Contracted For Love: Famous Love Series (14 page)

“Gross. There’ll be no sharing.”

“We’ll see, my darling.” They danced past a couple of other guests and Charlotte smiled at her dad dancing with her mum. She ignored the hardness growing against her thigh as Reid pulled her closer and whispered in her ear, “I’ve wanted you since that first day at Jack’s house, Charlotte. I’ll never forget how you looked in that itty-bitty white bikini. If you change your mind, he’d never need to know.”

As his words sunk in, she pulled away from him and looked into his eyes. “What the fuck is wrong with you? That is never going to happen. I’d fuck Cindy before I’d fuck you, Reid.”

“It wouldn’t be worth your time. Trust me, I’ve been there already. I’d satisfy you a whole lot more than she could.”

Charlotte pushed him away and screwed up her face as he laughed. “You are so foul. Get away from me.” She stalked back to Jack and sat down at the table. He’d watched the performance on the dance floor and took her cold hand in his warm one.

“That bad, huh?”

“Yes, that bad. Please note that was a perfect example of how you deal with situations where someone is offering to fuck your brains out. You tell them to get the fuck away, and then you leave.” She pulled her hand away and crossed her arms, looking around the room to make sure that everyone else was enjoying themselves.

A bit of the fun had seeped out of the day as soon as Reid had made his offer.

***

When they arrived at the hotel, Charlotte was surprised that the press greeted them as they got out of the car. They’d largely been left alone since Paris, and she’d forgotten their marriage would be big news. They posed for photos a lot longer than Jack wanted, and then moved into the hotel to locate their room. He held her hand comfortably as they made the hike to the hotel reception, which was as far from the hotel entrance as possible.

Still in her wedding dress, she heard a few clicks of cameras as the public realised that Jack Fawkner was walking right past them with his new bride. She smiled to herself as he squeezed her hand. He held her hand so often that she sometimes wondered if it was for the press or just for him.

When they’d found their room, Jack wedged the door open with his foot. He put the key in his mouth and urged her into his arms.

“What are you doing?” She took the key out of his mouth, so he could answer.

“I’m carrying my bride across the threshold. What else?”

“I think that’s for real brides,” she laughed at him standing there with his arms stretched out.

“You are my real bride—we’re legally married. Come on, humour me.”

She smirked at him and finally let him pick her up and carry her through the door. Charlotte hooked her arm around his neck and he pulled his foot away from the door, letting it click shut behind him. In front of them was a panorama of the entire Vegas Strip, and the lights stretched as far as they could see. He walked to the window and gently put her down as they stood together and admired the view.

“Wow, it’s beautiful. The lights go on and on.”

“Yes, and we walked that entire area on your first night here.”

She smiled out the window, remembering. “We did.” Charlotte turned back to him, “I’m so tired; I’m going to sleep for at least twelve hours.”

“I’m going to join you. My face is sore from all the smiling.”

“Mine too,” she laughed as he rubbed his jaw. “Have our bags come up, yet? I don’t have anything to change into.”

“We can sleep naked, wife. That’s what lots of newly-married couples do.”

She looked at him, handsome in his wedding suit, and moved all her weight onto one foot. He took it as a sign of uncertainty and quickly broke the tension, “It was a joke, Char, just a joke. Go have a shower and put the hotel robe on; I’ll find out where our bags are, and then you can change.” He picked up the phone and punched in the number for reception as she watched his back. Finally she moved toward the bedroom and flicked the light on in the bathroom. She pushed the door shut behind her and stared at her reflection in the brightly-lit mirror.

She hadn’t been uncertain. She’d been seriously considering sleeping naked with him.

***

Charlotte fell into bed a little while later. Jack was talking to someone on his mobile and it was a few minutes before he came in from the other room. He threw his clothes over a chair as he took them off and got into bed beside her. They both flicked off their lights and lay there, side-by-side in the dark.

