A Little Crushed (7 page)

Stripping off her clothes, Rebecca studied herself in the full-length mirror. She wasn’t falsely modest; she knew boys found her attractive, but she had no interest in any of them—even before… Pouting at her reflection, she struck a Tyra Banks pose. She wondered if Mr. Jackson thought her pretty. Her heart gave a jolt. What a stupid train of thought.

“Sex.” Rebecca sank into the warm, scented water. “It’s always about sex.”

* * * *

“
Rebecca, darling, take my hand. I won’t let him hurt you anymore. Trust me. Please, trust me.”

His fingers curled around her palm, and he gently helped her to her feet. A sob catching at the back of her throat, she fell into the warm, safe embrace of his arms. His heartbeat sounded against her ear, a soft lullaby, against the tempest raging in her soul.

“Hold me. Don’t ever let me go.”

“I won’t. Ever.”

With a gasp, Rebecca jerked awake and sat up. A fine film of sweat coated her body. Trembling, she reached for the semi-comatose Wally and pulled him close to her chest. Sensing her distress, he licked her hand.

“It’s happened. I’ve finally gone insane.”

Soaking his weary bones in the too small tub, Max went over the events of the day. Rebecca. He pulled the steaming facecloth over his face and closed his eyes. Always Rebecca. Okay, Tom sympathised, but Max wished he’d listened to him. He should have guessed Rebecca wouldn’t accept his olive branch. Still, her anger shocked him. No, it was more than that. He sensed her inner pain, and he very much wanted to ease it. Why, he didn’t know. All he understood was Miss Harding played on his mind far too much. If Kate had been there, she would have laughed. She called him the original bleeding heart.

The bath water grew cold, and he stepped out. His growling stomach reminded him that, apart from Fiona’s curry, he hadn’t eaten a decent meal in days. “Oh well, mate—” He chuckled to himself. “Tea and toast it is.”

His meagre supper over, he sat at the kitchen table in boxers and T-shirt, ruthlessly drawing a red pen through the all-too-many, hideous spelling mistakes. Maybe Tom wasn’t joking? While trying to make sense out of Clive Moore’s enthusiastic account of life as a dedicated Manchester United supporter, his thoughts switched back to Kate.

It was incredible they were still together, never mind engaged. He’d loved her so much once. His pen hovered over the page.
Loved
? He shook his head. What was he thinking? He
still
loved her; she was, after all, everything a man could wish for in a woman: intelligent, sometimes witty (although, she could be cruel and cutting), and her striking blonde beauty made him the envy of every virile male in their social circle. The sex had always been good, but was it enough?

Closing the last of the jotters, Max chewed at his lower lip. Just when had it all gone tits up? He supposed after graduation. With Kate spending more and more of her time out in the field, she buried (literally) herself in her work, leaving him alone in the city in a job he hated and at the mercy of his father’s ever-scathing diatribes.

Max felt the old familiar resentment clawing its way back to the surface. Sensitivity had never been Kate’s strong point. Kate got on well with Mr. Jackson senior and couldn’t understand why he and his father didn’t. She’d accused him of over-reacting to his father’s constant belittling. They argued. Max closed his eyes, the ugly scene, the acrimonious words still so vivid in his mind.

“I wonder if you’d still love me if the Great Robert Jackson wasn’t my father and funding you.”

“Why can’t you be more supportive? If it were the other way around, you’d expect me to support you. I suppose you’d rather I stay at home and knit socks?”

“You can’t knit.”

“Oh, you are such a chauvinist at times, Max!”

“Why? Because I’d like to see my fiancée for maybe more than—what—four weeks out of the year?”

“You’re exaggerating. Besides, what about when you went off on ‘the finding yourself’ trip around Europe with that crowd of so-called actor misfits?”

“I seem to recall your siding with my father on that one. The only thing of mine you support is my dick
.”

Max winced. Not one of his finest moments. She’d slapped him hard. They’d raged at each other for the best part of the night, and then he’d driven her to the airport, both of them wrapped in angry silence. With hindsight, his timing hadn’t been great. Walking her through to passport control had not been the best way to drop his little bombshell. Always controlled, she’d nodded and agreed to his year’s separation plan, but he’d caught the tears welling in her eyes. She’d left him without as much as a peck on the cheek.

