Just Between Us...

She groaned as she stepped into her panties and slacks and tried to find the way back into her vest. “What are we going to say?” she whispered fiercely to Jack, who was putting himself together with one hand while he held the door closed with the other.

She stared at him as he stared back.

“Why not the truth?”

Mallory’s throat closed off air altogether. He wasn’t seriously considering telling them that they’d been sleeping together, was he?

“Are you insane?” she asked.

“Shh.”

She realized she’d nearly shouted the words.

Jack turned so that his back rested against the wood separating them from the persistent person on the other side of the door. He crossed his arms over his broad and impressive chest, looking a little too cheeky for her liking. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I think it’s about time we let them in on our little secret.”

Mallory’s movements slowed as she turned the vest right side out then yanked it over her head. “Okay, it’s official. You are insane.”

“Why?”

She straightened her top then went to work on her hair. “Come on, Jack. We’ve talked about this. Whatever happened to ‘what they don’t know won’t hurt them’?”

“That’s always been your take on the situation.”

She squinted at him, trying to reconcile the man she’d known just a few minutes before with the man he was introducing her to now. “And your take?”

She figured she was as fixed up as she was going to get and folded her own arms over her chest, facing off with him.

“My take is that I’d like to let our friends—our best friends—know that we’re seeing each other.”

Mallory nearly toppled over. “Seeing each other? Jack, what we do is not seeing each other. What we do is have…sex.”

Was it her, or had he just winced?

She uncrossed her arms and gestured wildly with her hands. “I mean, to be seeing each other, we’d actually have to date. And we don’t date. We’ve never dated. You’ve never called me up and said ‘Hey, what’s say we catch a movie.”’

“I bring over DVDs.”

“And that constitutes a relationship? We don’t even get around to watching the damn movies ’cause we’re too busy having sex.”

Again, a wince.

Oh, no. This was not happening.

Mallory reached around him for the door handle. She needed to get out of this room but quick. She wondered if it was possible for claustrophobia to lie dormant then just spring out and overwhelm the victim in a single moment. “We’ll tell them I…spilled wine or something on my vest and you were helping me find something to clean it up with. And…and…the door got jammed.”

“And what? I blew on the spot until it dried and went away?” Jack stayed put, refusing her exit.

She stared up into his eyes. His deep, dark, wonderful eyes that were now looking at her as if she’d just committed some heinous crime.

“What?” she asked, growing increasingly frustrated with his inexplicable behavior.

And feeling increasingly claustrophobic.

He shrugged his shoulders, his arms still crossed. “It’s simple, Mall. If we don’t tell Layla and Reilly, and I mean come clean with everything, then our relationship—excuse me, the sex—ends right here.”

Mallory’s jaw dropped open. “You…can’t…be…serious.”

He nodded soberly. “As serious as I’ve ever been in my life.”

“Hello!” the voice in the hall grew louder.

If there was one thing Mallory had never responded well to, it was ultimatums. She’d grown up with her mother saying, “Mallory Marie, behave or I’ll send you to live with your grandmother in Portland.” And lately everyone seemed to be throwing around ultimatums. “Pay up your rent or you’re out,” her landlord had told her last week. “Pay me last month’s salary or I quit,” her cameraman had said. “Our foundation needs to have final approval or we don’t grant you the money,” she’d heard just this morning when she was pounding the pavement trying to scare up the money for the cameraman’s salary.

But none of the other ultimatums had made her feel like she might be sick. Standing there looking at Jack, and knowing he was serious, made her heart ache in a way that frightened her.

Despite his words, he couldn’t be serious. He couldn’t be. She didn’t have time for a relationship. She didn’t know where she was career-wise. She’d been in L.A. for nearly five years but didn’t know yet if she had what it took to make it in the dog-eat-dog city. Things had worked so well between them the way they were. And now Jack wanted to change everything.

God, Jack Daniels wasn’t even her type.

She caught the ridiculous thought. She didn’t have a type. But if she did, Jack Daniels would fit the criteria to a T.

Another round of pounding. “I’m going to get security!”

Mallory cleared her throat. She didn’t know what else to say, so she said the obvious. “She’s going to get security.”

