Unconditional (4 page)

I swallowed, struck dumb.

This was the same guy that had kissed me, seriously kissed me, less than an hour ago. And now he was glaring at me?

“What are you doing here?” His voice was just as deep and sexy as it had been before.

“She’s the Yank, Jones,” my neighbor three doors down offered, laughter in his voice. “The one here on scholarship to study the impact of global warming on native wildlife.”

Raphael Jones glared some more. Remember when I said earlier he’d somehow managed to make grimacing look sexy? Well, he was doing the same thing with glaring. There was a potent smolder to his expression now, an arrogant haughtiness that awoke a throbbing sensation in the very apex of my thighs.

The effect, however, was somewhat dampened by the fact the glare remained.

What had I done?

The thought maybe
he
thought I was a stalker popped into my head. He
had
been chased by paparazzi, after all. And I
did
slam into him in the men’s room. And ask for a kiss. I
still
can’t believe I did that. Maybe he thought I was some kind of crazy fan?

“I’m not a stalker,” I blurted out. “Honest.”

A charged tension claimed his body. His hand—initially relaxed beside his head—curled into a tight fist.

What had I said?

He looked me up and down and then, with a low sound that may have been a growl, turned his attention back to Mr. Info Dump down the corridor. “I’ll let you know later about tonight, Macca. May have to attend a function.”

As it had in the airport bathroom, his accent made my tummy do weird things, like twist and knot and clench. It dawned on me no other Australian accent affected me the same way, as if there was something about the way Raphael Jones spoke that messed with my head.

Which was stupid. I have enough things messing with my head, what with the Parkinson’s and its merry goal of turning me into a walking, talking tremor machine.

“Later?” Mr. Info Dump flicked me a curious look as if I’d grown an extra head. Maybe because Raphael had changed his mind about attending the party tonight after seeing me? Maybe because the tremors had hit me. Hard. My left hand was shaking pretty bad. I could feel it working through me, a bone-deep quaking I couldn’t control.

God, I hate it.

Hate
it.

Having Parkinson’s sucks. Big time.

An itching sensation on the side of my head jerked my rather unfocused attention away from the guy three doors down and back to Raphael. He was staring at me. The glare was gone. Replaced by hesitant uncertainty.

My heart kicked up a notch or two. Our eyes met. The hint of a dimple flashed at me in his right cheek.

I swallowed, the memory of his kiss making my breath shallow. My head swam a little and, like it always does when my body and brain are under some kind of stress, the tremors intensified. At my side, my hand slapped lightly against my hip. Over and over again.

And then it happened. The thing I hate more than having Parkinson’s disease. The thing I hate the most. Hate with all my soul.

Someone becoming
aware
I have Parkinson’s.

Raphael’s gaze dropped to my stupid shaking left hand and his dark eyebrows instantly knitted in curiosity. “Hey,” he said, his voice low. Worried. “Are you—”

I turned and hurried into my room.

Okay, it wasn’t quite that perfect. I spun on my heel, banged my hip on the doorframe, collided with the damn door and almost fell into my room.

The last thing I heard before I slammed the door was Raphael Jones calling out to me. “Hey, American girl? Are you—”

I slumped against the door and rammed my left hand to my left thigh, a woeful attempt at stopping the tremors. It didn’t work. No matter how hard I pressed my palm to my leg, my hand kept shaking. I’d like to say I didn’t cry at that point in time. I’d like to say almost a year of suffering Parkinson’s, as well as ten years of living with it, had hardened me to the emotional devastation it wrought upon me.

I’d like to say that, but I can’t.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I gripped my fucking thigh with trembling fingers and wept. Great, silent sobs of self-pity and hatred and homesickness.

Christ, what the fuck was I doing here? At least back in the States my friends knew what I had. They knew how to deal with it, which was—by my request—to ignore it. Here…

I slid to the floor, hugged my shins and buried my face between my knees, my tears hot as they soaked through the denim of my jeans. I stayed that way for a long time. Long enough to finally get a cramp in my lower back and for my butt to go numb.

My first few hours in Australia were far from auspicious.

If it wasn’t for a knock on my door I may have stayed that way for the night. I was tired and drowning in self-loathing. What better place to have an existential crisis than on the floor? But someone
did
knock on my door. I felt the three sharp raps vibrate through the wood and into my back.

