The Beauty Series Bundle (22 page)

M
argaret McLachlan’s
words echo in my head as we drive toward her house. “The only way he’d let you call him Jack Henry was if he was in love with you.”

It’s a nice theory if he’d asked me to call him that, but he hadn’t.

He’s dying to know the secret I share with his mother. He’s going to try to persuade me to tell him later. He thinks he’s smooth, but I’ve learned his ways during our time together. It’ll be fun letting him try, but he won’t succeed. My lips are sealed.

Lachlan navigates up a long drive leading to a huge house on top of a hill. Maybe a mountain. I’m not sure because it isn’t nearly as impressive as the mansion sitting on it. “Is this where you grew up?”

“Yes.”

“It’s beautiful.” It beat the hell out of the tiny apartments and rental houses I bounced through during my early years.

Lachlan takes our bags from the car and carries them inside. There’s no his or mine. Our things are packed together in his expensive luggage so at least I don’t have to be embarrassed by my worn, mismatched set.

We enter through the foyer and I can’t help but stare at the beautiful spiraling staircase leading to the upper floor.

I hear his mother call out, but I can’t see her. “Jack Henry?”

“Yes, Mum. We’re here. I’m going to put our things away and we’ll be down in a minute.”

I follow him up the stairs and he takes me into his large bedroom. I’m a little surprised to see a four-poster bed. It’s very romantic and doesn’t fit what I’d expect to see in a man’s room. I walk over and run my hand down one of the thick pillars. We need this bed at Avalon. I could definitely do some interesting things with it.

We go downstairs to the living room to join Lachlan’s family and I remind myself the whole way that he’s not Lachlan. He’s Jack Henry. “Jack Henry.”

He turns at the sound of his name. His real name. The name only his mother calls him. “What is it?”

This is going to take some getting used to. “Nothing. I’m saying your name so I can get used to it. I’m afraid of slipping up.”

“Don’t worry. If you have a slip of the tongue, we’ll tell them Lachlan is your pet name for me. Not caveman.”

“I guess that will work. It is part of your last name. Is that why you chose it?”

“I picked it because I wanted to hear you say some semblance of who I really am.”

“Do you always do that?”

“No, just with you.”

Damn. The conversation ends as we enter the living room. I’d really like to know his rationale behind the things he does. I’m hopeful that this conversation is only postponed until a later time.

A
fter spending
the evening with the McLachlan family, I’m in the bathroom getting ready for bed. I thought meeting them would help me understand why Jack Henry is the way he is, but it only makes things feel more out of sorts. They’re all so normal. And loving. Theirs isn’t the kind of family I would expect for a man who propositions women for meaningless sexual relationships.

I search through my sleepwear, if that’s what we’re calling it, and choose the least desirable thing I packed, but who am I kidding? This is the same man I’ve been living with for the past two months. He isn’t going to perceive a short, black satin nightgown as anything but a prelude to sex.

I stop in the doorway of the bathroom before entering his bedroom. “Are you sure it’s okay for us to sleep together in your parents’ house? It doesn’t feel right.”

He’s lying shirtless in bed with his hands folded behind his head. I sigh with pure pleasure as I behold the sight of him. “Trust me. Mum would have it no other way.”

I come to the bed but stop to run my hand down the large post. I love this bed.

“Are you going to give me a private dance on one of these poles tonight?”

Even after all this time together, his forwardness is shocking—he wants to get frisky in his childhood home with his family across the hall? “No way, not in your parents’ house. It would be disrespectful.”

He gets out of bed and catches me before I climb in. He reaches around me from behind and puts my hands around the bedpost. He locks his hands on top of mine to hold them in place so I can’t move. His breath is warm on the back of my neck and chills erupt all over my body. He doesn’t play fair. “You’re telling me no?”

“I would be mortified if your family heard us.”

His mouth is on my earlobe and he sucks it into his mouth before nipping it with his teeth. “I don’t care. Let them hear us.”

“No.” It comes out more like a weak plea than the stern command I intended.

He groans against my ear. “I don’t like it when you tell me no.”

He’s whining but it’s adorable. “I know you don’t hear it often, but ‘no’ can be a very good answer for you to hear from time to time.”

“Tell me one time when it’s good.”

“Okay.” I look at him over my shoulder, “Ask me if I’m pregnant.”

His body becomes rigid before he backs away from me. He releases my hands and I turn around to look at him. “Ask me.”

“Are you pregnant?” It comes out as a whisper.

I lift a brow at him. “Do you want my answer to be yes or no?”

I smile, waiting for him to catch on to the point I’m making, but he stares blankly at me. “Are you?”