Jack stared at her for a long minute. “That’s your answer?”

Mallory’s fear-o-meter shot up another notch. “What? That she’s going to get security?”

“Mmm.”

“Then, yes,” she nodded inanely. “That’s my answer. Because…because…because your question is irrelevant, Jack.”

Her response seemed to stun him enough to allow her to maneuver him out of the way of the door.

She opened it to find that neither Layla nor Reilly were standing outside, nor anyone they knew for that matter. Rather, a woman who was obviously part of the hotel staff looked more than a little hot and bothered that she hadn’t been able to get into the room.

“Excuse me,” Mallory said, pushing past her before the woman could say anything.

Of course, if her need to get out of there quick had anything to do with the tears pricking the back of her eyelids, well, she wasn’t admitting anything.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE FIVE minutes made.

As Jack stood off to the side of the reception room watching the melee unfold before him, he couldn’t bring himself to believe it was the same room he and Mallory had left a short time before. While everyone had been speaking civilly before, smiling, drinking and being merry (well, at least as merry as this mismatched group could get), now clear battle lines had been drawn and the bride’s family and friends were going toe-to-toe with the groom’s.

“It’s off,” Layla said, looking much as Mallory had in the linen closet as she crossed her arms over her chest and stared down her groom, Sam Lovejoy. “The wedding is officially cancelled.”

Sam leaned forward, a tight grin detracting from his handsomeness not at all. “Layla, don’t be ridiculous. We can work all this out after the ceremony tomorrow.” He waggled his brows. “You know, on our way to our honeymoon.”

Layla looked like the dentist had just told her to open wide. “Honeymoon? Honeymoon?” She poked her finger into Sam’s wide chest. “I’ve got news for you, Dr. Lovejoy. There isn’t going to be any honeymoon.”

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that something monumental had happened to bring about current events. Jack was a stickler for details. It’s what made him such a good columnist.

And, he hoped, it’s what would provide him with the ammo he needed to patch everything up here.

He leaned closer to Reilly where she stood next to him, looking as stunned as he felt.

“What’s going on?” Jack whispered.

Reilly glanced at him. “Jesus, Jack, where have you been? World War III has broken out and you didn’t even witness the first shot.”

Jack resisted the urge to pull at his collar as he looked at Mallory across the room. She didn’t appear to know what was going on, either, but she did look ready to jump into the fray on behalf of Layla at a moment’s notice.

Jack became aware of Reilly’s sharpening interest. “Where were you, anyway?”

He shoved his hands into his pants pockets as he watched Layla work to take off her diamond solitaire engagement ring. “Bathroom. What’s going on?”

Someone—one of Layla’s cousins, he thought—turned to shush them. Reilly ignored her and stepped closer to whisper into his ear. “Remember how Sam used to be Mr. L.A. Chop Doc? The crème de la crème of plastic surgeons?”

Jack nodded. “Yes. Then he took on the position of staff administrator at Trident Medical Group where Layla works.”

“Mmm. Well, it seems he doesn’t much like firing people so he told Layla tonight that when they get back from their honeymoon he’s going to reopen his personal practice.”

Jack grimaced. “Ouch.”

“You can say that again. I don’t think Layla’s quite accepted yet that half the breasts in L.A. bear Sam’s hand marks…”

Jack hiked his brows.

Reilly waved her hands. “You know what I mean. Anyway, knowing that he’s going to be creating more of those perfect breasts, along with pert bottoms, sent her careening over the edge.”

Jack rubbed his chin with his index finger. From what he understood, Layla’s self-esteem when it came to body image had suffered greatly in the initial stages of her relationship with Sam. Throw in that she subscribed to the notion that medicine should be available to everybody, while Sam’s personal motto was “let them have breasts,” and, well, you had a tenuous situation at best.

But ultimately they had worked everything out.

Or so he’d thought.

He took in Layla and Sam bickering like a divorced couple. Had the former harmony between them existed only because Sam had given up performing plastic surgery?

Jack felt himself begin to withdraw emotionally from the situation and wishing he could do so physically. To witness this on top of what had happened with Mallory in the linen closet was a little too much excitement for one night.