Swiping at my eyes with the back of my hands—my left one still shaking—I pushed myself to my feet and opened the door. I had no idea who would be on the other side, but I doubted it would be Raphael Jones. If he were truly interested or concerned in this here American girl’s emotional state, he would have knocked earlier, right?

It wasn’t Jones. Unfortunately, there was a part of me disappointed by that fact. Apparently, I’d become a masochist since arriving in Australia. Go figure.

Instead of Raphael Jones, a short man with no hair, a paunch and a porn-star moustache covering his upper lip stood on my threshold, and on his right, a grinning Heather.

“Maci,” Heather gushed, wrapping her fingers around my right wrist in what I assume was meant to be a friendly form of contact. “You didn’t tell me your luggage got lost by Qantas. You should have told me it was lost. Anyways, you didn’t tell me so I almost told Mr. Reuben here—is that right?” She cast the bald man beside her a dubious look. “Is it Mr. Reuben? I thought that’s what you’d said.” With a smile at the nodding man, she turned her kilowatt enthusiasm back to me. “Anyway, I almost told him to go away. We get all sorts of weirdoes trying to get into the campus houses. I’m not sure what they think they’ll find, a bunch of us girls all having pillow fights in our undies maybe? Not that you’re a weirdo, Mr. Reuben. You’re
not
a weirdo, are you?”

For a frozen moment, silence reigned. I waited for Mr. Reuben to say something. Mr. Reuben didn’t say
anything
. He appeared too shell shocked by Heather to utter a word. For her part, Heather studied him with what may have been suspicious anticipation or enthusiastic joy. Honestly, she looked like a Beagle puppy that couldn’t decide if it wanted to play, bay or grab the hem of your pants and shake it about.

Silence stretched.

And then Heather laughed. “Of course you’re not. You work for Qantas.”

At the word Qantas, something clicked inside my jet-lagged, med-deprived, sleep-deprived, dignity-deprived brain.

Qantas. Luggage.

I shot Mr. Reuben’s feet a look and sure enough, there was my suitcase in the same condition as the last time I’d seen it. No broken zipper, no clothes or Victoria’s Secret undergarments poking out the sides. Just my suitcase—a shiny silver super-light hard-shell thing Mom had bought for me as a celebratory gift when I’d won the Australia study trip. Undamaged. Intact. Here.

“We located your luggage,” a gruff male voice I assumed belonged to Mr. Reuben said. “It had been incorrectly placed with the luggage from First Class.”

I lifted my stare from my shiny suitcase to the balding man beside Heather.

His responding smile was contrite. “On behalf of Qantas Australia, may I extend my sincere apologies for any inconvenience this error has caused you.”

Before I could say a word, he shot Heather a fearful sideways look. “Can I leave now? Alone, I mean? Without you walking me out?”

Heather gave him a toothy smirk, and for the first time since meeting her, I suspected what you saw definitely wasn’t what you got. Heather was something else altogether behind the perky, almost ditzy front. Hmmm. Color me intrigued.

“Of course you can go, Mr. Reuben,” she said, patting him on the forearm. “But don’t you think you should get Maci to sign that clipboard in your hand first?”

I suppressed a laugh. She had the poor guy completely frazzled.

With a grimace—one nowhere near as sexy as Raphael Jones’s earlier grimace, I can tell you that—Mr. Reuben held said clipboard out to me, withdrawing a blue pen from his shirt pocket as he did so. “Just sign at the cross,” he mumbled.

Giving Heather a small smile, I took the offered pen with my right hand—the one not shaking, thank God—and signed my name in the appropriate place.

“Thanks, Miss Rowling.” Mr. Reuben retrieved his pen and tucked the clipboard under his arm. “Miss Renner,” he said with a harried nod at Heather.

Then he was gone, damn near scurrying along the corridor away from us both.

I gave up trying to hold back my giggle.

Heather grinned at me. “Did he seem scared to you? Why do you think he was scared?” Devilish delight danced in her eyes. “Maybe he’s never met an American before?”

I laughed. Perhaps it was the joy of something finally going right for me since touching down, maybe it was the fact Heather was proving to be lots of fun. Whatever it was, I allowed myself to relax.

