Intimate (32 page)

“Give me a minute.”

It was barely that long before he'd stripped down and slipped into the shower behind her.

“You can't get your bandage wet.” She touched the thick pad covering his upper arm.

He smiled and kissed her. “I'll keep it out of the spray. What do you need?”

She turned and looked at him and then cupped his jaw in her palm. She couldn't ask him for honesty if she wasn't willing to tell him the truth. “Just you, Jake. All I need is you.”

He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. His body trembled and she thought he was crying, but that didn't make sense.

After a moment, he nuzzled her, rubbing his face against her hair. “I was so afraid I'd lose you, that I wouldn't get there in time. I had the tablet and that damned green light showing me where you were, and you were always so far ahead of me.”

She kissed him. “But you got there in time. That's what counts.”

“Not soon enough. He hurt you. I wish I'd killed the bastard.” He rested his forehead against hers.

“I'm okay, Jake. I'm alive. Everything else will heal.”

Gently, he kissed her cheek, where a bruise was probably turning all sorts of colors, and then her eye that was still swollen almost shut. Finally, he kissed her lips, again, so carefully. Norwich had punched her in the mouth. She was surprised he hadn't knocked out any teeth.

She took the washcloth and started working on her face, but Jake took it from her and washed away the blood and the stuff the ER nurse had painted over her cuts and scratches. He checked her all over, and she heard him cursing softly when he ran his fingers over her bruised ribs where Norwich had kicked her.

He'd been wearing cheap running shoes, or he might have broken her ribs. She was badly bruised, but there was nothing that wouldn't heal. Jake finally rinsed the washcloth and wrung the water out of it before hanging it on the shower rack.

Kaz watched him and then said, “I'm ready to get out.” He hugged her tightly, reached behind her to turn off the water. Then he grabbed a thick towel off the rack beside the shower and carefully dried her arms, her legs, her entire body. He grabbed a fresh towel and wrapped it around her, but he let Kaz tuck in the ends to hold it close against her breasts.

He whisked the towel they'd both used over his arms, legs, and chest and wrapped it around his hips. Then he followed her out of the bathroom.

She spotted a bottle of wine on the small table by the window, picked it up, and read the label. “This is the same port we got that first night. Thank you.”

He shrugged. “I knew it was one you liked. Figured you could probably use a glass tonight.”

She tried to laugh. It was almost successful. “Or maybe the whole bottle.” She poured a glass for Jake, one for herself. Held her glass up to his for a toast. “My hero. You saved my life.”

He glanced away. “If I'd been honest from the beginning, this might not have happened.”

“You can't know that, Jake. Even if I'd known your past—which I still don't entirely know—I can't imagine I would have tied all the incidents together.” She took a sip of the port and let the rich flavor roll over her tongue before she swallowed. “Will you tell me what happened? All of it?”

He closed his eyes for a brief moment, enough to tell her he really didn't want to, but then he opened them and smiled at her. “Everything. I promise. It may take a while.”

She shrugged. “I've got all night. I'm too keyed up to sleep.”

They ended up on the bed together with the pillows stacked behind them. Jake's first words weren't at all what she expected to hear.

“I won three gold medals in the Atlanta summer Olympics in 1996. I was sixteen years old, and all of a sudden I was a media star. Youthful, edgy Olympic swimming star RJ Cameron, headed for fame and fortune.”

She turned and stared at him for a moment. “You don't sound very happy about it.”

He shrugged. “My mother was the quintessential stage mother. She thought RJ Cameron sounded better than Richard Lowell. Cameron was her maiden name, and my success really was all about her. My job was to fulfill her dreams of fame and fortune. She had me bleaching my hair blond, coached me on how to talk to the media. I went along with it because I was a dumb kid and loved the spotlight. I was also an absolute jerk, and that just got me more attention. What I didn't realize was that my brother, Ben, had been the first great hope, but he wasn't as fast as me, so when I started winning, our mother essentially shoved him aside. He must have hated me, but he covered it well, because I continued to idolize him.”

