Page 81 of You Know You Wanna

She curled her fingers and studied her nails once more. “People like us need to be more discreet, Remi. I thought you knew that. You can’t go gallivanting around with some unsuspecting pauper who milks cows for a living. Does she even know that you’re simply passing the time with her and that nothing can ever come of it?”

“We’re not A-list actors, Jacqueline. No one really gives a shit what we do.” Rage ripped through my soul, but I held it back as best I could and rose from the windowsill to stride over to the door. “Don’t call her a pauper. You don’t know the first thing about her and I thought I’d made it clear that I’m not interested in your opinion. Now leave so that I can go find her without having to worry that I’m going to come back to find you naked in my bed or something equally absurd.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be absurd.” She flashed me what was probably supposed to be an alluring smile, but it made my skin crawl. “You and I getting naked together was something we were always so good at. Until you lost interest in me, that is.”

I groaned and shoved both hands into my hair. “I’m not rehashing any of that right now. We’re divorced. It’s over. Now leave.”

“I’ll leave this poor excuse for a suite, but I’m certainly not letting you run me out of town. I’m staying for a few days. It’s quite beautiful here. Nothing compared to some of the other places I’ve seen recently but pretty enough.”

“You’re not staying.”

She stood up gracefully, sliding her sunglasses off the top of her head. “Yes, I am, Remi. If you’ve taken to shagging the help then clearly, you need me to stay close for a while. Maybe I can help you work out some of that stress that made you get in bed with someone like her.”

“You’re offering to fuck me?” I scoffed. “No thanks.”

She sighed. “I’m simply trying to help an old friend. I have no romantic interest in you anymore. It wouldn’t have to be like that. I’ll just remind you of the kind of woman you should be with, and then I’ll be on my merry way. Back to civilization. God only knows how you’ve stuck it out here for so long.”

“Go back to civilization now,” I said. “I don’t need your help, and frankly, I don’t want it. Just leave, Jacqueline.”

She smiled, once again mostly ignoring what I’d said. “I’m renting a house nearby. I can’t stay in a place like this after being in Europe all summer, but I’ll see you around, Remi. Have fun with the help. Just remember who you are. You can’t replace me with someone like her.”

Giving me a meaningful look, she slid the sunglasses onto her face and strode out of the room. As she passed me, I arched an eyebrow at her. “Don’t you want to see your daughter?”

She smiled again but didn’t respond, leaving the suite and slamming the door behind her. Once she was gone, I groaned and barely resisted the urge to punch a hole in the wall. The last thing I needed right then was for Jacqueline to show up, acting all high and mighty and like a fucking know-it-all.

I didn’t care about anything she’d said, but I did care that she was here and that she was staying. The woman was like a tropical storm at times, destroying everything in her path without a second thought. I still didn’t really know why she’d come, but I knew she’d interacted with Birdie and that meant that I had to find her.

Dread formed a rock in my stomach when I thought about what she might’ve said. How she might’ve acted.

The only thing I knew for an absolute fact was that she would’ve been a brat about it. In Jacqueline’s mind, what I did still reflected on her, and because of that, she would always be at least a little bit territorial about me.

Plus, she hated losing almost as much as I did. If she thought I’d somehow “won” the divorce by getting seriously involved with someone before she did, there wasn’t a single doubt in my mind that she’d create havoc just to get back at me.

Blowing out a breath, I pulled myself together and checked on Laurene. The only silver lining about all this so far was that she was still sleeping, though she started stirring when I pushed open her bedroom door. For the moment, that meant she didn’t know Jacqueline had showed up, and the longer I could keep it that way, the better. At least for an hour or so.

She didn’t need to know that her mother had flown here all the way from England, only to not even ask how she was doing. A dull ache started up in my chest and I left her room to call down and ask for our breakfast to be brought to our suite.

I wasn’t taking any chances by bringing Laurene downstairs just yet. Not while Hurricane Jacqueline might still be in the area. Before I saw that woman again, I needed to formulate a game plan.

I needed to come up with a way of talking to her that would convince her to let Laurene stay in Manhattan with me, and I needed to come up with a way to tell our daughter that her mother had come—quite possibly to bring her back to England so much sooner than I ever could’ve anticipated.

42

BIRDIE

Leaving Remington alone with his gorgeous wife, I hurried down the hallway and sneaked out the back entrance of the resort, making a beeline for my cabin. A bit shaken, I raced through a shower and got dressed, then drove straight to Gracie’s house in town.

I needed to talk to my friend. I needed to unpack this with someone and she was the only person I did that kind of thing with.

By the time I pulled up in front of her garage, I was still berating myself. Jacqueline’s incredibly beautiful face was seemingly branded into the backs of my eyelids. Every time I blinked, I saw that smile she’d flashed me when she asked if I’d been keeping her husband’s bed warm.

Husband’s bed. Not ex-husband’s bed but her husband’s. Bile raced up the back of my throat, but I swallowed it down, throwing myself out of the car and jogging to Gracie’s front door. I knocked once, but when she didn’t come immediately, I started banging, my anxiety levels at an all-time high.

I hadn’t known it at the time, but I’d slept with someone’s husband. A married man. It didn’t matter that even their own daughter thought they were divorced. It clearly wasn’t official yet if she was still referring to him as her husband.

Which made me the dreaded other woman. My stomach rolled again and I banged harder. Declan opened the door and I took a step back. He was only wearing a pair of boxers, so it was clear that Gracie had grown tired of making him wait.

Asshole. He could’ve told me that his friend was still freaking married. Too embarrassed to tear him a new one for it right then though, I simply narrowed my eyes.