“My father,” she said softly. “My mother passed away three years ago.”
“I’m sorry.” His fingertips grazed her knuckles. It was the most natural gesture in the world, but the contact sent a wholly different rush through her.
“Thank you. She had an aneurism. It was sudden, and difficult.”
“My father died five years ago,” he said, surprising her with the gentleness in his voice. “It was really hard on my mother and the girls.”
“The girls being the four younger sisters I’ve heard about.” She relaxed a little, hoping the spotlight would be on him for a few minutes. “Where are they?”
“Near my mother. Believe me, I’ve got my own cheering section at home in Chicago.”
“No wonder you’re so good with all the ladies at Charisma. You know your way around a sorority house.”
“I’m lucky that way.” He took a sip of beer, then set the glass down with a thud. “But no changing the subject, which is you. Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“I’m an only child.” Should she tell him she was adopted? Or might that send up a warning flare? Did anyone know about Finola’s past? She had been trying to find that out since she’d arrived in New York. She lowered her voice and added a purposeful glint to her eyes. “You want to know a secret?”
He leaned forward as though she had him on a string and had tugged it. “You have no idea how much.”
“This is the first time I’ve been east of the Rockies.”
He dropped back in his chair. “No way.”
She nodded, enjoying the unbroken eye contact and the glimmer of a smile tipping the corners of his lips. Had she ever really noticed just how perfectly shaped his mouth was?
Oh yeah. Several times, as a matter of fact.
“You’re acclimating very well, then,” he said.
She crinkled her nose. “Well, I still can’t cross the street unless there’s a Walk sign.”
He “tsked” as though he were disappointed in her. “Are you hailing taxis yet?”
“I can’t afford cabs.” She tapped his knuckles playfully just for the fun of touching him again. “You don’t pay me, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” He regarded her for a minute. “So how can you afford a Manhattan apartment? And clothes? And food?”
She spun the stem of her wineglass, then slid her fingers up and down it thoughtfully. “My mother left me some money and I’ve decided to use it to support myself while I learn this business. I room in a rent-controlled studio with Lainie Sinclair, the proofreader and keeper of The Closet keys.” She gave him a knowing smile, since it was common knowledge that the only perk for the low-ranking staff was the chance to borrow clothes from Charisma’s well-stocked fashion closet. “And I don’t eat much.”
Still, he didn’t say anything, and Jessie suddenly wondered if he doubted her. The way he looked at her…it was almost as if he didn’t think she was telling the truth.
“Do I look like I eat a lot?” she asked with a half smile.
He shook his head slowly. “No.”
“Then why are you staring at me as though I’m guilty of something?”
He laughed self-consciously. “I’m just thinking about where I should take you to dinner. Somewhere great, since you don’t get to eat much. What do you like?”
You, she thought daringly. I like you.
“French. Mexican. Japanese. Fusion. I’m a starving intern. I’ll eat anything.”
Had she just accepted a dinner date with her boss’s boss—and Fin Elliott’s right-hand man?
By the look on his face, he was as surprised and pleased as she was.
This wasn’t going at all as he had planned. While Jessie visited the ladies’ room and he paid for their drinks, Cade took a deep breath and remembered that his goal was to find out why she was avoiding Fin, what she was hiding.
Not how far one date could actually go.
Get a grip, man. Falling into the sack with an intern might not be forbidden, but it was definitely less than professional.
It could be a mistake.
And he hadn’t plowed to the head of the class, the top of the team and the pinnacle of a career by making mistakes. But something about Jessie Clayton made him want to take chances.
She’d confirmed everything in her file from the school she’d attended to the fact that there were no other interviews at the other magazines in the personnel computer system. He even knew that her mother had passed away three years ago, while she was studying at the Art Institute. So she wasn’t lying about her background.
But still Cade’s sixth sense screamed that Jessie Clayton was hiding something. And with the competition hot and furious among the four top magazines of EPH, he didn’t put anything past the Elliotts.
Elliotts played to win and that was why Cade liked being around them. But would they be conniving enough to pick an innocent girl from Colorado to spy for them?
He had to find out.
And that was why he asked her to dinner.
It didn’t have anything to do with that flashy smile or a laugh that sounded like…like the prettiest thing he’d ever heard.
He stood and grabbed his jacket, catching sight of her returning to their table. Of course she wore those glasses and she must have rebraided her hair before she left the office, because it was held securely back now. And although her simple black skirt and white blouse was classic, it certainly didn’t have the au couture flair of some of the models and society girls he’d dated in the past few years. Even though she had the long, lean body for it.
Must be all that horseback riding. The thought tightened his gut, and a few muscles below that.
Easy, boy. No mistakes. This is research.
She flashed him that easy, genuine smile as she approached, as vivacious and bubbly as she was in staff meetings.
Maybe she was hiding something; but if she was, she had hidden it in a beguiling package. There was something so unaffected and real about her. Something he’d missed with the women he’d been seeing.
Not that this was a date.
“So what’ll it be, Cade?” Jessie asked as she picked up her handbag. “French, Japanese, Fusion? I know this great Chinese place in Times Square.”