Charlotte felt awkward. This was her wedding night and she wasn’t tearing off her groom’s clothes. She didn’t even know if she should cuddle up to him like they had been ever since that morning in Paris. He’d left his shirt off tonight for the first time ever, and her palm itched to run over his chest.

Jack made the decision easy when he rolled over to face her. He moved his arm under her pillow and she adjusted her head so she was lying on it. Gripping her waist, he moved closer until they were pressed against each other. He then kissed her hair and against her. Once he was snoring, she slipped her arm around his waist and pulled herself even closer.

They had to skip their original planned honeymoon, since Rough Desire’s tour started two days after their wedding. Jack had promised to take her to the Caribbean, and she dismissed his concerns that it would have to be delayed until after the tour.

“It’s fine, Jack. I have two shoots while you’re on tour, anyway—I couldn’t have spared the time. We’ll go once the tour is done.”

“I wanted to go, though. We had such a nice time in Paris, and I was hoping for more relaxed, normal couple stuff.”

She laughed, “How normal you are is totally up to you. Go out when you want, Jack. Walk around in public. The sky won’t fall down if you’re recognised.”

“You make it sound easy, but I feel awkward when I do it on my own. I still need more practice.” He took her hand as she packed her bag for LA for the fourth time in three weeks. “We need to spend time together. We are a newly-married couple.”

“Well, consider yourself lucky that this isn’t a real relationship. Imagine how pissed you’d be that we were always apart if you actually
loved
me.” She zipped up her bag and missed the look that passed over his face as she swung toward the door. He grabbed her bag and carried it for her, but he compressed his lips when he saw the Uber driver at the gate.

“Where is Mr. Phillips?”

“No idea. Call him and ask, if you two want to have a catch up. I’m not driving with him until he agrees to speak to me.”

“Why do you care about that so much?”

“Stay inside, you’re not wearing shoes and the ground is scorching.” She sighed and took her bag from his hand. “It’s important to me, because it’s part of the normal people thing. People who work for you are people, Jack, not servants. Mr. Phillips has a life outside this job—maybe a wife and kids who he loves and even laughs with when he’s not here, driving you around. I want to know about those things for my staff. I want to buy them birthday presents and know their kids’ names. That’s just how I am.” She took a step away from the door. “I don’t want to mess up whatever you have going here, so I just prefer not to call him. I’ll see you Tuesday in Denver.”

Without warning, Jack stepped forward onto the hot ground. He grabbed her and kissed her on the cheek as he brushed the hair out of her eyes. She looked at him with a question in her own, but the moment was lost as his face changed. He let out a shriek as he hopped back to the house with his toes burning.

She laughed and headed to the waiting car, “Told you,” she called. “It kills me to be right all the time, you know.”

***

The shoot went well, and Charlotte had been scheduled for four days of filming. Her part was minor, but important, and she’d loved the script the moment she read it. The director had taken an immediate shine to her and requested some script changes to extend her part. Jack called just as she walked into her hotel room.

“Hey, you.”

“Hiya. How are you doing? How’s the tour?”

“The tour’s going well. We sold out in three cities and had to put on more shows. Freddy is having a cow.”

“I’ll bet. Are the boys behaving?”

Jack laughed, “Of course not. They are the boys, after all.” She smiled into the phone. It was nice to hear him relaxed and smiling.

“I have to stay another week. They’ve extended my part.”

“Woah. That’s awesome, Char. You know that’s not normal, right?”

“I wasn’t sure, but it did seem like a positive result. The director has been kind to me.”

“Well, just as long as he’s not getting too cosy with my wife, he’ll have no problems.”

“Speaking of problems, what did you do to Richard James?”

“Nothing. Why?” She knew that fake tone in his voice; she’d heard it occasionally when he was interacting with his fans.

“Because, you liar, he has been on set several times this week and has avoided me like the plague. He won’t even look at me over the lunch table. I thought it was strange, and then one of the extras, who is the director’s niece, whispered that she heard a rumour you had a talk with him last time we were in LA. So, spill. What did you do?”

