Falling for the Guy Next Door (16 page)

“She actually
came in the ducal carriage?”

“Reality
calling.” Finn flicked her lightly on the temple. “They drove down
in one mean mother of a Bentley.”

“She does own
a ducal carriage.” Megan protested.

“Don’t remind
me,” Finn groaned, then turned to Jack. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be
around for the opening. Glad you could make it.”

“Same here,”
Jack said. “This place looks impressive.”

“You should
see the Hydra Tanks.” Finn’s broad smile filled with pride. “I’ll
take you on a quick tour, if you like?”

Jack set his
glass on the counter. “I just need to take a leak first.”

Megan folded
her arms, giving him a loaded look at his double standards. If she
were a lesser woman, she’d demand he first finish the drink he’d
insisted on. He missed her look completely, however, as Finn
pointed him toward the amenities. And the more space they kept
between them today, she reminded herself, the better.

Finn rested
his elbows on the bar counter behind, his gaze roaming over the
room.

“Jack’s
right,” she said. “What you’ve achieved here is pretty impressive.
Congratulations, Finn.”

He dipped a
smile at her, and once again she sensed the underling strain there.
She put it down to the stress he’d been working under, but then he
tilted his head away from her and his jaw clenched. “What does she
see in him?”

He was looking
at Isobel and Ian.

Megan
considered the couple. Ian was from London and she’d only met him a
couple of times. She could only comment on what she saw and the
little she knew. “Good looking, charming and rich?”

“His chin is
weak,” Finn remarked mildly, as if he were talking about the
weather. “And I don’t trust charm, always makes me wonder what
they’re covering up behind all that slick talking.”

“Okay.” She
drew the word out, giving him a puzzled look.

“And he’s a
bloody banker,” Finn went on in a brooding tone. “He might have
money now, but odds are he won’t hold onto it for very long.”

“Down, mama
hen,” she said as understanding dawned. He’d never stirred himself
much over the other men Isobel had dated, but then she hadn’t been
about to marry any of them. “Your chick is all grown up and ready
to fly the coop.”

He raised a
brow at her. “What does that mean?”

“You’ve always
been fiercely protective of Izzy,” she sighed.

“You don’t
think she’s rushing into this?” he demanded. “How long have they
known each other? Six months?”

“Fine, you
make a valid argument.” She put a comforting hand on his arm.
“There’s not much you can do about it, Finn.”

“Maybe it
would be best if the dragon gets her way.” His gaze found the tall
figure of Isobel’s grandmother. “If Izzy gets married up in Sussex,
at least I won’t have to watch.”

“Don’t fool
yourself,” she said gently. “Wherever Izzy gets married, you’ll be
there.”

Of course, it
wasn’t just Isobel getting married. It was Isobel moving away to
London. Starting a new life that might possibly involve Finn less
and less. Megan tried to think of what more she could say, but then
Jack was weaving his way back to them and her stomach clenched.
There was nothing to say. No words to console when someone moved on
and left you behind.

Lady Henrietta
looked their way, her haughty gaze skimming over Megan and stopping
on Finn. She raised her hand.

“I’m being
summoned,” Finn muttered and gave Jack a grimace as he joined them.
“Want to come meet Lady Harry?”

“Lady
Harry?”

“Lady
Henrietta is such a bloody mouth full.”

Megan swatted
Finn on the arm and rolled her eyes at Jack. “He’d never call her
that to her face.”

“Damn right I
wouldn’t.” Finn grunted. “Not unless I wanted my liver diced and
sliced and fed to her prize Corgis.”

“Charming as
she sounds,” Jack said, “I think I’ll pass.”

“She’s
perfectly harmless and Finn needs you there.” Megan prodded him in
the back, finally finding something to grin about today.

“As soon as
you see a gap,” Finn told Jack as he led the way, “mention the
Hydra Tanks. That’ll be my cue to…” His instructions faded into the
general chatter.

Jack glanced
at her over his shoulder with a pained expression. She shrugged,
waving him on. His gaze held hers and even across the room, she
felt the warmth and responded to the familiar intensity of that
gaze that always singled her out, wherever they were, whatever they
were doing. Pure pleasure rippled through her before she could stop
it, softening her mouth, softening her own expression. She snapped
her gaze from the magnetic force, but the pull remained, tugging
heavy at her heart.

