“Wedding bouquet?” echoed an extremely aggravated Ollie as he paced to Jaxxon. “McKenzie asked you to marry him? And you said yes?” Oh he’d skin the prat.
Jaxxon put her hand over her heart and said her speech in a rush. “How could I say no? You were right when you said it was about more than just sex, I love him. I don’t want to be without him.” At the sight of his blazing-red cheeks, she burst into laughter and everyone joined in, other than Ollie who looked a mixture of relieved and annoyed.
“Bloody hell, girl, you had me panicking then.”
“Don’t you like Connor?” asked Kieran.
“Oh don’t get him started on Connor,” groaned Jaxxon.
“It’s not that I don’t like him,” said Ollie.
“So am I the only one who doesn’t like him then?” Bruno winked at Jaxxon as he came to stand beside Ollie.
Kieran snorted. “Your opinion of Connor doesn’t count, it’s biased.” He gestured for Ollie to continue but the man was struggling for words. “Oh, I get it,” chortled Kieran. “Daddy doesn’t like his little girl having a sex life.”
“Is it a good sex life?” Lorna asked Jaxxon, waggling her eyebrows.
“With the sexual tension those two throw about when they’re in the same room it must be,” said Louisa. “Aren’t you going to open those chocs, luv?”
Jaxxon didn’t answer – there was no point, Louisa already had the box in her hands and was now opening it.
“Mmmm, dark chocolate.”
“Ew, I don’t like dark choc.” Jaxxon shook her head in distaste.
“Dark chocolate’s the healthy chocolate option,” said Kieran. “The cocoa level’s -”
“Kieran will you sod off with that mascara and eyeliner before I end up looking like a bloody panda!”
He giggled. “That’s you done, luv.”
“The details of the tour are all finalized,” Ollie explained as he escorted Jaxxon down the hallway and en-route back to Tony. “As I already told you, we’re going to New York first. It’s an evening flight; I knew you’d prefer one of them.”
“What day is it you leave?” asked Bruno, now walking on Jaxxon’s other side.
“Monday,” replied Ollie.
Bruno smiled when he managed to catch Jaxxon’s eye. “I’ll bet you’ll be glad to leave that apartment behind after what happened.”
She frowned. “How’d you know about that?”
“I was eavesdropping when Ollie and Richie were talking about it, sorry. So how are you?”
“Alright. It’s just stuff at the end of the day, isn’t it.”
“There hasn’t been anything else odd going on?” checked Ollie. She shook her head. “The place is still in the process of being cleaned. The mess was unreal.”
“I’ve seen worse.”
Ollie knew that, and the idea of it got on his wick. He’d hoped that her new life would get her away from that crap, give her security. He was so thankful that it hadn’t made her take a step backwards in her progress with her transition from nothing to everything she wanted. It would have cut him up if she had withdrawn from it just because of some nut, but he’d seen it happen many times with other people. They couldn’t deal with the lack of privacy or being under the microscope of the media or the sudden and massive amount of attention – the like which they could never have imagined. He’d seen grown men cry when that attention suddenly became bad attention and there were criticisms and wicked rumours and the appearance of nutcases. But this twenty-two year old woman had taken it better than most he’d known in the past to have done.
As much as he didn’t like that she was staying with McKenzie – the bloke looked at Jaxxon like she belonged to him – he didn’t want her alone and Ollie knew McKenzie wouldn’t hesitate in wiping the floor with anyone who tried to lay a finger on her. That was assuming the bugger wasn’t dealt with by Jaxxon herself first.
Bruno snickered. “Is that why McKenzie was sending you the flowers and chocolates; trying to coddle you through what’s been going on? Or is he trying to dig himself out of the doghouse? I’ll bet it’s the second; he’s so cocky and overbearing -”
At the end of her tether and feeling an inexplicably big need to defend Connor, Jaxxon spun on Bruno. “Do you know what, Bruno? I’m getting sick of your remarks about him.”
“Whoa, whoa, I was just joking around.”
“Jokes are funny.” And it was never just what he said, it was the spite and bitterness that was always in his tone.
“Ah, come on, Jaxx.”
“Don’t call me that.” Her voice was deadly. She could tolerate Dane doing it because she knew he was doing it to wind Connor up, but the way Bruno had said it so intimately as if he had that same level of familiarity and closeness with her that Connor did ticked her right off. Wisely, he didn’t follow her any further. Ollie was also wise; he didn’t comment.
As Connor pulled up next to Jaxx’s Audi in the car park outside of his apartment building later that day, he smiled. He had liked the idea that when he got home it would be to find Jaxx there, waiting. He liked that idea even better now that he was finally back. So did his dick.
“I come bearing gifts,” he announced as he entered his apartment with a giant-sized pizza. Yeah it seemed counterproductive to spend hours on his fitness levels and then devour a pizza at the end of it but sod it. When Jaxxon swerved her head and smiled sweetly at him over her shoulder from her spot on the couch where she was watching T.V., something twisted in his chest.
“Mmmm, pizza. Good thinking, McKenzie.”
Having dumped his gym bag on the floor he went straight to the living area and kissed her. He’d only meant for it to be a brief, greeting-type kiss but his control around her was as piss-poor as ever. “You’re dessert, Carter.”
“Please tell me that’s Deep Pan Margarita,” she said when he finally released her lips.
“Of course it is, I know it’s your favourite.” He sat on the armchair near the sofa and placed the pizza on the table in front of them, liking how it felt to lounge around while eating pizza out of the box like they used to; no plates, no cutlery, no prim crap.
“Good memory.”
“I could hardly forget that, it was all you ate back then. How you could eat something that often and not get sick of it always amazed me.”