He sighed. “You weren’t supposed to find out about that. Are there no secrets in this bloody place? All I said was that if he even looked in your direction again, we’d release the recording that you made and I would back you up with a story of my own. I also told him that I better not find out he was hindering your career because of what he did.”

“You have a story?”

“I do. One day, I’ll tell you about it. Now you know what I said, and I’m glad to hear he’s keeping his hands to himself.”

“Hmm… I’m not sure how I feel about all of that. I’ll have a think about it and give you my verdict when I see you. I should be finished next Monday night.”

“Okay, get Freddy to tell you where we’ll be then. I’ll send a driver.”

“No need: I have your schedule in my phone. I’ll pop up wherever you are on the day I’m free.”

I don’t need your fucking robot drivers to come get me.

***

On her last night in LA, Charlotte was at the hotel early and settled in for the night. She had a new book on her Kindle that she’d been dying to start. Now, with just one short scene to shoot tomorrow, she felt relaxed enough to read, instead of studying the script. As she lay in bed, she heard a sound at the door. She sat up to see that a newspaper had been slipped under the door. Knowing she didn’t need it, she got up to put it outside for someone else to read.

As she picked it up, however, she noticed it had been turned to a particular page. There, in the middle of the page, Jack’s smiling face looked up at her. Reid sat beside him, and topless women, whose breasts had been blacked out by the paper, surrounded them. Reid was right in the act of slipping money inside the G-string of one of the women. Charlotte searched for the story to go with the shots and learned that Jack and the band had spent a wild night at a strip club two nights ago. Apparently, they’d stumbled out of there around five in the morning. The article even referred to the fact that Charlotte was out of town.

What do you expect? He doesn’t love you; he’s free to do what he wants.

Not feeling any better with those thoughts, she threw the paper aside and did something she never thought she would do. Charlotte pulled her laptop out and took it back to bed with her. She typed his name and “news” after it in the search bar. As soon as she hit enter, screens and screens of results came up. She gasped as she saw just how much partying the boys had been doing on tour. There’d even been a bar fight on Tuesday.

The night I was scheduled to be there.

Thursday had seen them drink the bar dry at a tiny club no one had ever heard of, and there were dozens of photos of their night—mostly of Reid hitting on girls and of Fergus threatening to remove his pants. In a couple of shots, Jack had various pretty girls sitting on his lap.

On Friday night, they’d been thrown out of a club, and the grainy pictures showed Cindy with her hands on Jack’s shoulders. The weekend would no doubt have been a blur to them all, as they’d hit multiple strip clubs and behaved badly with the girls they’d paid to see. The stories got worse as the weekend rolled on, until Charlotte finally snapped the laptop shut and leaned against the pillows, her book forgotten.

She picked up her mobile phone and dialled Jack’s number. It rang and rang, and she was about to hang up when a sleepy female voice answered. Charlotte frowned, “Can I speak to Jack, please?”

“He’s asleep at the moment. Can I take a message? Is that you, Charlotte?” the smug voice asked.

She sighed. “Yes, Cindy. It’s me. Just tell him I called. Thanks.” She hung up and stared at the phone.

What the hell happened to him this week?

***

Charlotte dropped her bag in their bedroom and headed for the kitchen to get a drink. Mrs. Jones looked startled to see her. “I thought you were going to meet Mr. Fawkner on the road?”

“I was. He’s behaving like a dick, though, so I just came straight home.”

The housekeeper smiled and tutted sympathetically as she offered Charlotte some lunch. “Won’t he wonder where you are?”

“After the big week he’s had, I doubt he even remembers he’s married—or which city he’s in. How they can perform each night when they party so hard afterward is beyond me.” She munched on the apple that had appeared in front of her, cut up and cored, and she frowned and thought of how mad he’d be that she hadn’t flown to meet him.

