Falling for the Guy Next Door (2 page)

She opened the
message.
You never came home last night. Where
are you?

“Well, of all
the—the—” She shook her head on a bitter laugh, glanced up, and
caught the bemused eye of the man walking beside her. Huh! She
shoved the phone back into her pocket and stormed outside into the
sunlight.

Who did Jack
think he was with that proprietary insinuation? They might share a
house, but her home was 21b Bluff Drive and his was 21a. She jerked
her suitcase over the lip of the pavement and slammed her way
inside the glass doors of the Starbucks squashed between a
Laundromat and Kebab takeaway on the high street.

Her blood
didn’t cool until she was tucked behind a corner table with a large
Café Latte in one hand and her phone balanced in her other. In
between sips, she scrolled down her inbox, re-read Jack’s message
and hit the reply button.

Who is this?

A few seconds
later a new message popped up.
Very
funny.

You have the wrong number.
She placed her phone on the
table and settled back in her chair. There, that would wipe the
smirk from his attitude.

She’d almost
finished her Latte when her phone buzzed again.

When did you remove my number from your phone? This is
Jack.

Never removed it. Didn’t store it. What do you
want?

I was worried.

Her teeth
bared. He had no right to be worried. No right to anything.
I don’t intend to report my movements to you.
I’ll be back when I’m back.

Tell me where you are.

The threat was
implied. She could imagine his eyes darkening, his jaw locking down
into a grimace.
Or what?

I’ll report you as a missing person at the police
station.

I’m an adult and twenty-four hours haven’t even passed.
They’ll laugh at you.

Harry and I have become good buddies.

When? Jack
hadn’t spent enough time in Corkscrew Bay to know where the police
station was, let alone make buddies with the officer-in-charge.
Still, she didn’t want to have phone Harry and explain why Jack was
making a nuisance of himself.

Her thumb
moved over the keypad.
London!!!!!

She stared at
the phone for another ten minutes, checked the connection, manually
refreshed the inbox, but nothing came through.

Good.

Excellent.

She hadn’t
rearranged her schedule just to be a jittery mess in London. She
had shopping to do. And it would be lovely to spend more time with
Lucy than she’d originally planned. She called her friend at once
to make arrangements to meet up later.

After checking
into her hotel, Megan hit the shops on Oxford Street. She should
have tried to fit a quick nap into her day, but her brain was too
wired for sleep. By the time she turned up at Lucy’s Chelsea
townhouse, she’d bought out half the high street.

Lucy groaned
when she opened the door and saw the dozen or so bags Megan was
clutching. “I thought we were going shopping after lunch
tomorrow.”

“We are,”
Megan assured her, stepping into her friend’s hug before they made
their way further inside.

“I’ve just got
off the phone with Kate.” Lucy moved behind the island that
separated her kitchen from the living room. “She popped by Bluff
Drive at the crack of dawn to say goodbye, but you’d already
left.”

“It was a spur
of the moment decision.” Megan dropped her shopping bags on the
floor, sank into a deep leather sofa and kicked her feet up onto
the coffee table. She’d been friends with Kate and Lucy since
forever. Of the three of them, only Lucy had made a break from
Corkscrew Bay. “Did you let her know I was here?”

“I didn’t have
to.” She went to the fridge and came back with a bottle of white
wine. She arched a brow at Megan. “She bumped into Jack
Marlin.”

As if on cue,
Megan’s phone vibrated in her back pocket. She pulled it out.

“Spur of the
moment decision, my ass,” Lucy said. “He’s back and you ran.”

I don’t bite. You didn’t have to run from me.

Megan glared
from her phone to her friend. “My life and plans do not revolve
around Jack Marlin!”

Lucy poured
the wine and brought the glasses over to the sofa. “I know what he
did was terrible, but have you—”

“No,” she cut
in firmly. Lucy was the only one she’d told about that night and
they had a deal. “We don’t talk about Jack, remember?”

Her brown eyes
narrowed in what was probably both concern and frustration. But she
made the sign of zipping her lips and shrugged. “How’s the new book
coming along?”

