Tilly Bagshawe 3-book Bundle: Scandalous, Fame, Friends and Rivals. Tilly Bagshawe
him like an ineffectual Florence Nightingale, murmuring ‘poor baby’ over and over and stroking his hair. Eventually Jackson turned on her. ‘Look, Candice, I’m not in the mood, all right? Let’s just call it a night.’ Instantly the girl’s face soured.
‘Fine by me, dickhead. You probably do have crabs, anyway.’ She turned on her heel and stormed out.
‘Will you be OK, ma’am?’ the security guard asked Lottie, eyeing Jackson warily. He knew that the two of them were in the Mountain View Suite, and was not at all sure of the wisdom of leaving them alone together there. ‘If you like I’d be happy to accompany you back to your room. Just till things cool down.’
‘I’m fine, thank you.’ Lottie glared at Jackson. She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of thinking she was afraid of him. ‘I’ll call if I need anything.’
Jackson and Lottie rode the elevator up to the fourth floor in total silence. The silence continued on the long walk down the corridor to their room, and was only broken once they got inside and Jackson unwisely asked Lottie if she would like to use the bathroom first.
‘Don’t speak to me! Don’t even look at me! You are a total, total jerk.’
‘Why? Because I told you the truth?’ Jackson shot back. ‘You were drunk and you were making an idiot of yourself. I know Francis O’Donnell a lot better than you do, and I’m telling you, he was trying to take advantage of you.’
‘My God. Where do you get off ?’ Lottie didn’t think she’d ever been so angry in her life. ‘You of all people, judging someone else’s sexual behaviour? Their morality? If it weren’t so outrageous it’d be funny. No one was “ taking advantage ” of me. I was with Francis because I wanted to be. Because I was attracted to him.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ said Jackson bluntly.
‘Why? Because he isn’t on the New York Times’s Hottest Bachelor List? Get over yourself, Jackson. The rest of us have.’
Stung, Jackson backed away. He knew he’d behaved like a moron this evening, insulting Lottie and getting on his high moral horse with Francis. But seeing Lottie like that, with her punk hair and sexy, tight black jeans, sprawled out on the floor … it had shaken him. Lottie was the good girl. Pure. Innocent. Some unnamed part of him needed her to stay that way. Certainly the thought of Francis O’Donnell’s hands wandering over her naked body was more than Jackson’s rational brain had been able to handle.
‘I realize this may not compute for you, Jackson, but there are other qualities, apart from looks, that women can find attractive. Qualities that Francis has in spades, like decency and a sense of humour. Not to mention good manners. How dare you leave us all stranded at dinner like that? How dare you leave me stranded? Don’t you care how rude you are?’
‘OK, OK, give it a rest, would you?’ he grumbled. ‘You’re starting to sound like Sasha.’
‘Good,’ said Lottie. ‘You know, I’ve always defended you to Sasha. I’ve always said you weren’t as black as she paints you. But I guess I was wrong.’
‘Oh really? So you hate me now too, do you?’ Instinctively, without thinking, Jackson grabbed Lottie and kissed her. It was so unexpected, her brain found it hard to make the switch from anger to pleasure. Certainly it was nothing like the kiss that she’d dreamed of every night for the last four years, since the day she started work at Wrexall. When he finally released her, Lottie burst into tears, overwhelmed with emotion.
‘Oh, God, don’t. Please don’t cry,’ said Jackson, hugging her. ‘I’m an ass, I’m a giant ass. I was jealous and I … I didn’t handle it very well.’
‘Jealous?’ Lottie dried her tears. ‘I thought you weren’t attracted to me.’
Jackson gave her a rueful smile. ‘I’m a sighted, adult male, Lottie. In what possible alternate universe would I not be attracted to you?’
‘Then why do you keep ignoring me?’ sniffed Lottie. ‘At work. Even here, this whole trip, you’ve looked right through me. I feel like a ghost around you.’
He kissed her again, more gently this time, his fingers lightly brushing the back of her neck as his lips pressed against hers. Suddenly Lottie wanted him more than ever. But then, just as suddenly, he stopped.
‘You’re not a ghost. I see you, Lottie. You don’t need to do shit like this,’ he touched her hair, ‘to get my attention.’ Lottie blushed but did not deny it. ‘You have my attention. But you also have my respect. My friendship. I don’t want to ruin that.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ Lottie began, but Jackson cut her off.
‘I would. You know, Sasha is right about me, on one level anyway. I’m not exactly the steady boyfriend type. I admire it in others, you know? My parents have been married forty years. But I think it’s important to know your own limits. I’d make a lousy husband, Lottie. And with you, I wouldn’t want to be anything less than perfect.’
Lottie stared at him, not sure whether to feel happy or sad. Jackson cared about her. Maybe even loved her. Move a few words around and that could have been a proposal. But they weren’t going to be together. ‘So what happens now?’ she said glumly. ‘I mean, what happens tomorrow? Do we just forget any of this ever happened?’
‘Yes,’ Jackson kissed her cheek. ‘I think that’s exactly what we do.’
‘You’ll have to apologize to Francis.’
That brought Jackson up short. ‘Apologize? Uh uh, no way. I’m not apologizing. I never apologize.’
‘Yes you are.’ The shock of the last hour’s events had sobered Lottie up completely. ‘And you can prove you mean it by bringing him in to the new resort team.’ Jackson opened his mouth to protest but Lottie stopped him. ‘You owe me one, Jackson. In fact you owe me about twelve. If it weren’t for me we’d still be stuck in never-ending planning and you know it. I want Francis on the team.’ Her cute, pixie-like chin jutted forward defiantly as she drew herself up to her full five feet one inch. Jackson wondered how anyone ever refused her anything.
‘Fine,’ he said grumpily. ‘You can have Francis stupid O’Donnell. But I want something in return.’
Lottie felt hope surge up within her. ‘You do?’ she trembled.
‘Yes. I want you to keep Sasha Miller off my back and as far away from this project as humanly possible.’
Lottie flew back to New York the following evening. After everything that had happened, it felt too awkward to stay. Jackson stayed on in Utah for four more days. Officially he was tied up in a whirlwind of on-site meetings. Unofficially, he was taking his old friend Piers Dellal up on his ski-bunnies offer, ricocheting from party to party and bed to bed like a sex-crazed boomerang. By the time he’d worked off his sexual frustration over Lottie sufficiently to catch a plane home, it was Friday afternoon. He’d called a special meeting of the board, to discuss his triumphant new hotel deal, and stepped off the plane feeling more energized and alive than he had in months.
The feeling didn’t last.
Jackson’s first thought, on walking into Wrexall Dupree’s offices, was that there must have been a fire. That or some sort of terror attack. On the street outside, crowds of people were milling around. On close inspection Jackson saw that well over half of them were press. When they saw him, they turned as one like a swarm of bees, jabbing microphones and cameras in his face and shouting questions that made no sense to him.
‘What will the repercussions be for the new firm?’
‘Will Wrexall do business with them?’
‘Lucius Monroe this afternoon called the poaching of your clients “ theft ” . Do you agree with that? Will you be making a statement?’
Pushing past the reporters into the lobby,