Chapter 39 Cynthie
The rest of our visit to Jack’s parents is painful.
Nico and I are kept busy, running interference every time Max and Caroline try to steer the conversation toward their disappointment in their children (which happens often).
While the majority of the disapproval is leveled at Jack, Lee comes in for a fair amount of criticism too—you would think that being an accountant was some sort of capital crime.
I demand anecdotes from Jack’s childhood; Nico asks about what’s been happening on set and I provide entertaining stories, or he gets Lee to share news of her grandmother’s high jinks, drawing her out of her shell.
It’s like a high-octane game of small-talk ping-pong, and by the time we finish our exquisite chocolate tortes, prepared by the Turner-Jones’s chef and served on vintage Sèvres porcelain, I feel like my head is going to explode.
Caroline and Max, having put away a steady flow of alcohol, are most of the way toward drunk and getting less and less passive and more and more aggressive by the minute.
“Of course,” Caroline says, fixing me with a look of naked dislike, “you’ve only got so long before you start aging out of the leading roles.
There’s a very long and painful wait between thirty-five and National Treasure status let me tell you.
” She shudders. “And being a national treasure is bleak enough, in case you wondered. Everyone acts like I’m a hundred years old and a sweet old lady. ”
I bury my face in my drink to hide my expression. I’m fairly sure “sweet old lady” is about the only name Caroline Turner hasn’t been called.
“I expect you’ve already been asked to play the mother to some peppy little nineteen-year-old,” she continues, waving her glass of perfectly pale white wine in the air.
“If you want my advice, start making an investment in your face now. I can put you in touch with my plastic surgeon, I’m sure he could fix”—she gestures at my face—“things.”
“It’s kind of you to show an interest,” I say serenely.
“Fucking hell,” Jack mutters under his breath, and I squeeze his leg. It’s supposed to be a reassuring gesture to let him know his mum isn’t bothering me, but he flinches dramatically.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Fine,” he replies tightly, taking a swig from his water glass.
When I look over at Nico he’s watching us with a smirk.
“Of course it’s all changed since my day,” Max rumbles. “Take what happened with Rufus. A few off-color remarks and now nobody will touch him. Didn’t get asked back for your film, did he?” Max shakes his head. “It comes to something when no one in the business is allowed to have a sense of humor.”
“You know it was a lot more than that with Rufus,” Jack says.
I look to Caroline, thinking she might have something to say about the way women are treated in the industry, but she shrugs.
“Young women today are too sensitive. If I didn’t want someone pawing at me, I just told them so.
” I think there’s a glimmer of something in her eyes, but then she squints down into her glass while Max makes noises of approval.
I’m absolutely certain that’s not the real story, that Caroline Turner somehow survived fifty years in the entertainment industry unscathed, but she’s entitled to do whatever she likes with those stories, even if it’s to pretend they never happened.
If I think it’s bad now, I can only imagine how it must have been when she was starting out.
“When we made the first film, I was warned never to be left on my own with Rufus,” I say.
“I didn’t even question it, but that’s not right, is it?
You can’t have a culture like that. Women on film sets are just trying to do their jobs.
We deserve to feel safe.” I think about something Jasmine said to me—that directing could be more than a new creative challenge, that it could be an opportunity to set the tone, to control the culture on a set, to make broader changes in industry standards.
It sounded lofty at the time, but maybe she’s right.
“You never told me that,” Jack says slowly. “About Rufus.”
It’s my turn to shrug. “Honestly, it didn’t even feel newsworthy. Stuff like that was so common. Still is.”
“One of the journalists I work with is actually writing a story about something similar at the moment,” Nico says, diverting the conversation again, and it flows away onto other subjects.
We limp through the obligatory cups of coffee (glorious, pitch-black, and flown in from some remote corner of South America.
Even in his current mood, Jack can’t resist humming with pleasure), and then Nico gets to his feet with a display of reluctance.
“That was amazing, thank you for letting me crash,” he says, “but I’m afraid I have to get going. ”
“Yes.” Jack is up on his feet so fast that his chair scrapes loudly against the floor. “We have to go too. We have to go now.” There’s something wild in his eyes, and I put a hand on his arm, like I’m trying to steady a horse. I think he might be vibrating.