“I have an
earl who refuses to kiss his new bride,” Megan said grumpily. “I
have no idea how I’m going to get these two into bed.”

“What’s wrong
with her?”

“Nothing at
all.” Megan sipped on her wine, her mind instantly swept into the
lives of her characters. “Elizabeth is the most beautiful debutante
London has ever seen. She’s vivacious and witty and—”

“Okay, okay.
So, what’s wrong with the earl then?”

“He’s first
wife died ten years ago. He has to re-marry for an heir, but he’s
never got over the love of his life.”

Wine
spluttered from Lucy’s mouth. She lowered her glass and narrowed
her eyes on Megan. “Let me guess, he’s been celibate for a
decade?”

“No need to
sound so cynical.”

“You have a
warped idea of real life, honey. No man is going to wither a decade
away over the love of one woman.”

“I don’t write
real life,” Megan muttered. “I write fiction.”

“And in both,
men are just as human as women. They hurt, they love, they get
confused, they make mistakes, and sex is always the dark smudge
left behind.”

Megan knew
where this going and didn’t like it. She’d never put Jack on a
pedestal. She’d never expected or wanted perfect. She had expected
more than a one-night stand and the abrupt dismissal, as if they’d
been nothing more than strangers passing in the night. It didn’t
help that she was just as mad with herself as she was at him. She
really should have known better.

And now he was
back, sexy as sin and sizzling her blood with those heated looks.
Charming his arrogant features with that lop-sided grin and
taunting her with the familiar banter of their once-upon-a-time
friendship.

The last time
around, he’d stripped her ego and nipped her heart. She couldn’t
afford to give him anything more to walk away with this time.

Megan jumped
up to fetch the bottle of wine and steered the conversation
determinedly toward the hen party she was organising for Isobel
next month.

Isobel was
more Finn’s friend than theirs. Finn was another guy they’d known
forever, a close friend, and he’d taken the new, slightly gawky,
somewhat aloof, girl under his wing when Isobel had arrived in
Corkscrew Bay with her dad halfway through their final year of
school. Megan had been a little surprised to be appointed chief
bridesmaid, but then again, Finn would have looked ridiculous in
pink satin.

Hours later,
wrapped in slinky black silk and seated at a table of twelve
beneath fairy lights twinkling from the ceiling, Megan finally
responded to Jack’s message.

You know what they say about a man’s ego being indirectly
proportional to his—
She reconsidered the word she’d been
about to use and substituted
–shoe size. I didn’t
run from you. I’m at a writing conference that I attend every year
without fail.

There were two
erotica writers, a poet and the lead scriptwriter for a TV comedy
show at the table with Megan, which made for a colourful
conversation indeed. Megan relaxed into the laughter that was
sparked with naughty context, drank too much wine and table-hopped
to catch up with friends she seldom saw face-to-face except at
events such as this.

When she
returned to her seat for the final round of speeches, there was a
new message notification. She ignored her phone. For exactly five
seconds.

Never heard that saying, but knowing that you’re thinking
about my *shoe size* has me hard and throbbing.

Heat rushed up
her throat. Her eyes flashed around the table, but no one was
looking her way. Her fingers tightened around the phone. She should
just leave it. Really leave it. But phone-sex? Seriously? What the
hell was wrong with the man?

Her fingers
tapped furiously.
Nothing to get excited about. I
was thinking how very small it is.

She lifted her
glass to her lips and took a deep sip. And maybe she should be
asking what was wrong with her, because now she was definitely
thinking about a lot more than how deeply, fully he filled her. The
feel of his strong hands caressing her skin. The taste of his mouth
on hers, the pressure of those firm lips slanting kisses with
increasing urgency until his tongue dipped inside to claim her
senses, the gentle scrape of his shadowed jaw as those kisses
trailed down her throat and fluttered butterflies to her…

Your memory is fuzzy. I’d be happy to give you a private tour
to refresh it.

She blinked.
Released her lower lip from where it had caught between her teeth.
Her blood was hot, and it wasn’t all anger.

