Beauty from Pain (36 page)

This is news I wasn’t expecting. “You’re here
to see me?”

“
Yes, Laurelyn. I know you’re only
here for two more weeks and I have something I want to say to
you.”

I clutch the cushion of the chair to hold on
so my ass doesn’t fall off into the floor. “Okay.”

“
I know my son
very well, and Jack Henry loves you. I see it in his eyes every
time he looks at you.”
Is it love she saw
or was it the façade?
“He wouldn’t have
brought you to meet us or into our home if he didn’t. Trust me.
That’s not something he does lightly.”

She’s smiling. “So now, I’m going to be a very
forward and meddling mother. Do you love my son?”

Wow. I’m taken back by her question, but I
know the answer without thinking about it. I should be guarded and
not willing to confess it so easily, but I want nothing more than
to scream it from the rooftop. “Yes. I love Jack Henry very
much.”

She smiles even bigger and pats the cushion
next to her. “Come sit next to me.”

I get up from the chair and do as
she asks. She
faces
me and takes my hands. “Believe me, he’s going to be a
stubborn jackass when it’s time for you to leave in a couple of
weeks. He isn’t going to want to put his heart on the line and ask
you to stay, but he will be sick with himself if he lets you go.
Because you love him, you have to spend the rest of your time
together showing him why he should ask you to stay.”

Whoa. I’m not sure, but I think Margaret
McLachlan is advising me to get it on with her son. Does she think
I haven’t already been doing that?

How do I make her understand about our
agreement without telling her? “We knew we’d only be together for
three months, so we agreed from the start that our relationship
wouldn’t become serious. I don’t think he’s changed his mind about
that.”

She squeezes my hands. “Hon, it doesn’t matter
what you agreed to. If you love each other, that changes
everything. Trust me. Nothing else matters. And a little nookie to
change his mind never hurts, either.”

Yep. That’s exactly what I thought she was
suggesting.

42

Jack McLachlan

It’s only one week until Laurelyn leaves. It’s
too soon and I want more time with her.

I’m neglecting my work at
A
valon because I’m
desperate to spend every minute with her. I can’t get enough of her
and this morning is no different. That’s why I’ve come back to the
house to see her after being gone for only an hour.

I open the bedroom door expecting
her to still be asleep, but she’s not, and I hear the shower
running.
Maybe I’ll slip in and join
her.

As I’m thinking it over, I hear a smothered
version of “Sex on Fire” by Kings of Leon playing somewhere in the
bedroom. I follow the sound until I find a ringing phone inside
Laurelyn’s purse. I reach in and take it out to see the caller ID
in case it’s an emergency from home. At least that’s why I tell
myself I do it.

It’s Blake Phillips. Again.

This time it’s not a missed call notification
I see. It’s a photo of Laurelyn with her lips pressed against a
man’s cheek. They look like a happy couple. Maybe even in
love.

I contemplate what to do—answer or let it go
to voicemail—and my curiosity wins out. I slide the bar over and
have no idea what to say because I’m in the dark about who this man
is. I put Laurelyn’s phone to my ear and listen without saying a
word. A moment later, I hear his voice. He’s a Yank—of course. I
would expect him to be. “Laurelyn. I know you’re there. I hear you
breathing.”

I continue silent, waiting to hear some clue
as to what kind of relationship she has with this man.

“
If you’re not ready to talk,
please listen.” I wait and hear nothing. I think we’ve been
disconnected, but then he continues, “I miss you, Laurie. We had a
great thing going and I know we can get it back. Baby, no one knows
about us. I convinced Mitch and the guys you just needed a little
time to deal with the stress of the music industry, but they’re not
going to wait forever. You need to come back to Nashville so we can
push this record deal through. You need to come home to
me.”

I’m still not positive who Blake Phillips is,
but I’m getting a much clearer picture. He’s the one before me, the
one who hurt Laurelyn.

“
Laurie, I know you miss
me.”

I’ve heard enough. “Laurelyn can’t come to the
phone right now.”

There’s a moment of silence before he asks,
“Who is this?”

“
Jack McLachlan. I’m Laurelyn’s
boyfriend, her Australian boyfriend. Because that’s where she is—in
Australia with me. Not in Nashville with you.”

“
I need to speak with Laurie as
soon as possible. Please, tell her to call Blake.”

“
She doesn’t want to talk to you
and you’re out of your fucking mind if you think I’m telling my
girlfriend to call her ex-hole. I’m sure you understand.” I press
the end button because we’re done here.

Laurelyn is mine. Not his.

After I end the call, I thumb through photo
after photo of Laurelyn with this guy and see the proof of her
happy life before me. It’s unsettling, even painful to
see.

I hear the shower cut off and try to decide
what my approach will be to asking Laurelyn about her relationship
with this guy. I’m sitting on the side of the bed when she comes
out of the bathroom wearing a towel wrapped turban style around her
hair. She’s as naked as the day she was born.

She’s startled to see me and lets out a
girlish squeal as she uses her hands to cover herself. She realizes
it’s me and grins as she drops her hands from her naked body.
“Shit, you scared me. I thought you were gone for the
day.”

“
I was, but I
came back for something.”
I wish I hadn’t.
I don’t want these feelings I have.

Laurelyn grins as she walks over to her
lingerie drawer. “What’s going on? You’re acting weird.”

I watch her step into a pair of white lace
panties and pull them up. She reaches for the matching bra and
slips her arms through it before fastening the clasp between her
breasts.

I decide I’m done wondering. “Tell me who
Blake Phillips is.”

She pales as she freezes in place. Her words
come out as a whisper. “Why would you ask me that?”

