8. LOVER/FRIEND
8
LOVER/FRIEND
PENNY
“ S o how’s it going with The Mountain?”
Penny had Jade on speakerphone while she was busy putting the last-minute items in her overnight bag. Jack was scheduled to pick her up in another hour for their trip to the FitzGerald’s estate. The drive would take roughly two hours, and she was packing water, sandwiches, and snacks.
Jade had used the code name she’d given Jack, borrowed from a certain TV show they were both into.
“Girl, you tell me. We’ve kinda had a weird week after that dress fitting.”
“Weird how?”
Popping a washed grape in her mouth, Penny munched it. “Well, he texts me every day to say hi and check in on me. We’ve seen each other a few times for dress fittings, and we always eat afterward. We talk for hours… well, I talk, and he listens,” she amended wryly. “But then he drops me off and doesn’t ask to come in. I’m getting this vibe like he’s low-key still bothered by the thing with Brendan’s pictures.”
Penny had told Jade about their night, and Jack’s one-hundred-eighty degree turn from hot and ready to cool and distant.
Jade exhaled. “Penny, be for real. What man wants to fuck somebody with her deceased husband staring at him the whole time?”
“A grown-ass man, who should be able to handle that I had a life before him. I just met him, for God’s sake. Am I supposed to change everything to suit a man I randomly found on an app looking for a Halloween booty call?” Penny argued.
Although she made it sound like she was joking, her heart was beating harder, the way it always did when someone brought up the idea of “moving on” from the most important relationship in her life. Like it should be easy. Like it was nothing.
“I’m not trying to argue with you, Pen. I want you to be happy, that’s all. And Jack sounds pretty cool. Just stay open, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Penny grumbled.
“Anyway, Penny Pen, I’ve gotta go, speaking of dress fittings. I’m meeting Dani and the other bridesmaids to get measured for our dresses. I am so excited. We’re doing baby blue cocktail-length,” Jade gushed. “I’m still pissed she picked her sister for Matron-of-Honor, though. I should’ve been the maid of honor since I’m the one that got that whole relationship going.”
Penny grinned with fondness for her cousin. Even in her grumbling, Jade was so sweet. She was a hopeless romantic and genuinely happy when other people found love, even when her own love life was deathly quiet.
“You should put that in your next matchmaker contract,” Penny teased.
“I’m gonna be your maid of honor when you marry The Mountain. Just watch. In the meantime, let me know what happened when you get back from your Eyes Wide Shut party.”
Rolling her eyes at the absurd suggestion of her marrying the stone-faced giant, Penny shook her head and laughed, ignoring that argument. “If I don’t turn up missing, you’ll be the first to hear all about it. Love you, bye.”
But the image rose in her mind the second she got off the phone, sharp-edged and heart-stoppingly beautiful. A fantasy version of Jack in a gorgeous dark suit at the end of an aisle, somewhere green and lush under a glorious blue sky. He was smiling at her, waiting for her.
Then reality crashed through the daydream when the real Jack texted, “ I’m outside. ”
Jack was pleasant enough when he said “hello” and got her settled in the passenger seat. It was nice and heated, as the day was an electric chilly blue. Penny set her water bottle in the available cupholder and stashed her purse and backpack full of their road snacks near her feet.
“What’s in there?” he asked, nodding at the backpack.
“Sammiches, fruit and snaquitos.”
Grinning, he said, “Snaquitos. Can’t wait to see what that could be.”
He placed her overnight bag and her beautiful party gown in its garment bag in the trunk of the car. And as it had when she’d seen him that week, Jack’s presence filled the interior when he sat beside her. Penny tried not to inhale the immediate scents of his skin and his woodsy cologne. It made it all the harder not to think about how that combination had overpowered her senses when he’d been in her bed, sucking on her nipples and grinding her into the best orgasm she’d had in ages. If he could do that to her with all their clothes on, he would utterly destroy her if he got his hands on her naked.
“All set? Do you need anything before we go?” Jack asked, thankfully interrupting those unwanted thoughts.
“I’m good.” Jack started the car and pulled away from the curb. Penny continued, “How did Trixie seem at the kennel?”
