11. Jake
Jake
I wake up alone, but I can hear the shower running.
Mackenzie didn’t leave, not this time.
My relief is enormous, but not because I’m worried about getting back to my car. I push a hand through my hair and head for the bathroom. The water stops while I’m on the way and I find her towelling down. “I hoped you’d wait.”
She tosses me a smile that feels official. “Early morning, though. Sorry.”
Of course. Back to work. I don’t want to think about the morning ahead of me, not yet, so I get in the shower. The water pressure is awesome and there’s still hot water. This townhouse might be my idea of heaven.
In Havelock, of all places.
“Should we talk?” I can see Mackenzie through the steam on the glass shower door, a vague tall shape engulfed in white.
Waiting. With expectations.
Talk? That’s the last thing I want to do. There is, to my thinking, nothing to say.
It was awesome.
It is done.
Talking about that can only lead us into a ‘where do we go from here’ discussion which can only be a bad, bad choice. I don’t want to taint what has been an awesome night so far.
It’s funny but Chelsea is hovering in my thoughts.
Chelsea of the glorious legs, the apparently insatiable desire, the Excel spreadsheet of the weekend plan delivered to my email by 3 pm every Friday.
Chelsea, who gave sex a cell of its own on the spreadsheet, while my scheduled proposal had two cells.
Thirty minutes for sex but sixty for a proposal.
(Who knew?) When I dared to break free of the plan – I did not propose, on time or at all – she left, forever.
I still think of it as a near escape. I was lulled into a kind of complacency, seduced by regular and reasonably good sex. I can’t even imagine what a future with Chelsea would have been like. I don’t want to. In fact, Chelsea and her compulsive planning convinced me of the merit of spontaneity.
Yet I am thinking of future encounters with Mackenzie. I know this is dumb. I know I am, once again, being seduced by the prospect of regular sex but of the stupendous variety. I’m maybe confusing sex with something of a wider scope. I tell myself that, but I’m not quite convinced.
This is the dangerous magic of Mackenzie Rhodes.
I turn off the shower and step out of the steam, grabbing a towel.
Mackenzie has claimed the fluffy white bathrobe that was there and is twisting her hair up, standing in front of the mirror with the front of the robe open.
She’s watching me in the mirror, waiting for my reply with admirable patience.
She will wait, I know, to the end of time for my reply.
I might as well compose a good answer. I consider the intriguing shadows behind the opening of the robe, the sweet curve of her neck, her graceful fingers and bare feet, and can make a list of things I’d rather do than talk. I know she can read at least the direction of my thoughts.
Lust is not simple, much less covert, when a guy is naked.
“Why?” I ask. I unwrap a toothbrush and brush my teeth quickly. I’m wondering if there’s any food in this place. There is nothing like mind-blowing sex to make me snackish. I could call for delivery from some place, since we are in greater metropolitan Havelock.
Mackenzie smiles, as if I’m a comedian. “Well, it’s something people do.” Her voice lowers a little. “Another kind of intimacy maybe.”
I pretend to shudder, then rinse and finish up. In reality, I should take that as a warning flag on the field. Emotional intimacy? No, thank you. That’s a slippery slope. “I’ll stick with what I know, thanks. Hungry?”
“No. Thanks.”
I pull on my briefs and get my phone, searching for options, acting as if I’m unaware that Mackenzie has followed me out of the bathroom. She’s still waiting. I try to ignore her obvious expectation and it’s not easy. The thing is, I don’t have a stellar reply. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
I turn to face her. “We’ve talked about ice wine, and family businesses, about ambition and about Empire. What else is there to talk about?”
“I thought you might want to talk about your dad.”
I scoff. “No.” That answer is easy.
“Sure?”
“Trust me. I never want to talk about my father.”
“Even though his death is the reason you’re even here?”
I don’t have to look up to know that she’s watching me. “Especially because of that.” I look back at my phone. There is nothing in Havelock, sweet or spicy, that tempts me.
Except Mackenzie.
Her feet are bare and I can see them in my peripheral vision. She curls her toes in the carpet, probably unaware that she’s doing it, and everything in me hums approval. Another round would not be all bad. It’s still comparatively early, not even midnight.
I look up to meet her gaze, hauling my thoughts out of the gutter.
