The Mighty Storm (The Storm 1)

I nearly crack into pieces on the spot.

Jake’s eyes flicker in my direction again, and he smirks. “Thanks.”

“Jake, are we getting a drink?” Redhead pulls on his arm. Her voice is sweet, laced with a heavy French accent, and she pronounces Jake – Zzhake, rolling his name around her tongue.

It sounds as sexy as she looks. I hate her.

Why do the French always sound sexy? So much sexier than my Spanish accent, the one that turns Jake on.

Fine, he wants to play games, well I’m up for that.

“Yeah, in a minute,” Jake answers her sounding irritated.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us to your new friend, Jake?” Stuart asks.

Jake narrows a gaze at Stuart, who seems unfazed by the darts he’s shooting him down with.

I don’t think I want to know her name. It somehow makes her even more real if she has a name.

Jake glances back at redhead. “Um … yeah, this is … um.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “I’m Juliette.” She presses her small hand to her large chest.

Zzhuliette.

So not only is she beautiful, she has a beautiful name. Which, Jake either couldn’t remember or hadn’t even bothered to find out.

I don’t even know if that should make me feel better or not.

“Zzhuliette,” I hear myself saying in a really bad French accent.

Jake’s eyes flicker to mine. Zzhuilette stares at me too.

Oh God.

“It’s a really pretty name,” I somehow recover. And I don’t know if it’s the booze or a mild hysteria setting in, but I say, in bad French again, “Zzhake and Zzhuilette. Has quiet a ring to it. Don’t you agree?” I stare at Jake.

He shifts on his feet, looking at me like I’ve just grown another head.

I know Will’s staring at me too, but in this moment I don’t care.

Jake laughs, getting his cool composure back. “What have you been drinking, Tru?”

“Oh, just a few margarita’s.” I stare at him steady, shrugging, forcing the best smile I can muster up. “I’m just feeling happy. Looking on the brightside, you know. Will and Simone are here, it’s all good, I’m happy, happy, happy!”

His eyes harden, burning into mine. “So what did you think of the show, Tru?”

Is he asking my professional opinion or asking me in my current state of anger with him? Honestly, I don’t even know why he is asking. And hearing him say my name, it’s like I’m hearing it for the first time.

How can this be the same man who made love to me all through the night. Told me how much he missed me for the years we’d been apart. The man who pleaded with me to never leave him.

“Trooo?” Zzhuilette looks at me puzzled, with bitch in her eyes. “You’re name is Trooo?”

I’ve never wanted to slap someone as much as I do her now.

Take my guy – fine. Don’t dis my name. Even though I just did yours a few moments ago – kind of.

“Trudy,” I explain. “My friends call me Tru for short.” I emphasise the ‘u’.

“Ahh, I zee.” She runs her fingernails through her hair seemingly bored now.

Obviously she has the attention span of a gnat.

Ugh, I’m turning into one of those bitchy women. Good.

I pick my margarita up and take a mouthful for courage.

“And to answer your question, Jake,” I start to speak in my Spanish accent, because I know how much it affects him, and I want to be a bitch.

Jake’s eyes widen and fire, and I know I’m playing a dangerous game. I dare not even look at Will.

“In my professional opinion the show was brilliant, one of your best to date.” I smile sweetly up at him, desperately trying to hold the pieces of me together.

His flaming eyes soften, slightly. I see him shift uncomfortably in his pants.

He’s squirming.

Good.

Or maybe I’ve just turned him on and am about to send him off with his redheaded groupie.

Smart, Tru, real smart.

“Glad you think so. Plenty for the bio?” he asks.

Work. He really wants to talk work with me. Fine.

“Yes, plenty of stuff.”

Barring the, ‘I’m having an affair with you’ part of the show, which you are now clearly past, as you have a shiny new French toy to play with.

I bite my lip, until it hurts.

Tom comes swaggering over, a couple of girls in tow.

“Where the fuck is Denny? Are we getting this party started or what?” he says loudly, clearly already drunk, slapping Jake on the back.

“Yeah, I’m coming now,” Jake answers him, without moving his eyes from mine.

Jake casts his eyes around the table, landing back on me lastly, and says, “Have a good night.”

Then he’s walking away, over to the bar, with his long-legged French redheaded beauty, Zzhuilette.

Leaving little ordinary English, Trudy, to watch him from the side-line, like everyone else in this room.

Chapter Eighteen

I’ve been surreptitiously watching Jake since he walked away from me thirty minutes ago.

I’m aware of every single move he makes, my eyes tracking him around the room, watching him greet people who are clearly here just to see him, as I force an interest in what Will has to say.

I know I’m not being fair to Will. But I just can’t seem to get my focus straight anymore.

Jealousy and anger are in my driving seat.

