Jack & Jilted (19 page)

“I…I guess I didn’t really think at all,” she said, then grimaced. “Lot of that going around.”

“What did I say about beating yourself up?” he warned. “And, trust me, I wouldn’t abandon you.” He kissed her head, a quick buss. “I won’t abandon you.”

He pulled back enough to see the sheen of tears across her eyes.

“I mean it,” he said, feeling his own heart beat heavily. “Why are you crying?”

“Because you mean it,” she said, the edges of her words watery with emotion. “I…God, I can’t remember the last time I could count on somebody to be there for me. I’m used to taking care of myself.”

He realized from the way she said it that she meant it, too.

He stood up, ignoring her startled look. Then he scooped her up and carried her out of the cabin, down the hallway, to his cabin. He placed her gently on his bed.

“What are you doing?”

“You’re going to stay with me tonight,” he instructed. “In fact, I’m going to stay by your side all the way to San Diego pretty much.”

She snorted. “Let’s not get carried away here. I wasn’t pleading for sympathy when I said I’m used to taking care of myself. I’m not a martyr and I believe I’ve already told you…I’m certainly not a victim. I take responsibility for my own…”

“Oh, shush,” he said, and the look of utter shock on her face was enough to put a smile on his. “I know you’re a woman who takes responsibility for her life. Well, fantastic. But you’re the one who wanted to be partners with me, remember?”

“That’s…that’s a whole other issue entirely!” she spluttered.

“Yeah, well, this is part of that,” he said. “It doesn’t just mean that you become my Girl Friday. You’re not signing on to take care of me. If you become my partner…or more…” The words made his stomach drop, like being on a free-fall roller coaster, but he plowed forward anyway. “That means you need to get used to me taking care of you, too. Equal partners.”

She frowned, looking as if she was still trying to wrap her head around the concept.

Yet another reason for me to hate Gerald. Obviously the guy had simply used Chloe for years, as his secretary and his lover, and had given her exactly diddly-squat when it came to any kind of support.

“I…huh. I think I may need to get used to this,” she said in a small voice.

“Yeah, well, I’ll give you plenty of opportunities to adjust,” he said, climbing into bed next to her. “So work on it.”

She smiled reluctantly, and he felt the knot that had formed in his chest releasing slowly. Now that was more like it. Seeing her feel more comfortable was enough to ratchet his tension down a few notches.

He started stroking her hair, and her smile became more natural. “You want a back rub?” he asked.

“You don’t have to….”

“You’re not working on it.”

She rolled over onto her stomach. “I feel a little ridiculous,” she admitted, her voice muffled by his pillow.

He started rubbing her back gently, as nonseductively as possible. For once, sex with Chloe was the furthest thing from his mind. He felt her muscles slowly dissolve from the calcified knots of stress to a more smooth, jellylike state of relaxation. She sighed with pleasure, and he felt gratified. He kept working at her slowly, from the crown of her head to her toes.

“This is more than just helping me out,” she finally said when he finished. “This is spoiling me.”

“You’re due,” he said.

She smiled at him. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

He studied her. He guessed that she was offering something of a more carnal nature. And she was in his bed. All she had to do was be near him or on the same boat or possibly in the same state, and he’d want her, no question.

But she still had bruise like smudges of darkness beneath those amber eyes of hers, and while she was now relaxed, he could still sense the fatigue coming off her. “We’ve got time,” he said, kissing her gently on the mouth. “Let’s take it slow tonight.”

She sighed and took off her clothes, and he did the same, wondering if he was going to be able to keep his resolve when the two of them were naked under the covers. Still, when she curled up against him like a cat and almost immediately fell asleep, he knew he’d made the right decision.

At least he’d done something right, he thought as he lay in bed, sleep completely evading him. He talked a good game and he did want to help her. But he was still terrified of what was ahead of them—and he was not a man who scared easily. He would’ve loved to have talked it out with her. In fact, there really wasn’t anyone else he could talk to as easily as he could to Chloe. She related. She made him feel like not only was anything possible but she believed that anything was possible for him. With her, he felt strong, heroic, invulnerable. Invincible.

