“Thanks.” Evan slid his phone back into his bag, just as it started to ring. He looked at it excitedly, praying to see Jessica’s name instead of his mother’s. And sure enough, it was her.
“Hey, baby,” he answered, not sure if he could call her baby yet.
“Hey,” she replied. Her voice sounded like music to his ears, especially after hearing his mother’s grating complaining. “What are you doing?”
“At the gym. Would you like to meet me for dinner later?”
“Sure,” she chirped.
“I’ll take you to a nice place,” he told her. “You’ll love it.”
“Okay,” she said cheerfully. “Sorry about earlier.”
“It’s fine.” Evan hung up, feeling so much better. He had been in a funk all day, wondering where he stood with Jessica and if she was mad at him. His main worry was that she thought he was just another playboy CEO, snorting cocaine and screwing women left and right. She had no idea how pure he tried to be. At least the squash had distracted him. Now he was thrilled for dinner.
“Got you a new babe?” Tony asked.
Evan nodded. He couldn’t help the smile spreading across his face.
Tony laughed and playfully whacked his arm. “She must be pretty special. I haven’t seen you light up like that since the night you met Mona.”
Evan was still grinning, even at the painful reference to his lost love Mona. “Yeah, she’s pretty great. I like her a lot. The problem is….”
“What?” Tony urged him.
“I don’t know how to say it. We work together.”
“Uh-oh. You know that’s never good.” Tony widened his eyes. He had been involved with his secretary a few years ago, and was still dealing with the repercussions after their relationship had dissolved and she had hit his company with a sexual harassment lawsuit. “Be careful with that one.”
“Yeah, it’s weird. You know I never do this.”
“You never do,” Tony agreed.
“So why am I doing it now?” Evan sighed. He couldn’t divulge all that was going on with Jessica. It was so much more complicated than the fact that she worked with him.
“Well, what is your relationship with this chick at work? What does she do for you?”
Evan smirked for a moment. Then he straightened his face. “She’s working with me on building an orphanage.”
“An orphanage?” Tony looked incredulous.
“It’s for tax breaks and whatnot. None of that matters. The important thing is, she doesn’t work for Davis Enterprises.”
“Okay, so that’s a bit of a plus. But what if the deal falls through? What if you break up and then she gets psycho?”
Evan bit his lip as he tried to imagine Jessica going psycho. There was definitely a crazy element to her, but not a psychotic one. More like a good crazy, a quiet thirst for life and love, a stony will to survive and get what she came for. Yet there was so little that he knew about her. Things could go extremely sour in a matter of moments in this situation. “I trust her,” he declared finally. He was surprised at the firmness with which he made the statement. After all, this woman was a con artist who was trying to infiltrate his family’s company and steal millions of dollars!
“You trust her, huh? And how long have you known her?” Tony inquired.
“A little less than a month.”
Tony burst out laughing. “Yeah, well, I trusted Victoria and I had known her for five months. Just be careful, pal. I want you to be happy, but I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“I know. My mother is already determined to ruin it for me.”
“Don’t let her get her meddling paws into this one, Evan. This one is all you. You should be cautious, sure, but don’t let that dampen your fire, if you know what I mean. If you like this girl, then try it out. See what happens.” Tony slapped his towel over his shoulder. “I better get back.”
“Are you going to work today?” Evan asked.
“Yeah, unfortunately. I got a contract to draw up.”
“Take the weekend off, Tony. You work too hard.”
Tony grinned. “We CEOs are committed to the grind. Work is all I have to get away from those crazy women at my house right now. The whole family is there. I can’t even go to the bathroom without someone telling me I’m doing it wrong.”
“Okay, then,” Evan laughed. But honestly, he could identify.
Evan called Jessica later to see where he should have his driver pick her up. “I’ll meet you at your house,” she told him. She sounded a bit breathless.
When she arrived at five, there was a cut on her cheek, just starting to scab over. “What happened?” Evan asked, trying to touch it.
She pulled away and laughed nervously. “Sorry. I know I don’t look my best. I fell and cut my cheek on the sidewalk.”
“What? You fell?”
Jessica raised her leg to show him her deadly stiletto heels. He realized that she was wearing something amazingly sexy under her long trench coat, though he couldn’t see it. Her creamy calf looked so firm and curvaceous as the split in her coat fell open around it.
“Wow. Be careful, hun. Does it hurt?” He placed a hand on the small of her back as he guided her out to the car, which was waiting in front of his building. The doorman nodded at them and Evan wanted to make a smartass comment like, Tell my mother I said hello, but he refrained in order to avoid creating questions with Jessica. He sensed that Jessica hated his mother, and there was no wonder why. After all, it was his mother’s jealousy that ended Jessica’s mother’s career with Davis Enterprises.
“Not particularly,” Jessica told him. “Just a surface scratch.” She giggled slightly when Evan held the door open for her and swept her trench coat tails sexily around her knees as she slid into the backseat.
Evan felt his heart hammer as he slid in next to her. He wanted to be all over her, but he had to be a gentleman.
“Where are we going?” she asked. She removed a compact from her clutch and began to touch up her lipstick.
