“Of all the people. Of all the Goddamn people!” Jackson was in danger of yelling and for a moment he didn’t care. He’d spent too long with these questions eating him up inside. The months in solitary had only exacerbated his fears.
Then that necklace… that pendant left there on her gravestone as though an ever taunting presence that she had been one of them.
“If the guilt is eating you up, just come clean. Admit it.” Kris held out his palms with all the pretense of someone who cared.
He didn’t and Jackson wondered then, not for the first time, if he ever had.
“You could have had anyone. Anyone!” Tears threatened to escape.
Jackson hadn’t cried since the first night locked in a cell, with the jeers of catcalls from the other inmates taunting him, teasing him. Kris standing in front of him with that perpetual look of virtue was having the same effect as that first, inconsolable night in Flaymore.
“It was you, Jackson. You.” Kris’s resolve broke, just a little. Stepping forward, he dropped his volume. “She was in love with you. You knew that. And you screwed it up. You didn’t appreciate what you had in front of you. Taking her for granted. Making her believe that your arrangement was what she wanted. You used her. You abused her. And that was what fucking well killed her.”
The accusation stabbed Jackson’s heart, driving in, reeling around to finally explode like a shattering bomb in slow motion. It hurt, it stung, and prevented his next breath. Staggering back, he scrambled for something to keep him upright. Something to stop all the wretched, unrelenting pain.
“I trusted you,” he screamed. “We trusted each other. She trusted us to take care of her. To save her.” He was jabbering now, saying things that should have remained unspoken.
Whisky did that to him.
Kris did that to him.
Not having Tules there to stop him did that to him.
“The only person she needed saving from was you,” Kris said, voice riddled with accusation. “She was going to leave you.”
Jackson froze, his blood running through his veins like ice. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t have been true. She would have said something. That was how they were. Honest with each other. No one could take that away from their relationship at least. He knew her. She had known him. They kept each other’s secrets.
Just like he’d used to with Kris.
“That’s right.” Kris edged closer, the scent of champagne on his breath smacking him in the mouth. “She’d had enough. She was moving all her assets and she was leaving you. You knew that and you couldn’t bear that she might have wanted something real.”
“No.” Jackson shook his head, refusing to believe Kris’s hateful, deceitful words. “You were jealous,” he said. That had to be it.
“Of what? You?” Kris laughed a sardonic, maddening sound that crawled over Jackson’s skin. “I held you up. You wouldn’t have survived without me. The only reason I kept you around was because for some unfathomable reason the public liked you. Not anymore, though, Jackson.”
“You were jealous of what I had with Tules. That she was mine.”
“Jealous of a farce? Of a lie? Of all the games, the control, the secrets?” Shaking his head, Kris gritted his teeth. “You killed her, Jackson. You were just too drunk to remember. It was you. You, the drink, the coke, the sex.” Then he leaned forward with malicious intent when he said, “The men.”
He should have stayed in the shadows. He should have let sleeping pitbulls lie. He should have wrestled with the truth internally. He should have stuck to his original plan of detailing everything in a book for the nation to read and formulate their own opinion of who the real victim was.
He shouldn’t have come back to his old life. The life that had screwed him up and spat him out.
He shouldn’t have drunk half a bottle of single malt.
But he had.
Without thinking, he launched his balled fist at his co-star’s face. Clenched and tight, like that time outside this very same venue at a certain magazine writer. Except, this time, he wasn’t going to miss.
He stumbled through the barrier, the belt snapping from its hold and sending the post toppling to the floor. Hard knuckles hit flesh, firm and fast, with pain ricocheting up his arm to cause a sharp throb in his temple. Kris toppled back, raising his wrist to blot the blood seeping from his lip. Fury-fuelled, Jackson lunged again before he was bashed from the side and fell to a heap on the floor.
The view of burly bouncers leering over him was a frightening prospect.
Chapter Sixteen
Discovered
Fletcher kept one eye on the men in suits gathered in reception as he guided Heston past them to a vacant table at the Meridian bar. If his plan went to, well, plan, then he would be able to order a cocktail, locate Jackson’s bag, take them both over to their table, and scarper out of there quicker than a bull on heat.
Of all the fecking places in all the fecking world.
“Go on. I’ll go order at the bar,” Fletcher said, shoving his satchel on the booth seat and ushering Heston to sit.
“This is a five-star, darling. Table service.” Heston grabbed the menu and scanned through. “Sit down. You make the place untidy.”
“It’ll be quicker if I go to the bar. Mojito?”
Heston huffed, but nodded nonetheless, and Fletcher rushed over to tap agitated fingertips on the glistening bar. A waitress popped up with an enigmatic smile and Fletcher ordered the round. One drink. Heston’s.
“Hey, are there lockers here? For regular guests maybe?” he asked once the cocktail had been placed in front of him.
“You’d have to ask at reception.”
Fletcher glanced over toward the reception area, his body deflating. The Italian was right there. Among the crowd in suits, shaking hands, looking cool, seeming important. He glanced away just as Diego’s brown eyes fell on him. But he could still feel the smile that hitched up the Italian’s lips to brighten his solid features.
Feck. Fletcher scooped up the drink but before he could make his way over to Heston’s table, Diego slipped in front of him with all the prowess of a hunting lion.
“Ciao, Fletcher. Back so soon?”
There had been no doubt that Diego was gorgeous. Flashing that all-Italian smile and sparking those deep brown eyes that welcomed Fletcher back as a long-lost lover. But how many people a day got that kind of welcome from him? Hundreds probably. So Fletcher wasn’t going to bathe in the man’s flirtations. He had Heston. With him.
Right over there.
“Aye. Mixing pleasure with business this time.” He nodded over to the booth. “My partner.”
Diego didn’t even spare a glance. “They do table service in here.”
“I know, but I was actually looking for the lockers?” Might as well be honest. He didn’t have to say whose locker.
“The lockers?”
“Aye. You know where they are?” Fletcher peered behind him, noticing the suited men were now all hoarding in a couple, preventing the paparazzi outside from shoving their oversized lenses through the revolving doors. This was a popular celebrity haunt and he vaguely wondered if those long locks of the girl in huge dark glasses belonged to Lily.