The One Real Regret

by Janet Nissenson

  “Oh, I do!” exclaimed Jill. “And I’m so pleased you decided to bring me here. I’m not really big on trendy things, though I have enjoyed trying all different kinds of cuisines since I moved to Seattle. Back home in Midland - well, there’s not a whole lot of variety, you know? A lot of meat and potatoes, chicken-fried everything, biscuits and gravy, that sort of stuff. Though I do miss my grandmother’s fried chicken and apple pie at times.”

  “I wish I could say I missed the food back in England. But unfortunately the British aren’t really known for fine cuisine. Now, would you care for a cocktail? Or do you drink?” he inquired, trying to be mindful of both her youth and what he knew thus far of her old-fashioned upbringing.

  Her cheeks pinkened noticeably, even beneath the dim lighting. “Um, I drink - a little. That is, I’m afraid I’m something of a lightweight when it comes to alcohol. Two glasses of wine is just about my limit. And I promised my roommates that I wouldn’t get - ”

  “Drunk?” finished Max with a knowing smile. “That is not even a remote possibility, Jill. I assure you I won’t allow that to happen. So if it’s all right with you I’ll order a bottle of wine for the two of us, and make sure you don’t start getting tipsy. Do you prefer white or red?”

  “White, please. If that’s all right with you,” she added.

  “Perfectly all right. I’m actually in the mood for a nice, fruity Chardonnay this evening. Let’s see what they have on the wine list.”

  He decided on a bottle from the Cakebread winery in Napa Valley, a place he had actually visited on several occasions for events and tastings. The Chardonnay was light and crisp and perfectly chilled, and Jill gave a little “mmm” of pleasure after her first sip. He resisted the urge to fidget uncomfortably at that unintentionally erotic little sound, realizing that he was going to have his work cut out for him this evening if he wanted to continue acting the part of the gallant gentleman.

  He noticed the way her eyes widened in alarm when she first glanced at the menu, and he guessed that she had probably never dined at such an expensive restaurant before. Max recalled that he’d had a similar reaction once upon a time, when he had just begun working fulltime after college and money was anything but plentiful. Truth be told, even after he’d started his own business and began making a lot of money - far more quickly than he had ever dreamed - it had still taken him months before he had really felt comfortable buying luxury items or not feeling like he needed to be frugal when he ate out. Now, of course, he took such things for granted and had become accustomed to having only the very best. But he could certainly understand Jill’s shock at seeing the prices on the menu and was quick to reassure her.

  “By the way,” he told her somewhat teasingly, “I can definitely afford anything you might like on the menu, so don’t you dare think you have to only order a bowl of soup. All right?”

  She looked both relieved and guilty at the same time. “All right. And I promise to order more than a bowl of soup. Is there anything in particular you can recommend?”

  Max nodded. “I’ve eaten here a few times during past visits to Seattle. For an appetizer, I’d suggest either the crab cocktail or the scallops. The French onion soup is quite good, or we can share a spinach salad if you’d prefer, the waiter prepares it tableside. And for an entrée, it depends on whether you prefer beef or fish.”

  “Fish, I think. We didn’t get much fresh fish back in Midland, so I eat it as often as possible now that I’m living on the West Coast.”

  “The sea bass, then, is what I’d suggest. The side dishes are meant to be shared. Are asparagus and scalloped potatoes all right with you?” he inquired.

  Jill nodded and set aside her menu. “Perfect. Thank you for your suggestions, Max. This - this place is awfully fancy, and I guess I’m just not used to having to select all the different courses. That must sound like I’m some sort of country bumpkin or something, doesn’t it?”

  “Not at all,” he assured her, reaching across the table to give her hand a reassuring squeeze. “It sounds honest and straightforward. Just like you are, Jill. And if you think I grew up going to fancy places like this, you’d be very surprised. Dining at expensive restaurants was very much a learning experience for me - once I was actually able to afford it, that is.”

  Their waiter arrived then and took their orders - the scallops and sea bass for Jill, the crab cocktail and a New York steak for Max, along with the spinach salad and sides. Max noticed with a mild amusement that Jill continued to take careful, measured sips of her wine, and nearly always took a drink from her water glass after each taste. He wondered idly just how low her tolerance for alcohol really was, recalling a number of college parties Finn and Jordan had dragged him along to where just about everyone in the room was well on their way to getting drunk. His fingers tightened around the stem of his own wine glass as he tried to picture Jill at one of those parties, where she would have certainly attracted a lot of attention from every horny male present. He scowled as he imagined one of those randy bastards trying to take advantage of an innocent, slightly tipsy girl like Jill, and hoped against hope that her reluctance to drink didn’t stem from a bad experience at a party or a bar.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked quietly, no doubt having noticed the rather ferocious expression on his face.

  He was quick to reassure her, a smile replacing the scowl. “Yes, of course. Just lost in thought there for a moment. How are the scallops?”