I smile as I answer. “No. See? Perfect example of when ‘no’ is exactly what you need to hear.”

He runs his hands through his dark hair and fists it. “Don’t ever fuck with me like that, Laurelyn!” he yells. “Never!”

I flinch, startled by the loud outburst I’m certain his family must have heard. Shit, he’s mad—like, really mad. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew I was only making a point.”

I’m afraid I’ve screwed up big time. I feel the pooling in my eyes and I look toward the ceiling, pleading with my sockets to drink the tears. I hold my breath and cup my hands over my mouth to hold back the sob in my chest.

In my confusion over what has just happened, I go for the wrong door in an attempt to get away from him. “That’s the closet.”

Shit if I care. I walk into the small pitch-black room where Jack Henry’s clothes hang and close the door behind me. I’m sure there’s a light switch in here somewhere, but I don’t try to find it. I’m too numb.

Several minutes pass and I hear a few light taps on the door, but I don’t say anything. I need to absorb all these emotions swirling around in my head right now. I try to put a name to the shock I’m feeling, but there’s not a single word that will fit. I’m hurt and belittled because he yelled at me and maybe even a little frightened by the fury in his voice.

I’m sure his family heard the commotion and it mortifies me to think of facing them. The worst part is the shame I feel. How can I be sleeping with a man who would become so furious by a possible pregnancy?

You know what? Fuck him.

I hear the light raps again. “I sort of know you’re in there unless there’s a hidden passage to a dungeon I don’t know about.” He’s trying to be humorous, but nothing in the world could be funny to me right now.

He opens the door and comes inside to stand with me in the dark. I feel him reach for me, but I step away. I can’t bear the touch that once set me on fire because in this moment, it only makes me feel cheap.

“No.” And there it is again. The word that started all of this. Now I hate it and don’t want to hear it, either.

I’m mad as hell, but I can’t control the sob in my chest. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Baby, please, don’t say that. I need to explain.”

I’m overcome by the what-if. What if I got pregnant? He’d hate me. “No. Every time we have sex, we risk making a baby together even if we use birth control. Unplanned pregnancies happen to real people every day. Look at me—I’m the result of one and see how shitty that ended up for everyone involved.”

“That’s not true, Laurelyn.”

“It is and I can’t do this anymore. I won’t risk making a baby with someone who would react the way you did just now. I couldn’t bear to ever see you look at me like that again.”

I feel him reaching for me in the dark and I try to push him away. His arms entwine me and he squeezes, almost too tight. “I’m so sorry, Laurelyn. I thought you were playing a trick on me about a baby because you thought it was funny. I should’ve known that wasn’t what you were doing. I’m so sorry.” I feel his hands move to my face. “I would never be angry because you were pregnant.”

This conversation is too much for me. I don’t want to talk about how a baby would make him feel because then I might be forced to think about how it would make me feel. “Can we agree that this was a misunderstanding and talk about something else?” I ask.

He hugs me in the darkness and kisses my head. “I think that’s a great idea, but can we leave the closet?”

I laugh. “You know I thought I was going into the bathroom, right?”

“I know.”

We leave the closet and climb into bed. I scoot close so I can put my head on his chest. I’m reeling from tonight’s events. I told him I wanted to end things with him and now, two seconds later, I’m curled around him like a kitten desperate for his touch. Yeah, I really showed him who’s boss.

Was I really going to walk away from him? I think I was, but there’s no use in speculating. He didn’t let me go.

This game has changed. The rules are no longer the same, but I don’t have the manual. He does, and I need guidance on where to go from here.

He caresses my arm. “What are you thinking about?”

I decide to go for it because I need to know where his head is. “I’m wondering where we go from here.”

His fingertips continue to glide up and down my arm as he answers. “Tonight changed everything for us, didn’t it?”

The word change seems like such an understatement for what has happened between us. “Yeah, just a little.”

“If I’m being honest with you, I don’t really know where we go from here. I don’t know how to do this new us.”

He has lines and I don’t dare cross them. “What do you need from me to make this work?”

“I think the new us needs to start with a first kiss.” He’s playful, not panicked, about this new place we are venturing. This feels like my Lachlan Henry, only better.

He sits up, rolling me to my back. His mouth comes down on mine and he pushes his tongue inside. Every motion is deliberate. He’s slow and gentle. This is a new kind of kiss for the couple we are becoming.

When he stops kissing me, I search his face and see a deep wrinkle across his brow. I’ve seen it before. It’s only there when he’s in deep concentration about something, and it frightens me. I’m afraid he’s thinking this isn’t going to work. Or maybe he doesn’t want to try.

