Everything You Need: Everything For You Trilogy Book 1 (46 page)

“Sorry.” I feel like I’ve ruined his life. And mine. I try to put things in perspective. “It was only one kiss.”

Amanda gapes at me as if I’m some sort of idiot. An idiot she’d take extreme pleasure in crushing beneath her six inch stilettos. Her soothing hand never leaves Jack’s rigid frame.

He wheels around. “Was it?” Jack rips through the papers opening them one by one to the main story inside and angling them towards me so I can get the full, lethal effect of the detonation when he pulls the pin.

Oh God.

Jack and I might have made the front cover but inside there’s the added titillating bonus of me and Benn Gunn. I don’t even want to read what’s written underneath that. But it looks like I’m enticing this poor deluded young man, who just can’t resist my predatory powers of seduction, to reach my tonsils with the tip of his tongue. While his hands stray all over my body.

I’m portrayed not only as a complete tease with few principles but I’ve somehow been highlighted as the woman who has managed to cuckold the great man himself. I’ve tarnished Jack’s unblemished golden image and sullied my own reputation beyond all repair before it’s even known. I couldn’t have planned a better campaign of self-annihilation if I tried.

It’s all there in black and white. And red. I’m frozen for eternity in print, standing like a beacon, warning of the rising tide of loose morals in business. I envisage the painting at the National Gallery in my mind’s eye.
After the Misdeed
.

I can hardly speak. “Who..?” I don’t understand who would have taken such photographs. And sold them to the newspapers. They’re the ones who have an issue with morals, not me.

I look up.

Immediately I know it is Amanda’s doing. I stare directly at her to see a look of utter triumph light her face. Jack cannot see her twisted expression as she stands protected behind him. I know I have no proof but I’d lay my life on the fact that she’s behind it all. She works with Benn Gunn. She works for Advance and she was very unhappy for the few seconds she thought I might be sleeping with Jack Keogh and so utterly delighted when she realised I wasn’t. It’s clear she wants to keep him for herself. And what better way to turn him completely against both me and my company than this.

“Who?” Jack’s voice is menacingly low. “Who? You, Tabitha. That’s who.” He leans across the table to confront me in his rage. His hands are planted on the polished surface and he’s glaring at me.

He believes it’s all my fault. “I didn’t want him to kiss me. He made me.” It sounds so pathetic and lame.

“Like I made you, Tabitha?”

Did he? Was he party to Amanda’s nasty little stunt? “No. Don’t confuse me.” I wanted Jack’s kiss.

I’m bewildered. Is he angry because the press have caught the great Jack Keogh apparently losing his cool over some nobody? Or is he angry because it seems I’ve cuckolded him publically by kissing another man while I’m supposed to be with him? That couldn’t have been part of his planned revenge and I’ve ruined things. I can see how that would anger a man like Jack who strategizes everything.

Or…

I don’t even want my next thought but I can’t help remembering Jack and Amanda kissing at the ball too, when he thought I was still in the bathroom. Is he angry because now she’s seen him kiss me as well?

It all makes a weird sort of sense. It can be the only explanation. Jack Keogh really is toying with me. Punishing the upstart for insisting he does the right thing by keeping his business with CaidCo. He has no intention of doing that. I showed him up in front of his boardroom and Advance by bursting in unannounced. He was never going to let me get away with that. He wants Advance and he wants Amanda Devereaux. I’m just some pathetic little toy they amused themselves with.

The nobody who got out of hand.

I grip the edges of the table as the room spins until I feel nauseous. It’s all so sordid. I must get away from this table where he violated my body and my trust.

He has no intention of being with me. I’m a fool to have even considered it. He never offered me any sort of relationship, business or otherwise. He used me and hurt me and intended to cast me aside once my feelings were engaged again, so he and Amanda and Advance could laugh all the way to the boardroom. And the bedroom.

Except events outside his control have scuppered his big disclosure.

I scrabble my way to my feet.

“Sit down. We need to plan how to respond to this.”

Amanda massages the tension from his neck with the fingers of one hand. It’s such an intimate act and he doesn’t bat an eyelid. He wants me to see them together now. But all I see is his bed and me in it with him last night. Below him. Above him. Again and again. His hands on my body. Mine on his.

I look at her. Does she know it now? The same way she knew I hadn’t when she asked me last night in the bathroom at the ball. And laughed.

“I can’t sit. It’s a mess.”

Jack is right about that. A big bloody mess that I’ve walked right into. Benn Gunn is a prize bastard but he was just following orders. It isn’t even personal for him. It’s personal for Amanda, the arch schemer. I understand now she’s protecting what’s hers.

But my real devastation is Jack. My Jack no longer exists. He’s the
Boss
now. A bigger monster than all of them because he led me to hope. Again. I laugh out loud at my gullibility. My crass stupidity. Jack stares at me as if I’ve turned crazy. He paces towards me breaking Amanda’s possessive grasp but I step backwards holding up a hand. “Don’t.”

A shadow flits over his face. His frown deepens, his blue eyes darken. “I’ll get you some water.”

He doesn’t send Amanda. Instead he turns, strides off and disappears behind the kitchen door. He thinks I’m about to have a panic attack. I’m not. I already feel like someone has thrown a huge cold bucket of icy sea water all over me. Fish guts and all.

“Don’t play games with the big boys, little girl.” Amanda’s mean voice reveals her complete hatred of me. “Find some nobody of your own that you’re far more suited to. It will be less painful. For you.”

I can’t even reply. She’s staked her claim to Jack. At least that much is honest. Does she know he took my body too? Over and over. In her position, I would hate me. I hate her. She dismisses me like I’m nothing. No threat at all. She follows Jack to the kitchen without once looking back.