Stacking the exercise books, he wondered if they’d ever get back on track. Did he want them to? Fingers tapping against his mug, he stared at the phone. Of course he did. He missed her. Breath on hold, he picked up and dialled.

“Hey you.”

“Hey you back.”

Her sultry tone caressed his ear, evoking memories of balmy beach nights, easy conversation, and amazing sex.

“So, how’s it going?”

“It’s going well, Max. We’re nearly through to the burial chamber. I wish you could see some of this stuff. It’s amazing. Oh, listen to me going on. What about you? Coping with the brats?”

Kate can’t help herself
. As always, the ever-present cynicism laced her tone.

“Actually, they’re not brats. Well, not all of them.” He toyed with the idea of telling her about Rebecca, but for some strange reason, it didn’t seem fair to Rebecca to do so; as if it would betray her trust. “It’s a nice school, Kate. I’m enjoying it.”

“And Tom and Fiona? How are they?”

Max wasn’t deaf to the edge in her tone. “They’ve been kind. They send their love.” A white lie but the best he could manage.

“I doubt that—at least not Princess Fiona.”

“Come on, Kate, sheath the claws.”

“Protective as ever, I see. She doesn’t need your protection, Max. She has Saint Tom.”

“Kate—”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. It’s just I know she doesn’t like me. Still, I shouldn’t blame her.”

“No, you shouldn’t.” He grimaced. “We...I hurt her.”

“Oh, not that again. Don’t tell me you still feel guilty? She has moved on. She has Tom—Mr. Perfectly Normal—and one half of the requisite two to one child equation. She should be happy.”

“And she is.” Max rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Look, I didn’t call to talk about Tom and Fiona. It’s you…us I’m interested in.”

“We still have an ‘us’?”

Her soft whisper picked up his heart strings and wound them in a knot. “I think we do. At least…I hope we do.”

“Max, we agreed not to do this. A year, you said.
You
.
You
suggested the trial separation.”

“I didn’t use the word ‘separation.’” He strained to keep his tone on an even keel, but Kate was a master at twisting his words. “You were the one, if I recall correctly, who complained I didn’t give you enough space. You accused me of not understanding how important your career is. I only gave you what you wanted.”

“I’m sorry again. I was out of line. I’m tired, okay, and…”

“And?”

“I miss you. I didn’t think it would be so hard. I realize, now, how much...how much I love you.”

Max gripped his mug so tightly he was surprised it didn’t break. He should be dancing with joy, so why the panic jolt? “Kate…” He struggled to find the words he knew she wanted to hear. “Love has never been our problem. It’s always about commitment.”

“Mine, you mean.” Her sardonic laugh made him wince. “I’m a fool, I guess—or so my friends tell me. Here I am, engaged to the charismatic Max Jackson, and I am dithering. There are a million women running around the Southern Hemisphere just waiting for me to bail out, so they can jump into my shoes.”

Max smiled; his playboy image had always been a bone of contention between them, even though he assured her it was vastly exaggerated. “Come on, Kate. You know me better than that. It’s the fact you didn’t chase after me that impressed me. Please don’t go all meek and grovelling now. We’ve both made mistakes.”

“Very magnanimous of you. So, Max, darling. Where do we go from here?”

“Where do you want us to go?” He drained his tea, heartbeat revving once more. Why did this conversation make him uneasy?

“Oh no. Don’t you dare put this on me. I am trying.”

“I know.” Max closed his eyes against the headache pounding his temples. “I think…we need more time. My contract, here, runs for a year. You have no idea when things will wrap up over there. I just got here, Kate. I want to do this. I
need
to do it.”

“I guess… Max, are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m bushed. Kids are hard work.” He aimed for humour.

“Are you sure that’s all?”

He cursed her ability to read him so well. Truth was, he had no answer—not one that made sense. “Hey, I’m fine. Look, it’s late. We’ll talk again. Next week, maybe?”

“Sure.”

Kate sounded nervous, vulnerable; two words he’d never have aligned with his tough, independent fiancée. Was she afraid? He knew her well. She thought she could lose him. Kate didn’t like to lose.

Flipping his cell shut, he threw it onto the table and picked up his cup. He wished it would turn into whisky.

He packed his briefcase ready for the next day. Suddenly he felt restless, wishing he’d taken Tom up on his offer of another one of Fiona’s great meals, but he had a feeling Fiona didn’t want to see too much of him. Oh well, time to check out the box.