He had to keep this focused on research. “You know, it’s amazing you’d never been to New York before, and you just arrive, get an apartment, a job, friends…”
She gave him a sidelong glance as they walked toward the lobby. “Actually, I got the job before the apartment,” she said. “After I interviewed, I was chatting with Lainie who mentioned that her roommate was getting married. That was pure serendipity.”
“I remember interviewing you,” he said as he held the door and they stepped into the waning light casting long shadows on Park. He dipped a little closer to her ear and lowered his voice. “Before you entered your horn-rimmed phase.”
He didn’t expect her to pale at that. He really expected a light, melodic laugh…and maybe she’d slip the glasses off. Instead, she tapped the frames as though she needed to be sure they were still there.
“I can’t wear contacts,” she said, a note of apology in her voice.
He suddenly realized she must have taken it as an insult. “Jessie.” He stopped walking and held her elbow so that she stopped, too. “I didn’t mean that you aren’t…” Pretty. “I just noticed that you didn’t wear them before.”
She eased her elbow out from his light grasp. “They’re part of my whole New York look,” she said with a lightheartedness that sounded just a tad hollow. “So, where are we going?”
“French. Soho. You’ll love it.” He guided her toward the corner. “But we need to get a cab headed in the other direction.”
With a quick glance at an opening in the traffic, he put his hand on her back and started across Park. She took a few steps and stopped, her attention on a taxi barreling into the intersection.
He gave Jessie a little prompt and hustled her along. “Don’t hesitate
. Ever.” They dashed across the intersection and the taxi flew behind them. “Never show them you’re uncertain. Never pause, never scuttle, never show them they have any power. Those are the rules of the city.” The rules of his life, too.
“It’s a little like horseback riding then,” she said, laughing. “You’ve got to let them know who’s in charge.”
“Exactly.” Cade raised his arm and instantly a taxi pulled over for them. “I’ve seen all those pictures in your cubicle. You must love horses.”
He let her slide into the back seat first, and then he spoke through the safety glass to give the cabbie the address. Leaning back, he stayed in the middle of the back seat, much closer than he would ride with any business colleague.
He ignored the thought and draped his arm over the seat behind her. It was too natural, too…nice. And she didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she still wore that fresh smile he’d elicited with the lecture on how to cross city streets.
“I do love horses,” she told him. “I miss Oscar most of all.”
He choked out a laugh. “Oscar? That doesn’t sound like a horse. Horses are supposed to be called Silver and Gypsy.”
She gave him a light punch in the rib cage and his body tensed. “Spoken like a true city boy. As a matter of fact, my horse is named after a famous designer.”
“De la Renta?”
“Is there any other Oscar? I told you I love fashion. That’s why I came to Charisma.” She dropped her glasses just a smidge to peek out over the rims. “Or don’t you believe me?”
Oh, they were green. No, no. They were way more than green. They were deep, endless, intriguing seas of emerald. And all Cade wanted to do was gaze into those eyes for hours.
“Why wouldn’t I believe you?” he asked. “You’re not lying about anything, are you?”
She slipped the frames back up. “Certainly not about a horse named Oscar.”
He laughed at that, and about two hours later, he was still laughing. Tucked in the back corner of an ultra-trendy Soho restaurant, sharing a pear sorbet Jessie had called the most sinful piece of fruit she’d ever tasted, Cade nearly forgot the reason he’d asked her to dinner.
Because Jessie was as cool and refreshing and tangy as the dessert that finished their perfect meal. And Cade found himself sharing stories he’d never dreamed of telling the women he’d been dating.
Not that this was a date. The mantra was definitely not working because the closer they got to each other, the more he wanted to kiss her. And that did not qualify as research or work. That qualified as a mistake.
“Believe me,” he said, setting down his spoon as he pushed the dish back to her. “I never missed another ballet recital after my sisters pulled that stunt.”
She slipped another slow, sensual taste of the icy concoction between her lips, a soft moan of appreciation rumbling from her throat. “They sound intriguing.”
What was intriguing? Her mouth over that sorbet? “Who?” he asked.
Her lips twitched in a sneaky grin. “Your sisters.” She slid some more sorbet on the spoon and held it toward him. “You want some more, Cade?”
What he wanted was to taste the smidgen that remained on her lips. “Nah. But I’m having fun watching it melt in your mouth.”
She smiled and looked down at her plate, then back at him. Man, she was flirting with him. “I don’t get a lot of fine French cuisine.”
“You’re making me feel guilty about our intern policies.”
“Don’t. It’s a standard industry practice and I’m happy to pay my dues.”
“But not happy enough to take the shadowing assignment,” he said, giving himself a mental pat on the back for getting back on track.
She let the spoon clink softly against the porcelain dessert dish. “I told you I’d rather not.”
“Why don’t you tell me the real reason you don’t want the assignment, Jessie?”
She dabbed her mouth with the corner of her napkin, then folded it next to her plate. A little twinge of disappointment poked at his heart at the finality of the act. Flirting and shared dessert were over.