Evan smiled. That gesture was so simple. The violation of etiquette would have given his mother a heart attack. But he liked it, because it showed how rough around the edges Jessica was. She was real. Maybe she was a liar and an imposter, but she betrayed her true self here and there, and Evan loved every glimpse he got into the real Jessica and her background.
“Some place you will love,” he assured her.
She looked at him for a moment, and her eyes lingered on his. At that moment, he caught another rare glimpse into her soul. Her eyes seemed to be begging him, “Please be real. Please love me. Don’t hurt me because I have been hurt too often.” As if on reflex, he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her in close.
“Isn’t this against your principles?” she laughed. “Dating someone at work.”
“Yes, it is,” he admitted slowly.
“It is against mine, too,” she replied.
“I don’t know why we’re doing this. It could go so wrong. But I want to try it all the same. What do you think?” Evan asked her. He was tense as he waited for her answer.
Jessica was silent for several seconds. Then she said, “What do you mean, try it? What do you want to try?”
“Us.”
“You mean like being together? As a couple?” Jessica pulled away to look him in the eye.
“Yes.” Evan hesitated, seeing the panic starting to infuse Jessica’s face. “If that scares you, don’t worry. We can take it slow. But I want to get to know you. The real you.”
Jessica looked even more terrified. But then she demurely smiled, putting her mask back on, and said, “I don’t know about a serious relationship. I have never really been in one.”
“What? Why? You’re so beautiful. I’m sure you’ve had many men try to be with you.”
“Sure. But I didn’t want any of them. I like being on my own.”
“And why is that?” Cautiously, Evan touched a tendril of her curled hair, wrapping it around his index finger.
“Because alone is safer. And I don’t think you would like the real me.”
“Why not? I like what I’ve seen so far.”
She laughed shyly, but refused to look him in the eye. “You haven’t seen very much of me honestly. There is a lot you don’t know about me.”
“Well, I’d like to know it all. I want to find out everything about you.”
She laughed shyly again and shook her head, using her hair to cover her blush. “Trust me, you really don’t.”
“What could be so shameful about you? Are you a closet serial killer? Do you run orphanage scams for a living?” Evan felt her tense up momentarily, but then she slipped her mask back on expertly.
“Of course not,” she laughed. “Are you crazy?”
“I don’t know,” he chuckled. “It has been suggested. My mother thinks I am.”
“Well, perhaps you are. You must be, to want to get to know me.”
“Don’t be scared. You can show me things and tell me things about yourself when you feel comfortable. Just know that I’m not seeing anyone else and I’m a very patient man.”
Jessica finally met his eyes, then leaned against his shoulder and let him hold her for the rest of the ride to the restaurant.
“Is that an okay?” Evan finally asked as they pulled up to the place.
She didn’t respond.
“I have an idea. My family has a house in Mount Charleston. How about we go up for a weekend? We can relax in the hot springs and have breakfast in bed and even go skiing. And you can tell me what you want to tell me, and I can tell you what you want to know. I am transparent to you, Lisa. I just want you to be the same way with me, but at a rate that you’re comfortable with.”
Jessica paused, then nodded. “A weekend away would be nice. I’ve been working far too much.”
“I agree. So let’s do it this weekend. A nice little weekend getaway, just the two of us.”
Jessica grinned when she saw that they were at the Top of the World. “You know, I’ve lived in Vegas my whole life and I have never been to this place.”
“My father used to take me here when I was a little boy,” Evan told her as they entered the place. “He had his own reserved table and could come whenever he pleased. And now I got that table.”
Jessica appeared to be in awe of the panoramic view as their waiter seated them. She gasped as she looked over the dazzling lights and towers of Las Vegas. Candles glowed in red vases on the table which was scattered with rose petals at Evan’s request, illuminating her face in the most romantic flickering red light. The waiter removed her coat and revealed her skintight wine-red dress with a sheath of sheer lace barely hiding her petite but perky décolletage. Evan smiled at her across the table, trying his hardest not to ogle her excellent, tight body. She just looked stunning, and the light in her eyes made her look like a little girl who had just barely transformed into a young woman.
Jessica caught him staring at her and blushed again. It was becoming apparent how shy she was, despite her sexy and bold façade. That mask was slipping off, inch by inch. Evan couldn’t wait until she finally told him that she was Jessica Collins, and not the orphanage director that she posed to be. He wanted to get to know the real Jessica Collins because there was nothing to Lisa Allen, and he loved what he was glimpsing just beneath the surface of that sham.
“Shall I bring out the wine list?” the waiter proposed.
Evan urged Jessica to answer. She looked confused for a moment, then composed herself and ordered the finest white in an authoritative tone, trying to pretend like she knew wines. Evan settled back in his seat, prepared for a wonderful night getting to know Jessica Collins.
Chapter 8
Jessica loved her new dress and she could tell that Evan did, too. Earlier that day she had almost been caught. A man tried to rape her after she’d pulled her usual pretend overdose. Never before had she experienced such slime, but she still felt dirty. The feeling of his sweaty palms tearing at her dress still turned her stomach. She had clobbered him over the head with her high heel and made a run for it. He had almost caught her in the hallway, and had cut her face with a knife that he was brandishing. Somehow she had still managed to get away with his six-hundred bucks, as he ran after her, shouting that she was a whore. Some retail therapy and paying her bills helped set her at ease, and now she was here, sitting across from Evan Davis at the Top of the World in the Stratosphere Tower.