“Sad.” Jack wasn’t grinning when he said it, clueing her in that he might be feeling bad about leaving her, too. The idea of that warmed Penny to her core.
“Would you consider getting a puppy of your own when your parents get back?”
“Too much work,” Jack said and dropped the topic.
He drove down the street and onto a main artery leading out of the city. They passed through smaller villages and finally on to greener vistas, splashed with the persimmon and yellow of autumn. Penny looked at the peaceful scene with a sigh and settled back. It had been a while since she’d left the city. Out here, it reminded her of home, of Owenville Township, with its modest homes and dark forests.
This land was flatter though, its green hills not the mountains back home. And here was the smell of the Irish Sea rolling in from the nearby coast, not the lakes and waterfalls she was used to.
That made her think of the girl group TLC. With a grin, she hummed and then sang the popular chorus to their “Waterfalls” song. Jack smiled, listening until she trailed off.
“Sorry. Had a moment,” Penny said ruefully.
“You should have more of those moments. I’d love a private show.” Jack glanced over at her. He hadn’t been flirting since the encounter at her house but there was heat in his eyes and his words, whether he intended for his statement to sound suggestive or not. “Anyway, been wondering.”
“About what?” she asked in a soft voice. She held her breath, wondering if this was going to be about that night. It hadn’t come up since then, not even once.
“When you said you’d come to the ball, we didn’t discuss the sleeping arrangements,” he said, making a smooth turn with his palm on the wheel. The car obeyed his every direction like it was an extension of his body.
He’d dropped his leather bomber jacket in the barely-there backseat. Penny’s gaze ran over his powerful torso, the way the muscles in his arms worked under the dark gray shirt that clung to him like a second skin. What she was about to tell him was going to sound crazy even to her when her nipples were hard thinking about his mouth on them. Sucking. Biting.
“We can’t have sex,” she blurted out. Jack glanced at her with a quirked eyebrow like she’d just announced she was a visitor from Venus. “I know we’ll have to share a bed, and things might have gotten a little out of hand the last time we were in a bedroom together, but I think we should just not go there.” Jack stayed silent, staring at her, then back at the road with his grip tightening on the wheel to the point where the knuckles went white. “You’re cool. I like you a lot. I don’t hang out with anybody else here and for the short time I have left in Ireland, I think we could be good friends.”
“Friends,” he repeated. His deep voice went even lower. His lips pulled up in that sardonic grin as he gazed at the wide-open road ahead. “And when you do leave? Then what?”
The thought of leaving a place always bothered her a bit after she’d grown to know people, but there’d always been a sense of relief, too. But there was no relief at the prospect of never seeing him again. In fact, the thought of leaving Jack tore a tiny hole in her heart. Which made absolutely no fucking sense.
“We can stay friends. We can chat on the phone. I promised my cousin and my parents I’d come back to New York to edit the manuscript. Maybe you could drop by sometime if you’re ever on that side of the pond.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded falsely upbeat. “And I think that —”
“It’s grand.” Jack’s interjection was short, clipped. “It’s grand, Penny. Friends, it is.” But he’d gritted the words out between his smile, and his fingers were still death-gripping the wheel.
Penny sank into her comfy seat, feeling oddly unsatisfied at his lack of resistance to the idea of being platonic buddies with her. She knew what would happen. They’d make the occasional phone call that would eventually grow infrequent before they simply stopped. She wanted him to fight back and tell her they were going to be together, commanding her to open every corner of herself to him.
Real mature . Penny was a master of contradictions, saying one thing while desperately wanting another. She was a fucking basket case. Jack should consider himself lucky not to get drawn any deeper into her messy inner world.
“Want to listen to some music?” he asked, and she quickly agreed. He didn’t seem like he was in the mood to say much more.
After a while, the GPS announced they were almost at their destination. A tower rose suddenly from the green and gold landscape, a fortress of elegant ancient stone. They drove through a forest, then along a tree-lined road to reach the black wrought-iron gate surrounding the main property. Penny hadn’t been sure what to expect, but as she gazed up at its five stories with turrets and terraces, she wondered if she were stepping back in time to a medieval court.
“You didn’t tell me it was a castle,” she told Jack, who was peering up at the structure through the windshield as well.