  “Mmm, delicious!” exclaimed Jill, licking a drop of lemon sauce off her upper lip. “Thank you for suggesting this. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever tasted.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Max had to stifle a low groan as he thought of exactly how much pleasure the mere sight of her enjoying her food gave him. For all of her apparent shyness and innocence, Jill was also impulsive, exuberant, and seemingly unaware of her own sensuality. The little “mmm’s” and “ohh’s” she uttered during the meal as she thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated her food were driving him to the very brink of distraction. He knew that she had no idea how arousing those sounds were, or that his desire to woo her into his bed that evening was becoming more and more difficult to resist. As she placed a forkful of the sea bass between her lips, Max imagined thrusting his tongue inside her sweet, soft mouth and kissing her long and hard. When she licked a bit of the sauce the asparagus had been served with from the corner of her mouth, his erection threatened to tent his trousers as he pictured that small pink tongue licking up and down the length of his cock instead. And as she continued to verbally express her enjoyment of the food with her low moans and groans, he wondered how much louder those moans and groans might become if he sucked one of her nipples between his lips. Or slid his palm over her belly to that place where she’d be wet and hot and squirming for his possession. And how tight her virginal body would feel when he buried his aching cock inside of her, taking great care, of course, not to hurt or overwhelm her with his enormous need for her. He would have to…

  He reached for his wine glass rather clumsily, nearly knocking it over in his haste to take a badly needed gulp. He mentally chastised himself for allowing his overly amorous thoughts to get the better of him, and realized that if he kept this up much longer he was going to reach across the table and kiss her senseless in front of the entire restaurant.

  Instead, he kept up a steady stream of conversation, something he was usually more than happy to let others - namely Finn and Jordan - monopolize whenever they were together. Max was by nature a man of a few words, but tonight he was almost desperate for a distraction - any distraction - to keep his wayward lusts under control.

  Over the course of the meal he discovered that Jill’s grandmother had been extremely strict, devoutly Christian, and he read between the lines of what she told him to determine that the old woman had done her best to repress Jill’s naturally friendly, outgoing nature - something he considered a damned shame. The scant glass and a hal
f of wine that Jill drank during dinner was more than enough to loosen her tongue a bit, and she confided to Max that the real reason her grandmother had been so obsessively strict was because the woman hadn’t wanted Jill to turn out like her mother - wild, out of control, and badly behaved.

  And when Jill haltingly, reluctantly, acknowledged that her mother’s “accidental death” had actually been the result of a drug overdose, Max was sorely tempted to admit that his own mother had suffered a similar fate. But to do so would have raised all sorts of other questions about his youth and upbringing, questions that he had never permitted anyone to ask of him, and answers that he had never shared with even his best friends. He felt like something of a fraud to keep such information from Jill, especially when she was entrusting him with her own secrets, but Max had spent more than half of his life keeping his past well hidden and he wasn’t sure he would ever be ready to share those confidences with anyone.

  “Did you not have any other family besides your grandmother?” he asked, smoothly avoiding any discussion of his own upbringing.

  She shook her head. “It was always just the two of us. So when she died I decided it was finally my time to venture out and start living. The town I lived in - well, let’s just say there were an awful lot of gossips and busybodies there, and most everyone expected me to turn out like my mother. I wanted to get as far away from there as possible, go somewhere totally different where I could start over.”

  Max understood completely, having left England far behind and never looked back once he’d moved to California. “So why Seattle? I know the university here has a very good finance and math department, but so do a number of other schools around the country. Did the University of Washington offer you a scholarship?”

  “No. I just decided that I wanted to live on the West Coast, and everything I read about Seattle intrigued me. So I sold the house in Midland, packed my bags, and headed out here. As for the scholarship, I’m paying my own way through school, actually. I mean, with money I inherited from my grandmother, that is. It was a shock when she passed away to find out how much she’d managed to save over the years.”

  He listened in stunned surprise to hear about how frugally - more like miserly, he thought scathingly - Jill and her grandmother had lived, and how unnecessary it had been. And while the sum of nearly four hundred thousand dollars - which included the proceeds from the sale of her grandmother’s house - wasn’t precisely a fortune, it was a considerable sum of money for a young woman to have inherited.

  “So why do you need to work part-time?” he asked. “That’s far more than you’d need to pay tuition and your share of expenses, I would imagine.”

  “It is,” she agreed. “And I ask myself that question all the time, especially on the days when Allison is being a mean old b - I mean, witch to me. Which is most of the time, by the way. But I guess it’s hard for me to break old habits, you know? I grew up always being told that we had to watch our money, to save every penny, that we couldn’t afford to do things like go out to dinner or a movie or buy a new pair of shoes. And even though I have money now, I guess I’m a little afraid it will all go away if I’m not careful. Though of course I’ve invested some of it. In safe investments, naturally, like low-risk mutual funds, treasury bonds, CD’s, that sort of thing.”

  “Really?” Max was becoming increasingly fascinated with this astonishingly bright young woman, how mature and responsible she was, and how damned smart.

  He was also all too eerily aware of how similar their lives had been, of how many coincidental little parallels that had happened to them both. But because he couldn’t risk any questions about his past, he asked her instead about what specific investments she’d made and what sort of return they had provided.

