over mine. I feel his warm breath taunting me.

I struggle not to forget everything, to close the unimportant little gap between our bodies. I slam a metaphorical door in his face instead. “I remember things that matter to me. I’ve forgotten you already.”

He sits back and his smile almost reaches his eyes. “Then remember we still have a deal.” He folds his arms in triumph.

I can’t believe he’s using my own weapon against me. Even straight-up insults can’t penetrate the layer of self-assurance cushioning Jack in his own world. Preserving my dignity is second only to getting out of here as quickly as I can.

“Stuff your rotten deal. I’ve changed my mind.” I shuffle my bottom inelegantly to the edge of the bed and place my feet on the floor.

I lost one shoe kicking Jack some time back so I flip the other one off to match. Heaving the skirts up to my knees for fear of tripping, I rise to my feet.

“Nothing that really matters has changed. Tonight only confirms it for me.” He sounds adamant and just on the edge of losing his temper. “You capitulated completely to everything I demanded. The car, the dress… the lingerie. We’ll talk about the rest.”

Capitulated? Tonight was some kind of test? “How dare you. You made your feelings about me clear years ago and the first time you see me again you cause as much misery as you can. You broke my door down. You broke your contract.” You broke my heart. “I don’t know what I ever did to you to make you hate me so much.”

He barks a mirthless laugh. “Let’s explore your feelings first.”

“I hate you too.” I step nearer to the door.

He doesn’t appear to be wounded by the fact. More proof if ever I need it that he’ll never care about me.

“You need me.”

“Get over yourself.”

He toughens to steel before my eyes. “Do I strike you as someone who deviates from a decision once I’ve made it?” His lips – the lips that, not five minutes ago, stirred mine to acts of reckless abandonment – set in an uncompromising line. “You sought my help once.”

I stare at him in horror, knowing exactly what he’s alluding to. What happened when I was eighteen has absolutely nothing to do with why I came here and bringing it up is a low move, even for Jack.

“Don’t, Jack.” I freeze.

He continues as if he doesn’t know I’ve just begged him not to say anything else. “When you got over-anxious and stressed and started to hyperventilate and panic, you came to me not Harry.”

“Please.”

He’s uncompromising. “Let’s face it. It wasn’t the sort of help you could ask your uncle to give you.”

“I thought you were my friend,” I yell in a complete about-face.

“I was.” He controls the tension surrounding us by suddenly lowering his voice. “I am. Your instincts told you, you could trust me with anything at all. You still can.”

He’s humiliating me to make a point?

“I was a teenager, sinking under the weight of entrance exams and all the other stuff I had to deal with. I was vulnerable.” I’d had a major panic attack, struggling to breathe when Jack found me. In the aftermath he’d held me, shuddering in his arms, talking me down.

“You asked me to take your virginity as a distraction and I refused. It was the right thing to do. You were barely eighteen. I’m ten years older than you. I was in Harry’s home and he trusted me alone with you. The relationship between us wasn’t anywhere near being like that.”

Except in my naïve and twisted little head. “You thought I wanted you to do that to me? I’d rather have asphyxiated.”

His reaction then and the look he gave me was worse than any pain. He made me feel like all kinds of freak for asking. And that night he left me. He left me because he thought I was some deviant aberration. “It was a joke.”

“It wasn’t.”

I’m speechless. Embarrassed. I’ll give Jack his due, he isn’t afraid to call it like it is.

“I’ve thought a lot about it since then. You lost your parents really young. Harry knew nothing about kids when he adopted you. He didn’t learn much along the way either. I know you pretty much raised yourself. You simply needed someone older and more experienced who was willing to take control of the situation.”

I laugh. It’s a knee-jerk reaction. Thoughts of Jack controlling me and guiding me suddenly flood my body, my mind. I crush them out in my accustomed way, as routine as breathing.

“Try and control me, Jack Keogh and I’ll kick your backside out the door.” He got the bravado bit right, at least. He must weigh at least two of me.

Jack’s look is pure challenge. “I’d expect you to try. I’d be disappointed if you didn’t, even if this
is
my apartment.” Now he just sounds… in control. I can hear the laughter in his voice.

“You’re insufferable. It’s you who’s changed. You earn a bit of money and think you can buy anything and everybody.” I put my hand on the edge of the door, ready to walk through it.

“Money won’t help you, Tabby. Experience just may do. Take my word on that one. Harry’s death leaves you in a very difficult position. Circumstances have fast-tracked you to the top of the corporate ladder long before you’re ready. You’ve had to take on the responsibility of an established business that, no matter how capable you are, you’re not ready to handle. I have the expertise you lack. I can teach you.”

“By cancelling your contract?” I fix him with a glare. “Thanks for the lesson.”

“I tried to reach out to you. You wouldn’t listen so I made you. That’s one lesson you got for free. Re-assigning the contract is a sound commercial decision for my company. I’ve no intention of screwing around with that. If you want it back you have to earn it. No short cuts but I will mentor you. Think about it.”

“Don’t need to.” But I do. Isn’t it exactly what I’d asked him to do once before? Help me overcome my weaknesses. Except that was the very thing that ended us.

“I know you’re not ready to admit needing me yet. That innocence and openness you had four years ago is gone. You want to hide your naivety from the world but you can’t hide it from me, Tabby. I know you too well. Take a chance.” He holds out his hand to me, just the way he did at the elevator.

I’m nowhere near willing to take such a risk on him again. He hurt me and the scars run deep. “I don’t understand why you’re interested in helping me all of a sudden.” Frankly I’m suspicious as hell.

“Hear me out to the end.”

He’s right about one thing. I’m not quite so young, foolish or ready to openly expose myself to Jack Keogh anymore. I cross my arms defensively but despite everything, I stay put.

“I’m listening.”

Chapter Seven

“There was chemistry between us right from the start. I know you felt it, same as I did so don’t even bother to deny it.”

Jack holds his gaze steady on mine. He stands, walks over and leads me back to sit on the bed beside him. How like him to get straight to the heart of things. Hooking one knee up onto the bed, he turns his body to face me so we’re right back where we started.

They’re smooth-talking words but he’s only talking about sexual chemistry. Lust.

“Don’t look at me like that, Tabitha. It’s the truth. I’m trying to pick my words carefully as this is far too important to ignore. There was a strong attraction between us once.”