She tried on a few dresses. The first made her look like a porcelain doll. The second made her look stuck up her own arse. The third made her look like a posh prostitute. But the fourth…It was an ice-blue, silk, halter-neck that was elegant yet stylish and clung to her like a second skin. According to the happy assistants, the skin-clinging part was vital. Whatever. It fit, it was a nice colour, and she didn’t look slutty but had avoided looking all prissy. That was good enough for her. The price was more than she had anticipated but she would overlook that; she needed to get out of this sodding shop and breathe.
The good Lord had obviously been looking down on her because Anna also selected something from this store, though Jaxxon suspected this was mostly because Anna had gotten caught up in the whirlwind of attention. The dress she finally settled on was a short, black number that complimented her long legs.
It was later as they were tackling the pizza they’d had delivered to Jaxxon’s apartment – she had managed to convince Anna that indulging occasionally was good for the soul – that she relayed to Anna the rumours about her and Matt. Amazing how a five minute conversation with a bloke in a bar had been turned into a wild weekend.
“You know, I’m proper surprised that anyone would even print that, let alone believe it,” declared Anna. “I mean come on you’d eat him alive. The idea of you as a couple is just totally unrealistic. Same with Bruno; the man might be built to pleasure but he’s a walking talking teddy bear, he doesn’t suit you. No, what you need is a man-man.” Her face suddenly took on a faraway quality as she got caught up in her thoughts.
“A man-man?”
“Yeah, you know, someone who won’t quiver before you.”
“But who I can still boss around,” she quickly insisted.
“Someone who won’t back down once you get started on one of your disputes.”
“But who will accept that, ultimately, I will win all arguments.”
“And we’ll throw in a healthy sex drive for good measure. Someone intense. I just can’t see you being satisfied with slow and gentle.”
The sound of her mobile phone ringing broke them out of their ‘Jaxxon’s Man-Man’ design. Tired and bloated, Jaxxon huffed with the effort of going to grab her phone. The screen said ‘Withheld Number’. “Hello.” Nothing on the other end. “Hello.” Still nothing. Jaxxon scowled at the phone then ended the call.
“Something up with the signal?” asked Anna from the dining table.
“I’ve got five bars.” The phone in her hand started to ring again. “Hello.” Again there was nothing. “Must be the signal of whoever’s on the other end.” She ended the call, slung the phone on the coffee table and then returned to the table. No sooner had she sat down than the landline phone began ringing. Jaxxon groaned as she got up to answer it. “Hello.” Nothing. “Hello.” Still complete and utter silence. “Say something or sod off.” Again nothing so she replaced the receiver and sat back down. Wouldn’t you know it, the phone began ringing again. “Oh the machine can get it. I can’t be arsed getting up again, I’m too stuffed.” Her whole world seemed to pause as she heard that voice…
“Jaxx…God, it’s been ages hasn’t it…I’m made up that you’re
doing well for yourself. Give me a ring and let me know when’s a
good time for you to meet up.”
As Connor rattled off his mobile phone number, Jaxxon closed her eyes and allowed the deep, seductive timbre of his voice to wash over her. The sound should be illegal, it was like a caress. It conjured images up in her mind of his gorgeous face, his cocky grin…and the back of his body as he walked out of her life and never came back.
God she despised him. God she missed him. Just like that, her mind was a mess. That arsehole always had a way of knocking her off kilter.
Jaxxon had heard plenty about him over the years. It was hard not to. Most of the blokes where she grew up had all raved about Connor. She always got that, ‘Hey, wasn’t you once Connor McKenzie’s girlfriend? Did he dump you before or after all the F1 stuff?’ That always earned them the snarl from hell.
She knew about his fiancée and their upcoming wedding too…which just made him getting in touch all of a sudden even worse. There was no way she could look at him without wanting to poke his eyes out and feed them to his fiancée. Or maybe the other way around. Maybe both. Why not?
A growl almost spilt from her throat. The nerve of him to phone her up after eight years of nothing! What, was she considered good enough to be associated with now that she was featured in magazines like him? How could he even think she would want to see him? And he did think that she would. She could tell by the way he spoke.
“Oooooh, who was that?” intoned Anna.
“Connor,” replied Jaxxon without thought.
“Connor…?”
“Connor McKenzie.”
Anna frowned. “Connor McKenzie, Connor McKen -” Her eyes widened. “Connor McKenzie as in Connor McKenzie the F1 driver?”
“That’s the one.”
“Oh my God, that man is just divine. Well, he looks like it on the photos anyway. Don’t hold back, how did you meet him? And when?”
Another sigh. “When we were both in foster care.” Anna’s mouth dropped open. Jaxxon supposed that she hadn’t kept her expression as carefully blank as she had thought because Anna’s own expression quickly became cautious and concerned.
“He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“He was my teenage obsession. Gave me my first kiss.”
“Then what happened?”
“Then nothing. He turned sixteen, left, and I didn’t see him again.”
“So then why do you look ready to kill?”
Jaxxon swallowed back the hurt. “Probably because the night before he left he kissed me and made out like he cared about me when it turned out that the whole time he’d been shagging my older sister and the kiss had been a sympathy-kiss. To a teenager with the most humungous crush, that was a really big thing. And then…”
“And then…?”
No, Jaxxon wouldn’t talk about all that happened after that. She never had, not with anyone, and she had no wish to. Ever.
“Are you going to ring him back?”
“No.” She didn’t even have to think about it. “Sometimes it’s best to leave the past where it belongs. Behind you.”
CHAPTER FOUR
All of three seconds had passed since Connor brought the Ferrari Test Driving Car to a halt on the empty test-track circuit and the very thing that he had been trying to gain a reprieve from for even just a short time came rushing back to the forefront of his mind. Jaxx.
Nothing had succeeded in making him numb from the frustration and confusion that came with the fact that she hadn’t phoned him. Granted it had only been four days since he had left a message on her machine, but he knew she was in London so she would have heard his message by now. Jaxx didn’t play games or make people sweat or put them on hold. That meant that she had either changed dramatically over the years into a creature that more resembled her sister or she simply did not wish to see him.