Unfortunately, occasionally when I laugh, I snort. Nothing too loud or animalistic, but a snort all the same. Of course, that was the
exact
moment Raphael Jones opened his door and stepped into the space behind Heather.

Just as I snorted, he crossed his threshold and looked at me.

Great.

Awesome.

Fan-freaking-tastic.

Once again, our eyes met. Once again, the thoroughly disturbing memory of our kiss played with my head. I stopped laughing. Kind of stared at him.

He stared back.

“Raph!” Heather’s exuberant cry filled the corridor. “Have you met Maci Rowling yet? She’s from America. Do you remember the American student I mentioned last month? This is her. Maci, this is Raphael Jones. Have you heard of him?”

Raphael Jones regarded me with an expression they should put in the dictionary as a perfect example of
ambiguous
. “We’ve met.”

Heather damn near gave herself whiplash looking at me. “You have?”

Raphael nodded. A single nod that spoke volumes.

I bristled. No, more than bristled. I got angry. I don’t normally do angry, but Raphael Jones,
Raph
Jones, had pissed me off. What the fuck was this guy’s problem? One minute he’s sticking his tongue down my throat, smiling at me like we’re best friends, eye-flirting with me through a crowd of paparazzi, and the next he’s regarding me like I might or might not be some kind of friendly neighborhood serial killer.

Jutting my hip at a snarky angle, I crossed my arms over my breasts and, gaze holding his, said, “We have. In the men’s restroom at the airport.” I cocked an eyebrow. “Where he kissed me.”

Raph’s lips compressed. His jaw bunched. A unexpected glower fell over his face.

I refused to look away. Next to my right boob, my left hand shook. I curled it into a hard ball. I’d be damned if I was going to let anyone see I had the shakes.

“Kissed?” Heather squeaked. Just that one word. If I wasn’t so furious at Raph’s peculiar attitude, I’d be impressed I’d managed to curb her constant stream of chatter.

But I was irritated. I didn’t care who the fuck Raph was, he didn’t have the right to be so goddamn—

“Kissed,” he echoed, his voice a low purr. The disdainful scowl on his face vanished, replaced by something altogether indecipherable. “One of the best I’ve had, I have to admit.”

My heart smashed up into my throat. An insane horde of maniacal butterflies threw a dance party in my belly.

One of the best he’s had?

Heather gaped at us both. Silent. Lost for words. Who would have thought?

I arched another eyebrow at Raph. “One of the best you’ve had?” I repeated. “Really? I thought it was quite average.”

And with that, I bent at the waist, wrapped my fingers—right hand, not left—around the handle of my suitcase and straightened. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a shower.”

I turned back to my room and entered it, this time without colliding with the door. Yay me.

Heather followed. I knew she would. I’d just dropped what I guessed was a monumental bombshell. And really, I wanted her to come in. As much as he infuriated me, I needed to know
who
Raph Jones was. So I could be ready the next time we bumped into each other.

Refusing to let myself look over my shoulder—would he be watching my awesome display of indifference?—I crossed to my bed and deposited my suitcase onto the mattress.

The sound of the door closing told me Heather had decided we needed some privacy. I was okay with that. If I did turn back and discover Raph still looking at me, I’m not sure what I would do. Maybe poke my tongue out at him. Yeah, I’m a real grown-up. Twenty-two going on four, that’s me.

“Okay.” My new Australian bestie flopped onto the bed beside my suitcase. “Cough up. You and Raph Jones
kissed
? In the men’s loo at the
airport
?”

I nodded, undoing the zipper on my suitcase and then flipping the lid open. My clothes were a jumbled mess inside, but all there. “We did.”

“How?”

I pulled a face at Heather. “With our lips.”

She rolled her eyes and whacked my arm with the back of her hand. “That’s not what I mean. How did you and Raph Jones end up kissing in the loo? Where was his bodyguard?”

“Who
is
Raphael Jones?” I asked, ignoring her question. The unsettled butterflies in my tummy had calmed down somewhat, but I was still flustered. I really needed to take my meds. And some serious yoga was in order. Or maybe a session at a gym. Something to burn off the stress playing havoc with my brain and muscles.

“You don’t know?”

I shook my head, making a half-hearted attempt to organize the chaos of clothes in my suitcase. “I gather he’s some kind of celebrity, given all the paparazzi photographing him at the airport. Is he a TV actor or something?”