I reach up and place my thumb on top of the contracted muscle to smooth it. “I only see this when you’re thinking hard about something. What’s on your mind?”

I’m scared of what he’s going to say, but he gives me a crooked grin and I’m relieved before the first word leaves his mouth. “Say my name.”

I don’t know which one to go with. He hasn’t asked me to call him anything but Lachlan and I don’t want to overstep his boundaries. “Lachlan.”

He shakes his head as if to say tsk tsk, wrong answer. “Say my real name.”

Oh. “Jack.”

His face becomes serious. “Both of them.”

My heart is pounding. This is huge, according to his mother. He would only ask me to do this if he loved me. “Jack Henry.”

He closes his eyes as though he’s savoring the sound of it coming from my mouth. “Say it again, Laurelyn.”

I hesitate and he opens his eyes to look at me. That’s when I choose to say it again, at the moment his eyes meet mine. “Jack Henry.”

He kisses me and I feel his mouth move into the shape of a smile. “That’s who I am to you from now on. No more Lachlan. No more pretending.”

I
’ve shut
the door on Lachlan Henry forever. He no longer exists. Only Jack Henry McLachlan resides here, and I like it. For the first time in more than four years, it feels good to be me with a woman. And not just any woman. Laurelyn.

“Now that I know your real name, which I think you’ll agree is the single-most important piece of identifying information, do I get to know everything else?”

She wants the rest of my story.

“You know my name. You’ve met my family. What else would you want to know?”

“We’re as close as two people can be, so I want to know everything.”

Things feel really good between us the way they are. Am I ready to tell her more?

“You don’t have to worry, Jack Henry. I’m not going to stalk you the way Audrey does.”

I hear her say my name and I’m a goner. I’ll tell her anything she wants to know. “I have a condo here in Sydney. It’s home when I’m not traveling, which isn’t very often, because I own too many vineyards to stay home for long.”

She takes a minute to process this information. “You own them all?”

“Yes. Avalon is my latest purchase.”

She wasn’t expecting that. “How many total?”

“Too damn many.” And that was the truth. I was stretched too thin across New South Wales and New Zealand. I was following in my father’s footsteps and also making steps of my own. I shouldn’t have purchased Avalon. I don’t have the time it requires to make it successful, but I can’t regret it. It’s what led me to Laurelyn.

“So does that mean you’re rich?”

“Yes. I told you I was when we met.”

“You’ve told me a lot of things but I’ve assumed most all of it lies.”

“A lot of it has been, but it’s all part of our game, baby.”

“And now our game has changed.”

Yes. Indeed, it has. In more than one way.

I’m rubbing my hand over the satin gown covering Laurelyn’s belly and I feel the metal piercing through her navel. I really want to push her gown up and kiss her there, but I don’t. She’s not comfortable being intimate in my parents’ house and has already told me no once tonight. I don’t want an encore or a reminder of our earlier quarrel.

Since we aren’t pretending anymore, I might as well warn her about Margaret McLachlan and what she’s up to. “My mum wants you here so she can work on you.”

“Work on me? How?”

“She wants me to have a wife, and you’re the closest thing she’s seen. Ever.”

“Oh.” I’m not sure if her surprise is at Mum’s intentions or because I bring it up. “I guess she didn’t get the memo about our agreement.”

“She’d shit if she knew what I’d been up to.”

“But didn’t you tell her I was leaving permanently next month?”

Permanently. What a shitty word. I hate it as much as no. “She knows but doesn’t care. She’s determined.”

“Maybe we should roll with it. You know, make her happy.”

Hmm. It isn’t a terrible idea and getting her to back off for a while would be nice. “I’ll do it if you’re sure you’re up for it.”

“Puh-lease, like you and I don’t know how to pretend.”

O
f course
, I wake before Miss Sleeping Beauty. She’s so peaceful, I want to let her sleep longer. Besides, she’ll need her rest for what’s ahead of her today. Margaret McLachlan can be exhausting.

I’m wearing sleep pants only, so I put on a T-shirt before going downstairs. I’m the first one up, as always. I’m even awake before baby Mila.

I make a cup of coffee, but opt to wait on breakfast until Chloe’s up. I’m certain she’ll have some new dish she wants to try out on us.

I fetch the newspaper and sit at the bar. I start at the back—because it’s my routine—and resist the temptation to thumb through for the photo I’m certain will be there. I turn the page a second time and there it is, just as I knew it would be. We made the news, baby.

