Beauty from Pain (34 page)

“
I guess that will work. It is
part of your last name. Is that why you chose it?”

“
I picked it because I wanted to
hear you say some semblance of who I really am.”

“
Do you always do
that?”

“
No, just with you.”

Damn. The conversation ends as we enter the
living room. I’d really like to know his rationale behind the
things he does. I’m hopeful that this conversation is only
postponed until a later time.

–––––

After spending the evening with the McLachlan family,
I’m in the bathroom getting ready for bed. I thought meeting them
would help me understand why Jack Henry is the way he is, but it
only makes things feel more out of sorts. They’re all so normal.
And loving. Theirs isn’t the kind of family I would expect for a
man who propositions women for meaningless sexual
relationships.

I search through my sleepwear, if that’s what
we’re calling it, and choose the least desirable thing I packed,
but who am I kidding? This is the same man I’ve been living with
for the past two months. He isn’t going to perceive a short, black
satin nightgown as anything but a prelude to sex.

I stop in the doorway of the bathroom before
entering his bedroom. “Are you sure it’s okay for us to sleep
together in your parents’ house? It doesn’t feel right.”

He’s lying shirtless in bed with his hands
folded behind his head. I sigh with pure pleasure as I behold the
sight of him. “Trust me. Mum would have it no other
way.”

I come to the bed but stop to run
my hand down the large post.
I love this
bed.

“
Are you going to give me a
private dance on one of these poles tonight?”

Even after all this time together, his
forwardness is shocking—he wants to get frisky in his childhood
home with his family across the hall? “No way, not in your parents’
house. It would be disrespectful.”

He gets out of bed and catches me before I
climb in. He reaches around me from behind and puts my hands around
the bedpost. He locks his hands on top of mine to hold them in
place so I can’t move. His breath is warm on the back of my neck
and chills erupt all over my body. He doesn’t play fair. “You’re
telling me no?”

“
I would be mortified if your
family heard us.”

His mouth is on my earlobe and he sucks it
into his mouth before nipping it with his teeth. “I don’t care. Let
them hear us.”

“
No.” It comes out more like a
weak plea than the stern command I intended.

He groans against my ear. “I don’t like it
when you tell me no.”

He’s whining but it’s adorable. “I know you
don’t hear it often, but ‘no’ can be a very good answer for you to
hear from time to time.”

“
Tell me one time when it’s
good.”

“
Okay.” I look at him over my
shoulder, “Ask me if I’m pregnant.”

His body becomes rigid before he backs away
from me. He releases my hands and I turn around to look at him.
“Ask me.”

“
Are you pregnant?” It comes out
as a whisper.

I lift a brow at him. “Do you want my answer
to be yes or no?”

I smile, waiting for him to catch on to the
point I’m making, but he stares blankly at me. “Are
you?”

I smile as I answer. “No. See? Perfect example
of when ‘no’ is exactly what you need to hear.”

He runs his hands through his dark hair and
fists it. “Don’t ever fuck with me like that, Laurelyn!” he yells.
“Never!”

I flinch, startled by the loud outburst I’m
certain his family must have heard. Shit, he’s mad—like, really
mad. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew I was only making a
point.”

I’m afraid I’ve screwed up big time. I feel
the pooling in my eyes and I look toward the ceiling, pleading with
my sockets to drink the tears. I hold my breath and cup my hands
over my mouth to hold back the sob in my chest.

In my confusion over what has just happened, I
go for the wrong door in an attempt to get away from him. “That’s
the closet.”

Shit if I care. I walk into the small
pitch-black room where Lachlan’s clothes hang and close the door
behind me. I’m sure there’s a light switch in here somewhere, but I
don’t try to find it. I’m too numb.

Several minutes pass and I hear a few light
taps on the door, but I don’t say anything. I need to absorb all
these emotions swirling around in my head right now. I try to put a
name to the shock I’m feeling, but there’s not a single word that
will fit. I’m hurt and belittled because he yelled at me and maybe
even a little frightened by the fury in his voice.

I’m sure his family heard the commotion and it
mortifies me to think of facing them. The worst part is the shame I
feel. How can I be sleeping with a man who would become so furious
by a possible pregnancy?

You know what? Fuck him.

I hear the light raps again. “I sort of know
you’re in there unless there’s a hidden passage to a dungeon I
don’t know about.” He’s trying to be humorous, but nothing in the
world could be funny to me right now.

He opens the door and comes inside to stand
with me in the dark. I feel him reach for me, but I step away. I
can’t bear the touch that once set me on fire because in this
moment, it only makes me feel cheap.

“
No.” And there it is again. The
word that started all of this. Now I hate it and don’t want to hear
it, either.

I’m mad as hell, but I can’t control the sob
in my chest. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“
Baby, please, don’t say that. I
need to explain.”

I’m overcome by the what-if. What if I got
pregnant? He’d hate me. “No. Every time we have sex, we risk making
a baby together even if we use birth control. Unplanned pregnancies
happen to real people every day. Look at me—I’m the result of one
and see how shitty that ended up for everyone involved.”

“
That’s not true,
Laurelyn.”

“
It is and I can’t do this
anymore. I won’t risk making a baby with someone who would react
the way you did just now. I couldn’t bear to ever see you look at
me like that again.”