  “I’d say you’ve done very well for yourself,” he commented after a bit. “I was going to offer you some investment advice if you were interested, but it doesn’t sound like you need it.”

  “Oh, no!” protested Jill. “I’d love to hear your opinions, get your advice. After all, that money won’t last forever, and there’s a lot of things I hope to do with it someday. Like buy a condo or a little house of my own, travel all over the world, maybe even buy a piano and learn how to play it, things like that.”

  “All right then,” he replied gently. “I’d be pleased to discuss investment strategies with you. But not tonight, hmm? It’s been a relief not to have to think about finance and balance sheets and profit and loss reports for a few hours. This assignment - well, it’s proving to be a much bigger challenge than I’d initially expected.”

  Jill reached over and impulsively touched his forearm. “Of course. We’ll talk about it another time. And I can just imagine how difficult it’s going to be to dig this company out of the mess it’s landed itself in. Last night, when we ran into each other in the hallway - you looked so tired. I wanted to offer to help you in some way, but I wasn’t sure how.”

  Max picked up her hand and drew it to his lips, noting with pleasure the way she quivered in reaction. “You did help me, Jill,” he told her warmly. “More than you know. Just seeing you last night made me feel better. And when you agreed to have dinner with me this evening - well, it was exactly what I needed to get through the rest of last night’s meetings. As for tonight - I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed myself more. I hope it’s been pleasurable for you, too.”

  “Yes,” she murmured, her green eyes widening as if in wonder. “It’s been the most wonderful night of my life, Max.”

  He was instantly, powerfully aroused at her softly spoken, husky confession, and he longed to give into the impulse he’d been resisting all night long - to lean over and claim that lushly full mouth in a long, slow kiss.

  But he merely kept her hand clasped in his, enjoying the way they simply basked in the other’s company, not needing words to convey the undeniable attraction simmering in the air between them.

  “Dessert, sir? Madam?” offered their waiter.

  Max reluctantly released Jill’s hand, then looked at her inquiringly. “I hoped you saved some room, because the bananas foster they serve here is the best I’ve ever had outside of New Orleans.”

  Jill sighed and patted her belly regretfully. “It sounds amazing, but I’m too full at the moment, unfortunately.”

  “Tell you what. Why don’t we dance for a little while and see if you can summon up just a little bit of an appetite?”

  The restaurant featured a small dance floor with a jazz trio who were currently playing some soft, mellow music. Several other couples were slow dancing, and Jill looked a little hesitant as she glanced their way.

  “I’m not a very good dancer, I’m afraid. At least not at this sort of dancing,” she admitted. “I’ve only really danced at a few of the clubs my roommates dragged me to, and, well, the sort of music they play in those places isn’t anything like this.”

  “I can imagine,” replied Max dryly, resisting the urge to shudder as he recalled being dragged along by Finn and Jordan to those same type of dance clubs over the years. “And you don’t really need to know how to dance, Jill. Just follow my lead is all, hmm?”

  After asking the waiter to hold off on dessert and coffee for a short while, Max took Jill by the hand and led her out to the compact dance floor. She went into his arms eagerly, allowing him to wrap one arm around her waist and then rest their co-joined hands against his upper torso. And when she gave a soft little sigh and rested her head against his shoulder, Max thought faintly that this was a little bit like what heaven must feel like.

  He pulled her in close against him, feeling the gentle swell of her breasts brushing his chest, and his hand drifted down from her waist to rest just above her buttocks. She gasped in surprise as the unmistakable swell of his erection briefly nudged the notch of her thighs, but she didn’t pull away as he had feared. Max couldn’t resist nuzzling his face into her shiny hair, breathing in the mingled scents of her shampoo and skin, then brushed his
lips ever so lightly against her cheek. He had never wanted a woman as badly as he craved the sweet, tempting one he held in his arms at this moment, wanted to take her back to his hotel suite, lock the door, and shut them away from the world for a few days. Or weeks. Or longer.

  One slow, sensual dance segued into the next, and Max lost all track of time. It was only when the jazz band announced they were taking a break that he shook himself out of the trance he had apparently fallen into, and guided Jill back to their table without a word.

  “Should I order dessert now?” he asked her hoarsely, all too aware of the dazed expression in her pale green eyes. “Or coffee?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not really hungry. Are you?”

  “No, not in the least.”

  Max signaled for the check, and then signed the credit card slip without even glancing at the total. The waiter brought over their coats and Max’s hands lingered for a moment on Jill’s shoulders as she buttoned hers up. He slid an arm around her waist as they left the restaurant, then waved off the valet’s offer to summon a taxi.

  “Would you like to walk around for a few minutes?” he asked Jill. “Or is it too cold for you?”

  She shook her head. “I’d like to walk a bit, actually. And it’s not very cold tonight for a change.”

  He kept his arm around her waist, hugging her close against his side as they strolled around the area near the restaurant. They were in the Belltown district of Seattle, a centrally located neighborhood filled with world-class art galleries and museums, a wide variety of dining options, and several music venues. But Max hardly noticed any of the shops, cafes, and sights that surrounded them, aware only of the woman he held in his arms.