Summer Kisses (311 page)

Did she feel it too? It had sprung up out of nowhere with just a flick of her lashes.

“Find anything good?” he asked.

He nodded toward the DVDs, but her face flamed as if the question were loaded with double meanings.

“Some Pixar. We should be good on the plane.” She swallowed and he saw the resolve flicker in her eyes a moment before she spoke. “Jack, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you.”

She wet her lips again and he waited, letting the silence grow expectant.

“I love you.” The words rushed out on an exhale.

Jack nodded. “I love you too. I know I don’t say it much, but Miranda’s been all over me to be more upfront with my feelings.”

“Yeah, I know, but that isn’t what I—”

The intercom speaker above them crackled noisily to life. “Attention all staff. The Tanner-Doyle party will be departing for LAX in fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes. Thank you.”

He looked up at the speaker and when he looked down again, Lou had averted her eyes.

Jack straightened, only realizing how he’d been leaning down to her as he moved away. Lou wasn’t one of the Suitorettes. Lou was home and stability and friendship. One thing she could never be was temptation.

He shoved his hands into his pocket, recalling Miranda’s words from earlier and wondering if there was any truth in what she’d said.

Lou was his support system—both emotional and otherwise—that was true. But did he use her to avoid having to make connections with other people? Was she his shield against real emotion so he wouldn’t experience another loss like he had with Gillian? She was comfortable and safe—and at a safe distance.

Or at least she had been until yesterday. Now things seemed to be changing, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. She was dressing different, acting differently, and he didn’t know what to make of all the changes. Before the show had come into their lives, she was sweet, comfortable Lou. He didn’t know who this new version was.

But he knew he felt stripped raw and hyperaware around her. All the tension that had been in the room hadn’t dissipated, it had funneled into him, leaving him wound tight. He was on a hair trigger, but a hair trigger to what, he didn’t know.

“Why are you dressing like that?” he heard himself saying as he put space between them, the words a little too harsh. “It isn’t you.”

Lou’s face flushed with embarrassment. “I wanted to shake things up a little.”

He hated himself for embarrassing her, but that only seemed to make him angrier. “Aren’t things shaken up enough already?” Everything was changing, and he was realizing how badly he hadn’t wanted things to change. “You’re supposed to be my one constant. Though maybe Miranda is right and you shouldn’t be. Maybe I’m not open to love when you’re around.”

“I want you to be open to love with me,” she whispered.

His body reacted in an entirely inappropriate way to the soft vulnerability in the words, urging him to move forward, take her in his arms, see if her lips were as soft as he remembered. “Maybe you shouldn’t come next week.”

She sucked in a breath as if he’d hit her. “The kids want to come see you—”

“And they will,” he said with forced calm. “But there’s really no reason you have to be the one to accompany them. Especially if we’re both letting you undermine what I’m doing here. I’m not blaming you. It’s as much my fault as yours.”

“Who will look after the kids when you’re on your dates?”

“They have child-care people on staff.”

“And will those people care more about the kids or about how they can use them to boost the ratings of the show?”

He glowered at her. “This was Miranda’s idea. Miranda is
your
friend.”

“And she’s paid to make the show profitable. I know we want to trust her because we knew her in high school, but maybe you should be a little more cautious about doing whatever she tells you. Especially where the children are concerned.”

“I would never let them do anything to hurt the children. I can’t believe you would think that of me.”

“I know you wouldn’t on purpose, but they’re filming you the entire time you’re with them and you don’t know how they are going to use that footage or what kind of ripples this might have for them. Emma and TJ didn’t sign up to be exploited on national television. You did that for them.”

“They aren’t being exploited.” Icy anger ran through his veins. “They’re barely going to be on the final program. I hardly see how a few shots of us playing together are going to emotionally scar them.”

“You can’t control what ends up on the final program. You don’t know what may be said or done. You aren’t in charge here, Jack. No matter how much Miranda and her minions might try to convince you that you have all the power. You’re just a puppet with a pretty face.”

