very beautiful girl who was currently cleaning his penthouse.
If only she wasn’t married…
Some people tagged Jack as a womaniser. But he wasn’t. Married women were off limits in his view, no matter how attractive they were.
On the other hand, Hal was a womaniser. The so-called hero in Jack’s books wouldn’t have cared less if Lisa Chapman was married. Not one iota.
This last thought flashed a light on in Jack’s head.
‘Get off the phone, Helene. I’ve just had a brilliant idea for my last chapter.’
‘Can I take any credit?’
‘None whatsoever. I’ll see you tomorrow night.’
Jack hung up and set to work with renewed gusto, plunging into the final chapter, smiling wickedly to himself as Hal blotted his hero status with the beautiful blonde housemaid who’d come to change the linen in his hotel room. She was married, of course. But she forgot about that once Hal went into seduction mode. The girl knew that he was just using her. But the fiery passion in his kisses proved irresistible. She felt powerless to say no, powerless to stop him.
Hal made love to her several times, making her do things she’d never done before. But she thrilled to her own unexpected wantonness.
The last page saw her dressing afterwards, then bending over the bed to kiss the tattoo on Hal’s bare shoulder.
He didn’t stir. He seemed to be asleep. He didn’t want her any more and she knew it. She sighed as she left the room. Only then did Hal roll over and reach for a cigarette. He lit up and dragged in deeply. His eyes were blank and cold.
‘Done!’ Jack muttered as he punched in ‘THE END’, then copied everything onto two flash discs, putting one in his top-drawer and the other into the lead-lined safe he’d had built into the bottom drawer. Jack believed in solid security. He would read the last chapter through again later this afternoon before emailing the manuscript to London, but he felt sure he’d got it right.
Of course, there would be a hue and cry from his editor. She’d complain that his hero was getting too dark. But he’d weather the storm and have his way. And his readers would love it.
Jack chuckled when he thought of Hollywood’s reaction. But they’d just have to like it or lump it as well. Helene had done a fabulous job, not only selling options for all the Hal Hunter books—including those not written yet—to a top movie studio for an absolute fortune, but also in forcing them to sign a rock-solid contract. They had to bring his books to the screen as he’d written them. No changes in titles, plot-lines, settings or characters. Definitely no changes to endings.
Jack wondered who they’d cast for the blonde in this last scene. Not anyone obvious or voluptuous, he hoped. Someone slender and classy-looking. Someone like Mrs Hoity-Toity out there.
Damn, but she’d stirred his hormones. A lot.
For a split-second, Jack toyed with the temptation of making her an indecent proposition. But he quickly got over it.
He was not Hal. He did not seduce married women.
Neither did he right the dreadful wrongs in this world.
That only happened in fiction. In the real world, the baddies didn’t get their comeuppances. They lived on with their millions and their mistresses. They destroyed countries and slaughtered innocent people, but rarely faced punishment.
Jack grimaced. Not that bandwagon again, he lectured himself. There was nothing you could do back then. Nothing you could ever do. None of it was your fault.
Jack’s brain knew that. But his heart didn’t always feel the same, that unexpectedly sensitive heart which had been stripped bare by his experiences in the army.
Despite not having worn a soldier’s uniform for six years, the memories of all Jack had witnessed still haunted him. He would never forget. Or forgive.
But at least now, with the success of his books, he’d rediscovered some pleasure in living.
Which brought him right back to one pleasure he’d been doing without lately.
‘What you need is to get laid,’ he muttered to himself as he rose from his chair and left his study.
Lisa was bending over, about to take the towels out of the front-loading washing machine, when she sensed someone standing behind her.
Even before she straightened and spun around, she knew it was Jack Cassidy.
He was standing in the laundry doorway, watching her with those steely grey eyes of his.
‘Can I help you?’ she snapped, annoyed with the way her heart had started pounding.
‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he returned. ‘You can put my study on your cleaning list as well now. I’ve finished my book.’
‘You want me to clean your study on top of everything else?’ she asked, her voice still sharp.
‘I’ll pay you extra.’
‘It’s not a matter of money, Mr Cassidy, but time. I have to be gone from here by two-thirty to pick up my son from school.’
‘I see. You can’t get anyone else to pick him up?’
‘No. I can’t.’
‘Could you come back tomorrow perhaps? My study hasn’t been cleaned for a few weeks, and frankly, it’s a mess.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t do it tomorrow, either.’ Lisa was beginning to regret not telling him she was the owner of Clean-in-a-Day, not just a contract cleaner. But it was too late now. He’d think she was weird for not mentioning it sooner.
‘Why not?’ he persisted. ‘Will your husband object, is that it?’
‘What? No. No, I don’t have a husband,’ she confessed.
‘But you’re wearing a wedding ring,’ he said, confusion in his face and voice.
‘I’m a widow.’
Chapter Four
JACK hoped he didn’t look as gobsmacked by this news as he felt. Or as excited.
A widow no less. Now, that was a different ball game entirely.
‘But you’re so young,’ he remarked whilst his brain started making plans which his body definitely approved of.
‘I’m thirty,’ she retorted.
‘You don’t look it.’
‘I’ve always looked young for my age.’
‘What happened to your husband?’
‘He died in an accident, five years ago.’
‘A car accident?’
‘No. He fell off the roof of our house.’
‘Good lord. That must have been dreadful for you.’
‘It was,’ she replied stiffly.
‘Do you have any other children?’
‘No. Just the one,’ she told him. ‘Cory. He’s nine.’
Nine! She must have married very young. Either that, or she’d fallen pregnant before the wedding.
No. Jack didn’t think that would have happened. Mrs Lisa Chapman wasn’t the sort of girl who had unplanned pregnancies.
‘Is your son the problem, then?’ he asked. ‘Can’t you get someone to look after him tomorrow morning?’
‘No, I can’t.’
Mmm. No live-in boyfriend, then.
He was tempted to suggest she bring the