Jake hasn’t looked in my direction once in all that time. And now he’s seated at his table, in the smoking area of this place, with Tom and Smith, and hordes of groupies hanging around them, and of course the leggy Zzhuilette.

I had thought at one point, while he was working the room, he’d binned her off, as she was nowhere to be seen, but the second he sat down, she was there again. And my temporary sense of relief was gone.

While Will is talking to Stuart, I sneak another peek across the room, just in time to watch as Zzhuilette leans across the table, her cleavage well on show for all to see, mainly Jake, with an unlit cigarette perched between her glossy pink lips.

Jake pulls his lighter from his pocket, sparking it, he holds it up to her cigarette.

She puts her hand on his wrist, touching his friendship bracelet, my bracelet, holding his hand in place and bats her eyelashes seductively at him as she puffs her cigarette lit.

I’m angry that he let her touch my bracelet. I know that sounds stupid, but I’m not exactly feeling rational right now.

She moves back into her seat in a cloud of smoke, pushing her chest out, crossing her long legs suggestively at him.

She’s the kind of sexy that I could only dream to be.

She is beautiful and I feel suitably inadequate. She is Jake’s type for sure. His equal.

I really don’t know what it is he sees in me. Or maybe I’m just a conquest like I said to Simone, because of our history. And the unobtainable, because of Will.

Maybe that’s why he wants me so much.

Or maybe not so much now as the case may be.

As I’m staring, I see Jake’s eyes flicker past Zzhuilette and straight in my direction. I quickly look away, staring down at my drink.

I can’t do this. I need a breather.

Getting up from my seat, I say to Will, “I’m just going to the ladies.”

I grab my bag and as I’m walking past, Will catches my hand.

“Are you okay, darling?” he asks in a quiet voice, looking up at me.

“I’m fine,” I smile.

“You just seem a bit quiet, not your usual self.”

He’s noticed. I really am not being fair to him at all. He flew all this way to see me and I’m just visually chasing Jake around this room.

I’m going to go to the bathroom to sort myself out, and come back out and focus all my attention on Will, just like he deserves.

“I’m fine, baby, honestly.” I touch his face with my hand. “I just think maybe all this travelling with the tour has finally caught up with me. I’m not used to it.”

“Well, you’ll be home tomorrow night for a few weeks break, so you can relax then. And I’ll be there to take care of you.”

I feel sick at his kind words. I’m the lowest of the low. How could I cheat on this wonderful man?

Because you love Jake.

I push the thought to the back of my mind.

“Sounds wonderful,” I say.

He kisses my hand, then releases it and turns back to Stuart, resuming their conversation.

I cross the huge room on unsteady legs, feeling like they might give out on me any moment now. Forcing a calm I don’t own, I hold my head up high and carry on forward.

I see Simone is still at the bar with Denny, deep in conversation. Catching her eye, I give her a mini thumbs up. She grins happily at me.

I’m just opening the bathroom door, when someone grabs me from behind and drives me into the empty bathroom.

As I turn, surprised, I see it’s Jake.

He locks the door behind him and leans back against it. His eyes look like they are on fire.

Something in my stomach drops, then coils lower. My legs start to tremble.

I’m ecstatic he’s followed me here, and angry too.

Then my whole body catches up with my legs, and the tremble runs from my head, back down to my toes, tightening me up in those special places. The places only Jake can somehow magically touch with one single look alone.

“What are you doing here?” I say, going with my anger. “Someone might have seen you come in.”

“No one saw me.” He sounds confident, assured. Like always.

I don’t know how true that statement is. Eyes are always on Jake wherever he goes.

“Great performance tonight – Mr Brightside – really Jake? Why not just spell it out to the whole world,” I bite.

He shrugs, grinning.

“What do you want?” I ask, rattled by his calm demeanour.

He lifts his eyebrow. “You.” He starts to move slowly toward me like a tiger stalking its prey.

“Jake, no … not here, not now. Someone could come.”

“Dave’s outside the door and it’s locked. No one will bother us.”

So Dave knows I’m sleeping with Jake? Brilliant.

“No, Jake. Please,” I beg, as he moves closer.

I’m begging because I don’t know if I have the ability to say no to him. I haven’t so far.

When I see he’s got no intention of listening to my pleas, I start to back up and quickly find myself up against the sinks, with nowhere left to go.

My whole body is rushed with adrenaline, want and fear. It’s a heady combination.

When he reaches me, I put my trembling hand out, pressing it flat against his hard chest, stopping him at arm’s length.

“You look beautiful tonight,” he whispers intense, eyes fixed on mine.

The exhilaration of being in here with him, him taking control like this, is doing crazy things to me.

He pushes hard against my hand and I’m weakened to stop him, and truthfully, I don’t want to.

The second I saw him with that girl, I hated it, and I wanted to reclaim him as mine.

So when he grabs hold of my hair, fisting his hand into it, and crushes his mouth to mine, I don’t stop him.