Reilly quietly cleared her throat. “By the way, did I tell you that Ben and I had a falling out?”

Jack stared at her as if she’d just taken her head off then screwed it back on.

Oh, no.

That did it.

He was leaving.

Now.

Reilly was nodding. “He wants me to close down Sugar ’n’ Spice and come into business with him. You know, change Benardo’s Hideaway to Ben and Reilly’s.”

Jack suppressed the desire to say, “So?”

What was there some kind of relationship virus going around that he didn’t know about?

He began doing the physical backing away he’d longed to just moments ago.

“Where are you going?” Reilly asked as Jack met Mallory’s gaze across the room.

“Um, the bathroom.”

Reilly looked totally confused. “But I thought you just got back from there.”

He absently rubbed his churning stomach. “Yeah. Something like that.” He eyed the door. “Call me when the storm clouds blow over.”

Then he strode from the room as fast as he could without running.

3

“I’M SUPPOSED TO BE AT the church right now,” Layla wailed over the phone to Mallory the following morning. Now that the emotional fireworks were over, apparently the bride was having second thoughts about dumping her groom.

Either that or she was mourning the dress.

“I have the image all laid out in my mind,” Layla continued without any prompting from Mallory, who was hiding under the covers in her bed wishing the world and Layla would just go away. “My mother would be standing behind me fixing my veil. You’d help me put on my garter and make sure I had sexy underwear underneath, and Reilly would be calming any prewedding jitters with caffeine-free coffee and sticky buns.”

Mallory’s brain caught on the word coffee. She threw aside the sheet and pulled herself into a semi-standing position.

It was 10 a.m. and she was only half-awake at best. She moved her cell phone to her other ear and shuffled from her bedroom into the tiny living/dining area of her apartment, then into the closet that was her kitchen, kicking clothes, notebooks, and crumpled pieces of paper out of her way as she went. “So call Sam and patch things up,” she grumbled to Layla, who was obviously heartbroken.

But at least her friend could talk about it. Mallory, on the other hand, had to keep her own relationship woes to herself.

Coffee.

She needed coffee.

She took the stained carafe out of the coffeemaker, eyed the half inch of murky contents, then dumped it down the sink.

“I can’t,” Layla whispered.

“Why can’t you?” Mallory asked, filling the reservoir with water then taking the small coffee can from the pint-sized refrigerator. She popped the rubber top and peered inside at the grounds that barely covered the bottom of the can, then shook it. Enough for one cup. All she needed to see her through to getting to Reilly’s.

“I just…can’t,” Layla whispered into her ear.

Mallory searched through her empty cabinet for filters and came up with nothing but a half-empty package of stale taco shells and an empty jar of peanut butter. She dropped her right hand to her side. “What’s so difficult about it, Lay? All you have to do is pick up the phone, press the speed dial number for Sam, and say ‘hi.”’

Layla laughed without humor. “Excuse me, but if I’m not mistaken, you were at the dinner last night, weren’t you? You saw what happened. I can’t call him!”

Looked like making coffee was out.

“So don’t call him then, I don’t care,” Mallory grumbled.

Silence.

Great. She’d just pissed off her grieving friend. She squinted against the sun slanting in through the kitchen window then closed the stained shade against the glare. Grieving? Layla hadn’t just lost a relative. She’d called off a wedding. Purposely. With full knowledge of what she was doing.

“Filter,” she said absently.

“What?” Layla asked.

Mallory shook her head then trudged back out into the living room/dining room, searching for something, anything she could use as a filter. “Nothing,” she said. “Look, Lay, why don’t you go out somewhere? Go to Reilly’s. That’s where I’m planning to be in twenty minutes. Meet me there.”

A heavy sigh. “Maybe you’re right. I probably shouldn’t be sitting here by myself moping around. And I’ve already done all the canceling that I can. By now everyone knows what happened anyway. If they don’t…well, I guess they’ll find out when they get to the church, won’t they?”

There was a brief knock at Mallory’s apartment door. She stared at the closed and multiple-locked barrier, an image of Jack with an extra-large cup of coffee popping to mind. She wasn’t sure which made her mouth water more. Jack or the coffee. She hurried to the door and threw it open.