“What was
that?” Kate’s voice at her ear was a whispered hiss of
excitement.

Megan froze
for a split second, then put on a solid smile and whirled her stool
about. “What was what?” she asked, puzzling her brow for added
effect.

“Seriously?”
Kate snorted. She pulled back, shaking her head when Megan didn’t
bite. “The hand grazing? Eye trailing? Ringing any bells yet?”

Megan hated
lying outright to her friend, but she was desperate. “I have no
idea what you’re talking about.”

Kate clasped a
hand over her mouth, her eyes rounded wide. She leaned in again.
“You are so doing it.” She removed her hand to reveal a beaming
smile. “About bloody time.”

“Shhh.” Megan
slid from the stool and tugged Kate along the length of the bar and
through the first door they came to. It led to a narrow foyer with
a double-volume arched ceiling made of tinted glass and three
further doors opening in different directions.

Kate didn’t
wait for them to reach any of the inner doors. She dug her heels in
on the tiled floor and grinned. “This is so freaking
fantastic.”

Megan sucked
in a lungful of air. Kate had the nose of a bloodhound and once she
thought she was onto something, she never let go. “Okay, but we are
not doing it. It was only the once,” she said.

“I knew it.”
Kate punched a fist into the air. Then her elation ebbed. “What do
you mean, only once? Have you lost your mind?” She grabbed Megan’s
hands in hers and gave her a look that was unrelenting to the point
of hardness. “I’ve watched this brewing between the two of you for
years and now it’s finally broken. That deserves a little more than
one night!”

“You told me
to jump into bed with Jack and get him out of my system,” Megan
said. “I did it.”

“What I meant
was: jump into bed with him and make yourself comfortable.”

Megan slid her
hands free and wrapped her arms around her body. She glared at
Kate. “Now you’ve lost your mind.”

“Have I?” Kate
pushed her hands through her hair, looking frustrated enough to
tear it out. “This is Jack. You’re a fool if you honestly think you
can wash him out that quickly.” Her voice was as tender as her
words were harsh.

“This is Jack.
He blows in and out and Corkscrew Bay’s no different from the
hundreds of other places he’s left and never returned to.”

“He doesn’t
seem to be blowing anywhere in a hurry.”

“Give it a day
or two.”

Kate’s brow
creased. “What if you’re wrong?”

She couldn’t
afford to think that way, because, “What if I’m right?”

“So, you’re
not even prepared to fight?”

The air
expelled from Megan’s chest, leaving a cavity that felt like the
size of a crater. For Kate, there was no obstacle that couldn’t be
overcome. The only thing that stood between wanting and having was
the length and breadth of the fight to cross that bridge. But Megan
couldn’t fight this fight. That would mean hope, and hope festered
into rungs of expectations, urging one to climb to the very top…and
when she reached the top, Jack would still leave.

She tilted her
chin at Kate and said in her sternest voice, “There’s nothing to
fight for.”

“Bullshit.”

“Fine! But
Jack never sticks around and that’s a fact.”

“Facts are
fluid.”

Megan’s mouth
dropped. Even for Kate, this was a little too dog-headed. “Your
brain is fluid.”

“One fact,”
Kate said. “Come on, give me one set-in-stone fact.”

Megan rolled
her eyes and said the first thing that popped into her head. “The
sky is blue.”

“Until a
blanket of thunder clouds turns it black,” Kate whipped back. “Or
until the sun sets and blazes pinks and oranges across the
horizon.”

“Very clever,”
Megan snorted.

“I’m not
trying to be clever, Megs, I’m trying to show you that under a
certain set of conditions, anything can change.”

“Except Jack
and I have already been here,” Megan said softly. “Earlier this
year… January. We spent one night together and he left.”

“Bastard.”

Megan merely
raised a brow. Enough said.

Clearly not.
Kate shook her head and dropped her gaze. “You never told me?”

Megan knew she
was merely processing the new information and not upset. They’d
been best friends since pre-school. With that kind of longevity and
in a town this size, they’d both learned the importance of claiming
a little private space for themselves now and again.

“You would
have chased his ass around the globe,” Megan said, “and hauled it
back to stand trial for his crimes.”