We’re in the “My Sydney” section. Laurelyn is beautiful in the photo, even if it’s only newspaper quality. I scan the small caption beneath and laugh. “Multimillionaire bachelor Jack McLachlan at the Sydney Opera House with mystery woman.”

Mystery woman. She’s definitely that. I really can’t believe anyone cares about this kind of shit. Except Audrey. She thinks she successfully sent Laurelyn on her way, so she’s going to flip out if she sees this. It might be wise to have Jim tail her for a few days so I know her whereabouts. I’ll need to call him later today.

I hear someone come into the kitchen and I know it’s Mum without looking. She’s the only other early riser in the family. “Good morning.”

“Morning, Mum.”

She waits for her cup of coffee to finish brewing. “Have a good night?”

Damn, I think the old girl is asking if I had a naughty with Laurelyn last night? I lower the newspaper and glance at her over the top. “I slept fine.”

“And Laurelyn?”

This is too bloody much. “She’s still sleeping.”

She’s not done, not even close. “I thought I heard something come from your bedroom last night—like maybe you raising your voice to Laurelyn.” She’s giving me that look, the same one she gave me the night of my birthday party when she thought I left a sick Laurelyn home alone. It tells me I better not have screwed this up with her.

I’m in a shitload of trouble. I feel like a toddler about to be disciplined. I lift the paper up so I don’t have to look at her and return to reading. “Don’t worry. We’re fine.”

That’s all I give her because that’s all she needs to know.

“Jack Henry, you shouldn’t have shouted at that sweet girl like that. I didn’t teach you to disrespect women like that.”

I couldn’t argue with her because she was right. I hate that I yelled at Laurelyn. “I knew it was wrong the minute it came out of my mouth. I told her how sorry I was and she forgave me. We’re fine, so stop worrying.”

“Women hold grudges. She might have told you that you were forgiven last night, but now she’s had time to think on it. You’ll be lucky if she speaks to you today.”

I hope Laurelyn gets up soon, but judging on the time, it will be another couple of hours. “She doesn’t play games like other women. If she says she forgives me, then I’m confident she does. You’ll see when she gets up.”

“Yes, we’ll see, son.”

Luck is on my side. Laurelyn gets up early. I’m still reading the paper when she comes into the kitchen. She walks up behind me and puts her hands on my shoulders. I peer at her over my shoulder. “Good morning, love.” Is she going to think the endearment is too much?

She leans around and kisses the side of my face. “Good morning, darling.” No, she’s good with it. My mum is all detective-eyed, analyzing Laurelyn’s interaction with me following the lovers’ spat.

She sits on the stool next to me at the bar. “I wasn’t expecting you up so early.”

“I couldn’t sleep after I woke and you weren’t there.” Oh, she’s laying it on thick for dear ol’ Mum.

I turn to the social page to show Laurelyn our picture since I don’t have to keep her in the dark anymore. “Look, we made the news. You’re a mystery woman.”

She leans over my shoulder for a better view. “Hmm, at least it’s a good picture and I’m not making some kind of goofy face.” She bumps my shoulder with hers. “Which was a real possibility since I wasn’t expecting a total stranger to shove a camera in my face.”

I sense Mum’s scrutiny. “This is new for Laurelyn. We don’t attract this kind of attention in Wagga Wagga.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’ve enjoyed being innominate in a small town. I know how you love your privacy.” She has no idea. Laurelyn’s eyes meet mine and we smile at our private joke.

D
ad does well
, so he is discharged home and we spend the next two days with my family. Laurelyn and I play the part of being in love for my mum, at times making a game of it to see who can be more convincing. It’s fun and I’m surprised by how natural it comes for me. Sometimes it’s unintentional and I wonder if it comes as easy for her.

It’s her second day with my family and she has already found a comfortable place among them. She and Chloe are almost the same age and have a lot in common, but she connects most with Emma. I think it’s because she plays with the girls and they have taken a special liking to her, which is unusual. Mila doesn’t like anyone. Especially me.

She’s on the floor with the girls and I see the way my mum watches her. Her natural ease with my brother’s children doesn’t escape her attention.

My mum is sitting next to me on the couch. “I don’t know how she won Mila over. That kid doesn’t like anyone.” I think I could be a little jealous. “She likes Laurelyn better than me and I’m her uncle.”

“Laurelyn’s mother material. Mila senses that about her.” We watch them play a few more minutes and Mum leans over to whisper in my ear. “If you don’t do something about it, she’s going to make a wonderful mother for some other man’s children.”

I’ve watched the way my family has interacted with her for two days and realize my mistake. I shouldn’t have brought her here. They’re all falling in love with her.