Now she was the one who needed the strength and invincibility. And without her being his cheerleader, he was really lagging, trying to provide those things.

He had to figure out a way to make this work, he coached himself. She was the big planner, granted, but he was a ship captain and he’d been running his own business for years now. He wasn’t ready for this—for a kid, for a partnership or for whatever else might come up. But he’d have to get ready. And if it would be too upsetting for her to discuss his worries with…

Well, he’d just have to suck it up and get it done. No matter how he felt inside.

THEY TOOK ONE MORE day in Hawaii. Jose and Ace were in no hurry to get back to San Diego. After a night of partying, they really weren’t in the best shape to man the crossing over the Pacific, so Jack had given them one more night. Chloe had spent the day happily distracted. Jack had been to Hawaii dozens of times, apparently, and he knew Oahu the way he knew his own cabin. He took her for a gorgeous walk through a tropical forest, took her to lunch at a great little café, and planned to take her to dinner. He even bought her a sarong in a bright red print. Now she was tanning on a towel on one of the beaches while Jack went and got her sugar cane and pineapple.

She’d never felt this taken care of before. It was an amazing feeling.

She rolled over onto her stomach, to ensure that she got even color on both sides, checking that her office-pale skin wasn’t getting burned from the unaccustomed sun exposure. She’d become more tan as she’d worked on the boat, she realized, seeing the marks from her shorts and her T-shirts. Living and working on the boat was changing her life.

She rubbed absently at her still-flat stomach. Changing her life might be the biggest understatement of all.

Her cell phone rang in her purse, and she pulled it out, checking the caller ID. It was Gerald. She decided to ignore him. Within moments, the voice-mail alert came up. She listened to it, wondering if he was going to make her life worse and delay the house sale. His voice sounded reedy and somewhat whiny to her now. It also held elements of his sales voice, which immediately caused her guard to go up.

“Chloe, your Mom says you’re working on a cruise ship of some sort. She mentioned that you’d probably be home by now, but I’ve stopped by their place and they haven’t seen you and wouldn’t tell me where you were.”

Ha! She frowned. As if he had any right to know!

“We really need to talk. About the house sale, about the wedding…about everything. I can’t let things keep going on this way. I feel like I’m going crazy.”

Yeah, lot of that going around, pal. She shook her head. Take a number. I’ll get back to you at my earliest convenience, which may not be for a hellish long while.

“I think I might be able to get you your job back, as well.” This said in his superpersuasive voice. As if it was somehow an incentive. “And…well, I can’t leave all this on a voice mail. I think we should meet. Face-to-face.”

As if that was going to happen. Her mother was right. The nerve of this guy.

“Finally…I know how my mother’s been bullying you. My lawyers have been giving you the runaround. I should’ve said something, but you know how my family gets. I couldn’t stop them, but I can make this up to you. The money, the head-aches…everything. Just give me a chance.”

I almost married that guy, she thought with a sense of detachment. He’d made sense, in a lot of ways. He would’ve been like a business partner, except he was more her boss. Even though she’d run the show, he’d still taken the lion’s share of the credit. And she had been okay with that. In fact, she’d been proud of being the silent partner, the one behind the scenes. She still could be, she sensed with a sense of distaste.

Jack walked up to her as she was putting her phone away. “Problems?” he asked, kneeling carefully beside her on the towel. “You don’t look happy.”

“That was Gerald,” she said, and his frown looked like a thundercloud. “He left a voice mail.”

“What does he want?” The suspicion and malice dripped from Jack’s words.

She shook her head. “He seems to have developed an attack of conscience. Maybe he was visited by three ghosts or something. He wants to try to make things up to me. Yeah, I didn’t believe it, either,” she said in response to Jack’s new expression.