Not Jack.

Not even coffee.

Instead, her neighbor Candy Cane stood in the doorway looking well turned out—as usual—in full makeup, teased blond hair, and pink-and-red kimono robe, likely just having returned home from a busy night walking the strip.

“Oh, it’s you,” Mallory said.

Candy flashed her a smile. Somewhere around forty, Candy was a prostitute who never made any apologies about who she was or what she did for a living. Mallory liked that about her.

Unfortunately she was also an early riser; something Mallory didn’t like.

“Sugar?” Candy asked, dangling an empty porcelain coffee cup from one perfectly manicured finger.

“Filters?” Mallory returned.

“Who’s there?” Layla asked over the phone.

“Candy. Just a second,” Mallory answered then dropped the receiver to her side. “I’ll trade you sugar for a coffee filter.”

Candy scrunched up her nose, making her look cuter if that were at all possible. “I don’t touch the stuff. Do you know what it does to your skin?”

“I don’t care what it does to my skin. I just care that it wakes me up.”

Candy shook her head, walked through to the kitchen, got her sugar, then was standing in the doorway again in no time. “Thanks, hon,” she said with a large smile. “And maybe you should think about some of that instant flavored stuff. I like that.”

Mallory shook her own head then slammed the door after her. What kind of person didn’t drink coffee?

Then again, what kind of hooker took in every kind of stray imaginable, both of the animal and human variety?

“Mallory? Mallory? Are you still there?”

Oops. Layla.

She lifted the receiver back to her ear. What had she been saying? Oh, yeah, they’d been discussing meeting up at Reilly’s to help Layla make it through the day of her cancelled wedding. “I’m still here. And what you just said about everyone finding out on their own steam? Well, you sound like the Layla I know and love again already.”

Mallory’s gaze traveled around her apartment. Newspapers, her plastic-wrapped bridesmaid dress, the panty hose to go with it.

Panty hose…

She picked up the square package, a nagging voice at the back of her mind telling her that maybe she shouldn’t. What? she answered. There was no wedding, so she didn’t need them anyway.

She tore open the plastic, yanked out the silky stockings then headed back for the kitchen.

“You always make sense,” Layla said. “I knew there was a reason I called you.”

Mallory grimaced. Whatever that meant. She got a pair of scissors out of a drawer and cut the foot out of one of the stockings. With help from a rubber band, she fastened the makeshift filter to the holder then dumped the coffee grounds in.

“So I’ll see you at Reilly’s in a few, then?” Mallory asked.

“Got it,” Layla confirmed.

Mallory clicked the disconnect button then put the cell down on the counter and stared as the coffeemaker gurgled then spat out her one precious cup of caffeine. Her gaze drifted back to the cell phone. She picked it up and pressed a speed dial number.

ACROSS THE WAY IN Culver City, Jack sat at his narrow kitchen table in a pair of jeans and leisurely drank a cup of coffee, his ten-year-old bloodhound at his feet, the morning newspaper in his hand. As far as apartments went, his wasn’t much bigger than Mallory’s. But it was much better organized. And a great deal neater. If there was one thing he hated about Mallory, it was her housekeeping skills. Or lack thereof.

No good. The negative reflection wasn’t enough to chase from his mind the memory of her face as she reached orgasm in the linen closet last night.

Damn.

He glanced over the paper at the calendar on the wall with the number 26 circled in red indicating the deadline for his January column, then rustled the paper back to block it again.

What was Mallory doing right now?

He frowned. Probably sleeping. Probably thinking everything was still right as rain between them. Probably choosing to forget the entire conversation they’d had the night before.

He rustled the paper again, trying to make himself focus on the words, but he couldn’t seem to link more than two of them together, and two words didn’t make a sentence. Or a whole lot of sense for that matter.

Boomer lifted his head to stare at him with his droopy eyes and then whined.

“What is it, B?” Jack glanced over at the dog’s full food and water bowls, then looked at the newspaper again. Boomer sighed heavily then laid his head back down.

