CHAPTER FOURTEEN #2
‘That’s because the music was always better than being at home.
At the bedsit, or the room she’d managed to get, or some random bloke’s house.
’ Patrick’s smile was wistful. ‘I’m not an idiot, I know she didn’t have it easy.
I thought, when These Exiles took off – I mean, so many of our problems had been because we’d never had a home, you know?
Somewhere that was ours. Somewhere we couldn’t get evicted from, or moved on from.
I mean, she’d invite a guy back and he’d move in and then, somehow, we’d be the ones who had to leave. ’
My lungs tightened. ‘That … that sounds really hard.’ After bonding over our absent fathers, I had just kind of assumed Patrick’s relationship with his mother was something he’d never want to talk about. And yet here we were.
‘It was. And I thought it would be easy,’ Patrick said as he turned to me, his expression warm and yet somehow lost in the past. ‘Easy, once I had money. I mean, money would solve, like, almost all those problems, right?’
‘Right,’ I found myself saying.
Patrick’s smile faded. ‘Wrong.’
He leaned against the director’s chair, and I fought back the instinct to step closer to him, to comfort him.
I wasn’t sure he would want my comfort. Not after the way I had pretty much accused him of lying.
I waited for him to continue instead, clasping my hands tightly together.
Patrick sighed deeply. ‘I bought her a house – and when she asked for money for a car, for renovations, for decorating, I thought nothing of it. It was easy to hand it over. She was my mum. I wanted to look after her.’
‘But something changed.’ I could tell from the pain in his voice.
He nodded slowly. ‘Yeah. It didn’t happen all at one, but bit by bit.
Soon she was never calling just to catch up with me, it was always to ask for money.
She started taking out credit cards and forwarding the bills for me to pay.
My accountant had to have a word with me, the money I was spending – the money she was spending – wasn’t sustainable, even for me.
But Cassie … Cassie doesn’t like being told no.
’ Patrick took another deep breath. ‘She refused to hear me when I tried to explain, so I just stopped trying. Cancelled the cards, stopped paying the bills, ignored the last notices. I refused to answer her calls, hoping she would get the message. But then she started turning up at the studio. At concerts. Everywhere I went, she was there, asking my team, my band, to see me. When that didn’t work, she went to the newspapers –’ His voice, strained but steady up until then, broke. And my heart broke with it.
No one deserved their own mother selling stories.
‘I’m so sorry, Patrick.’ A half sob formed in my throat, his pain was so potent. ‘I didn’t know. I’ve never seen those stories –’ It was true. I’d never heard anything about Patrick’s mother, or anything she’d sold to the tabloids about him.
‘Gotta love an injunction. I mean, I know loads of awful people use it to hide shit, but it kept her lies out of the newspapers. Derek really saved my skin with that one.’ Patrick’s low laugh rang hollow.
‘She stopped hounding me for a little while, but ever since you and I started up this whole –’ he gestured to the space between us – ‘fake relationship thing, she’s been back to her usual antics.
Maybe she thought being in love would soften me back up. ’
I blinked, hardly able to take it in. His mother – his own mum, using him like this. Not interested in him, or his dreams … just what Patrick could give her?
Deep sorrow rose within me for him, making an ache in my chest reopen at the thoughts of my own mother. I wanted to reach out and take his hand.
‘I even applied for a restraining order a while ago.’ He spoke quietly, his jaw tight. ‘What sort of a guy takes out a restraining order against his own mother?’ Guilt racked his voice, like he wasn’t sure whether he hated his mother or still loved her.
Now there was a question I would never ask.
I swallowed. ‘It … it doesn’t sound like she was acting much like a mum. But maybe she’s changed, maybe seeing you all over the papers again has stirred up some –’
‘No.’ The syllable was absolute.
He was probably right. But my own grief from losing Mum made it hard, hearing someone talk about willingly cutting their parent off.
I continued delicately. ‘I’m not saying reconcile with her tomorrow –’
‘Please, Jessy. Don’t. I’ve given Cassie so many chances, I can’t risk giving her another one. It would destroy me.’ Patrick’s voice was little more than a whisper now, but his gaze was unwavering.
‘I’m sorry. About all of it.’ I really was. Embarrassment overwhelmed me as my accusations flooded back to me. ‘I should never have pried; it wasn’t any of my business –’
‘It’s OK. Honestly.’ He leaned forward, brushing a hand down my arm, soothing me. ‘I understand why you were upset. I should have explained.’