Yes, Jack.
Oh, yes.
The chemistry between them was explosive. One night
had never been enough to sate the desire that had slowly built over
more than a year and then rocked her world off-tilt.

And maybe,
despite how far and fast he’d run, one night hadn’t been enough for
Jack either. Not if the flirting and innuendos and blatant
invitation was any indication.

Was she the
unfinished business he’d come to check up on, that had drawn him
back to Corkscrew Bay?

Her pulse
raced at the possibility of accepting his invitation. But only for
one night. This time she was under no illusions. If she did this…
God, what was she thinking?

He’s like a
friggin’ fever inside me.
Megan turned her phone off and
slipped it into her purse. Jack wasn’t a fever. He was a disease.
He was malaria, lying dormant inside her body but never gone.

There were
more messages between them before Megan arrived home late in the
afternoon a few days later. But Jack had toned it down after she
hadn’t replied to his invitation, kept the communication light and
general.

Except for the
one that unsettled Megan more than all the rest.
I miss you.

She hadn’t
replied to that message either. Hadn’t tried to analyse what those
three words meant. It didn’t matter. He’d still leave just the same
as he always did. If that one explosive night of her hadn’t been
enough to anchor Jack, then no amount of missing, nothing she could
do or be, ever would.

When Megan
rounded the corner at the top of Bluff Drive, she saw an unfamiliar
white car pulled up behind Jack’s Land Rover. She parked around her
side of the house and let herself in by the kitchen entrance,
trying her utmost not to think about who Jack’s visitor was. None
of her business.

She lugged her
suitcase up the stairs and hauled it on top of her bed. The beat of
a rock ballad pumped the dividing wall. Whoever it was, they’d
taken the party up to the master bedroom. In the middle of the
afternoon? Classy, Jack, real classy. She unzipped her suitcase,
flipped the lid back, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. The room
was stuffy, the air thick—it had nothing to do with what was going
on next door, she assured herself. She all but ran into the
adjoining office and flung the window open. The sound of voices
below jerked her flat against the wall. She shuffled along the
wall, inch by inch, until she could peer around the curtain without
being seen.

A girl, she
couldn’t be twenty yet, was climbing into the white car, her
flowery sundress tugged high as she slid long legs behind the
driver seat. Jack clicked the door closed after her and there he
stood, with his back to Megan, wearing threadbare jeans and a pale
blue T-Shirt and mussed up hair.

The girl
rolled down the window and Jack bent forward, his forearms resting
on the door through the open window. Megan couldn’t hear what they
were saying, but the girl’s giggling echoed in her head as Jack
straightened and the car reversed into a U-Turn and sped off down
the road.

I don’t
care.

I really don’t
give a damn.

She shrank
behind the curtain just as Jack turned and glanced up at her
window. Her heart pounded. She didn’t care, but what kind of
careless bastard issued invitations to private tours and made
claims about missing you and then hopped into bed with an arbitrary
girl half his age? Someone needed to scrape the calluses from
Jack’s heart and watch them bleed and she’d certainly earned that
right.

Before she
could come up with a suitable plan, however, another car came
chugging up the drive. Megan peeked through the curtains.

An ancient
Ford with missing hubcaps and puffing toxic fumes stuttered to a
halt behind the Land Rover. The door opened and long, tanned legs
slid out. Megan’s mouth dropped as she watched the stunning
brunette in a cut-off T-Shirt walk up the cobbled path to Jack’s
front door, shorts riding low on her slender hips.

Red mist
clouded Megan’s vision.

He knew she
was arriving home today.

He was
deliberately shoving his callous exploits in her face. Probably
regretting the intimacy he’d established while she was in
London.

Reminding her
that sex was sex and the bodies were as interchangeable as the
sheets on his damn bed.

She grabbed
her phone and, with a little exaggeration and a lot of
truth—
yes, there’s a possibility of domestic violence and it’s
going to get ugly if you don’t get here quickly
—Harry arrived
in five minutes flat, hand hovering over the baton clipped to his
belt as he sprinted the distance between his car and where she
waited on the porch.