"You may not need it. I may be back very soon." He dropped the folded piece of paper that he'd carried for years onto one of his camera cases.
He went to Jessica's because he'd promised no more secrets, but he left all hope behind him. Love had never been enough for them, not without trust. He looked out the taxi window, memories of Thailand brewing beneath dark thoughts of what could have been if only they'd trusted each other in the beginning.
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
She blinked against the darkened room, surprised she'd fallen asleep. She had only meant to close her eyes for a moment. Across the room, Jacques stood with his back to the window and gaze steady upon her. Twilight illuminated his silhouette.
"You're here." She pushed herself to a sitting position, hating that she felt so tired when she wanted to leap into his arms with relief that he'd kept his promise. "When I came home and you weren't here, I wondered if you'd changed your mind."
With a sigh, he pushed himself away from the window and walked toward her. "You looked so peaceful I thought I'd let you sleep a bit before waking you."
"Have you been here long?" She arranged her booted legs beneath her.
"Only a few minutes." He sat on the sofa, leaving a full cushion of space between them, and stared at her painting on the wall. "We had a lot of fun, didn't we? When you left this morning, I went upstairs and took my time going through your canvases. Your talent supersedes mine by miles. You recreated from memory what I capture on film—you're brilliant. Absolutely brilliant."
She'd seen this look on him before whenever he had a lot on his mind. Her gaze roamed over his disheveled hair, gray t-shirt that looked as if it had been torn at the neckline, and faded jeans. Once again, he had the I-don't-give-a-damn look down to a science.
"You wouldn't have depended on me," he said, his gaze still locked on the painting of her dancing in a fountain. "You could have sold your work. All you needed to do was believe in yourself. That is all. You wouldn't have been like your mother." He focused on her then. "Even if it had taken awhile, would it have been so bad to lean on me a little?"
She swallowed hard and shook her head no. Something was wrong. He looked swallowed in sorrow. She'd never seen him look lost.
"You're not staying are you? You came here to explain to me all the reasons why we won't work. You're choosing Simone over me, aren't you?" Her heart sank at the words.
"God, no. It isn't like that." He shoved both hands through his hair before meeting her gaze. The pain she saw at the depths of his eyes silenced any further comment she could have made. "I need to tell you something and you need to listen without interruption. When I am done, it is up to you whether I come to stay with you or not. Last night we made a promise to be different this time, to be honest, to be all in...you meant that?"
"Yes." She couldn't look away from his face. The doom she'd felt closing in now weighted her down like a thousand pounds of bricks. She knew it had to do with Simone, had seen the unshed tears in his eyes. "Before you start, I also meant it when I said I already forgive you for whatever it is."
"I wish it were that easy." He reached for her knee, but stopped himself from touching her.
Seeing his reluctance for physical contact, she gulped back the panic that clawed inside her throat.
"Simone and I met in London a few months after Italy while at a mutual friend's party. We got drunk and ended up in bed together." He spoke without breaking eye contact. "Kevin and I were supposed to go to Venezuela, but Simone and I made a detour without telling anyone. We were wild, into anything self-destructive we could get our hands on. We hired a prostitute for a threesome—not for the first time, it had become a kind of game. That night, though, things got out of hand. The girl died—she was twenty. Overdose." He visibly swallowed before continuing. "We were accused of murder. They smelled money on us. We were held in a Thai prison for almost a year. Simone was raped repeatedly. I was beaten. We were starved. I refused to use my family's diplomatic connections because I didn't want to shame them. I have money of my own...or had...from the trust fund. I hired an attorney who bribed the right people and made sure any attempts to find me were blocked but...it took time." He dropped his gaze to his folded hands. "Simone and I took care of each other. She has no one, no family or friends. I was it. We kept each other's secrets...until now. She's using my newfound fame and Ava's fashion success to tell our story. She says it will further her career or something." He shoved his hands through his hair again.
She bit her lip, fighting the urge to curse, scream, rage against the woman she had always despised. She glanced over his bent head and clenched her hands at her sides to keep from touching him.
"She's going to paint herself as the innocent victim swept into depravity by her scandalous photographer boyfriend. Kevin thinks my book will suddenly be viewed as erotica rather than art, same with the show. Her press releases refer to the Thai girl, which implies she was underage or something. I don't know what to do. You and me...we are fragile. You won't even show your paintings because you're worried about your reputation...you left me because you have people here who rely on you... I understand if you want to stay out of this completely. I will go. This is a lot to absorb. I was accused of murder and held in prison for a year. I'm not exactly the man you used to know."
She stood, unable to bear sitting any longer. None of this should have happened or would have if she hadn't been such a scared little fool five years ago. Regret warred with anger for everything he'd done and experienced without her...or because of her. She shook her head, knowing that wasn't logical but...still a little voice whispered that this could have been prevented with some adult communication.
"There's more..." he said.
"Of course there is." She rubbed the knots at the back of her neck and glanced over her shoulder at him.
"The drug use...I know what you said about your mom. If this comes out and we are together, your mother's situation could be brought up."
She hadn't thought of that. "How does Simone know about my mother?"