“He must need something,” Jack said, his tone curt and dismissive.

“I think he just wants me back,” Chloe said, wondering if she should feel offended. She was pretty touchy, emotionally speaking. “Maybe he misses me.”

“I didn’t get the impression that he was that smart,” Jack said, and Chloe smiled, feeling better. “And if he had any kind of conscience, he would never have put you through what he did. No real man would have acted like he did.”

“What, by standing me up?”

“That and being a total coward,” Jack said, his voice almost a growl. He was gripping the sugar cane so hard it actually dripped juice on the corner of the towel. “The guy sent a messenger to do his dirty work and his mama to bust your kneecaps. The guy’s a jerk.”

“No arguments here,” Chloe said, comforted. “You’re, uh, crushing my dessert there.”

“Huh? Oh, crap.” Jack quickly handed her the sugar cane. It was spliced at the end, dripping with gooey, clear sugar-juice.

She’d been watching kids devouring the stuff all morning, so she gingerly took a bite. “Oh! Yikes. This stuff is sweet!”

“Sort of the point, Chloe,” Jack teased. “Incredible, huh?”

“I think I can feel my heart rate increasing,” she laughed.

“Well, come on. There’s more to do.”

From there, they did another tour of the area, and dinner was lovely. Finally, they walked in the moonlight to the Rascal.

“Are Ace and Jose back?” Chloe asked.

“They’re staying on the island tonight,” Jack replied as they went into his cabin. “I told them I wanted you to myself tonight.”

She blushed, wondering what they thought of the whole thing.

“Don’t worry,” Jack said, as if reading her mind. “They like you. And they don’t know why you’re settling for me, but they’re glad we’re together.”

Together. The very thought made her insides turn to warm jelly.

She’d been so worried about falling for him. And he was being so supportive and kind and just there for her. She didn’t know life could be like this. Now that she knew, she didn’t know how she’d settled for anything else.

Jack latched the door and she smiled as she shrugged out of her sarong.

“We don’t have to take it slow tonight, do we?”

She said it in her sexiest voice, even though she was nervous. He was being incredibly tender and sweet, but did he still want her? They were talking about being partners. She got the feeling that they were headed for more. And she knew that once she and Gerald had gotten engaged, sex had become a back-burner issue. She was sure there probably wasn’t any logical connection, but still…

His smile was laced with heat. “Not if you don’t want to, sweetheart.” The light in his eyes was heart-stopping.

She shimmied out of her underwear and walked to him, her eyes never leaving his. “I don’t want to go slow.”

He nodded, then closed his eyes as she unbuttoned his shirt and undid his pants. She was moving slower, partially to make the experience last but also because it felt new. Now…it meant more than just sex and confusion. It was more than love, even.

It was commitment, she realized. And that put a whole new spin on things. This must have been what real honeymoons felt like, she thought with wonder.

As she eased his shirt off his shoulders, he turned his head to kiss her hand, and she felt a wave of warmth tumble through her. Finally, he was standing as naked as she was in the center of the cabin. “I wasn’t sure if you’d still want me,” she said, then winced. She hadn’t meant to admit that, certainly not to him and certainly not right now.

“Are you kidding?” His voice was reassuring. “I always want you, Chloe. Even when I couldn’t have you, I wanted you. Sometimes I think it was from the first minute I saw you. I’ve never felt like this before.”

“I haven’t, either,” she said, running her hands down the smooth planes of his chest, down the hard muscles of his abs. His penis was almost in a full erection, and she circled her hands around the heated hardness. He groaned, his hips pressing forward involuntarily so her palms could grip him completely. “You’re so amazing.”

He didn’t respond to that verbally. Leaning down, he kissed her passionately. Her body immediately kicked into high burn, a state that always seemed easy to reach when Jack was around. They kissed like that for long minutes as his hands stroked her shoulders, her sides, then moved forward to cup her breasts, causing her to gasp against his lips. “You’re the amazing one,” he whispered to her.