We say perfunctory goodbyes to Max and Caroline, the two of them already having lost interest in us, and Lee walks us all to the door.
Nico drops a casual kiss on my cheek and then on Lee’s.
“Got a date?” Jack asks.
“A gentleman never tells,” Nico says, though his grin reveals the answer clearly enough. My eyes dart to Lee, but she shows no emotion at this.
With a cheerful wave Nico takes off for the dilapidated and mud-spattered Land Rover looking extremely out of place on the pristine driveway.
“It was really good to see you,” Jack says to Lee.
“You too,” she replies. “I’m sorry about them,” she says, nodding her head back toward the house. “It’s nice to see you happy. Don’t listen to anything they say.”
“I never do.” Jack’s mouth pulls up.
“Can we hug now?” I ask her, and Lee looks surprised but steps tentatively into my arms. The hug is stiff and a bit awkward, but I’m glad we share it. I don’t think Lee gets hugged often, and I’m pretty sure she needs one after growing up in that house.
“Maybe I could call you next time I’m in town,” I say. “We could get lunch.”
“I’d like that,” she replies softly.
Jack opens the car door for me, and before I know it, we’re peeling away from the house like we’re fleeing the scene of a crime.
Jack’s attention is firmly on the road, and he drives in silence, his jaw ticking like mad, his fingers tapping the steering wheel.
I can’t say I blame him; I feel like I’ve been through the wringer, and I’m not actually related to those people.
In the end, we’re in the car for about twenty minutes, and Jack pulls up in front of a lovely red-brick, Victorian house near Primrose Hill.
We get out and Jack bounds up the steps to the front door, fishing out a key to open it as I follow behind. He still hasn’t said anything and his energy is… chaotic.
I wander tentatively inside the house, finding myself in a bright, airy hallway with a staircase curling up one side.
Jack enters a code on a keypad in the wall to disarm the alarm, and then he turns to me with such heat in his gaze that I take a step back.
His hand comes slowly over my shoulder, and he pushes the front door closed behind me with a decisive click.
He moves forward, his hand still braced by the side of my head, crowding me until my back hits the door.
His eyes never leave mine, and what I see in them has my breath coming in shallow little gasps, each inhale enough to create the tiniest touch of friction between our bodies.
“I need to kiss you now.” His voice is a rumble of thunder, deep in his chest. Need , not want. The distinction has butterflies exploding in my stomach.
“Okay,” I whisper, and I barely have time to finish the word before his mouth collides with mine.
I’m trapped firmly between his big, strong body and the door at my back, caged by his arms as he kisses me. His thigh slips between mine, pinning me in place, and one of his hands drifts down, stroking through my hair, absently twisting a long lock around his finger.
I cling to the front of his shirt. His mouth softens, skimming lightly over my lips.
His tongue moves lazily, languidly, tasting me, enjoying me, and I barely know what’s happening; I’m delirious, lost in the sensation of it all.
My hips tilt, and I slide against his thigh.
The pressure has me moaning against his mouth.
Finally, he breaks away, pulls his face back, just far enough so that I can blink, unfocused into his eyes. They’re pure wolf now: heavy-lidded and predatory. The look in them sends another violent spike of lust through me. My knees are so weak, he’s literally holding me up.
“What was that for?” I manage.
“That,” he says, his voice like velvet rubbed against the grain, “was for being on my side.”
“Oh,” I say, breathless. “No problem.”
His hands drift down the sides of my body, lightly gripping my waist. He presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth and then skims his lips across my jaw and down, until his warm mouth finds the pulse hammering madly in my throat. His tongue flicks out and he sucks gently on my skin until I whimper.
“And for being kind to my sister,” he murmurs, his mouth moving lower, across my collarbones as he slips the thin straps of my dress off my shoulders, the trail of his fingertips leaving an electric crackle across my bare skin.
“My pleasure,” I whisper. I curl my fingers into his hair, tugging his face back up to mine, and he leaves a path of soft kisses as he goes, refusing to be rushed.
“And for not pouring a drink on my mother when she said you should change any part of your beautiful, perfect face.” He punctuates his words with kisses to my cheekbone, my eyelids, each touch soft and reverent.
“It crossed my mind.” I barely recognize my own voice.