She’s still watching as if she has laser vision into my deepest secrets. “Go on,” she invites. “Tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I say with impatience.
For the record, I’m not impatient because she wants to talk.
Women always want to talk afterward. I’m impatient with myself, because I feel like I should indulge her.
I try to shut down the conversation before it really starts.
“My father was a miserable, horny, controlling bastard and now he’s dead.
” I raise a hand. “I’d call it a win but even I know I shouldn’t say that out loud. ”
“But you did.”
“Yes. Who are you going to tell?”
Her smile becomes mysterious. “No one, of course.” She heads down the stairs toward the kitchen, moving so gracefully that she could be floating.
Of course, I follow her. I remain mesmerized at this time, despite my efforts to change the status quo.
If anything, another night together has only increased my interest in Mackenzie Rhodes. I refuse to be concerned – yet – about any implications.
I watch her choose a champagne glass – no surprise that this place has glasses for every kind of wine – and open a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge.
Every movement is elegant and efficient, as if choreographed for a dancer.
She fills the glass, then takes a sip before continuing.
“I suppose you learned some of this prickliness from him.”
“You suppose wrong. He taught me nothing.”
Mackenzie shakes her head, amused and indulgent. “Oh, I don’t believe that.”
Shit.
Does she know Richard Bradshaw? Of course, she does. Everyone in Empire knows everyone else. It seems unlikely that they talk about me, though, despite Mackenzie’s earlier observations about gossip.
I look toward the windows, which are dark and just reflect our images, knowing it might be simpler to cede this point.
Maybe if I do it quickly, it will be less annoying.
“Okay, you’re right. There are three things I learned from my father, not from his example but in response to his actions.
” I count them out on my fingers before she can ask.
“One: never let down your guard. Two: only fools trust anyone. Three: Every favour has a price.”
There’s a beat of silence, then Mackenzie lifts her brows. “That’s quite a legacy,” she says mildly and takes another sip of water.
I hate that I know she’s leaving the silence between us on purpose, but I hate even more that I feel compelled to fill it by making a confession. Hers is the oldest trick in the book, one I’ve used often with success myself, but it’s an old reliable because it works.
Is there anything I hate more than being predictable?
The thing is that it would be better to lose this emotional load and Mackenzie is asking.
She might regret that.
I will never see her again. That makes her an excellent candidate for this info dump.
I take a breath because once I start, I know I won’t stop until I say it all.
The realization annoys me, and thus, I am eloquent.
“My father had no interest in anything except himself and his own desires. Everyone in his world was a tool to aid in gaining his objectives, an obstacle to be overcome or a non-entity unworthy of his attention. He was selfish and he was cruel and I knew that before I was six years old. When my mother died, I was glad that she wouldn’t have to cry any more.
Even as a child, I knew she was desperately unhappy and that I couldn’t fix it.
You’re not supposed to feel impotent at six. ”
Mackenzie’s eyes widen but she doesn’t say anything. She takes another careful sip and waits.
Of course, her strategy works. Thinking about my mom’s death pisses me off, and the lecture series is underway.
“I knew that he was cheating on my mom, although I was too young to understand exactly what that meant. He smelled like perfume when he came home sometimes, usually when he was really happy, but it wasn’t my mom’s perfume.
It was a scent that didn’t belong in our house.
And my mother would become quiet when that smell followed him home, as if the scent made her invisible.
When she was in the hospital before Abbie was born, he brought that scent home almost every day.
I hated that perfume. I could probably still identify it.
It was the smell of betrayal and infidelity, of something very wrong. ”
“Whose perfume was it?”
“Louise Jones. Very floral. Pretty, really. My mom liked citrusy scents. Brighter, crisper, like a breath of fresh air.”
Mackenzie nods. “But your dad didn’t marry Louise Jones after your mom died.”
“No, the perfume changed then. It became musky. Heavy on the civet, spicy, exotic. It was the smell of sultry perfumes and sex. It was Candace’s perfume and the entire house exuded it within a month of her moving in.” This time, I don’t have to pretend to shudder.
“You don’t like it.”
“No. To me, it’s cheap. Tawdry. And it’s a kind of a spell.”
She averts her gaze, but I’m not fooled.