He jerked a hand through his hair. “Wow. It’s nice to know you think so highly of me.”

“It isn’t what I think of you. It’s the show. This isn’t about love or family or happy endings to Miranda. Frankly, I doubt very much it’s about love for ninety-nine percent of the people involved. It’s propaganda and emotional manipulation. They throw you into romantic situations and toss you off bridges to build a false sense of intimacy. It’s all contrived. They are
using
you, Jack, which is your call, so if you want to be used, that’s
fine.
But how can you let them use the kids?”

“That isn’t really your call, is it?” Jack snapped. “You may not agree with my choice to allow them to be part of this experience, but they’re my kids. It’s my decision, not yours.”

The word were out before he had any awareness that he was going to say them and then it was too late to take them back. Lou paled, her pale blue eyes filling with tears that didn’t fall as she looked at him with equal parts anger and hurt.

“You asshole,” she whispered, snatching up the DVDs and starting to push past him.

“Lou.” His hand shot out of its own accord, catching her upper arm.

“Don’t touch me.”

“There you are!” Miranda’s voice sliced through whatever Jack would have said to fuck up the situation even more. Her eyes flicked between the two of them, her brow wrinkling in concern. “Everything okay in here? We’ve got to get Lou and the kids off to the airport or they’re going to miss their flight.”

“Everything’s fine,” Lou said, pulling at her arm in his grip. With Miranda watching, he forced himself to release her.

Miranda beamed as if the room wasn’t crackling with wild surges of tension. “Chop, chop, you two. Planes wait for no man.” She spun on her heel and marched out, calling out “I’ve found them!” to the rest of the house.

Lou was out of reach and through the door before Jack could do more than call after her. He cursed to himself and slapped on a smile for the kids, acting like everything was okay. Acting like he still had the first idea who he was and what he was doing here.

Lou sat in the limo, arms wrapped around her middle to hold the pieces of herself together as the children pushed their faces out of the open window and shouted Goodbyes and I-love-yous to their father, as if sheer volume equated to sincerity.

She’d managed not to cry in front of the kids so far and she wasn’t going to start now. Even if Jack had said the one thing she’d thought he would never say. Even if he’d made her feel like an uninvited guest in her own life.

He hadn’t apologized. Admittedly, she’d used the children as human shields to keep him at bay, never letting him close enough to say another private word to her, but it still stung that he’d let her leave with those words hanging between them.

His kids
. She wasn’t the mother. She had no say.

Lou swallowed hard.

It didn’t matter. She was okay. She was fine. She just needed to get a grip. She couldn’t cry in front of the kids. She just had to hold it together through a limo ride, airport security, a four hour plane ride, and the forty minute drive from the airport to the house. Then she could break down.

No problem.

Thank God for Pixar. Lou didn’t know how she’d remembered to pick up the DVDs she’d set aside when she stormed out of the screening room, but she was glad she had when both kids were whining and resisting sleep on the flight. She got out the portable DVD player, popped in
The Incredibles
, gave them each a pair of headphones and fifteen minutes later they were both out.

She forced herself to wait another five minutes to sneak off to the airplane bathroom. Some turbulence bounced the plane a little as she was walking down the aisle and she looked back to make sure the kids were both still asleep before going the rest of the way.

She wrapped her arms around herself in the aisle, waiting for the Vacancy light to change color, so she could have five minutes of her own for a nervous breakdown. When the lock finally clicked back, she went through the excuse-me dance in the tight aisle, do-si-do-ing around the other passenger to get to the cramped bathroom.

She almost didn’t trust her reflection in the mirror.

Even her make-up was still in place. No one would know the love of her life had just destroyed her as only he could.

She closed her eyes—but those unfair Paul Newman blue eyes filled her mind’s eye, dark with anger, so she quickly opened them again.

Her gaze caught on the new haircut and low scoop of her top. She still looked good—for all her emotional turmoil—maybe even a little sexy.

For all the good it had done her.

Things between her and Jack were worse after her attempt at a vixen makeover. So much for seduction.

