She was curious, if she hadn’t tried anything like that already. Something not to talk about when we drove around the south of France.
“Have you heard from her since?”
He nodded. “If I’ve made headlines. She follows my career. I’ll get a text that’s obviously from her, but not her old number — that was blocked. That’s the first time I’ve seen her since it got shitty.”
“What will happen now? Will your solicitors get involved?”
“We can look at pressing charges. I imagine we’ll be in touch with the police and then her solicitors will agree that she doesn’t contact me or come within whatever distance. I’ve seen that happen before with a couple of older teammates. But are you okay? You weren’t out for that to happen, Jerrica.”
“Nate had girls hanging around from him being eighteen. Some of them, if I was with him, would think I was his girlfriend — which was icky on so many levels. It isn’t the first time that’s happened. You remember his stalker?”
I laughed, even though I shouldn’t. We’d given Nate a ton of shit about it in the dressing room, but it was more serious than something to mock. It had ended up being serious, with this woman hanging around Nate everywhere he went and sending messages, saying that she was married to him. It had ended when she’d started to make threats to hurt Chan. “I do. That was ages ago.”
“Four years. Hence his house is like Fort Knox.”
“Your brother was the only person who knew the details of what was happening with Gayle. He was just there and solid.” Which was why I knew I shouldn’t have brought his sister out tonight. I shouldn’t have put her in this position.
I shouldn’t be thinking about her how I was.
“That’s Nate. He’s a good man. But so are you.” The tips of her fingers brushed the top of my hand.
Our waiter came over with the wine, pouring a drop into each glass first so we could taste it. I’d done wine tasting events and had private tours of vineyards, the whole history and process of making wine fascinated me, but this in a restaurant always made me want to make some embarrassing comment because it all felt too posh and a little pompous to be real.
Jerrica clearly felt the same, smiling at me while she rolled the wine to the edges.
I nodded to the waiter, telling him that the wine was good, and watched as he topped up our glasses. It was a wine I’d had several times here before, and the waiter wasn’t unfamiliar. He wasn’t going to cork a bottle.
“I feel so awkward when they do that. I haven’t met a wine I didn’t like — well, not until the next day.” Jerrica rolled her eyes.
“France means wine tasting. You’ll have to practice your skills.”
Her smile was full of sunshine. “I think I can manage that.” She took a good sip of her wine. “I meant what I said, Jesse. You’re a good man, too.”
I’d tried to pretend she hadn’t said the words. I didn’t think I was a bad person. I tried to make amends for not being there to stop my mother from dying; I made good choices, measured ones, about how I lived. But I didn’t perceive myself asgood.
“Am I?”
“You’ve read some of my book, I guess?”
I nodded. “Some. Not all of it, but the key parts.” I couldn’t stop the grin then.
She shook her head and looked away, a hint of embarrassment on her cheeks.
“You’re a good writer. I have lots of things I want to ask, but I’ll save them until you’ve had more wine.”
Jerrica shook her head, laughing. “Just because you get your rocks off a certain way doesn’t mean you’re a weird reprobate, Jesse. If you read other romance books, you’ll find that most sex scenes have a little spice in there.”
I stretched, needing to move and do something with my arms. “Like what?”
“Monsters are a bit of a thing at the moment. Retellings of fairy tales likeBeauty and the Beast— so imagine what happens there. Shifter romance, where the woman falls for a man who’s also a werewolf or some other creature — ”
“This is sounding a little like bestiality.”
“Hmmm, not quite.” She tipped her head, studying me. “We then have praise kink — ”
“So that’s like, ‘come for me like a good girl’ sort of thing?”
There was a nod. “Yes. There’s falling in love with your captor or kidnapper. Spanking happensa lot. Whatever bad sex you see online, there’s the good version with characterisation and usually positive, healthy relationships in romance books. And really, really good sex. Sometimes the sort of sex women fantasise about but isn’t likely to happen for them other than on the page.”
