Tilly Bagshawe 3-book Bundle: Scandalous, Fame, Friends and Rivals

‘I trusted you,’ Jackson fumed. ‘You warned her. You fucking warned her!’

‘Yes, I warned her. She’s my friend, and what you were trying to pull was just a shitty thing to do. You might not care whether the world thinks you’re a card-carrying wanker, but I do. You were right, me leaving Ceres for Wrexall was a business decision. And I don’t regret it. But throwing Sasha to the wolves like that? That’s not business. That’s spite. You know speaking in public terrifies her. It’s that kind of shit that made us all leave Wrexall in the first place.’

‘GET OUT!’ Jackson yelled at him. ‘Get the hell out of my sight!’

‘Fine,’ said Raj, unruffled. ‘But you’d better get your shit together, Jackson. Or, money or no money, I will walk away. I will stay at Ceres – and don’t kid yourself Sasha wouldn’t have me back in a heartbeat – and I’ll make sure the world, and the Wrexall board, knows why.’

He walked out, shutting the door behind him firmly but gently. In Jackson’s current mood, even that felt like an affront. Why can’t he lose his cool like a normal fucking human being? Why can’t he slam the door, or yell back. Why do I have to be the only jerk around here? He kicked the leg of the desk he’d just broken and winced at the pain in his shin. He knew Raj was right. He was being childish. And spiteful. And ridiculous. But he didn’t care.

Jackson had taken the podium earlier full of confidence, praising Ceres for their innovative business philosophy while simultaneously undermining them brilliantly, constantly stressing their youth and inexperience versus Wrexall’s maturity, longevity and rock-solid financial pedigree. Unlike Sasha, Jackson was an inspired speaker. Had he not gone into the family business he’d have made a terrific politician, masterfully shredding his opponents without landing any obvious or overt blows. In this case, however, after a carefully crafted speech that successfully belittled Sasha’s achievements, he launched a full-frontal nuclear strike in the form of Raj Patel, whom he invited onstage, introducing him to a shocked audience and industry press as Wrexall’s latest star hire.

Stepping down to gasps and thunderous applause, Jackson had taken his seat in the front row like a Roman emperor, waiting to watch Sasha being thrown to the lions. But instead of stammering confusion, he found himself watching a poised, thoughtful and above all gracious Sasha, deliver a speech that ultimately won her a six-minute standing ovation. Discarding everything she’d prepared, she spoke from the heart. About how much she owed Raj Patel, and how much she owed Wrexall Dupree. About how, as a young, experimental company, Ceres always pushed its people to accept new challenges, to move forward and be all that they could be. She joked about the tabloids painting her and Raj as a couple, pondering aloud whom she might be linked with next. ‘I hear Rafael Nadal’s single again,’ she quipped, to ecstatic applause (the home-grown Spanish tennis champ had won the US Open two days before). ‘Maybe I should stay in Spain for a while and work on my backhand?’

Seething with fury in the front row, the tennis analogy stuck in Jackson’s throat. He’d just served Sasha what ought to have been a sure-fire ace. But here she was, lobbing it back to him with the effortless grace of a champion. So much for the element of surprise.

Up in his suite, the phone rang. Jackson answered with a snarl. ‘Fuck off, I’m busy.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ Lucius Monroe’s reedy, elderly voice had lost none of its dry, sardonic humour. He didn’t miss a beat. ‘I was calling to congratulate you on landing Raj Patel. That’s a great hire for us.’

‘Thank you,’ said Jackson grudgingly.

‘You don’t sound very happy about it, dear boy.’

‘Sorry, Lucius. It’s been a long day.’

‘Well, go out and celebrate. Better yet, get Patel to pick up the tab. He can afford it on what we’re about to pay him.’

Jackson hung up. Raj was a great hire. He knew he should be pleased, and focused on the bigger picture. But all he could think about was Sasha and the way this afternoon’s conference crowd had lapped her up. Raj’s defection should have been, at the very least, a PR nightmare for Ceres. But once again, Sasha had managed to turn things around.

The phone rang again. If one more person calls to congratulate me, I’m pulling the cord out of the wall. ‘Yes?’

‘You cunt.’ Sasha’s voice was quiet, but Jackson could feel the rage quivering in every breath. ‘It wasn’t enough for you to go after Raj. You had to try to humiliate me too, as publicly and painfully as possible. You knew how much I was dreading that speech!’

‘Yes, well, thanks to Mr Patel’s bleeding heart I never got the chance, did I? So I don’t know what you’re bitching about.’

‘Don’t know what I’m bitching about?’ Sasha sounded as if she was about to erupt. ‘Get over here.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I said get over here! Walk next door to my room and tell me to my face that you don’t know what I’m bitching about. You’re a fucking coward, Jackson.’ She hung up.

Six seconds later, Jackson was pounding at the door of her suite. Coward, indeed. She thinks I’m afraid to face her? I’ll face her. I’ll tell her exactly what I think of her, right to her face.

‘I’m not here to apologize,’ he announced defiantly. ‘So if that’s what you’re hoping for you can kiss my ass.’ Sasha had opened the door in a hotel bathrobe with a towel tied turban-style on top of her head. Clearly fresh out of the shower, she had no make-up on and looked more like an incensed fourteen-year-old who’s just had her pocket money stopped than a beleaguered CEO. Jackson was just thinking how strangely sweet she looked when a sharp slap across the face sent him reeling. ‘What the fuck?’ He clasped his stinging cheek. ‘You hit me!’

Sasha didn’t answer, but let out a shriek that sounded like some sort of Maori war cry and flung herself at Jackson, punching, biting, kicking, flailing at him with her nails like a wildcat. ‘You arsehole! You fucking arsehole!’ It was so unexpected that at first Jackson barely reacted. In those few, precious moments of confusion, Sasha scratched at his face like a lunatic and landed one agonizing kick to his groin.