He walked into the sitting room and put a match to the already laid fire. At once his tiny living space seemed warm and cosy. Kate’s photograph drew him in, taking him back to their Oxford halcyon days. He supposed their finding each other had been inevitable: two rich Sydney kids together in a foreign country.

At first, her golden-beach beauty had left him cold. Girls like Kate had thrown themselves at him since he’d hit puberty and ditched the braces. But he’d been no match for her persistence. Subtlety wasn’t a word in Kate’s vocabulary. When she wanted something, she took it, just as she had on their first date. He’d been surprised and delighted to find her cool exterior hid a very passionate woman. Of course, later on in the relationship, he realized Kate had used every weapon in the book to steal him away from the woman he’d been dating. Fiona. In their first year, he, Tom, and Fiona had been inseparable. The three Musketeers, Tom named them, but then Kate had come along and changed all that.

Max crossed to the mantelpiece and picked up the gilt-framed picture. With his thumb, he caressed Kate’s delicate cheekbone. No doubt about it, she was stunningly beautiful, but was it enough? Where was the bonding of souls he’d heard so much about? A cynic, he’d always scoffed at that tired old line, but now, when he saw Fiona and Tom, with their gorgeous daughter, he wasn’t so sure. Would he and Kate ever share what his best friends shared? Somehow he doubted it.

“So how was it? Judging from the idiotic expression on your too-made up face, I’d say good.”

Emma ambled along at Rebecca’s side, expression vacant, eyes over-bright, and lips drawn in a smile that would have made Mother Theresa vomit it was so nauseatingly serene.

“It was nice.”

“Why so reticent?” Rebecca zeroed in on her nervousness. “Nice is hardly the term one uses when in the first throes of true love.” Hand on forehead, she struck a Bette Davis pose. “Oh dawrling, he is simply divine.”

“Stop.” Emma’s complexion changed from fuchsia pink to pickled beetroot. “If you must know…Andy asked me out.”

Rebecca stopped walking. “
Out, out
—as in a date?”

“Yes.” Emma gushed. “Becs.... don’t be mad. This is my big chance.”

“For what? To see if you can last longer than all the other poor idiots who fell for his line? You besotted fool.”

Thick-skinned as ever, Emma did not take umbrage. “I’m in love.”

“Oh, please.” Rebecca picked up the pace again. “Still, at least you got over the colonial nitwit fast enough.”

“I have not.” Emma giggled. “I still think he is drop dead gorgeous, but I have to be realistic. He is out of my league.”

“Well I am sure the delectable Andy will be thrilled to know he is second best.”

“Becs...”

Emma’s serious tone set off Rebecca’s mutiny-in-the-ranks alarm. She didn’t do serious a lot, but when she did, it usually spelled trouble.

“This no boyfriend pact. Don’t you think it’s a bit daft? I mean we’re eighteen. I just want us to be…you know…normal.”

“Define normal.”

“Normal as in fit in, be part of a crowd. It’s always just you and me. Oh dear,” Emma wailed. “This is coming out all wrong.”

“So make it right.”

“Now you’re getting all arsey on me. It’s just that, well, don’t you think it would be nice to have some fun for a change? What’s wrong with going to parties and clubs and meeting people?”

“You mean boys.”

“Yes. Maybe I’d like to be a bimbo occasionally.”

There was a pregnant pause while Rebecca digested this earth-shattering revelation. “You’ll be booking a holiday to Ibiza next.”

“And so? It’s got to beat camping in the Trossachs.” Emma warmed to her theme. “Come on, Becs, there has to be more to life than endless Saturday nights of Coldplay and Trivial Pursuit.”

“There has?”

“You always have to resort to sarcasm. I’m being serious. Look, I understand it’s different for you. After what happened—”

Rebecca whirled round, patience at an end. “Stop right there.” Her hands shook, her anger growing. “God, Emma. I thought you, at least, got it. My not wanting to party has nothing do to with what happened to me.”

“I never say the right thing, do I? I’ve tried so hard to understand, but you don’t speak to me anymore.”

For the first time Rebecca could remember, her friend looked angry.

“You’re so moody, Becs. You bite my head off for the least little thing. I pretend I’m okay with it because that’s what I’ve done for most of our friendship, but sometimes, your attitude hurts. I know you don’t mean it but… Example, look how you are about Mr. Jackson.”