Ravishing Rose (4 page)

Frankie pushed her skirt down and levered herself up on her elbows.
 

What had gone wrong? His tone had turned flippant and distant. He’d just made her sound ‘past tense’. Finished. No longer wanted.

“Not yet thanks,” she said, wishing now she’d not made that silly crack about the applause being for the band instead of him. She’d been embarrassed by his dig about turning her volume down. Had she been noisy? She had no idea, being so overtaken with ecstasy she’d simply abandoned her sensible self to his care.

But the Captain had gone cold. He’d gained what he wanted and now he’d had enough.

Thoroughly humiliated, and bitterly disappointed with herself, Frankie checked her wig was still secure and pulled her bodice fronts together. The moon sailed out from behind the clouds to help her with lacing the ribbons up again and retrieving her helmet..

But it lit Captain Cool up, too, and her attention slid to him as he turned aside, bent for his hat, jammed it on, and then dragged up his white trousers. He stood spread-legged in front of her with no pretence at modesty as he pulled off his condom and threw it sideways into the darkness. Cocky—in more ways than one.

No wonder he’d been able to gather her up and support her. He had a beautiful body. Strong and streamlined, packed with muscle.
 

She watched as he stuffed himself away with difficulty and forced the buttons of his fly through their holes. Then he retrieved his jacket from the table and fished a big white handkerchief from one of its pockets. He handed it across to her with a theatrical flourish, doffed his wide black hat in an insolent salute, and sauntered off.

She sat there stranded on the table-top—no doubt in danger of getting splinters in her ass after all. It seemed an appropriate punishment.

You knew it, Frankie! You knew bad-boy types like him just take what they want and don’t give a damn.

What would Mom and Dad think of you now?

What would Mike and Bella think?

And how wrecked is Bella’s costume?

She scrambled down and stood on quaking legs. So much for the ‘change and adventure’ she’d been craving...

Her panties were missing, and it was certainly too dark and too overgrown to search for them. She was grateful for his handkerchief, and even more grateful he’d somehow managed to get a condom on. Quite how, she had no idea.

Jake fought his way back through the low-sweeping branches, clutching his hat, and cursing under his breath. That had been perfect.
She
had been perfect. He’d been so tempted to ask for her details...set up a date sometime soon.

Thank God he hadn’t. He could still hear her scornful ‘don’t worry—it’s not for you’ after the applause erupted from the marquee. Had she really thought so little of him? Her rejection burned white-hot.

Well damn the woman! He had enough on his plate right now; the impending house demolition, the construction of the four new ones on the big site—and to top it off, finding his business partner had just forgiven his unfaithful money-grubbing bitch of a wife and welcomed her back with open arms. He already sensed the development budget shrinking.

He stomped up the garden steps, wincing at the sound of more breaking glass. The destruction didn’t worry him, but the possibility of injuries did. He hurried back along the wood paneled corridor to the big front lobby.
 

Another window smashed, but on the upper floor somewhere. He relaxed a little. At least the carousing guests down here weren’t being showered with sparkling splinters, and the action would soon move to the marquee in any case.

He grabbed a big box of marker pens from the table where his tame angel still presided. One of the discreet notices thanking the guests for contributing so generously to the Leukemia Foundation stood there too, complete with a photo of a young girl’s small tragic face.

He turned away from her imploring blue eyes and tried to summon up some party spirit. “Sign the house,” he yelled, distributing pens around to grasping hands. He stopped long enough to scrawl ‘Captain Cool was here’ where the big mirror had once hung over the fireplace. And then ‘Kilroy was here’ beside the old cartoon character with his nose over the wall. He moved on, slashing the date and the time onto the old-fashioned wallpaper. In the darkest corner he printed in slow deliberate letters ‘Jake ate chocolate’. All around him party guests added names and messages, obscenities and comments.

Just inside the front door he drew a huge flower, labeled it ‘Rose’. Then for good measure he added long sharp thorns and the word ‘three’.

“Who’s Rose?” a masked showgirl in fishnet tights and a pink sequined tube dress murmured behind him. The voice was so deeply familiar it left no room for doubt. Jake swung around and regarded his brother with shock.