"She doesn't. I'm the son of a diplomat and a famous violinist." He shrugged as if that alone was a good enough explanation.
"She will use all of this to destroy you and your family unless you choose to leave me? That's the condition?" she asked when he fell silent.
"Feel free to tell me to go to hell and you'll never see me again. You'll be free of all of this."
Prostitutes. Threesomes. Drugs. Prison. Damn, when the man unloaded he buried a person with garbage. She paced in front of the windows and sorted all of the information out in her mind while he watched from the sofa.
Her reputation. She knew what he meant. She featured predominately in the book and the exhibit, but no one knew that yet. If she were to publicly appear with him in the midst of an unfolding scandal as the youngest associate partner in a prestigious local architecture firm, it could jeopardize all she'd worked for to this point.
If she turned from him now, she knew he meant it when he said he'd understand. The problem is, she may regret it for the rest of her life.
"I'll leave," he said. "I wanted to tell you all of this face-to-face. I didn't want to disappear and let you think the worst."
Even though she knew he hadn't meant to imply anything with those words, they hit home.
Let him go. He's right. It's for the best if you chalk up the past two days to great sex and nothing else. Let him go. She squeezed her eyes shut and blocked out the words. They belonged to the person she no longer wanted to be.
"Do you blame me?" she asked without turning around.
"I made my own choices," he said after hesitating.
Accused of murder, locked up abroad. She rubbed her hands over the knots accumulating at the back of her neck and ignored the pulsating behind her eyelids.
"It's okay to let me go, Jess. Simone intended to do this before you came back into my life. This isn't because of you. She has known I've had one foot out the door and
has been making a contingency plan for her life. You're just...in the way. I came tonight because last night we...we were caught up...and...it has always been so intense between us, maybe we..."
"Maybe we get caught up?" she asked when he failed to finish his thought. She faced him and grinned despite the growing headache. "Look at me. Do I look like the kind of woman who gets carried away or follows whimsy?" She motioned to the conservative black dress and knee-high boots.
"No, you don't." He smiled, dimples flashing, as he stuffed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and looked at her.
"With you I get caught up. That's significant." She took slow steps toward him without breaking eye contact. "Fuck Simone."
His gaze roamed over her while she walked across the room. "There will be fallout, I am sure. As Simone said, I will be stained as a murderer, even as a falsely accused one. My work with National Geographic, my show...all of it may be ruined."
She knew he warned her that she may also be ruined even if he didn't say the words. "We don't need to tell the world my identity, do we? At the show, I mean. Can't I be there simply as your girlfriend?"
"Simone has recently been photographed with me as my girlfriend. Two weeks ago at some party she dragged me to." He winced and looked at the ground. "Showing up a few weeks later with my fiancée would strengthen her argument that I am an amoral ass."
"Fiancée. No one knows about that."
"She does. She'll be watching. She will use it somehow." He turned his back on her and walked toward the door. "I'm going to leave, Jess, but I am not giving up on us. We're simply staying away from each other for a few months."
"That won't work for me." She wrapped her arms around him from behind and buried her face into his shoulder. "I'm not letting you go."
"Your promotion...your friends....your mother." He covered her hands with his without turning around. "Be smart about this. We are not saying goodbye. We can talk on the phone, or Skype or whatever you want. It's best for you to stay away from the Sinclairs right now."
She squeezed her eyes closed thinking of Ava. She had meant it when she'd said they'd been like sisters. "I've stayed away from the Sinclairs for far too long."
He turned within the circle of her arms and framed her face with his palms. "I should have done the show in Manhattan like she'd suggested. I used all of this for a chance to be near you again, to call you into the open, to make you notice. I acted like a teenage boy and didn't think this through."
She smiled and hugged him tighter. "You got my attention. What are you going to do with me now, Jacques Sinclair?"
"Are you sure you want me to stay with you?"
"Yes. We'll figure it all out." Terrified, she hugged him tighter. Even as she spoke, she wondered if she had the courage to back up her words. Marc would use this, so would her mother. Who knew what the partners would think or even if they would find out, but she suddenly didn't care.
"Can you live with what I did? You won't look at me differently?" His gaze searched hers.
She flattened her hands on his shoulders. "I hate the idea that you could have died and I would never have known."
"I did this to myself." Disbelief shadowed his eyes. "I don't expect anything from you."
His image blurred through the tears in her eyes. He could have died while she had been leading a half-life full of lies. This man, this beautiful man, could never have had his someday and she'd be damned if she'd let a redheaded viper stop him now.
"I can't stand thinking of you being hurt," she whispered. "I hate that you were with that woman all of this time, I do. I did from the first moment Ava told me. I'm sorry for what happened to her, I am, but what she's doing now is disgusting. If I hadn't left you—"
"—Don't think like that."
"Are you saying you've never thought that? When you were in a jail cell after being beaten, did you think about how different life could have been if I hadn't disappeared?"
"I thought about you every day. I had a lot of anger toward the injustice of the time, the beatings, Simone's suffering, and, yes, maybe I was angry at the thought of you living a safe life in America without me." He pressed his forehead against hers and closed his eyes.