Tough luck. I’m pretty damn mad about all those damn girls.

As though he could hear her thoughts, her phone rang. Charlotte considered not answering it, but Mrs. Jones was still in the kitchen and she didn’t want to make an awkward situation for her. Pushing the accept button, she put the phone to her ear. “Yep?”

“Hey, baby. Where are you?”

“I’m at home.” Only silence from his end.

“You’re not coming here?”

“Nope. You’ve got enough to keep you entertained without adding me to the mix.”

“Ah… you’ve seen the photos, then.”

“Surprisingly, I have. You took my advice to heart about going out and being normal, didn’t you?”

“I might have some learning to do in the balance department. A week of being out every night has wrecked me. I was looking forward to your arrival, so I would have an excuse to stay in.”

“You don’t need an excuse, Jack. Just say no like other adults do.”

“How can I change your mind?”

“You can’t. I’m tired and I’m staying here.”

“Please?” He sounded down and she felt bad for saying no, until she thought of the pictures of the girls on his lap and of Cindy answering his phone late at night.

“No. Get Cindy to stay with you—you won’t even have to beg.” Without thinking, she hung up the phone. She hadn’t meant to, but she’d gotten so angry all of a sudden. The phone immediately rang again and she saw Mrs. Jones nodding at her to answer it. With a sigh, she pushed the button. “‘Lo?”

“What was that supposed to mean?” he demanded in a loud voice.

“Why don’t you ask Miss No Knickers?”

“Can we please not play games, Char? What are you talking about? Has she spoken to you?”

“Check your phone history, Romeo. Two nights ago, I called you. The lovely Cindy answered, because you were apparently asleep.” She saw Mrs. Jones shake her head from the corner of her eye. “Guess she tired you out.”

He was quiet on the other end. “I didn’t know you called.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m hanging up now, Jack.” She clicked the phone off again and slipped it into her bag. As she ate her apple, both she and Mrs. Jones pretended not to hear it vibrating madly in her bag.

“Guess he’ll be unhappy when he gets home a month from now.” She smiled. “You might want to ask for that day off.”

The other woman looked surprised. “You’re not going there at all? For the whole tour?”

“Nope, he can suffer. He keeps telling me Cindy means nothing and that I shouldn’t overreact when there are girls hanging around at every turn, but he doesn’t get rid of them. If I had someone hanging around, making him that uncomfortable—especially if they kept taking off their clothes and trying to get me into bed—I’d get rid of them. He doesn’t want to do that, though, so he can suffer the consequences. I’m not going to stand by while she throws herself at him and he allows it.”

“You’re brave. I could never do that to my husband.”

“It’s different when you’ve been married a long time. Didn’t you say you’ve been together for twenty years?” She paused as a nod confirmed her recollections of their previous conversations. “So your husband is trained, by now. It appears that mine still has a long way to go.” With a short laugh, Charlotte left the kitchen and went in search of a hot shower.

***

She was woken at three in the morning by someone breaking into the house. The front door rattled and she was instantly awake as she looked around the room for a weapon. For the first time ever, she wondered why Jack didn’t have any home security. He had an alarm, but it was only turned on when everyone left the house; when they were home, they were largely unprotected. Finding nothing much to defend herself with, she took up a position behind the bedroom screen that she previously hated, but right now loved with all her heart.

Quiet footsteps came down the hall and she could hear the carpet moving underfoot. Reverting to that trusty advice to go for the groin, she crouched, ready to attack should the intruder enter their bedroom. A shadow filled the doorway and as she leaned back to launch herself, the light clicked on. She let out her breath with a screech and jumped forward to slap Jack on the chest.

“What the fuck are you doing here? You scared the shit out of me!” she shrieked as he looked amazed. “I nearly punched you in the balls, you idiot!”

“Why? This is still my house, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but you could have let me know you were coming home in the middle of the night.”