“Paul?”

“Pauline, please...”

“Does Hannah know you’re here?”

Paul roared with laughter. “She’s the little Elizabethan boy over there with the optimistic cod-piece.”

“Quite a relief—I think!”

“Great party, bro.”

“I’m glad you came,” Jake said. “Didn’t know if you would.”

“Time to bury the hatchet,” Paul muttered.

Jake nodded. It was way over time. He and his two brothers had never been close as children, and as teenagers they’d taken totally different paths. Paul and Tony had drifted into dead-end jobs, and sometimes no jobs at all. By contrast, Jake had made the most of his quick brain and unrelenting drive, and now owned a flourishing property development company.

“Rose?” Paul asked again.

“A fairy at the bottom of the garden.”
 

“For real?”

“Who knows what’s real tonight?” He grimaced at his handiwork. Suddenly it seemed a tawdry jibe toward someone who’d given him such intense pleasure. He scraped at the seam of the wallpaper with a fingernail, hoping to rip away enough to disguise at least the taunting ‘three’. “Is Tony here?” he asked. He’d given tickets to both his brothers.

“Out in the marquee I think,” Paul said, watching with amusement as his wife drew the ornately decorated and very blunt dagger from her belt and attempted to shred the curtains with it. He minced a few wobbly steps in her direction and grabbed the fabric in his meaty hands. The weave came apart like tissue paper.

“Oh, fun!” a barely veiled belly-dancer exclaimed. “Help me Captain?” she begged, gathering up the end of another curtain and thrusting it out toward Jake. He held on while the belly dancer ripped and tore, and eventually sneezed to a halt as the dust of ages started to permeate the room. “Attention please, people,” the angel bellowed into the mayhem. “Supper next door in ten minutes.”

Frankie wrapped her arms tightly across her breasts and crept across to the courtyard wall. She leaned back against its faint comforting warmth and gazed across the magic inlet. The band pounded out something of Justin Timberlake’s. She could picture him dancing to it in a video clip—snake-hipped, dark-eyed. Another man with the confidence to take what he wanted. Suddenly they were everywhere.

She shivered. Not just from the cool air, but from bitter self-loathing. What had started as a foolhardy attempt to be someone else—someone brave and polished and sexy—had ended in desertion and despair.

She hugged herself tighter, too cold to lurk alone in the darkness thinking such desperate thoughts. Sighing, she pushed away from the wall and retraced her steps under the helmet-grabbing trees, up the stone steps, and across the grass. Then less than elegantly up the change in level that the Captain had swung her over with such ease, only to demonstrate how aroused he was.

The band fell silent as she staggered across the top lawn. The window smashers had given up for now, although she crunched over shards of glass near the back door.

Where was everyone going? Guests poured out of the big old house as though there’d been a bomb scare.

“Dinner’s on,” a swaying man in a black and white striped leotard, tights, and clownish face-paint yelled as she stopped uncertainly. He pulled her into the jostling throng.

Frankie barely had time to check her costume under the brighter lights of the house, but a quick glance showed her bodice looked respectable enough. Her shot-gold petals had been crumpled from the moment she’d put them on. She brushed at the short front of the skirt with her other hand, horribly conscious of her missing panties. God—what if anyone noticed? At least her wig and helmet felt secure.

The house was now in almost as much disarray as she was. Writing had been slashed all over the walls. Cartoons. Lewd drawings. And was that Peter Jackson’s signature? She got a brief glimpse of a boldly scrawled ‘Captain Cool was here’ on the paler piece of wall over the mantelpiece.

Of course he’d take the best spot.

Grimacing, she grabbed an abandoned pen and amended the ‘cool’ to ‘cold’, much to her tipsy new friend’s delight.

Some of the curtains had dropped onto the floor in shreds. Streamers of wallpaper hung like huge tendrils, stirring in the breeze from the open front door where the angel played traffic policeman.