“You bet.”
Kate’s eyes came up with a blue sparkle.

“There was
never any crime. Jack is thirty-one and he’s never settled down.
That’s not going to change and I knew that before I jumped into bed
with him, then and now.”

“Okay.” She
stared at Megan for a couple of heartbeats, then shrugged. “But
it’s not as if you have to be in Cornwall to write. What’s to stop
you from travelling the world with him?”

“Maybe the
fact that he hasn’t asked?”

“We’ve already
established that facts are fluid.”

Megan gave her
a wan smile. It wasn’t as simple as packing a bag and hopping onto
Jack’s merry-go-round. She’d discovered firsthand that it wasn’t
places, towns and countries Jack was running from; it was from
people, attachments and commitment. Everything she’d seen and
learnt about Jack in the last two years, and the little she’d
picked up from Frank’s scarce conversations, reinforced her mind.
But she wouldn’t confide that in Kate. It seemed too intimate, too
much like baring Jack to the bone.

What she did
tell Kate, however, was another truth. “I’d love to travel
extensively.” Even more so with Jack at her side. “But I can’t do
it the way Jack does. I want to visit places, not live the rest of
my life amongst strangers. So even if he did ask—” which he
wouldn’t “—we’re just not suited.”

Her little
speech, however, didn’t deter Kate. “I’ve read every story,
starting at grade school, that you’ve ever written and—” She put a
hand up to stop the protest forming on Megan’s lips. “Yes, fiction,
I know, but I also know you back to front and there are pieces of
you thrown into every word you write.” She dropped her hand and
grimaced. “I just thought, between you and me and Isobel and, hell,
even Finn… I always thought you’d be the one to risk everything for
love.”

Love? She’d
already crossed the halfway mark to loving Jack. If she lowered any
more barriers, there’d be nothing to stop her tumbling into a free
fall with no return. “Obviously, you were wrong.”

“What are you
waiting for? A rock-solid guarantee?”

“Of course
not,” Megan scoffed. “I’m not waiting at all.”

But now that
the suggestion was out there, she couldn’t shut it down completely.
Was that what she was doing? Jack was still here, wasn’t he? He
hadn’t scampered in the night. She wasn’t blind. Jack cared for
her, she knew that much. She didn’t need a declaration from him to
know what she saw in his eyes, what she read between his words,
what she felt when wrapped in the warmth of his undivided
attention. So, he hadn’t made any promises. She knew he wouldn’t
stick around much longer. But what if…?

“You’re
right.” Kate huffed an impatient sigh. “You’re not waiting, you’re
stagnating. It took you and Jack a year to get to your first kiss.
We’ll all be on retirement before you take the next logical
step.”

A shiver
bristled along Megan’s spine. Not because of her friend’s
interference, but because the next logical step was Jack stepping
out of her life. “You mean well, Kate, but Jack and I have never
fit a regular relationship pattern.”

“And you’ll
never know if you could create a brand new pattern because you’re
not prepared to see how far that can take you, maybe all the way
into forever?” The way Kate spoke, Megan had nothing to lose.

Megan closed
her eyes for a moment on Kate’s fantasy, the one where everything
you ever wanted was only an arm’s length away. She gave it a
delicious minute, then opened her eyes on reality. How could she
contemplate anything with a man when she didn’t even trust him to
stay past the morning?

Jack stood
chatting with Isobel and a cluster of people whose names he
couldn’t remember. There was a lord and two ladies thrown in there
somewhere, so he assumed at least some of them were family imported
for Lady Henrietta’s cause. The Duchess had railroaded Finn for a
good half hour before they’d made their escape. The tour of Finn’s
aqua spa was impressive, but Jack hadn’t been able to give it the
attention it deserved. Just as he couldn’t concentrate on the
conversations winging around the circle he stood in.

He couldn’t
keep his eyes off Megan. Couldn’t keep his thoughts off what had
gone so wrong. Damn it all. He’d seen her gaze soften on him from
across the room when he’d walked off with Finn. He knew what desire
looked like.

This was
ridiculous.

He excused
himself from the group and made his way to Megan’s side. Their
gazes collided before he reached her and the connection lit her
eyes and warmed her smile. For the seconds before she shut it off
at the source.