by Leslie Kelly
“I think it’s illegal not to be around here.”
“Meaning there’s nothing stopping us from going out.”
“If I told you I liked the Cardinals, would that get this ridiculous idea out of your head?” He lifted a hand to his chest, his jaw opening in horror. Which made her laugh again. “Kidding.”
“You’d go that far to avoid going out with me?” he asked, his voice growing quiet, his smile fading. As if her answer really mattered to him…as if he cared.
Shaking her head, Maddy stepped around him, taking that first all-important step toward the door. And away from Mr. Superstud. “It’s not about going out with you. I had my own reasons for being here tonight, and they didn’t include a date. So you are completely off the hook.”
“But the money…”
“Was for the children.” And for my father. “There’s no quid pro quo in this.” Even if five minutes ago all her most feminine parts had been demanding that she get at least a little bit of quid and a whole lot of quo for being so…awakened by him.
That was a good word for it. Their brief conversation hadn’t aroused her quite to the level of blatant physical desire. But it had most definitely awakened her to the possibilities. Especially because she suddenly realized that as well as being physically attracted to him, she could also truly like this warm, amusing man.
Oh, there were so many possibilities.
No. They were impossibilities. Her most feminine parts would have to be happy watching hot doctors having affairs at Seattle Grace.
Telling herself she would not regret this in the morning, but wondering how she’d make it through the long, lonely night ahead without fantasizing about how she could have spent it—she murmured “Goodbye,” and walked out of his life.
JAKE HAD THREE SISTERS, so he knew better than to try to change a woman’s mind when she had definitely made it up. And the sexy brunette in the silky blue dress had most assuredly made up her mind to leave. Funny, though…he had the feeling she’d decided to ditch him before she’d ever bid on him.
Which, frankly, made him feel a lot better. Because her disinterest was not personal. He just needed to make sure that her interest became very personal.
Because there was no way that pert little dismissal and the sashay of her curvy hips out the ballroom door was the end of their relationship. Uh-uh. She’d been sexy and mysterious, aloof and unattainable from behind that black curtain. Now that he’d seen those stormy brown eyes, heard that whiskey-toned voice and caught a glimpse of her beautiful smile and those adorable dimples, he found her not only sexy and earthy but also almost heart-stoppingly desirable.
And no longer unattainable. He had a legitimate reason to find her. A good reason. He owed her what he’d promised and he never welshed on a deal.
Jake didn’t even consider following her. He didn’t need to. Chicago might be a big city, but the world in which the über-wealthy lived was a small, incestuous one. He could find out who she was with a few well-placed questions at the reception going on down the hall.
The problem was, he really didn’t want to venture into that reception. He’d escaped the clutches of the catcalling rich bitches and he had no desire to fall into them again. Fortunately, he didn’t have to.
“Excuse me,” he said as he strode toward the checkout desk. It was almost deserted now, with just a few last volunteers counting cash, sorting checks and cleaning up after the flesh-spending-frenzy.
“Yes?” an attractive brunette replied. Jake recognized her as the woman who ran the charity organization benefiting from tonight’s auction—the Give A Kid A Christmas thing that provided traditional holiday seasons for families living in Chicago’s abused women shelters. Noelle something. She’d been earnest and friendly, a little harried, but not coolly amused and assessing the way some of the auction organizers had been when he’d arrived.
“I must be brain-dead,” he said, offering her a smile. “But I somehow let the woman who won the date with me get away without making our final plans. And I don’t know how to get in touch with her.”
The woman frowned. “What was her name?”
Sticky one. Jake thought about bullshitting some more, then decided honesty was probably the best way to go. If the brunette felt sorry for him at having been bought and then dumped like yesterday’s garbage, she might be more forthcoming with the information he wanted.
“To be honest? She didn’t give it to me. I think she got cold feet, even after laying out twenty-five grand.”
Recognition washed over the woman’s face. “Ah, yes, I remember her.” As if wanting to console him, she added, “She did say she had to be somewhere else. I’m sure she was in a hurry and didn’t realize she hadn’t given you her name and number.”
“That must have been it. I’d really appreciate your help, uh…Noelle, right?”
“Right,” she replied. “Noelle Santori.” Turning her attention toward the money she’d been counting, she added, “She won’t be hard to find. There was only one check made out in that amount tonight.”
The woman riffled through a stack of checks piled inside the metal strongbox, plucked one out and said, “Aha!” Then she frowned. “Uh-oh, it’s a foundation, not a personal check. Her name’s not printed on here, and her signature is a little…messy.”
“Her name is Madeline Turner,” a woman behind him said. Jake swung around and saw a slender, attractive blonde, watching him with hooded speculation. He didn’t know her, as far as he could tell. She might have been one of the horny, diamond-laden princesses bidding fast and hard during the auction. Or she might not. The spotlights hadn’t allowed him a close enough look to be certain.