"Do you still have that anger?" she asked even though she suspected the answer was yes.
"Yes, I do. A little bit. I didn't know if I'd survive. I didn't want anyone to think of me as the half-starved, dirty, beaten down accused murderer of a prostitute."
Tears fell then because she couldn't stop thinking of where she'd been and what she'd been doing three years ago completely oblivious to anyone or anything outside her safe little world.
He brushed her tears away with his thumbs. "No, don't cry for me."
How could she not? In an instant, all illusions of his adventures after Italy seemed childish and absurd. What had she asked him last night at McDougals? To tell of all the wonderful places he'd been?
The love she'd felt for him in the past rushed to present in an overwhelming flood of emotion. She grabbed the back of his head and held him close. Who cared about convention or timing or reality? She never wanted to let him go again, who cared if that went against everything she'd ever believed about herself? She wanted Jacques Sinclair in her life. Period.
"I want the world to know it is me in the book and in the photographs. I want to stand by your side on Saturday night. If I lose my job, then I'll find another because I'm damn good at what I do but..." she grinned when he smiled..."I'm not letting you go again."
"It won't be easy, could get dirty."
"I can handle it."
"I don't want you to need to handle anything. I wanted to date you, romance you—"
"Still can. I'm all up for the dating and romancing." She grinned against his chin.
"Your mother will hate me."
"She hates me, too, so we'll be her common enemy."
"You keep surprising me. I can't figure you out."
She smiled against his mouth. "Kiss me before I change my mind and toss your ass out."
"I knew you weren't just a tourist," he whispered before kissing her as if the world was ending around them and they only had moments to live.
He unzipped the back of her dress and peeled it down her shoulders, revealing the rise of her breasts over the bra. His mouth ravaged her neck, nipping, sucking, licking. The dress pinned her arms to her side, making it impossible to touch him.
His hand slipped beneath the hem of her dress and pulled the panties down her thighs and over the boots. His other hand reached inside her bra as he backed her against the back of the sofa.
"I want to touch you," she muttered as his hands cupped her breasts.
He flashed her a smile, a thick strand of blond hair falling over his eyes, before his other hand unzipped his jeans. "Are you really mine, Jess? Do you truly want me in your life no matter what happens?"
"Come hell or high water." She matched his smile.
"Hell has come."
He twisted her around and fucked her from behind. He bit into her shoulder. She rocked her hips back toward his, her boot-clad leg curving around the back of his thigh wanting him close. Her arms pinned between their joined bodies, dress acting like a rope.
Well, if it was all about the sex, who the hell cared? She laughed, breathless, as an orgasm ripped through her body.
He laughed, too, against the back of her neck. "I will never get enough of you."
"Not even if I join the PTA and drive a minivan one day?" She twisted her head to look at him through the veil of her hair.
He thrust again, still inside of her, wrapped his arms around body, and kissed her through the strands of hair.
They kissed, eyes wide open, the meaning of her asking him to stay despite the odds hanging on their lips.
* * *
"I could easily stay upstairs," Kevin said after giving himself a tour. "Your upstairs' space is bigger than my New York apartment."
"You're not staying." He rubbed a hand over his eye
s. The day was never ending.
"You can stay tonight, Stickman." Jessica smiled at his assistant like they were the best of friends. "It's late and I don't want Simone stalking you or something."
"I planned on staying, I just thought it would be in the sofa. I didn't realize I'd have my own apartment." Kevin settled back into the chair and kicked his feet up on the footstool.
"You don't have your own apartment," Jacques corrected him.
"We'll see." Kevin winked at Jessica. "I'm glad I finally get to meet the infamous Jessica Moriarty. You're a legend. Carter has told me stories."
"I'm not sure I like being a legend." She rubbed her hands on the cushion beneath her hips. "I'm really tired. I need to call it a night, guys."
He sighed, the exhaustion of the day settling onto his shoulders. "I should call Ava."
"Tomorrow," Kevin said, his gaze locked onto Jessica who'd changed into a pair of jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt. "I didn't think you'd let us stay."
"Me not us." He grinned at his friend. "She is letting me stay."
"Like I said...us." Kevin winked at her. "Aren't you concerned about getting dragged into this mess of his? I heard you're a fancy architect or something like that."
"Are you trying to change her mind?" he asked.
"Both you and Ava have called me fancy, which I am not. I can only assume Jacques called me that after seeing me last Friday. Fancy," she snorted. "You sure like to gossip these days, don't you, babe?"
"He never shuts up," Kevin said with an exaggerated sigh. "Constantly telling me stories."
He rolled his eyes at Kevin, disbelief that they were in this apartment smiling and joking with each other after Simone's big announcement. He liked how Jessica accepted Kevin's weirdness as if she'd known him all of her life.
"You're not scared of Simone? She seems to have it out for you." Kevin's grin slipped as he watched Jessica stand.
"I'm in way over my head here, I know that. My track record isn't so stellar in the relationship department. I'm a certifiable flight risk, but the alternative is unacceptable."