Wild About the Man. Joss Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ cat. He’s lied to you for ten years and yet you still fall for it!’ Jason poured himself a glass of wine and downed the contents in one long swallow. Clem reached for a tissue and wiped her eyes, light green and surrounded by long tinted lashes. Wet from her tears, they were even more startling than normal. ‘I’m not crying because I’m sad, I always cry when I’m angry!’

      ‘Mmm.’

      ‘I swear this time I could just boil him in oil.’ Clem gripped the bridge of her nose. ‘How long do you think he’s known her for and when did he propose? Two weeks? Three? That was quite a ring he’d bought her.’

      ‘You’re avoiding the subject.’

      Damn right she was. That Cai had announced their breakup and introduced the world to her replacement and had proposed to her was humiliating enough, but the other bombshell he’d oh-so-casually dropped rearranged every atom in her body.

      ‘At least I vomited into her designer tote. That had to be a highlight.’

      ‘On national TV. But you did hide most of your face in her bag so you did it very discreetly.’

      ‘Thanks for pulling me off the show during that commercial break.’

      ‘Yeah. I’ve never hit anyone in my life but I came close to decking him.’

      Clem tried to smile but her lips refused to cooperate. She dropped her legs and rested her forearms on her knees. She stared at the plush carpet beneath her knee length boots. When she looked up, she saw Jason’s occasional grimace as he worked on his laptop.

      ‘I’ve accessed the onboard Internet service,’ he explained.

      ‘I figured. How big is the fallout?’ Clem asked in a dull voice.

      ‘Nuclear.’

      Clem ran her hand over her eyes. ‘Let me guess what the headlines say … “What would Roz think?” or “Clem is not a chip off the old block” or “Was Clem swapped at birth”?’

      Jason sighed. ‘Not quite so harsh but getting there.’

      ‘Can I not just have my own little public meltdown without them bringing in my mother?’

      Jason pursed his lips. ‘If your mother had been anyone else, maybe.’ Anyone other than a glamorous heavyweight war correspondent and news presenter, public darling, rising political star and tipped to be the future prime minister. ‘But you know that the press have hyper-idealised her since she died in her prime.’

      ‘And I’ve lived down to her memory.’ Clem pushed her waist length hair over her shoulder and held the large ornate silver locket that hung from her neck on a heavy silver chain.

      ‘You’ve just taken a different path to her,’ Jason said quietly.

      ‘I took a different motorway as fast and as hard as I could.’

      Jason draped one plump leg over the other and linked his hands around his knee. ‘You once told me that you had a hole inside you before she died, that all you wanted was her time and she was always so busy. Do you think you used Cai to fill up that hole?’

      ‘No, I fell into bed with Cai in a rush of hormones because I was nineteen and stupid,’ Clem replied, her voice tart in response to his prodding. She was coming off a bad breakup and Jason wanted to analyse her relationship with her dead mother? Not going to happen. ‘He was hot, older and I loved his rock and roll lifestyle. And, I repeat, because I was nineteen and stupid. You shouldn’t make life changing decisions when you are nineteen.’

      ‘Or, obviously, when you are stupid,’ Jason added.

      Clem sighed. She should’ve just cut her losses nine years and six months ago. Then she wouldn’t be sitting in her father’s jet, running from the press and feeling as if she was about to snap under the weight of this soul scorching rage.

      Clem sat back and folded her arms. ‘Where are we going by the way? We’ve been flying for ever. The villa in the Seychelles? The flat in Sydney?’

      Jason shook his head. ‘Your father is sending you to a private game reserve in South Africa.’

      Clem’s arched eyebrows flew up. ‘You’ve got to be joking! Africa? Animals? Insects? Sun? I’m a redhead, for goodness’ sake!’

      Jason smiled. ‘Sorry, honey, but we did ask for private and isolated. The press are going to try and track you wherever you go and they won’t find you there. It’s a very exclusive, very expensive lodge. One of those where you pay a set price and everything is included, including spa treatments. They have elephant-back safaris—you should do that.’

      Clem narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Uh … no! Can you see me riding high in the blistering sun, going “Oooh! There’s a buck” or “Wow! There’s another”?’

      ‘You should open yourself up to new experiences.’

      ‘I don’t do the country or anything close to it!’ Clem stared out of the window. ‘We’ll just have to make the best of it.’

      ‘You’ll have to make the best of it,’ Jason corrected and shrugged when her eyes connected with his. ‘The Baobab and Buffalo Lodge has a bed for you but not me. I’m going home with the plane.’

      ‘But I need you!’

      ‘I need to go back to do damage control. You know I do.’

      Clem tapped her fingers against her thigh, thinking of an argument to keep him with her. She wasn’t joking when she said she needed him; she didn’t want to be alone.

      Her heart contracted and her throat closed again. She bit her lip so hard that her teeth left marks in the skin.

      ‘You know, I get that I’m spoilt and lazy, selfish and inconsiderate.’ Jason started to protest but the small shake of her head had the words dying on his lips. Clem shrugged. ‘I have too much time and money and I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of. I don’t love Cai any more and he’s welcome to get married … Seriously, I wish her luck.’

      ‘But?’

      ‘He knew how much I wanted a child, Jace. So why would he let me think that I was infertile for so long? He came with me when I went for all those tests, took my temperature to check if I was ovulating, slept with me—well, up until a year or so ago—when the time was right. He did all that, all the while knowing that he had a vasectomy before we even met! Why would he do that?’

      ‘Because he’s a jerk who likes to play games?’

      ‘That would explain it.’ Clem sniffed and blew her nose. ‘I think we’re banking, we must be nearly there.’

      ‘Then maybe you should fix your face,’ Jason suggested. ‘You look like hell, you know, from all your angry tears.’

      Next to the runway, Nick sat on the bonnet of his roofless Land Rover. His scarred boots rested on the bull bar and he watched the blood-red sun sink behind the bank of acacia trees. It was his favourite time of day and the heat was holding steady. He looked at the cloudless sky and sighed. The daily temperatures were climbing towards unbearable, СКАЧАТЬ