Wait for Me, page 6
part #3 of The Outback Bachelor Ball Series
The bedroom was empty, however. Jonah’s wallet had been placed neatly on the bedside table, and her shoes sat side by side just inside the door. She sat on the end of the bed to tug on her boots, then stood and smoothed her hands down the skirt of her dress.
Just be matter of fact. It was sex, no big deal. No one got hurt. You both had a good time. It doesn’t have to be a major event.
Chin high, she made her way into the hallway. Jonah was extracting a fancy-looking bottle from a presentation box when she entered the living space. His hair was wet, she noticed, and she guessed there must be a second bathroom in the villa.
One look at his carefully schooled face undid all her good intentions.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted. “That was really… I’m really sorry if that was a bit out of nowhere for you.”
She almost closed her eyes with relief when Jonah’s mouth curved into a faint smile.
“In case you didn’t notice, I had a good time,” he said.
“Even though I ambushed you? Even though this was supposed to just be a pity drink?”
He frowned. “The last thing I feel for you is pity, Beth.”
He said it so unequivocally, so firmly she couldn’t help but believe him.
“Oh. Well…good. I’d hate to think I’d imposed on you.”
“Plenty of people would argue it was the other way around. That I took advantage of you.”
He was watching her carefully, waiting for her reaction.
“Because I’m vulnerable right now?” Beth said, her lip curling with contempt. Her lawyer had used the V-word so many times she’d learned to hate the sound of it.
“Or something like that.”
“I jumped you. You have nothing to feel guilty about.”
“Guilt isn’t at the top of my list where you’re concerned, either,” he said.
She opened her mouth to ask what was, then she remembered the heated, carnal look she’d caught in the reflective window and decided that maybe it would be better not to know. This situation was already complicated enough already.
“Anyway. I should probably call a cab and head back to my friends,” Beth said, even though the chances of her finding either Jen or Ellie in the crowd at the ball were slim to none.
“You don’t have to call a cab. I told you I’d take you.”
“But you’re all settled in here now,” she said, her gesture taking in his damp hair and bare feet. “And a cab is easy.”
“I’ll drive you, if that’s what you want,” Jonah said, and the unequivocal firmness was back. “Or you can stay here with me and drink this tequila and we can talk.”
She stared at the toffee colored liquid in the elaborately shaped bottle in his hand.
“Thanks, but I should probably go,” she said.
“All right.” He set down the bottle. “I just thought it might give you an excuse to say some of the things you’ve been hanging onto.”
She blinked, stunned by his insight. Because, yes, there was a world of things she hadn’t shared with her friends. A galaxy of thoughts she’d had, thoughts that were too ugly to say out loud. Thoughts she was too scared to acknowledge even to herself.
“I bet you haven’t even allowed yourself to be angry yet,” he said.
“I’ve been plenty angry, but not at Troy. He’s not the idiot who let this happen. That’s all on me. All of it.” The words seemed to burst out of her, vivid and unvarnished, a declaration straight from her gut.
Jonah nodded as though she’d confirmed something he’d suspected. Reaching for one of the shot glasses lined up on the sideboard, he pulled the cut-glass stopper on the bottle and poured a hefty slug.
“Good. That’s a start,” he said, then he crossed to her and offered her the glass.
She stared at him, recognizing the challenge in his eyes, the question. Then she looked at the tequila, taking in how dark and potent it looked.
“Screw it.”
She took the glass and knocked back the shot in one fiery, gut-burning swallow.
“Hit me again,” she said when she’d finished gasping and wiping the tears from her eyes.
Without saying a word, Jonah went to grab the bottle.
Chapter Five
Jonah watched as Beth threw back her second shot. He’d had plenty of Casa Herradua Seleccion Suprema tequila in his time, and he knew exactly how hard-core it was, how much destruction it left in its wake, but she barely flinched this time around.
“You know it’s not your fault, what happened,” he said.
He filled the glass again, but this time he was the one who swallowed a ball of fire.
“How is it not my fault?” Beth asked, all pretense at calm falling away now that she’d accepted his unspoken challenge. “Sure, I didn’t know who he was when I married him, but as you know, I found out pretty damn quickly. And I stayed for another three years. If that doesn’t make me the dumbest bunny under the sun, I don’t know what does.”
She took the tequila bottle from his hand and poured another shot into the glass he was still holding. Then she plucked the glass from his hand and drank.
“Did you know he was screwing all those women? Did you give him a free pass? Did he tell you feeble lies and you convinced yourself to believe him?” he asked.
“No, but it doesn’t matter. He was a great liar. The best. He lied to me, our friends, the press… But I could have pushed, if I’d wanted to. I could have been more suspicious, more vigilant. But I made a deliberate choice not to be like that, because the really important thing was to save the marriage, to not be like my parents, and I knew that wasn’t going to happen if I didn’t trust him.” She glared at him¸ her cheeks pink with rage. “Can you believe that? I’d invested so much of myself in him and our relationship. I’d left my career behind, my friends. I’d put all my eggs in one basket, and I wanted it to work so badly I was prepared to ignore the warning signs and hang in there like a good little girl.”
