Forever, Jack (30 page)

“Stop thinking so hard,” I heard Jack’s muffled voice next to me.

I gulped guiltily then laughed. “Sorry, I didn’t realize I was so loud.”

His head emerged from half under a pillow, his hair sticking up in all directions. Damn that wasn’t fair.

I sat up and instinctively pulled my own hair back and secured it with the band I kept around my wrist then quickly covered my bare breasts with my arms.

“Are you joking?” he asked with a grin, reaching out and pulling my arm away. “That’s the most beautiful sight I can imagine waking up to.”

I swallowed, feeling heat bloom in my cheeks, and sank back under the covers with him. “I think I’ll have to take advantage of that gorgeous clawfoot bathtub. I’m aching in muscles I never knew I had.”

Jack leaned up on an elbow and turned my face to his, kissing me softly. “Sorry,” he murmured with a grin that said anything but. Then he laid his head down and just watched me, his hand tracing lazy circles over my neck and chest.

I looked back at him, counting the tiny bright flecks among the sea of iridescent greens surrounding his dark pupils. “Sometimes your eyes are translucent like green sea glass and other times they’re dark, almost grey, like a deep forest,” I murmured. “And sometimes, like now, they’re like pools I want to throw myself into.” I smiled at my own ridiculousness.

His hand that had been lazily tracing my skin now took mine and pressed it firmly against the hard smooth skin of his upper torso, like I could ease an ache for him.

My own heart lurched up to thump heavily in my throat, making it hard to breathe. I swallowed, not trusting myself to speak, hoping he could see in my eyes what I couldn’t get out of my mouth.

And hoping I was strong enough to handle this beautiful man and all he was offering and not let my fears break both our hearts.

Jack and I sat on the front porch before we left, eating our scrounged up breakfast of eggs and biscuits. The latter he’d looked at curiously before declaring them freaking awesome. Biscuits were cookies in England, apparently.

My eyes were on the beauty of the ocean before us, but my mind was awash with worry about my art opening. Still being nervous of the attention and not having anything to wear to it was trivial compared to my new concern of how Jack could be at the event without eclipsing everything I’d worked so hard for.

“I’ve been to some amazing places all over the world,” Jack murmured, his eyes on me. “And all I can think about is how much I want to take you to each and every one of them. See them all through your eyes, be there with you … make love to you in every single one of them.”

His dimple flashed, and he cut his eyes away.

Warmth pooled low in my belly, but it came along with a shiver as Joey’s words came back to me. Would Jack expect me to follow him around the world? Not that I didn’t want to go places with Jack, I did. But …

The breakfast we’d just eaten began to feel like cement the more I considered his being with me for the event. I should want him there at the party. I should want him there for the support. I should want him there, even to help with my fear of attention, because truly, who would give a shit about a small town waitress and her sculptures when they could focus on Jack? That thought gave me pause. So I was nervous of the attention, but yet I didn’t want Jack to overshadow me? I was so confused.

The added concern of the house and how I would even go to SCAD added its weight to my churning thoughts.

“What’s wrong?” Jack’s voice broke through my thoughts.

And I hated that we’d shortly be leaving this cocoon of privacy. “How do you always know when something’s wrong?” I asked, cocking my head to look at him.

He shrugged. “Honestly? I seem weirdly attuned to what’s going on with you. It affects my mood.” He glanced at me then got up and stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets. Leaning a shoulder against the pillar, and turning to the view I was so mesmerized by, he shrugged. “Right now, I’m starting to feel anxious and on edge. And since I know I’m not afraid of golf carts, or boats, which are both in our near future, I can only assume I’m catching a vibe.” He winked.

“I know I’ve talked to you about being nervous to be seen with you. What that will mean. What that will look like … for me.”

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I get it. Living in a fishbowl has been my life for six odd years, and to be honest, I’m still not used to it.”

“So how do we do this?”

He blew out a breath.

I stared at his profile and the lump in his throat moving as he swallowed. His shoulders, which had made to shrug again, stayed up in an expression of tension, muscles outlined through his thin white cotton t-shirt.

I waited.

Then his face transformed, and he pointed out straight ahead. I followed the direction of his hand and looked in time to see another splash and dark glossy fin. A pod of dolphins frolicked just off the shore, not a hundred yards from us.

I jumped up and grabbed his hand, and we jogged to the water’s edge, the grass cool and wet under our bare feet. There was no sand here but rocks that had been placed to stabilize the coastline.

The dolphins swam in a group, first one way then the other, all shining backs and blowing mist, undulating and vanishing in turn.

“Wish I had my kayak,” I murmured.

Jack slung an arm around my shoulders and tucked me in close, dropping a kiss on my head.

“You know people get bored and move on to a new story quickly, right?” he asked, continuing our earlier conversation. “I mean, if we just do this and go out there, it will suck for a period of time. People will want to photograph us together, photograph you. Ask about you. But then when there’s no drama, it will get easier. It won’t be gone, but it will get easier.”

My heart rate picked up a panicked rhythm. I shook my head. “I don’t think—”

“Let’s not think about it right now. Okay?” He turned me to face him, threading his fingers through my hair and tilting my head back.

I blinked up at his beautiful face and tried to calm my heart.

“I’ll do whatever I can to keep you out of the madness, I swear,” he said softly.