‘And I shouldn’t have pushed. Even if she wasn’t your mum, even if it was an ex, or –’ Why did he have to look at me like that? Smiling like that? ‘What?’
‘I mean, now that I think about it, jealous Jessy was kind of hot.’ Patrick stepped forward.
My senses roared to life with every step he took closer, but my brain managed to kick in and forced me to step back, maintaining the distance between us. ‘I was not jealous.’
I wasn’t. I’d just been … shocked, thinking he was seeing someone else, or talking to an ex.
Shock and jealousy were not the same thing.
My back hit the wall just as Patrick said, ‘You were absolutely jealous.’
He was mere inches from me now, his hips almost pinning mine to the wall. My head was spinning – from his closeness or from the rapid change in emotions, I wasn’t sure. I should not have been turned on. A second ago, we had been dumping our parent-related trauma on each other. And now?
Now, I was hot as fuck. And still in my boss’s office.
‘We – we can’t do this here,’ I whispered, looking up into his hazel eyes and wishing they weren’t quite so beautiful.
Patrick’s gaze flickered to my lips, then back to my eyes. ‘Why not?’ I imagined that the want in his eyes was clearly reflected in my own.
My breath hitched in my throat. ‘Because –’
‘Because I really want to kiss you right now, Jessy. Isn’t that what couples do, when they sort out an argument?’ Patrick said, pulling me off the wall and into his arms. ‘Kiss and make up?’
I bit my lips almost without thought and Patrick let out a soft moan.
Slowly, slowly, inch by inch, Patrick lowered his mouth to mine – stopping a mere millimetre before they touched. ‘Do you want me to stop?’
Hell no.
It seemed easier to show him rather than tell him, and he didn’t seem disappointed when I pressed my lips against his.
Quite the reverse.
Before I knew it, Patrick had pinned my shoulder against the wall as he cupped my cheek with his other hand, tilting my face to deepen the kiss, his tongue invading my mouth in a rush of blissful pleasure that was surely criminal to experience in an office.
Fuck, it felt good to be wanted this badly. We kissed like we had hardly drawn breath since we’d been apart – his fingers in my hair, my hands tugging his shoulders closer, my knees weak as the kiss deepened.
Oh, this guy knew how to kiss. More, he knew how to kiss me. His teasing tongue knew all the right spots in my mouth, his lips pressing fluttering kisses that promised more down my neck before returning to my eager mouth.
‘Jessy …’
Dear God, his growl was going to be the end of me. Perhaps it already had been; my eyes closed and I lost myself in him.
By the time we pulled apart, my body felt all soft and loose.
I tried to rein in the need still flickering through me as Patrick pressed his forehead against mine and murmured, ‘If this is going to work, Jessy, you … you have to trust me.’
My heart fluttered. ‘I can trust you,’ I whispered, knowing that it was true.
His lips met mine again, hungrily, desperate for something that I was all too willing to give him.
My own desperation matched his; my whole body craved his touch, and I could only thank the heat of the summer that I was wearing another sundress.
Patrick’s fingers caressed my shoulder, fluttering along my collarbone, stroking lower until he was cupping my breast, his thumb brushing my nipple through my bra sending heat straight to my core. I let my legs fall apart when –
The door to the office opened. ‘Jessy, I need you to – oh.’
Patrick stepped back from me, hair tousled – whoops – and smiled at my boss. ‘Mr Gupta, isn’t it?’
‘I just … I thought …’ Karun thrust forward his office notebook. ‘A signature? No, that’s stupid – I’ll wait outside. So sorry.’
We watched Karun retreat before bursting into laughter. When we’d got our giggles under control, I looked up to see Patrick gazing at me with a soft smile on his lips. ‘Well, I’d better leave before –’
‘I don’t want you to go,’ I said, before I could stop myself.
Patrick stepped closer, once again pinning me against the wall. ‘So …’ he whispered, pressing a scorching kiss against my lips before he stepped back and offered me his hand. ‘Why don’t we run away together? Unless you need to go back to that presentation, I mean.’
My face broke out into wide smile. ‘How about we go for another round of abseiling?’
Patrick’s chuckle made it a small miracle that I could walk forward. ‘You just want to throw yourself into my arms at the bottom.’
Welp. Guilty.