Jesus, he thought. She’s trying to kill me.

By the time he regained strength and composure enough to overpower her, his face was covered in welts and the beginnings of a plum-coloured bruise was already forming on his forearm. Pinning her arms behind her back, he picked her up, legs still thrashing wildly, and put her on the bed face down, straddling her and holding her in place like a wrestler.

‘Enough,’ he panted. He released his grip a little and Sasha immediately spun around and bit him hard on the wrist. It was agony. ‘Jesus!’ Jackson screamed, restraining her again, harder this time with his knee in the small of her back. ‘Stop it, Sasha. This is ridiculous. It’s completely fucking ridiculous.’ Beneath him he could feel her breathing slow and her muscles start to release. If he was exhausted, she must be about to pass out. Tentatively, he let go again and this time she made no attempt to relaunch the attack. Instead she turned and looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. Jackson was shocked. She’d never shown so much as one ounce of vulnerability in front of him before and now here she was crying. Because of me?

His voice softened. ‘Hey, don’t. Please. Look, I’m sorry, OK? Maybe I went too far.’

Sasha shook her head, too choked up to speak. Jackson didn’t understand. How could he? What if losing Raj Patel was the turning point, the jinx, the beginning of the end for Ceres, or at least the end of their incredible beginning? For Jackson, business was a game. It was all about ego. Not for Sasha. All the adulation, the money, the fame, they meant nothing in themselves. They were a means to an end, an end that she already felt slipping from her grasp – getting her revenge on Theo Dexter. Somehow, in ways she couldn’t explain, Jackson had come between her and Theo. Between her and her destiny, her purpose, her reason for existing. She wasn’t crying about Raj Patel or even some stupid speech. She was crying because she didn’t know who she was any more.

‘I wanted to beat you.’ Jackson’s voice broke her train of thought. He sounded embarrassed. ‘Just once. I wanted to beat you completely.’

‘You did beat me,’ muttered Sasha. ‘You got Raj. Wasn’t that enough?’

‘No. It wasn’t. I wanted to make you look a fool, the way you made me look a fool last year; in front of the entire industry. I wanted …’ He looked her in the eye, and she knew he was telling her the truth. ‘I wanted you to suffer because of me. The same way I suffer because of you.’

Sasha’s tears stopped. She looked back at him. Still kneeling over her on the bed, she could feel the pressure of his legs against hers, his body warm from the exertion of fighting her off. Her eyes were drawn up, over his lean, suited torso to his face, the strong outline of his jaw jutting out like a ledge at the top of a cliff.

‘I make you suffer?’ she asked.

His hands stroked her tear-stained cheeks. ‘Every day.’

Afterwards, both of them would try to remember how it had happened: who kissed who first? Did Sasha slip out of her robe or did Jackson undress her? But it was impossible to tell, like trying to untangle the roots of a single tree. All Sasha could remember was that, without time seeming to have passed at all, they were both naked.

Tentatively, she traced a finger down Jackson’s bare back, wondering at the smooth tautness of his skin. He leaped at her touch as if he’d been scalded. Sasha drew back.

‘Are you OK?’

Jackson nodded. ‘I’ve waited a long time for this, that’s all.’

Sasha laughed. Not as long as me, she thought, mentally trying to calculate exactly how many years it was since she had last had sex. Jackson probably logged his encounters by the week, if not the day.

As if reading her mind, Jackson said quietly, ‘This is different.’

Gently, with a tenderness Sasha was surprised to find he was capable of, Jackson slipped a hand beneath the small of her back and pulled her down the bed until her hips were level with his own. She felt his erection nudging against her belly. All of a sudden, like being swept up in a storm utterly beyond her control, she found herself reaching for him, her legs opening wider, her hands grabbing his buttocks and pulling him greedily inside her. She’d expected Jackson’s love-making to be polished and practised, an all-star performance from a seasoned lothario. Instead, he moved inside her with a wild need that she had not expected, grabbing at her hair, her back, her breasts. He fucked as if his life depended on it, like a thirst-crazed nomad stumbling upon an oasis. And Sasha responded in kind, wrapping her legs around him and arching her back with a hunger she could neither contain nor conceal.

‘I love you,’ Jackson moaned. He was on his back now, with Sasha above him, his hands on her hips as she rocked gently back and forth, utterly lost in her own pleasure.

I love you too, said Sasha. Except it didn’t come out as words, but more of a sigh, a deep exhalation of all the frustration and longing and need she’d been carrying with her for years, since the day they met. Through the wall, she could hear a phone ringing from Jackson’s room. ‘Someone wants you,’ she murmured.

Jackson thrust deeper inside her. ‘I want you, Sasha. You’re all I want.’ He came then, his whole body shaking, as if in the throes of some delicious electric shock. Sasha bent low and kissed him lingeringly on the mouth. Neither of them wanted to move, both afraid to let the moment end, to break the spell. But a few seconds later, it was broken for them by Jackson’s cellphone, trilling loudly and insistently from the pocket of his pants, now lying in a tangled heap on the floor. He reached down and picked it up.

‘Hello?’

‘Darling, it’s me.’

Lottie’s voice was like a glass of cold water in the face. Jackson pictured her at home in their apartment, loving him, trusting him, eager for him to come back to her. He winced. ‘Hey. How are you? I was going to call …’

‘Jackson, something’s happened,’ she interrupted him. For the first time he heard the trepidation in her voice. Some mad impulse made him wonder whether perhaps she’d been unfaithful? Then he wouldn’t have to feel so bad. If she’d fallen for somebody else, someone decent and kind, someone infinitely better and more worthy of her than he was …

‘It’s your father.’