I don’t like the way she’s affected by a
question about him. “Because he called while you were in the
shower.”

She busies herself with adjusting her bra to
avoid looking at me. “You answered my phone?”

“
The ‘Sex on Fire’ ringtone sort
of caught my attention. I answered it because I want to know who
the hell Blake Phillips is and what he wants with you.”

She stares blankly at me. I’m not sure if it’s
because she doesn’t want to tell me who he is or because I’m acting
like a possessive Neanderthal. “I’m not used to this, Laurelyn. You
know everything about my previous relationships. Everything!
Including what a stretch this is for me, and I know so little about
yours. I want to know who he is to you.”

I’m almost certain she’s going to tell me and
then I feel a pang of fear. Maybe this isn’t something I want to
hear, but it’s too late. “He was my record producer.”

I toss her phone toward her onto the bed so it
lands screen side up featuring an affectionate picture of them
together. “Does everyone kiss their record producer like
that?”

She shuts her eyes and turns away from the
phone. “Blake and I were spending a lot of time together while we
were working on my album. One thing led to another and we started
seeing each other. He told me it wouldn’t look good for him to be
in a relationship with someone he was representing, and I believed
him. It sounded like a legit reason to me, so we agreed to keep our
relationship secret to protect our careers. I later found out he
wanted to keep us secret because he was married with three kids. I
was devastated. And I walked away from all of it. Him. The record
deal. The music career I’d worked so hard for.
Everything.”

Now, I really hate the
motherfucker.
“When did it
end?”

“
Early
December.”
That was only a couple of weeks
before she came here
—
not near long enough for her to be over him if she was in
love with him.

“
How long were you
together?”

“
Three
months.”
Almost the same amount of time
she’s been with me.

I lean over with my elbows on my knees and my
head in my hands. “Do you love him?”

She doesn’t answer right away and my throat
tries to eat my heart. “There was a time I thought I did, but that
was before I knew the truth.” I want her to reach out and touch me
as a sign of reassurance, but she doesn’t. “I loved a lie, and the
truth shattered anything I felt for him.”

I want to look up at her, but I can’t. I’m
afraid of what I’ll see. “So, you feel nothing for him
now?”

“
No. I can’t
love a lie and that’s all we were.”
Her
words are sobering. Hadn’t I asked her for a relationship based on
a lie? He tricked her into being his dirty little secret, and I
outright asked her to volunteer as mine.

I lift my face to see her standing in front of
me, but her eyes avoid mine. That’s when I know it. I’m a
motherfucker just like Blake Phillips.

I slide off the bed to my knees in front of
her and wrap my arms around her legs. “I’m so sorry for not
treating you the way I should have, Laurelyn.”

She strokes her hands across the top of my
hair. “What are you talking about? You’ve never treated me poorly.
You spoil me rotten.”

I gaze up at her from where I’m on my knees.
“I asked you for a relationship based on lies. I kept you as my
secret from the world until I decided I needed you when Dad got
sick. I’m no better than he is.”

43

Laurelyn Prescott

Jack Henry is in front of me on his knees,
talking about things that aren’t true. He presses his face against
my stomach and I twirl my fingers in his hair. “No, that’s not true
at all. Don’t ever compare yourself to him.”

I
take
his hands and tug on them. “Get
up from there.”

He stands and
reaches
for my face. “I’m so
sorry.”

I don’t understand what he means. “Stop this.
You’ve never hurt me the way he did.”

He’s stroking his thumbs over my cheekbones.
“I’m sorry for all the secrecy, for making you feel like you
weren’t important enough to know the real me. But I’m most sorry
because I have fucked you—I don’t know how many times—and never
made love to you.”

I realize I’m crying when he uses his thumbs
to catch tears as they roll down my face. “Please, don’t cry. I
never want to be the one to cause you tears.”

He leans down and tenderly presses his lips to
mine. I open my mouth and he slips his tongue inside to meet mine
for a familiar yet new sensual waltz.

We’ve shared countless kisses. They were
almost always heated and demanding, but this one is entirely
different. It tells me things he can’t or won’t say because it goes
against everything he intends for our relationship.

Jack Henry cares for me. If his kisses don’t
tell me, his touch does. His caress is so tender. He handles me as
if I’m a precious, delicate treasure.

We move onto the bed and his mouth
feathers kisses lightly down my chin and throat.
His mouth continues traveling lower
as he puts his fingers inside one of the cups and
finds my nipple. He rubs and rolls it, causing it to stand at
attention for his touch before he pulls my bra down and takes it in
his mouth.

I love the feel of his tongue against my
sensitive nipple and something between a moan and the sound of his
name escapes my mouth as I lace my fingers through his
hair.

When his mouth leaves my breast, he unfastens
the bra clasp and frees me from my lace entrapment. I grasp his
shirt over his stomach and push it up because I want to feel his
flesh against mine. He grabs it by the neck and pulls it over his
head in one swift motion before he lowers his head and takes my
other nipple in his mouth.

It doesn’t matter where he makes contact with
my body. Each touch sends a wave of sensation directly between my
legs, and I grow wet for him.

His mouth glides lower down my belly and then
to my hipbones. He kisses each of them and everything in between
before he pulls back on the waistband of my panties to bury his
nose inside. I hear him inhale deeply. “Mmm, you smell so
good.”

Kneeling between my legs, he grabs the
waistband of my panties and pulls downward as I raise my hips. He
lifts my feet off the bed to free the lace from my ankles and then
tosses them to the floor next to his shirt. I sit up to slip my
loose bra from my shoulders and add it to the growing pile of
clothes.