“I didn’t know. Never been here before.”
The road became a circle in front of the sprawling home. Several other cars had pulled up and were being handed over to the care of a team of valets dressed in eighteenth-century costumes, from their powdered wigs down to their buckled shoes, similar to the shoes that had been acquired for Jack. Another team was busy managing the luggage from each guest’s vehicle, tagging them, and efficiently loading them onto golden carts like practiced airport handlers.
Before Jack could do so, one of the valets rushed to her side and opened the door for her. Penny stepped out and thanked him, still looking around. The other guests were greeting each other, obviously part of the same social set. They ranged in age but were skewed to late thirties and up. Way up, as some guests looked to be in their late sixties. And there was only a sprinkling of Black and brown faces in the overwhelmingly milk-white sea.
This demographic was more or less what she’d been expecting. She’d rubbed elbows with crowds like this as the daughter of a respected judge who attended the best schools in the region. But not knowing anyone beside Jack was daunting. Uncertainty made her reach for his arm, who gave it to her without hesitation and put his large, reassuring hand over hers. Penny decided she was sticking close to him tonight, no matter what.
“If this ain’t the who’s who,” Jack said in a low voice only she could hear. “That man with the bald spot over there…. he’s the deputy mayor of a certain big city in France. Those two…”
“Yes, I’ve seen their movies. This is wild,” Penny murmured, trying to hide her excitement. “What do these people do? The FitzGeralds, I mean.”
“They used to be landed gentry. Peasant labor got them rich. Now they’re in finance mostly. They own a bank, among other things. Many other things.”
Heads were turning to check out Jack and then herself. Some nodded with welcoming expressions. A few looked a little too interested in her body under her coat, calculations seeming to run in their minds. Jack glared back until they nodded and turned to their own companions, whispering.
A strange sensation of energy in the air built and intensified when they entered the castle to be greeted in the foyer by a line of young men and another line of young women dressed for service, again in old-school costumes. They were wearing masks in addition to the outfits. Nice touch. The foyer was decorated with tapestries, similar to the one in the steakhouse, except much older. Tables were adorned with vases, but instead of flowers they held stalks of wheat. Beside them were golden bowls filled with red, ripe apples and decanters of thick liquid that shone deep gold. It looked like honey.
At the head of the line stood a man and a woman. He was a very light tan and silver-haired, with magnetic bright blue eyes and a good physique. The man stroked his neat white mustache and goatee as though from habit. The woman had feline green eyes, but her hair was a thick black bob cut to frame her alabaster pixie face. They weren’t dressed in costumes unless “really rich person” was an outfit. The man was in a tailored silver-gray suit that was a perfect fit, and the woman wore a black gown cut to her waist in the center with a chunky diamond collar at the neck.
“Simon FitzGerald and his wife Clarissa,” Jack murmured to Penny.
He seemed wary now, the muscles in his arms bunching with tension under her hand even through his coat. The way he looked at Clarissa and the way the woman stared back at him, then at her, caused a stiffness to settle between Penny’s shoulders. Immediately, she knew something was up here.
It dawned on her that maybe this was the reason Jack needed a date. To make this married woman jealous? To cover as his date so her husband wouldn’t know something was going on?
“Ah. Lucky Jack Valentine,” Simon called in a friendly, measured voice with a clear, crisp English accent. “Welcome to my humble abode. I hope your drive up from the city was pleasant.”
“It was.”
Jack was starting off on the wrong foot for someone hoping for checks and/or hoping to avoid pissing off a husband. Glancing up at him, Penny tugged him forward and went to shake Simon’s hand.
“Handshakes? You’re my guest, and as my guest, you’re a friend.” The man leaned in and kissed Penny’s cheeks. He smelled like expensive cognac and cinnamon. “I’m Simon FitzGerald. Welcome to my home, Miss…?”
“Yes, Jack. Who is your charming companion?” Clarissa asked, also with an English accent, giving Penny a slow up-and-down stare. She was model thin, the delicate notches of her ribcage visible under the exposed skin of her chest.
“Penelope Valentine,” Jack said before Penny could speak. It was more like a growl than words. “My wife.”