Who was she kidding? A mouse in vixen’s clothing was still depressingly mousey. A new haircut and new clothes didn’t make her brave. They just made her desperate.

Though there had been a moment in the screening room when she was sure the lure-him-to-love plan was working. For a minute there she had been convinced he was going to kiss her. She’d told him she loved him, come so close to explaining that it was more than just friend-love…

Then the intercom had broken the spell.

The fates were aligned against her.

And Lou wanted to maim the faceless intercom operator.

Everything had fallen apart from there. She’d wanted to confess her love and whisk him away from the show before he got sucked in any deeper with the Suitorettes, before they brainwashed him into love. But it wasn’t meant to be. All of her frustration had welled up and she’d said things she probably shouldn’t have and he’d said things she’d never be able to unhear.

And now she’d be gone all week. An entire week for the Suitorettes next door to work their wiles on him. And he was hardly going to be resisting their efforts.

And she wasn’t even sure she wanted him to be.

The way he’d spoken to her… he wasn’t her Jack anymore. If he ever had been. Perhaps she had been as bad as Missy, falling in love with a construct of her imagination, building the perfect man out of her dreams and pasting his image over Jack.

Maybe this was all for the best.

But why did
for the best
have to hurt so much?

~~~

Jack’s anger lasted until about five minutes after the limo had left with Lou and the kids in it. As soon as he simmered down, he immediately started regretting the words he’d thrown at her. By the time he was half-dressed for his romantic evening out, he was calling himself seven different kinds of scumbag idiot.

He knew Lou, knew the best way to hurt her, and had gone for the throat in a knee-jerk reflex. The week’s stresses had piled up on him. He’d been defensive and stressed out since he got to LA. Lou’s visit was supposed to make him feel better, but it had only made him feel more off-kilter. More confused. She’d been so
different
and he’d felt even more twisted and tangled than ever.

Then when Lou—the one person he could always count on to support him—attacked his choices, he’d lashed out without thinking. It was no excuse, but it was all the explanation he had.

He needed to call Lou. He needed to apologize. But by now she’d be at the airport, juggling the kids’ carry-ons through security. She may have already turned off her cell. He wouldn’t be able to grovel for at least four more hours, so he might as well suffer through date night with as much appearance of pleasure as he could muster.

Jack groaned as he knotted his tie. The last thing he wanted to do was spend the evening smiling for the cameras and wooing at the symphony.

Marcy was easy to be with and Missy was sweet, in an overeager puppy kind of way, but the person he needed to be with right now was Lou. He needed to set things straight between them before the poisonous words he’d said could hurt her any more than they already had.

“Jack?” Miranda’s voice cut through the door. “We’re ready for you, darling. I’ve got two gorgeous women and a private box at the symphony with your name on it.”

Jack cringed. His name was also all over the contracts requiring him to play along or else he would have told Miranda where she could shove that private box. “I’m on my way.”

The symphony was everything he thought it would be. Boring and boring, with a side of extreme boredom.

Sweet, curly-haired Missy perched on the edge of her seat, as if that would help her receive the music better, with her eyes closed and her head swaying slightly with the dips and swells of the song.

He glanced to his other side. Marcy leaned back in her chair, a small, amused smile curving her lips and her eyes locked on him. Also brunette, her hair was slightly lighter, slightly longer, and not as curly as it tumbled over shoulders left bare by her dress. “Having fun?” she whispered, with a sarcastic lift of one eyebrow. Her eyes twinkled like his boredom was a fabulous secret they shared.

Jack gave her a half-hearted grin—which was about all the enthusiasm he could muster. “Are you?”

Marcy tipped her head to one side, considering the question. “I am entertained,” she admitted. “Though the musicians can’t claim full responsibility for that. You, Mr. Perfect, are fascinating.”

She didn’t say it the way the other girls did—gushing with manufactured adoration. She sounded more like he was a puzzle she hadn’t quite worked out yet. No love or hate—real or fake—clouded her tone. Just curiosity.