I feel him reaching for me in the dark and I
try to push him away. His arms entwine me and he squeezes, almost
too tight. “I’m so sorry, Laurelyn. I thought you were playing a
trick on me about a baby because you thought it was funny. I
should’ve known that wasn’t what you were doing. I’m so sorry.” I
feel his hands move to my face. “I would never be angry because you
were pregnant.”

This conversation is too much for me. I don’t
want to talk about how a baby would make him feel because then I
might be forced to think about how it would make me feel. “Can we
agree that this was a misunderstanding and talk about something
else?” I ask.

He hugs me in the darkness and kisses my head.
“I think that’s a great idea, but can we leave the
closet?”

I laugh. “You know I thought I was going into
the bathroom, right?”

“
I know.”

We leave the closet and climb into
bed. I scoot close so I can put my head on his chest. I’m reeling
from tonight’s events. I told him I wanted to end things with him
and now, two seconds later, I’m curled around him like a kitten
desperate for his touch.
Yeah, I really
showed him who’s boss.

Was I really going to walk away from him? I
think I was, but there’s no use in speculating. He didn’t let me
go.

This game has changed. The rules are no longer
the same, but I don’t have the manual. He does, and I need guidance
on where to go from here.

He caresses my arm. “What are you thinking
about?”

I decide to go for it because I need to know
where his head is. “I’m wondering where we go from
here.”

His fingertips continue to glide up and down
my arm as he answers. “Tonight changed everything for us, didn’t
it?”

The word
change
seems like such an
understatement for what has happened between us. “Yeah, just a
little.”

“
If I’m being
honest with you, I don’t really know where we go from here. I don’t
know how to do this
new
us
.”

He has lines and I don’t dare cross them.
“What do you need from me to make this work?”

“
I think
the
new us
needs
to start with a first kiss.” He’s playful, not panicked, about this
new place we are venturing. This feels like my Lachlan Henry, only
better.

He sits up, rolling me to my back. His mouth
comes down on mine and he pushes his tongue inside. Every motion is
deliberate. He’s slow and gentle. This is a new kind of kiss for
the couple we are becoming.

When he stops kissing me, I search his face
and see a deep wrinkle across his brow. I’ve seen it before. It’s
only there when he’s in deep concentration about something, and it
frightens me. I’m afraid he’s thinking this isn’t going to work. Or
maybe he doesn’t want to try.

I reach up and place my thumb on top of the
contracted muscle to smooth it. “I only see this when you’re
thinking hard about something. What’s on your mind?”

I’m scared of what he’s going to say, but he
gives me a crooked grin and I’m relieved before the first word
leaves his mouth. “Say my name.”

I don’t know which one to go with. He hasn’t
asked me to call him anything but Lachlan and I don’t want to
overstep his boundaries. “Lachlan.”

He shakes his head as if to
say
tsk tsk, wrong answer.
“Say my real name.”

Oh.
“Jack.”

His face becomes serious. “Both of
them.”

My heart is pounding. This is huge, according
to his mother. He would only ask me to do this if he loved me.
“Jack Henry.”

He closes his eyes as though he’s savoring the
sound of it coming from my mouth. “Say it again,
Laurelyn.”

I hesitate and he opens his eyes to look at
me. That’s when I choose to say it again, at the moment his eyes
meet mine. “Jack Henry.”

He kisses me and I feel his mouth move into
the shape of a smile. “That’s who I am to you from now on. No more
Lachlan. No more pretending.”

40

Jack McLachlan

I’ve shut the door on Lachlan Henry forever. He
no longer exists. Only Jack Henry McLachlan resides here, and I
like it. For the first time in more than four years, it feels good
to be me with a woman. And not just any woman. Laurelyn.

“
Now that I know your real name,
which I think you’ll agree is the single-most important piece of
identifying information, do I get to know everything
else?”

She wants the rest of my story.

“
You know my name. You’ve met my
family. What else would you want to know?”

“
We’re as close as two people can
be, so I want to know everything.”

Things feel really good between us the way
they are. Am I ready to tell her more?

“
You don’t have to worry, Jack
Henry. I’m not going to stalk you the way Audrey does.”

I hear her say my name and I’m a goner. I’ll
tell her anything she wants to know. “I have a condo here in
Sydney. It’s home when I’m not traveling, which isn’t very often,
because I own too many vineyards to stay home for long.”

She takes a minute to process this
information. “You own them all?”

“
Yes.
A
valon is my latest
purchase.”

She wasn’t expecting that. “How many
total?”

“
Too damn many.”
And that was the truth. I was stretched too thin across New South
Wales and New Zealand. I was following in my father’s footsteps and
also making steps of my own. I shouldn’t have purchased
A
valon. I don’t have the
time it requires to make it successful, but I can’t regret it. It’s
what led me to Laurelyn.

“
So does that mean you’re
rich?”

“
Yes. I told you I was when we
met.”

“
You’ve told me a lot of things
but I’ve assumed most all of it lies.”

“
A lot of it has been, but it’s
all part of our game, baby.”

“
And now our game has
changed.”

Yes. Indeed, it has. In more than one
way.

I’m rubbing my hand over the satin gown
covering Laurelyn’s belly and I feel the metal piercing through her
navel. I really want to push her gown up and kiss her there, but I
don’t. She’s not comfortable being intimate in my parents’ house
and has already told me no once tonight. I don’t want an encore or
a reminder of our earlier quarrel.

Since we aren’t pretending anymore, I might as
well warn her about Margaret McLachlan and what she’s up to. “My
mum wants you here so she can work on you.”

“
Work on me? How?”