Never before had she seen Vegas from these heights. It was a new perspective of the dirty and seamy city that she knew. From up here, Vegas was at a safe distance, all beauty and none of the pain and danger that was her daily life.
The waiter brought a bucket of Chardonnay to the table, showed it off, and opened it. He presented the cork first to Evan, who smelled appreciatively as he sniffed it, and then to Jessica. She sniffed the cork and smiled to, though it didn’t smell any different than any other wine that she had smelled before. The waiter poured them both glasses and swept away, his hands behind his back.
“This is so romantic. Did you plan all of this?” she finally asked. No one had ever wined and dined her like this, with rose petals on the table and candles housed in red vases.
“Yes,” he nodded gently. “I wanted to give you a nice surprise.”
“Well, you succeeded.” She laughed and was embarrassed at how shaky it sounded.
She was continually giving away how charmed she was. With some effort, she kept composing herself and pretending like this was just another ordinary evening in her life, like many men had brought her to such places and spoiled her like this. But then she would let something slip, such as when she told Evan that she had never been up here before in all of her twenty-four years in Las Vegas. She kicked herself for that one. Something had told her not to come to dinner with him, yet she just couldn’t resist the temptation. Being around him calmed her; it made her happy.
Evan looked rather mysterious in the candlelight. He was studying her. “So what do you want to know about me?” she finally asked to break the awkwardness that she felt weighing on her chest, making her paranoid of her every move.
“I want to know about what you do. When you’re not working. Where do you hang out? What are your hobbies?”
Jessica stared down at her hands, which she had just gotten manicured a rich red. “Um. Well.” She laughed a little bit. “Honestly I work too much to have many friends. I don’t have any hobbies really.”
“Really?” Evan sipped his wine. “I have to do things outside of work or I get stir crazy.”
She nodded. “Like CrossFit.”
He grinned. “Exactly. And cooking. Those things help me keep my sanity.”
“You must not like your job much if you need to do other things to keep your sanity,” she observed. She liked her ability to keep the conversation focused on the other person and off of her. There were too many risks to talking about herself.
Evan shrugged and avoided meeting her eyes. While she knew that he prided himself on reading people well, she could too. “I don’t mind it. I just took the position on because it’s what my family wanted.”
“You mean your mother?” Jessica tested.
He managed a weak smile. “I must seem like a sad mama’s boy to you, don’t I?”
“Not at all,” she hastily assured him. “I really don’t think that of you. I just think your mother is a bit…overbearing. Intimidating.”
Evan nodded. “She certainly is that. She really wanted me to be just like my father, but she also wants to run the company herself. She wanted me to have this position of power, yet she was hoping to keep the power for herself.” He sighed. “It makes my job hard. And I never really felt cut out for a CEO position.”
“So what would you rather be doing?”
“Honestly?” He paused, then laughed. “This will sound like I’m blowing smoke, but I’d really like to do what you do.” He glanced back up at her, clearly trying to gauge her reaction.
Jessica w
as certain that she was safe. He wouldn’t have slept with her and prepared this romantic dinner if he knew her secret. So she laughed casually and said, “You really want to do what I do?”
“I do,” he nodded eagerly. “I love children. I love helping others. I got it from my dad. You like what you do, right?”
“Sometimes.” Jessica thought back to the groping hands early and had to suppress a shudder. “There are things I don’t like about it, of course.”
“Like what?”
“Like…dishonest people. Like watching others suffer and being around their personal pain. Like pretending to be someone I’m not.” That was all truth. Jessica hated how Evan seemed to draw the honesty out of her like honey from a comb. If she didn’t watch it, she would end up giving away everything about herself.
And how she wanted to! How sweet it would be, to drop the charade and look into Evan’s eyes and tell him the truth. To actually be with him, to have an adult relationship. Never before had she had anything like that.
“You hate pain, don’t you?”
“Who likes it?” she laughed. The waiter brought their calamari and she was relieved because now she could busy herself dipping pieces of fried squid into the marinara, giving her an excuse not to look Evan in the eye and get too personal.
But Evan was dead set on getting to know her. “I can tell you’ve been through a lot of it. Especially being an orphan. I’m so sorry,” Evan told her, reaching across the table to place his hand gently over hers.
Jessica felt that sharp pain in her chest that struck her whenever she thought about her mother. An image flashed behind her eyelids of the way her mother had looked on her death bed, a pale husk of her old self with black circles beneath her eyes, shuddering with pain at every breath. “I’ve been through a decent amount,” she admitted. “But I would rather not talk about that now. Let’s have a nice dinner.”
“True. I’m sorry for bringing it up. How rude of me. You just fascinate me, Lisa. You are… there’s a depth to you.”
“Can we get through the appetizers first before you start trying to get me in bed?” she quipped.
Daddy Plus One: A Single Dad Secret Baby Billionaire Romance Page 5