“Never mind,” he said impulsively. “Just think about it some more. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“Okay.” She gave him a quick smile that probably didn’t reach her eyes. He’d know if he could see behind the damn glasses. “Let’s get back to your sisters. Are you planning to go home to see your family anytime soon?”
He shook his head. “I doubt I’ll be taking any time off this year.”
“Because of the pressure for Charisma to finish the year with the highest profits?”
Great. She just brought the topic back to something that made him suspicious instead of just plain intrigued. “How about you, Jessie?” he volleyed back without answering the question. “Will you get home to the ranch this year?”
“I plan to go home for Christmas. I really miss my dad.”
“And Oscar,” he said with a teasing wink. “The high-fashion horse.”
She put her elbows on the table and balanced her chin on her knuckles. “I do miss Oscar,” she said wistfully. “Believe it or not, I miss the smell of horses, the clip-clop sound of their hooves.”
“You sure don’t get a lot of that in New York City.”
“Or mountains, rivers, valleys and flowers.”
He gave an apologetic shrug. “There are some plants in the traffic island on Park Avenue. Do they count?”
“Mmmm.” She smiled. “They count. This spring, when I got here, the Parks Department had planted some lilacs in that median strip.”
“I don’t think I noticed.”
“No, probably not. But lilacs were my mother’s favorite. She had a whole field of them on the ranch and every April and May they would explode in the most incredible sea of lavender and violet you can imagine and oh, the glorious smell.” She closed her eyes and inhaled as though she could sniff the fragrance she described. “I thought, when I moved here, that the lilacs were like a message from my mother. Telling me that coming here was the right thing to do.”
“How could it not be?” he asked. “You love fashion and design, and doesn’t everyone want to take a stab at life in the big city?”
She didn’t say anything for a moment, the flicker of the candle casting just enough light for him to see a whisper of sadness behind her tinted lenses.
“Anyway,” she finally said with a sigh, “I love that smell. I even wear lilac perfume sometimes, to remember it.”
“Oh.” This time he inhaled softly, taking the excuse of her perfume to move a little closer to her. “I thought it was honeysuckle.”
She didn’t back away, not an inch. “Honeysuckle is much sweeter.”
“Smells pretty sweet to me.” He sniffed again. “You left a trail lingering in my office today. A whole trail of trouble.”
At the word, her jaw slackened and she let out a disbelieving laugh. “Me? Except for not wanting to accept your assignment, I’ve never been any trouble at Charisma.”
“That’s not what I mean,” he said lowering his face close enough so that he could practically taste a kiss. “And you know it.”
He couldn’t help it. Wordlessly, he reached up and slid her glasses off. She flinched at first, then held his gaze. “So, who is hiding behind these things, Jessie Clayton?” he teased.
Her eyes widened, and stayed on him. Cade stared back into her tempting eyes, as green as the deep sea and just as dangerous.
“I’m not trouble and I’m not hiding anything,” she said.
“Yes you are.”
“I am?” Her voice cracked with just a hint of trepidation but she didn’t look away. And neither did he.
“You’re hiding your beautiful eyes.”
There was absolutely no way he could stop himself from kissing her. Her lips were cool from the sorbet, but as soft as he’d imagined they’d be. A shimmer of heat lightning streaked through him as their lips touched.
He didn’t even try to inva
de her mouth; he just let their lips meld, let the electricity arc, let the promise of more spark in the air. And then he very slowly broke the contact.
“Are you sure you wanted to do that, Cade?”
He’d never been more sure in his life. “If you have to ask, then I did something wrong.”
“No, not wrong.” Then she quietly slid the glasses back on and that sense of loss and disappointment punched him again. “Just surprising.”
“Do you have to wear those?” he asked, aching to take them off again. To gaze into those eyes until the sorbet in the dish was nothing but a puddle of pears and sugar and she was his for the night.
“I only take them off to kiss.”
Leaning into her ear, he let his lips graze a few strands of silky hair. “You might need to give contacts another shot, Jess.”
She gave him a questioning look. “Why’s that?”
Cade only hesitated a moment before he took any caution he’d brought to this dinner and cast it to the wind. “Because I’d like to kiss you. A lot.”
Three
“I need your bosom.”
The announcement snapped Jessie to attention. She looked up from the staff memo she’d been reading—well, the words had been in front of her, but they hadn’t exactly reached her brain—to see the humor sparking in Scarlet Elliott’s pale green eyes as she propped against Jessie’s cube wall.
“You have a fine bosom of your own, Scarlet,” Jessie replied. “Just ask John Harlan if you need a second opinion.”
Scarlet’s smile deepened at the mention of the man she loved. “He’s partial to mine, it’s true,” she said with an audacious wink. “But I’ve decided you have the perfect cleavage.”
Jessie didn’t like the sound of that. “Perfect for what, Scarlet?”
“I have to doctor up the ‘Color Me Charismatic’ feature again. The January theme is ‘How Low Can You Go’ and I think you—” Scarlet leaned over and eased out the V of Jessie’s cotton blouse enough to show the edge of a very functional white bra “—can go nice and low. In something from The Closet, of course.”
Dynasties:The Elliots, Books 7-12 Page 32