At ten years of age—which was ancient for a bloodhound—the dog was becoming increasingly lazier. If that was even possible. One morning Jack had actually timed him and the dog hadn’t moved in five straight hours. Not to eat. Not to use the dog door to go into the patch of dead grass that served as his backyard to go to the bathroom. Nothing.

He should call the vet and find out if the behavior was normal. Then again, he’d just taken Boomer to the vet for his annual two months ago and everything had checked out fine.

The only time the old hound seemed animated was when Mallory was around.

Jack gave up on the paper altogether and blew a long breath out of his inflated cheeks. If he was going to stick to his threat not to have sex with Mallory again, he’d have to stop thinking every other minute about having it with her.

The phone on the wall rang. He glanced over his shoulder where it was two feet away, then leaned back on the rear two legs of the chair to snatch up the cordless receiver.

“Yeah,” he said, settling the legs of his chair back onto the floor.

“Reilly’s. Quick. Pick me up.”

Jack’s throat tightened. It was Mallory. And she’d just said those five words.

“And bring emergency rations.”

She hung up.

Jack stared at the receiver. True to form, Mallory was acting like last night had never happened.

He shut off the phone then laid it on the table.

He picked the paper back up and shook it out, this time intent on getting something out of it.

He was well into his tenth story when the phone rang again twelve minutes later.

“Are you on the road?” was Mallory’s hello.

“Nope.”

“Jack!” she said. “What’s the matter with you? Get over here, pronto. I don’t have coffee and I’m an inch away from dead.”

“So I’ll call the engraver for your tombstone.”

“Ha, ha. Funny man. It’s too early for funny.”

“It’s ten-thirty.”

“Way too early for funny.”

Jack moved the receiver to his other ear and closed the paper again. Despite what Mallory thought, he did have things he needed to be doing. He’d already spent more than enough time screwing around trying to read the newspaper. But in order to see to the other items on his agenda he had to be reasonably sure he could function properly without thoughts of Mallory intruding on his thoughts every five minutes.

“Jack?”

“Hmm.”

“Oh. For a minute there I thought you’d hung up.”

“Nope.”

“But you’re filling the travel cup and getting your car keys now, right?”

“Nope.”

“But Layla needs us.”

He lifted his brows. “How, exactly, does Layla need us?”

“She needs immediate TLC. She’s waiting at Reilly’s as we speak.”

Jack rubbed his hand over his forehead and eyes and absently thought that he needed a shave.

“It’s going to look suspicious if we don’t show.”

“Take the subway.”

A heartbeat of a pause. “And you?”

“I’ll go on my own.”

“Then that’ll look doubly suspicious because you always drive me.”

He thought of the wreck that sat parked at the curb outside her apartment. “So get your car fixed.”

“You know I can’t.”

What sucked was that he did know.

Jack picked up his coffee cup only to find he’d already drained the contents, then looked down at Boomer who’d lifted his head and seemed to be following Jack’s end of the conversation.

“Give me ten.”

Mallory hung up instantly.

THE NEXT HOUR SEEMED like a lifetime to Mallory, despite the endless supply of lifesaving, strong, hot coffee (the one cup she managed to brew at home had looked like a grease slick was floating on top) and sticky buns. Jack hadn’t spoken to her during the drive over—which was really bad because it meant he was serious about his ultimatum and she didn’t have any idea what to do about that. Layla looked like she’d spent the whole of last night crying and her face was a splotchy mess. And Reilly wasn’t faring much better with her unsmiling expressions and long silences.

Mallory sat up, hating to admit that three sticky buns was at least a half a sticky bun too many. At least the way Reilly made them, which was really big and really sticky.

Then again, it might be the whole relationship thing. She’d spent her entire life watching her mother go from husband to boyfriend to husband again, unable to spend five solitary moments alone. Mallory had always told herself she would never do that. Would never put herself into a position where she was emotionally and financially dependent on a man, or anyone else for that matter.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know what you two are so down about. I mean, the way I see it you just dodged the ultimate bullet, Layla.” Her friend cringed. She switched her attention to Reilly. “And, well, you pretty much know I’ve had my doubts about Ben all along, Rei.”