He took a sip of his port and then stared into the glass. “We had a really dysfunctional family, I guess, but when you're living it, you don't realize you're any different from anyone else. Looking back, our parents never hugged us, never played with us. The housekeeper hauled us to school and anything else before Mom got on her thing about having a star for a son. Ben was the source of any love I got as a kid. He's three years older than me, and I was his shadow, at least until I started winning races and got more famous. I was such an asshole after that—he didn't want anything to do with me. I can't blame him.”

Kaz tried to imagine Jake as an egotistical teenaged heartthrob, because she knew that the girls must have gone crazy over him. She'd only been seven years old—not old enough to pay attention to a teenaged swimming star. “So what happened?”

“I hadn't seen Ben in weeks. He didn't attend the games in Atlanta, didn't come home, didn't want anything to do with me. I missed him so much.” He shrugged. “I still do. He'd been the world's greatest big brother until the swimming came between us, but I guess he was going through a lot of issues with our parents—my dad was always busy with work, my mom was busy molding me in the image she wanted. It didn't matter to her how hard I'd trained, how important it was that I had beaten older swimmers with more experience. It only mattered that I was her ticket to Hollywood. She couldn't make it on her own, but she didn't mind using her kids, and her plan was to push the media interest into a movie or TV deal.”

“What happened that night?”

“I was home alone. The parents were out. I can't remember where. Ben came home to get something out of his room, and I knew he'd been drinking. He was only nineteen. He saw me in the game room watching TV, walked in, and sat next to me on the couch.

“It was like old times. We talked for a minute, nothing special, and then he asked me if I wanted to hang out with him.” He glanced at Kaz. “He hadn't spoken to me for almost a year, not since before the Olympics, and it was like my winning had driven a wedge that was even deeper between us. I jumped at the chance. I remember going out in front and he had a really cool new car, so I got in the passenger side and we took off. We'd only gone a couple of miles when he popped a beer and drank it while he was driving. It freaked me out. I was an athlete and I took diet and all that pretty seriously, but I was with Ben and he could do no wrong.”

Jake glanced away, sipping his port. “He was my big brother. I knew he'd take care of me.” He turned and smiled at Kaz. “Obviously, that didn't happen. We drove around for a couple of hours until it was getting late and I told him I had to get home. It was a school night. He was really plastered by then, and he swung a U-turn in the middle of a busy street, cut a couple of drivers off, and drove back toward Marin.

“It had started raining after a long dry spell, and the road was slick. I remember he spun out a couple of times on turns. I was getting scared. He was laughing, and I think he was enjoying the fact I was afraid of his driving at this point. We were almost home when he raced around a turn, going like hell just a few blocks from our parents' house.”

Kaz hadn't said a word, but knowing what was coming next didn't make it any easier to hear his story. She linked her fingers with his, aware he needed a minute to get himself together.

“I can still see the trees whipping back and forth in the wind and rain, and the way the headlights reflected off the big drops. There was a crosswalk ahead with an overhead light. I saw the woman and the little boy, all bent over against the storm, walking across the street. She was dragging something, but I couldn't tell what it was. We found out later it was one of those suitcases on wheels, a big one. She had everything she'd been able to sneak out of the house, and she and her son were running away from her abusive husband, but we didn't know that then. I only knew we were going too fast, and Ben didn't even see her. I screamed at Ben to stop, but it was too late. We hit them. I can still see her … It was horrible.

“Ben hit the brakes, but the car skidded off the road and we hit a tree. He got out and started puking on the side of the road. I checked the woman first—she was a mess, her face all beat up. I thought the accident had caused it, but most of it was what Norwich had done to her. It was obvious she was dead. I ran to the little boy.”

He swallowed convulsively and sucked in a deep breath. “Ben had run over him and he was all broken up, but he was breathing. I knew CPR, but there was nowhere to touch him that wasn't broken. He gasped a couple of times and I held his hand, but he stopped breathing before the police and the paramedics came. Ben managed to get to me and convinced me to say I was the one driving, that he was over eighteen and would end up in jail, but I was a kid and famous, and they'd let me off.”