I nodded, and he kissed me softly, wrapping me up in his arms. It wasn’t the madness I was nervous about. It was the fact that that’s all I’d be known for.

We locked the cottage behind us and left the key for the cleaning service. I hated to leave. I wasn’t sure when Jack and I would next get to spend time like that again. We headed back toward the dock on the golf cart.

It looked like the boat was already here. And Jazz was on it, pacing.

“What the—”

“Oh my God, you guys,” she screeched, leaping off the boat onto the dock. “I’ve been calling like a maniac—”

“What? Why?” I said, as we headed toward her.

“It’s a freaking nightmare. Jack,” she speared him with a sharp look. “Why don’t you tell me which ‘
source close to the actor’
knows about Keri Ann? Because I’ll freaking cut them.”

A rush of cold ice poured through me as my blood drained. “What?” I repeated, but without sound. My ears rang and my vision turned black at the edges. Orange juice and coffee turned into a vile mix in my belly.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jack asked.

I stared at Jazz, hoping beyond all hope I was reading the wrong thing into her question. But I saw her face, and I belatedly noticed the pages she held in her hand and was now shoving in Jack’s face.

As Jack’s expression of shock confirmed my worst fears, I stumbled backwards.

“Fuck!” Jack yelled and grabbed his hair, sinking down to his haunches. Then he lifted his head and turned in slow motion to look at me, his face bleak.

My stomach heaved.

The pictures? The thought flitted through my mind.

Jack nodded. He looked destroyed. God, and in pain. He’d been betrayed again, but all I could think about was me right now.

Jazz stepped past him and marched to me, her face a mask of concern and rage mixed together. I shook my head, like if she didn’t get to me and show me, then it wouldn’t be real.

“I don’t want to see them, please don’t,” I said as Jazz got close. She wrapped me up in her arms. I buried my face in her vanilla hair.

“It’s bad,” she whispered against my ear. “Really bad. It’s a reporter. He showed up and spoke to Joey this morning, gave him this, he wanted a statement from you. Joey would have come here himself but didn’t want to lead him to you, so he called me. You can deal. Okay? You can totally handle this.”

I peeled back.

She grabbed my face, morphing into a pillar of strength as she realized I wasn’t coping. “Seriously. You can deal with this. You’ve gone through worse.”

I nodded, though I didn’t know what I was agreeing with.

Behind Jazz, Jack conversed briefly with Dan, the captain of the boat, then started talking on his phone. He paced back and forth and kicked an imaginary object. I wanted to wrap him up in my arms for having to always go through this. I wanted him to wrap
me
up and tell me it was all a joke.

Taking a deep and bracing breath, I looked back at Jazz. I needed to see it all and know what I was dealing with. What
we
were dealing with, I corrected myself.

“All right, show me,” I said to Jazz. The buzzing in my ears from nerves and dread made me feel off-balance.

The moment I saw the pictures of Jack and me from seven months ago, just as Jack described, my stomach finally rebelled. I turned, making it to the edge of the dock. As I looked down, the churning coalesced into a sharp spasm and I gave in to it, opening my throat and throwing up my breakfast and my worst nightmare into the marsh reeds and black pluff mud.

Nice.

Belatedly, the words accompanying the picture joined the throng of torture in my head. I wiped my stinging eyes and grabbed the paper from Jazz.

Jack approached, holding a bottle of water.

The headline,
Audrey loses baby in grief over Jack’s cheating ways,
was followed by a messy timeline dating back well before I’d met Jack. I was one in a long line of conquests, according to the article, but held particular significance because I caused such a rift in their relationship that she’d lost her baby. And in her grief she’d sought comfort and solace from the director of her new movie.
Whatever
. But it was all so …
believable
.

“Look, I can talk to him,” Jack said to whoever was on the phone. He handed me the water but didn’t look at me.

Please look at me.

“Have Sheila and my lawyer reach out to him. See if we can come to some kind of deal before he turns the story in. He can’t use the pictures without being sued. I own the rights. And I can promise you, I’ll sue the fuck out of him. But realistically, he’ll use them, then retract, so he’ll still get impact.”

“I can’t believe one girl can be such a bitch.” Jazz grimaced.

“Yeah,” Jack murmured. “She just waited until we were out of the contract and did exactly what she’d wanted to all along.” He turned toward the boat, looking out into the distance.

He hadn’t touched me since we’d left the cottage. I felt the loss of it keenly. At the same time I felt so irrationally angry and irritated with him, I felt if he touched me, I’d cringe.

“We need to get to Savannah.” Jack said to us, as he ended his phone call. “Devon will pick us up. I’ll arrange to meet this guy there instead of back in Butler Cove. Then maybe you guys can get home without him bothering you.” He headed toward the boat.

God
. Was this going to be my life?

“How’s Joey?” I asked Jazz, my throat raspy.

She pursed her lips. “Mad as a yellow jacket. He said Jack swore to him this wouldn’t happen.”

“When did you do that?” I asked Jack’s back.

He shrugged, not turning around. “Yesterday. On the beach.”

Please look at me,
I willed him again, to no avail.

We climbed on the boat and Jazz’s phone buzzed. She paused to pull it out of her back pocket. “Oh shit buckets,” she said.

“What?”

“That Ashley girl is telling everyone she made out with you, Jack. Apparently that photo of you guys she posted on Facebook a few days ago has gone nutso, and now she’s making all sorts of shit up.”