Everything’s clear for the first time. Jack is with Amanda. Zee-Com is with Advance. He doesn’t want anyone to know he lost control for those few minutes with me. Especially Amanda. That’s why he’s so riled about all this stuff in the newspapers.

But she’ll forgive him. As long as she never finds out he fucked me senseless last night. After all, I’m just some scheming little slut who aimed too high. Hoped.

I was supposed to be home by Sunday evening. He may have been gentle with me by the time he took me to his bed last night but that wasn’t love. He just wanted every inch of me to know I’d been used by Jack Keogh. A sob bubbles up my throat.

I have to get out of here. There’s nothing left for me here but heartache.

I know in this moment that I still love Jack Keogh. Love him. No matter what I’ve been telling myself, no matter how hard I’ve tried to pretend over the past four years, I’ve never stopped loving Jack. It’s my eternal curse and my punishment.

A huge sob erupts again. I just can’t hold it in place. I must go.

I’m inside the lift before I even realise it. The doors close and I know I’ll never see him again. Except perhaps in the newspapers. With Amanda on his arm.

I reach the ground floor and stagger out the street entrance, dazed and blinded by hot tears of shame. A press vehicle pulls up outside just as I depart and the photographer turns to grab his equipment from inside. I duck out of their line of sight behind a florist’s delivery van. Spotting a taxi turning in the road I stick my arm out fast and climb in.

The phone rings in my bag and I stare down at Jack’s name. I reject his call. I reject him. I won’t accept this situation any longer. He calls again immediately, not done with hurting me, even now. I reject the call again. I’m done with him.

It only took one weekend to achieve, not four but I am a very good student. I’ve made my executive decision and I’ll live with it. This time there will be no mixed messages.

Inside the taxi, I glance back through the rear window to see Jack burst from the building, phone in hand. He must have taken the emergency stairs to be so close behind me. He spots my black cab and turns towards it. The photographer, a journalist and an assistant crowd him and impede his path long enough for us to pull away from the kerb. He manhandles them aside.

Even over the engine I hear him shout out to me. He yells again, running fast.

“Drive!” I tell the cabbie.

“Tabitha!” Jack nearly makes it but the driver accelerates.

I don’t turn around. If I even look at him again I’ll crumble.

“Something going on back there?” The taxi driver enquires, frowning in his rear view mirror at the commotion.

“Yesterday’s news.” Suddenly I sound media savvy and cool. Jack would be impressed if he could hear me. Unable to stop myself, I weep.

“You alright, luv?”

“Just need to get away.” I blink back the tears. I’ve made my choice and there’s no going back. I’m finally ready to leave the past where it ought to be. Behind me.

I have no idea where I’m heading. I tear the pale blue silk scarf from my throat as if it’s choking me and use it to dry my eyes. The colour haunts me, darkening with the damp of my tears like Jack’s eyes darkened as he made love to me. It smells of Clive Christian. I stole a little squirt this morning to remind me of him all day. I fling it onto the back seat of the cab and leave it. I must forget him.

A text message appears and I can’t resist a glance.

Turn that cab around. Right now.

He’s angry. How the
Boss
hates to have his plans thwarted. I keep right on going as another message comes straight through.

I can’t protect you out there.

Here comes the manoeuvring. But he’s taught me too well how fast your enemies move against you. I guess Jack will do whatever it takes to get his own way. I delete it. I can protect myself.

“Where we headed then, luv?” the driver asks.

Somewhere Jack Keogh will never find me. But I start by directing the taxi back to my apartment in Notting Hill.

We have a deal.

It wasn’t worth the handshake. Or the heartache.

I’m not angry. I will sort this mess out.

He can do what he likes. Without me.

Answer me, Tabby.

I ask the taxi to wait the few minutes it takes to grab my passport and stuff a few clothes into a bag. Including cartoon knickers. They’re my clothes. The real me.

I’ll come to you.

I bet he’s already on his way but by the time he uses that spare front door key, I’ll be long gone. I refuse to acknowledge a single text. I delete everything. It’s an afterthought but I run back to grab my violin before returning to the taxi. I know I will need it again.

“City Airport, please.”

On the way I text Libby, tell her I’m taking holiday leave. Much as it pains me I instruct her to inform Brent I’m appointing him Acting CEO in my absence. Let him have a taste of life at the sharp end. It might do him good. And he can use the parking space legitimately for once. Running CaidCo is no bed of roses. I remind her to take good care of our ex-soldier, Phil.

She phones me straight back. “Jack Keogh’s just been here and gone again. He actually searched the place, like we might be hiding you. He insisted we let him know immediately you show or call. He’s worried. I’m worried. What’s going on, Tabby? Are you okay?”

I reassure Libby with a lie. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine. Do you want me to come get you?”

I play it down and pretend I totally deserve a summer break. But I refuse to tell her where I’m going in case Jack gets to her – he can be very persuasive – and she makes me promise to call if I need anything.

Each time Jack rings, I block him. How he must hate the idea that I left him. Jack is the one who likes to do the abandoning when he’s good and ready. Perhaps this is our karmic completion. Yet each time his name appears on the screen I’m tormented anew. If it’s possible, I hurt more than ever. Even the cab driver looks bothered by all the tears I fail to stem, no matter how hard I try.

It seems impossible to escape my fate. Once more I’m in abject agony. My failure from the beginning is to love a man who can’t love me. And yet I know I’ll survive. I may be alone but my entire life has prepared me for that.

I’ll always know where to find you, kitten. Be good.

So sure of himself. My stomach turns like a traitor as I power down my work phone. I’m finally strong enough to let Jack go so why am I so convinced that this time he won’t let me?

It doesn’t end this way.

Because no-one gets between Jack Keogh and his prey…

The sensational

Everything for You Trilogy