He shrugged. “There really wasn't any choice for me. I would have done anything for him, so I didn't even question what he asked.

“The police came and questioned Ben, and he said I'd been driving. I agreed, but even though it was a lie, while I was sitting there watching the paramedics with the mother and her little boy, I knew I was every bit as guilty of their deaths as Ben. They ran the plates on the car and it was stolen, so auto theft was added to the charges. There was a new district attorney, and he threw the book at me. Our dad bailed us out that first night, but after I was charged, I went back to juvenile hall to await the trial, and my parents refused to bail me out. My mom said I needed to be taught a lesson, but at least they hired a good attorney. When my case was scheduled for trial, I was positive Ben would come and tell them the truth, but he didn't. He never even came to the trial. I found out later he'd enlisted. I haven't seen him since.”

Kaz tried to work her way through Jake's story, tried to imagine what kind of horrible person his brother was. “So you were charged and found guilty and sentenced to juvenile detention, and Ben just left?”

Jake nodded. “I imagine he's lived his own hell. At least my sentence ended and I could move on, though I'll never be free of that night. I can only imagine what it's done to my brother. I think he's still in the Middle East, moving from battle to battle as far as I know. The thing is, Norwich was there at the trial. He blamed me for killing his family, though he stopped coming when the prosecuting attorney brought up the history of spousal abuse. The prosecution wanted the jury to realize how awful her death was, that she'd been killed when she was finally escaping years of beatings.”

His confession made her angry, at the circumstances as much as with Jake. “It was awful. It was a tragedy for all of you. I wish you had trusted me enough to tell me the truth.” She twisted her fingers through his. “Why? What was the reason for holding back? I spilled my guts—told you everything. Why weren't you honest with me? You had plenty of chances.”

“Because I was a coward.” He'd been staring into his glass of port, but now he turned and faced her. “I was afraid of what you'd think. I knew about Jilly from the beginning. Lola had told me that day at Top End how you'd gotten the tattoo when your sister died, and she said at the time she hadn't known you yet, that she thought Jilly was killed by some kid out joyriding. I knew then that if I told you the truth, you'd never want to work with me. Then, as I got to know you…”

He looked down at their hands, clasped together now, and then at Kaz. “The lie took on a life of its own. Believe me, I've thought of all the mistakes I've made, how many times I could have told you what happened, but I was always afraid of what you would think. The more I got to know you, Kaz, the more I realized I was falling in love with you. That was the last thing I wanted—you'd already told me you weren't ready for a relationship, and I knew I could never tell you what I'd done or you'd leave in a heartbeat. At the same time, I knew there could never be any kind of relationship with you based on lies. I should have given you the chance to make that choice on your own, but I didn't. I was wrong, and I'm sorry.”

She slipped her hands free, but her gaze never left his face. “I'm sorry, too, Jake. Sorrier than you'll ever know.”

 

CHAPTER 20

Jake lowered his head. This was exactly what he'd feared, and it hurt even worse than he'd expected. He let out a long, slow breath. “I talked to Marcus while you were in the shower. The launch was a huge success. People couldn't stop talking about the photos, about you. He laughed when he said his only concern is that you made a bigger splash than his jewelry designs. Everyone agreed that you had exactly the perfect look to bring Intimate Jewels to the public. Marc can't wait to meet you. He told me he wants you to be the voice of Intimate, but Fletch told me that the other winery…”

“Lucullan Cellars?”

“Yeah. Fletch said they want you for the same type of position. If you take Marc's offer, and it's a good one, you'd have to work with me.” He sighed and glanced away before turning back to her. “So you might want to consider Fletch's offer.”

She tilted her head and stared at him for the longest time. Her eyes filled with tears, and when she spoke, her voice broke on the simple question. “Do you hate me that much?”