She was trembling with the force of her emotions, and he placed a hand on her back and guided her to the couch. He waited until she was sitting before pouring her another shot then grabbing a second glass.
“Doing your damnedest to make your marriage work doesn’t mean you painted a target on your back. Every shitty thing Troy did is on him, not you,” he said.
Beth hissed as she downed her tequila, then shook her head.
“If I’d had even a shred of common sense, I would have pushed harder that first time. I would have hunted that woman down and looked her in the eye and listened to what she had to say and made my own decision. But I didn’t. I chose to believe Troy, who had every reason to lie to me, and I got exactly what I deserved.”
“That’s bullshit, Beth. I was there. I saw how easily he lied to you — as easily as breathing. He’s a complete asshole,” Jonah said. “Not to mention entitled as hell and one of the shittiest guitar players I’ve ever heard.”
It felt good to say it. Those words had been sitting behind his teeth for three years.
“Ha!” Beth started to laugh, then clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle what she clearly considered to be inappropriate glee.
He leaned over and pulled her hand away. “No judgment here, babe,” he said. “No medals for good behavior, either.”
Beth held his gaze for a beat, then she nodded a couple of times as if absorbing the rules of engagement. “Okay. Good to know.”
He lifted his shot glass. “What happens in Dubbo stays in Dubbo,” he said before swallowing more tequila.
When his eyes finished watering, he realized she was studying him.
“Do you really not care about what happened before?” She gestured with her chin toward the bedrooms.
He regarded her for a moment, tempted to tell her exactly how long he’d been waiting to get his hands on her body, how many nights he’d lain away thinking about her. But she didn’t need another burden to add to the load she was already carrying.
“You heard the bit where I said I had a good time, yeah?” he said.
“You seemed kind of surprised when I jumped you.”
“Did I? That must have been because I was busy thanking the universe.”
She huffed out a little laugh.
“Tell me about your parents,” he said, because his gut told him there was a whole galaxy of emotion centered on that part of her life.
“You don’t want to hear about them. And I don’t want to talk about them or think about them.”
She flopped back onto the cushions, her body loose from the tequila. The neckline of her dress gaped, revealing her lacy, pale pink bra, and he registered a pang that he’d never gotten around to taking her bra off. For years it had been a particular and very vivid fantasy of his to discover what color her nipples were. Now his chance had been and gone and he’d been too busy racing toward the finish line to stop and savor the journey.
He dragged his mind out of his pants and forced himself to concentrate on what she’d just said. She wasn't the only one feeling the effects of all that tequila.
“What are they like? What do they do?” he asked.
“Apart from being complete monsters, you mean?” she said.
“Yeah, apart from that.”
“They’re both lawyers. They used to live in Brisbane, but they moved to the Gold Coast a few years ago. All of that’s pretty irrelevant, though. The important thing to know about my parents is that they hate each other’s guts. Like, really hate — not just dislike or get on each other’s nerves. We are talking visceral, to the bone, genuine hatred. Have you seen Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Liz Taylor and Richard Burton? My parents make them look like young love.”
“No shit.”
“No shit. Actually, no, that’s wrong. There’s lots of shit. Shit flying left, right, and center.” She gestured in the air, mimicking multiple speeding missiles crossing paths. “They live to score points off each other. It took me a while to work out they actually get off on it and to be suitably grateful I’m an only child. At least no one else has to suffer their bullshit.”
“I was going to ask why they don’t get a divorce, but if they enjoy it…”
“Oh, yeah, they love it. They revel in it. It’s their meat and potatoes. Their reason for living.” Her tone became flat and she paused, staring at an unseen spot in front of her. “Do you know what my mother said when I finally got up the courage to call her after the scandal broke? It lasted longer than I thought it would. Meaning my marriage. Those were her first words to me. And they wonder why they don’t see me at Christmas and why I’ll probably wait a few months before I tell them I’m back in Australia.”
She looked so sad, so small and alone that he had to consciously stop himself from dragging her into his arms.
“I was actually relieved when they sent me to boarding school,” Beth continued. “I mean, I hated it at first, but then I realized I didn’t have to listen to them fight anymore. I met Ellie and Jen, and all of a sudden, I understood there were other ways to live. I realized that love wasn’t about scoring points off each other, that some people actually celebrated each other’s successes instead of resenting them. I made myself a promise that if I ever got married, it was going to be so, so different. I was going to love my husband, and he was going to love me, and we were going to be friends first before anything else. We were going to actually like each other.” She rolled her head to the side so she could see him. “And then I met Troy, and I thought I’d hit the jackpot. Instead it was the booby trap.”
Jonah was no psychologist, but he could see how a childhood full of acrimony and conflict might make a person crave all the things she’d never had — stability, unconditional love, easy affection, security. He could also see why that same person might fight tooth and nail to save a marriage, once she’d chosen to believe in it, even if there were warning signs that maybe all was not well.