“Here,” the blonde said, handing him a business card. “Maddy works at a bank downtown. That’s the address.” She gave him a thorough once-over, assessing him as if he was a six-foot-three lobster in a fancy restaurant’s tank. And she was very hungry for some surf and turf.
Finally, she sighed and crossed her arms. “I’m sure it was an oversight, her leaving without getting what she came here for. So you be sure to look her up.” She turned away, tugging her weather-inappropriate stole tighter around her shoulders. As she walked away, he caught one final whisper. “You might just be an answer to a prayer.”
3
“EXCUSE ME, MISS TURNER, there’s someone to see you.”
Madeline looked up from her desk as her administrative assistant, Ella, peeked around the partially open door to her office. Being addressed as Miss Turner tipped her off to her young employee’s unusually somber mood. Most times, the efficient-but-bubbly young woman would have buzzed her, reminded her of an appointment, then snapped a quick, naughty joke. Ella liked nothing better than leaving Madeline with an inappropriate grin on her face as some staid business visitor entered her office.
This time, though, Ella sounded subdued, almost awed, and wore a facial expression to match.
“Oh, damn, is it the congressman again? I told him we weren’t increasing his line of credit.”
The other woman shook her head slowly. “Nope. A stranger.” Clearing her throat, she blinked a few times, as if trying to physically shake off her dazed mood. After a few seconds, she grinned. And when she began speaking in a rush, Maddy realized her real assistant was back in the building.
“Look, I just have to say, if this is a sales guy running a scam and he doesn’t really know you and doesn’t really have an appointment, I will so totally take him off your hands. I’ll whisk him out of here, no problem. Show him the door, follow him out, go somewhere private and whip him into shape. Give him a good, stern talking-to about coming by without appointments.” Her expression verging between lustful and hopeful, she added, “It would probably take hours and hours. Maybe the whole weekend.”
Ella wasn’t exactly the most professional bank employee in the world, but she was by no means flighty. Which meant whoever Maddy’s visitor was, he had to be someone capable of turning a normal, levelheaded young woman into a
jazzed-up, sexed-up, babbling twit.
“Oh, hell,” she whispered, knowing who was standing right outside her door. Only one man she’d met recently was capable of sucking every brain cell from a woman’s head within two minutes of meeting her.
Considering she’d dreamed about him for the past two nights—hot, Grey’s Anatomy inspired dreams of her being the filling in a triple decker McSteamy, McDreamy and McGigolo sandwich—she should be feeling McPanicked and McCornered. He’d almost surely be able to read the guilty embarrassment on her face the moment he spotted her.
Somehow, though, she could only muster anticipation and excitement. But she knew that all he’d see on her face was interest and admiration that he’d tracked her down—and sought her out—so quickly.
“Show him in,” she murmured, knowing she had about thirty seconds, the time it would take Ella to walk out and Number Nineteen to walk in. Just enough time to touch her hair, smooth her blouse and cross her legs.
She uncrossed them and slid her chair under her desk as soon as he entered. Her skirt wasn’t too short. It was perfectly businesslike, in fact. But the pose seemed a little too blatant…inviting. As if she wanted to encourage him sexually, letting him know he’d been all she’d had on her mind since the moment she’d met him.
That she did, and he was didn’t change her decision to go for professional rather than come-hither.
“Hi,” he said. “Found ya.”
“So you did, Mr. Wallace.”
“Nice to see you again…Miss Turner.” He glanced around her cluttered office, at the shelves laden with books and files and the stack of documents awaiting her signature in her in-box. Then he gazed past her at the window overlooking the city, one of the best views in the high-rise building. Whistling, he murmured, “I guess you do have a real job.”
“What made you think I didn’t?”
He met her stare, saying nothing.
“Okay,” she acknowledged with a grudging smile. “I don’t suppose many of the bidders from the auction work on much more than their tans.”
“But you don’t have one. Meaning you obviously work too much.”
“It could be that I’m naturally pale-skinned and prone to burning.” And that she hadn’t had one of those lazy summer days on her father’s boat since last summer. She was going to have to remedy that.
“I somehow suspect you spend twelve hours a day in here and just wave at the sun from your window as it goes by.”
Smart man. And one who was right now making himself at home, sitting in a chair opposite her desk without being asked. Her office almost seemed to shrink around him, as if his big body had sucked up all the spare particles of air, leaving the two of them cloaked tightly in intimacy.
Thank God for the desk. If it hadn’t been between them, Maddy might have been tempted to slide her chair closer, until their knees touched. Or their thighs. Or their mouths.
Stop it.
“Why’d you ditch me?”
“Why did you pursue me?”
