Page 53 of Not So Happily Ever After (British Bad Boys)
She scrunches up her nose. “Then stop fussing. Are we leaving now, or what?”
“Give it another ten minutes. We can finish eating. I don’t want him knowing we’re around the corner from him.”
Twenty minutes later, we arrive at Jake’s large detached house in St. John’s Wood. Mac phones him, and he opens the electronic gates so I can park on the drive. Lights are blazing at all the windows, and when a dark-haired chick opens the door to us, Atomic Fire’s latest hit blasts into the night.
“I hope you can fix him,” she says. “I don’t know what went wrong.”
We follow her to the back of the house, where the music gets progressively louder. She leads us into a hexagonal conservatory, where Jake’s lounging on a sofa, his head encased in a towel. Just like it was at the hospital.
Mac makes a slashing gesture across her throat, and Jake mutes the music. She takes a deep breath, and we go over to him.
“You want to tell us what happened?” She sounds a lot friendlier than I would.
Jake gives me the side-eye. “You need to sign an NDA. I don’t want this getting out to my public.”
Jesus, give me strength. I bare my teeth, which is the closest I can get to a smile. “Really don’t think that’s necessary, Jake.”
“We’re not going to tell anyone,” Mac confirms.
“Yeah, well I knowyouwon’t, with the Hippocratic oath and that.” He hitches in a dramatic breath while I count to ten in my head. When neither of us makes a comment on his bizarre remark, he appears to come back to earth. “Seriously. This is some bad shit.”
“I’m so sorry,” says the girl who answered the door to us. Christ, I hope she isn’t about to cry. I give what I hope is an encouraging smile, but it seems to freak her out, instead. “It looked so easy on the YouTube clip.”
“Towel,” Mac suggests, and with clear reluctance, Jake pulls it off.
I cough to hide my laugh. Yeah, I know that makes me a prat, but the stupid git’s managed to singe off half the hair on his head. At least there’s no blood.
“Ah,” Mac says in a neutral tone as she examines him. “You were lucky you didn’t burn your scalp. This might be a dumb question, but why did you set your hair on fire in the first place? I mean, what did you think was going to happen?”
“No, Annabelle was gonna cut my hair, see? But we saw this awesome clip where you cover the hair with oil and then set light to it. But it’s not supposed to go up in flames, it’s meant to style it.”
“Annabelle’s done this before, then?” I glance at her, and she bites her lip.
“Not exactly,” she admits.
“I need a wig or something before Rafe gets home. He’ll rage if he sees me like this. He’s such a dick.”
Irritation overtakes the amusement. “Mac’s not your P.A. Where’s your assistant? That’s what they’re for, to deal with your personal emergencies.”
He tentatively touches his scorched hair. “I’m between assistants at the moment.”
No fucking surprises there.
“Forget the wig.” Mac eyes his head with surgical precision. “No one will fall for that. I reckon you should just go with it in a big way.”
“But my fanslovemy hair. I can’t be seen in public like this. I’d be letting them down.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” She crosses her arms. “You’ll show them the new you. See, after your close shave with death, you, um, embraced this by shaving half your hair off. You can really make a great statement with this. But”—she glances at Annabelle—“you should probably find another stylist.”
He frowns. He’s either thinking about it or about to launch into a major moan.
Just as my patience is about to snap, he grins. “I can work with that. But no ratting to the press. I wanna make a big entrance at the party.”
On Wednesday morning, there’s no mad rush to get up and out of the flat. After we escaped from Jake’s last night, Mac stayed over again, and it’s great, just lying here in bed with her in my arms.
“Could get used to this.” Her breath whispers across my chest.
“Never.” I thread my fingers through her hair. I love waking up with her in my bed.
