Free Everything You Want: Everything For You Trilogy 2 by Orla Bailey Page B

Belvedere. “Do you need rescuing, darling?”
    Oh, she’d just love to rescue Jack from me, wouldn’t she? Especially if she knew he’d been having sex with me too. How could he possibly play such mean games with both our emotions?
    “I’ll be back Monday morning,” he tells her.
    So he always planned to leave me and return to her. How could I have been so naïve? A little weekend sex with me to put me in my place for running off and then back to his woman. Both of us managed. That’s his way. My heart trips so fast I feel dizzy. I’m angry enough to throw myself through the door and scratch his cheating eyes out but I can’t move. I shake too much.
    “Sounds mysterious. What are you up to, darling and should I be worried?” She trills off a laugh but I can hear the anxiety in her voice.
    “No mystery. Just a little problem I have to sort out.”
    A problem? He thinks I’m a problem he has to sort? Red mist descends over me. I turn and walk away. I need to get as far from Jack as I possibly can. Jealousy cuts at my insides with a dull serrated blade as I head straight through the kitchen, the back door and into the dark yard.
    The little 2CV is still parked there. I climb inside wanting it to cocoon me from my pain. With the key dangling in the ignition calling out to me, I turn it without thought. As the engine springs to life I know what I want to do. Something I’ve done before. Get away from Jack. I no longer trust myself around him. Or him around me.
    Let him return to Amanda tonight. If he’s going to be done with me by Monday, I’m done with him already. Desolation sinks into my bones drowning me slowly and painfully in its sea of despair. I had a short bitter-sweet breath of respite from anguish but I can no longer struggle to keep swimming towards the surface.
    The car is in gear and rolling forward. I turn it round in one sweeping arc through the opaque film of tears in my eyes, flip on the headlights and take off down the road fast, towards the farm. As I drive I know exactly where I’m heading. Jack has had his fun with me already and it’s my turn now. It seems I’m going nightclubbing with Laurent and the boys in La Baule, after all.
    Jack Keogh is a monster.
    The farm cottages are mostly in darkness so I drive straight past them. Everyone will have left already but I know the roads here well. In twenty minutes I’ll be right beside them and I know how hard young farmers can party. It’s exactly what I need. To hell with Jack and Amanda. I’m glad my dress is short. And backless. And fits me tight as a glove. I’m glad to be free and single. Tonight I’m going to get very drunk. Tonight I’m going to get a life. And more.
    I park up near the esplanade and walk straight to La Nova. Already I attract male attention with my bare legs on show but I’m glad. It’s only when I get to the entrance by the red carpet and the potted topiary shrubs that I realise I have no money. I didn’t even pause long enough to grab a bag. But I’m not going to let that stop me. If I can find Laurent and the others, they will see me right.
    I start to explain my predicament to the two huge guys on door security. They smirk at me like they’ve heard it all before.
    “Yeah, we let you in to find your friends and you disappear. Not buying it.” The local dialect is fast but I follow it well enough.
    His colleague is more biddable. “She’s a babe. She’ll pull the guys in.”
    I’m both flattered and insulted but I smile sweetly up at him, knowing the way to get what I want. He’s my best chance of getting through that door.
    “Still trying your luck and everyone else’s patience?”
    I freeze. I know that voice. A waft of something dry and familiar catches in the back of my throat as I slowly turn. I squeal. “Luc!”
    He looks up unhurriedly from lighting a cigarette between his hands and gives me that same sultry predator’s smile that curled my toes when I was a teenager. He was the only boy