She couldn’t ignore the roughly slashed drawing of the rose with its long, over-vicious thorns and the still visible ‘three’. Cold fury and hot humiliation rushed through her. The Captain wasn’t shy about expressing his opinions. The thorns looked sharp as knives. At least he didn’t know her real name…

How could he do that to her? How
could
he? And right where she’d be sure to see it. Outraged and embarrassed she swept along with the crowd—over the veranda, down the steps between the flaming braziers, under the up-lit trees, and around to the huge marquee.

“Enjoying yourself?” her unexpected companion demanded. His face-paint made him look rather like Ronald McDonald.

“Never had an evening like it before,” she admitted.

Well, wasn’t that the truth! And she never wanted an evening like it again.

“Great cause, great cause,” he enthused. Frankie nodded along because they were now at the entrance to the marquee, and the noise level had risen to thunderous. Through the babble of conversation the band played a languid Dire Straits number. Hot air gushed over her, and the smell of food became stronger.

A warm hand slid around her waist and yanked her sideways. Her feet left the ground and she cannoned into a hard body covered by a familiar costume.

“Is he really the best you can do, Rose?” a husky voice asked.

Her eyes snapped up to The Captain’s again. He’d levered her aside from the crowd and now had her trapped in a dark private space behind a stack of champagne crates.

“He’s more than twice your age,” he taunted. And when Frankie glanced over her shoulder she saw it wasn’t a young man’s body inside the tights and leotard.

“He’s my father,” she claimed, wincing only slightly at the lie.

“Like hell, darling. He’s as gay as they come, and nobody’s father.”
 

“Leave me alone,” she grated, struggling against him. She soon stopped when he showed every sign of enjoying her resistance.

The Captain lowered his head so his black eyes bored down into hers, but enough of his face was shaded by the pirate hat and hidden by the green mask that she still couldn’t be sure what he looked like. Especially not in such a dim corner.

“Ah, but that’s the trouble, Rose,” he whispered. “Maybe I don’t want to.”

CHAPTER FIVE

“You seemed keen enough to get away from me before.”

She hated how her voice sounded so aggrieved. Where had the confident mystery woman gone? And why did it feel too damn good being close to him again?

“My mistake. I’d like to know you better.”

“You’re right out of luck then.” She glared at him, wondering how he had the nerve to even suggest it.

“Playing hard to get, puss? Unsheathing your claws?” His quiet taunts enraged her, but as suddenly as he’d grabbed her he let her go and set her back on her feet.

“Bastard!” she hissed. “Pretending this is a fund-raising party so you can drag women out into the garden and have sex with them.”

“Sure about that, are you?”

To Frankie’s utter chagrin he wrapped one arm around her again, tipped her chin up with two fingers, and dropped a soft kiss on her trembling lips. She was horrified to find she had no resistance. That he tasted perfect. And smelled as good as he had out in the courtyard. She finally managed to thrust him away and struggle free, panting, knowing her breasts were rising and falling with each gasp—and that his eyes were all over them again.

“Later then,” he added.

It wasn’t an invitation.

“No,” she replied as coldly as possible, turning to escape from her temporary prison of champagne crates, and striding away as fast as the tall boots allowed.

Pretending
it was a fund-raising party?
Her scathing words cut him to the quick.

Jake thought of the inhuman timetable he’d set his men to ensure the house had been ready on time. The cost of the theatre lights and sundry other things he’d paid for and wouldn’t be claiming back. The risk of damage to the beautiful carved balustrade up the staircase. The work that had gone into leveling the parking area so these fat cats could see and be seen while they handed over money they could very easily afford.
 

Most of all, he thought of the pain and fear in the sick children’s eyes. Funds for research were desperately needed, and this had seemed an ideal way to contribute.
 

Much as he’d like some more action with the delectable Rose, he’d bet that small lingering kiss would be the last he’d get.

To Frankie’s intense relief she caught sight of Mike at one of the long buffet tables a few seconds later. She hurried up to him and linked her arm through his.

“Wondered where you’d got to,” he yelled over the noise. “Enjoying yourself?”

“It’s fantastic,” she lied.

“So’s the dinner.” He seemed to notice nothing amiss. “Try the far table—seafood by the mile. Bella’s going to be hopping mad she missed out.”