“Tell me, what would you do differently, if you could?” he asked.
Beth blinked as though his question had caught her off guard. “With Troy, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s easy. Like I said, I’d hunt down that first woman who sold her story to the paper and I’d make her tell me the truth. Then I’d walk out with my dignity intact.”
Jonah didn’t say anything, but he suspected Beth was constitutionally unable to walk away from anything without giving it her best shot. She was built for loyalty and sincerity, not self-protection.
“I probably wouldn’t have believed anything she said, though, even if I could actually find her and she agreed to speak to me,” she said after a minute. “Troy had me so convinced. I believed him. I needed to believe him, you know?”
Jonah watched as she puzzled her way through the problem.
“So maybe I can forgive myself for that first time, for giving him the benefit of the doubt in Phoenix,” she conceded. “But I should have walked the moment I found out about the woman in L.A. back in February, instead of letting him talk me into waiting until his new album came out.”
“What?” Jonah asked, sitting up so fast his head spun.
Beth looked almost satisfied by his reaction. “I found out he was cheating on me with a waitress in early February. At that stage, I thought it was only her, but it didn’t matter. I was done. I knew then that he’d probably been lying to me back in Phoenix. I’d given him everything I had, and it hadn’t been enough, and I was ready to walk. Troy tried to talk me around, but when he realized that wasn’t going to play, he asked me to wait to announce our separation until after his new album launched.” She laughed, the sound sharp with bitterness. “I said no at first, but his agent and lawyer kept at me and at me, talking about how much it would damage his career, how carefully it all had to be managed… I think I said yes in the end just to make them stop. We lived in separate wings of the house for two months, and the only time we talked was when he needed me to go somewhere and stand at his side and smile for the cameras.”
She offered him her best fake smile to show him how good she’d become at manufacturing happiness.
“And then the flight attendant sold her story to the tabloids,” he guessed.
She nodded. “Which made L.A. girl realize she was going to miss out on her fifteen minutes of fame, so she went public. And then the sluice gates really opened.”
The look in her eyes killed him, it was so bleak.
“I know you think that staying to help him launch his album makes you a patsy, but all it means is that he wasn’t above using your basic human decency against you. Being a nice person isn’t a fault the last time I looked.”
“There’s a difference between being a nice person and lying down and letting someone to wipe his boots on you. And that is totally what I did. I invited him to treat me like dirt.”
“Yeah, but that didn’t mean he had to take you up on the invitation.”
She frowned at him. “Why are you so determined to defend me?”
“I like you. I think you deserve better.”
“I know I deserve better. Troy —”
“I meant from yourself.”
She flinched away from his words, all the color leaching from her face.
“It’s not a crime to fall in love and want it to last,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to keep punishing yourself.”
She blinked rapidly, and his chest got tight as he realized he’d pushed her to tears.
“Beth —”
“It’s okay, I’m fine. You’re probably right, anyway,” she said, waving a hand at him to dismiss his concern.
Feeling like a douche bag of the highest order, he shifted along the couch to get closer to her.
“Seriously, I’m fine,” she said, but he ignored her and pulled her into his arms.
“I’m sorry. I just want you to have some compassion for yourself, that’s all,” he said.
She made a funny little noise, then she pressed her face into his shoulder and he realized she was sobbing in earnest now. Wow, he really knew how to show a woman a good time.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, feeling helpless. “I didn’t mean to pile on.”
She shook her head against his shoulder. “It’s okay.”
“Look, just ignore everything I said. What do I know, anyway?” he said, feeling worse by the second. It didn’t help that he’d had enough tequila to turn his brain to mush.
Beth reached up and pressed her fingers to his mouth. “Shut up, okay?” She offered him a small smile through her tears. “I’m not crying because of what you said. I’m crying because you made me realize something. The voice in my head, the voice that’s been running my life lately, sounds just like my parents.”
“And that’s not a good thing.”
“No. That is not a good thing.”
She returned her head to his shoulder, and he rested his hand on the back of her neck. They were both silent for a long beat. Then Beth lifted her head so she could look him in the eye again.
“There’s one other thing I regret,” she said. “This haircut. I really hate this haircut. And that is not my parents speaking.”
He considered her for a moment — big brown eyes, lashes spiky from her tears, her hair sticking up on one side and flat on the other. She was gorgeous, and everything in him burned to tell her so.
“I like it,” he said instead.
She made a rude noise. “I’m not sure you can be classed as an objective judge given all the sex and tequila.”
“I liked it before the sex and tequila,” he said.
“Did you?” She peered up at him, tears still trembling on the ends of her lashes. A small frown creased her forehead as she tried to work out if he was humoring her or not. Then her gaze dropped to his mouth and the frown disappeared.
Heat washed through him as she studied his mouth before leaning forward and pressing a small, soft kiss to his lips. He couldn’t stop himself from kissing her back, even though he knew they were both too drunk for it to be considered wise.
