The Rock Star's Virginity

Part 2

TWO

What do you say to a man who's just lost his wife?

For the first time in her life, Xan didn't know what to do. So she stood at the head of the Penguin jetty, a bottle of rum dangling from her hand, as she stared at the forlorn figure sitting on the end. Finally, she said, "I brought you something."

"You don't even like me. What are you doing here?" Jay asked over his shoulder, not looking at Xan. His gaze was fixed on the horizon and the incoming tide, which would soon turn the precipitous drop at his feet into gently lapping waves.

He wasn't seriously considering jumping, was he?

Xan marched along the jetty. "Truce, please. I swear. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy." No, this was exactly what she'd wish on that faithless wanker, Jerome. "Okay, well maybe him, but not you. I believed that girl was everything she said she was, same as you. I keep thinking it's some sort of horrible mistake. A case of mistaken identity, or something! Are you sure she's really...that she really..."

"What? That she's a triple murderer who killed not only her husband, but two backpackers, too? A black widow, my sister tells me, who confessed to her crimes the moment she saw the police. And I was her next target. Luckily for me, Phuong's husband isn't dead, so she's not even really my wife. She's still going to be represented by my legal team, though. The band's lawyers and PR people cut a deal with her. If she keeps me out of all the proceedings and pleads guilty to everything she did, we'll pay for her legal fees through the whole court case. And no further contact with me, ever. She didn't even hesitate. Fuck." He grabbed the bottle from Xan's hand, wrenched off the cap and gulped the contents. "A week ago, I was happily married to a woman I loved, or at least I thought I did. Now, my sister says I didn't really know her at all. A murderer, and everything we had together was...fucking fiction. I thought she was genuinely traumatised and now I'm supposed to believe it was all a lie? Fuck." He took another swig from the rum bottle.

"Your sister – Jo – she called and asked me to remind you that your security specialist advises against any further contact with Phuong. Any contact will mean she has to foot her own legal bills." Xan sat on the boards, dangling her legs over the side of the jetty. "You know, I was as taken in by her as you were. I thought she was for real, too. But if she's that good an actress, then maybe it's all part of the act to lull you into a false sense of security before she...well, does her thing."

"It doesn't matter how many times I hear it, I still don't believe it. You know she asked to see me before the police took her away? Five minutes, and she'd never bother me again, she said. They told her I'd said no, but they never f*****g told me until after she flew away. She was so calm until they loaded her into the helicopter. Then she started screaming about how she'd never intended to hurt me. Her husband had deserved everything he got and she'd do it all again, but not to me. Never to me. f**k knows what's true any more. I don't. You know how she tried to kill her last husband?" Jay offered her the rum.

Xan squinted down the neck of the bottle, wondering what diseases Jay had, then decided she didn't care right now. She drank. Burned sugar blazed down her throat.

Jay continued, "She tried to make it look like an accident. The poor bastard's allergic to peanuts, so she poisoned him with peanut oil. It would've worked, too, if she hadn't left him. When he discovered she was gone, he called the police and while he was on the emergency hotline he went into anaphylactic shock. If she'd stayed with him for another half hour, he'd be dead, but she ran, like she panicked. She must've driven for days without sleep to get here in the time she did. Makes me think she was right and the bastard did deserve whatever he got." Jay's fist pounded the boards. "I don't care what anyone says. I know what I saw. The fear in her eyes was real. Just like the look in Angel's eyes. You can't fake that."

"So what are you going to do?" The moment the words were out of her mouth, Xan regretted them. What could he do?

Jay's lips lifted in a mirthless grin. "Do what she wants. Give her the best lawyers money can buy and hope they can help her. And...stay away from her, because that's what she wants. Wouldn't be the first time a r**e survivor threatened me with death or permanent injury. I should be used to it by now. But even if everything's true, I could never trust her again, because in the back of my mind, I'll always wonder..." He snatched back the bottle and chugged it, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "I don't want to die. There's s**t I haven't done yet. Like get married, seeing as the first time didn't count."

Xan's heart breathed a sigh of relief. She'd done her bit and talked him off the proverbial ledge, even if his backside hadn't budged. Now she could go back to disliking him as wholeheartedly as before. "Maybe next time you should try finding a girl who isn't married and hasn't killed anyone, or at least ask her first."

Jay snorted. "When she could lie? I'd need a f*****g virgin. Even then, she still might be a murderer."

Xan shrugged. "Love's always a gamble. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose." Yes, Jay had had monumentally bad luck lately, but he'd still come out on top. Damn it, why couldn't it be her turn to win for once? She wished Jay good night and headed for the hotel manager's house on the other side of the lagoon. Tonight she'd cook her own dinner. She didn't feel cheerful enough to brave the staff dining room with her heart so heavy. Maybe she'd break out some more of that rum for herself, because the little, nagging voice in her head insisted that if someone with all Jay's rock star charms couldn't be lucky in love, what hope did she have in finding a happily ever after?