“Ha. I asked you a complicated question and you asked me a very simple one.” He grinned. “I tracked you down because I owe you a date and I am not a welsher.”
That was all. He wasn’t a welsher. Well, didn’t she just feel special, like an average everyday poker player waiting for a five-dollar payoff.
“Now, your turn.”
“It isn’t necessarily complicated.” She arched a brow and managed a bored tone. “Maybe I ditched you because I wasn’t interested.”
His grin still confident, he immediately dispelled that possibility. “Twenty-five thousand bucks is a whole lot of disinterest.”
“It’s for a worthy cause.”
“So why didn’t you bid on somebody else early in the evening and get out right away?”
“What makes you think I didn’t? Maybe you were my second-to-the-last chance to make a difference, so I made an outrageous bid.”
“You didn’t bid on anybody else.” He leaned toward her desk, dropping his elbows on its surface. “Admit it.” The position sent muscle surging against cotton as his casual, washed-out T-shirt hugged his arms. The flexing of his tanned skin against the black fabric was almost impossible to tear her gaze away from. She honestly didn’t think she’d ever seen a more powerfully built man in person.
She knew she’d never slept with one.
Most of the men Maddy had had sex with had been wiry young college guys who wanted any female they could get—especially wealthy, heiress females—or pale, soft businessmen she met in her usual circle. Those men—men like Oliver, her ex-lover, whom she’d kicked out of her life a year and a half ago—were generally toned from their weekend tennis game or occasional golf tournaments. Or, in Oliver’s case, from his frequent ski trips with his “best friend” Roddy.
That Roddy had been a nickname for Rhonda, a twenty-year-old ski bunny, had been something he’d failed to mention. Maddy had found out the hard way when she’d decided to surprise him one weekend. She’d found Oliver in his room, engaging in some serious downhill action with the snow ho.
There were no skis involved, but his pole had been getting quite a workout.
She thrust away the memory, acknowledging that in the several months she’d dated the man, she’d never looked at him and immediately lusted the way she did with the guy sitting on the other side of her desk. Jake Wallace had the kind of massive, rock-solid body women dreamed existed but never expected to see in real life.
And she coveted it. As he’d been coveting the other night.
“I don’t think you bid on anyone else,” he murmured, speaking softly, as if aware she’d been struck a little brainless. “I was watching you from behind the curtain for a long time.”
Feeling a bubble of air lodge in the center of her throat, Maddy struggled to swallow it down, but couldn’t quite manage it.
He had been watching her. Watching. Her. With all the tall, elegant, skinny women in the room, she’d caught his eye…and had apparently kept it.
In some contexts, hearing a man saying he’d been “watching her” could creep a woman out. But this didn’t. Just the way his hungry stare hadn’t the night they’d met.
Instead, once again, he appeared so…honest. Open about his feelings. Jake sounded both confident and almost surprised by his own admission, as if he hadn’t meant to reveal his immediate interest in her, even though his presence here in her office confirmed it.
He’s a pro at making women feel this way, a small voice in her head reminded her.
“I even started asking the universe to let you be the one to win me,” he admitted.
Startled into laughter, Maddy knew exactly what he meant. Tabitha had recently been touting the brilliance of the same self-help bestseller. She swore it was the reason she’d landed her latest fiancé, a well-known Chicago hotelier, who was nice, a bit dull, but richer than an oil baron.
“You don’t strike me as the type who needs any secret when it comes to winning over a woman, Mr. Wallace.”
“I obviously needed to find out one secret…your identity.”
Smooth.
“Fortunately, like Cinderella, you left a clue behind.”
“I think I had both shoes on my feet when I got home.”
“Your check. With your signature.”
Frowning, she crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “They gave you my check?”
“Just a quick peek. Then a helpful stranger told me the rest of what I needed to know.”
How kind of the stranger.
Honestly, though, considering she was edgy and excited, her pulse a little fast, her heart beating a little hard, maybe it had been a kindness. Maddy hadn’t dated anyone in a long time. The last scene with her ex had burned itself on her brain and left her skeptical of the sweet promises of any man. Oliver’s final words—when he’d insisted they could still be a great team with her money and his family connections, with no messy, intimate “emotions” attached—had replayed in her mind
many times since then.
She was a suitable candidate for the position of Oliver’s wife, with an acceptable pedigree and lots of cash. A great business prospect. Nothing more.
Ouch.
“Everybody knows everybody in your circle, huh?”
“It’s the world’s biggest small pond.”
“Yawn.”
“You’ve no idea.”
“So come swim outside the reef with me. You might not be surrounded by your colorful, tropical kind, but sometimes us plain old trout can be entertaining.”
Maddy couldn’t help chuckling again. The man was just cute. As if he could be plain old anything. “You know, lately, I’ve been sticking to the shallows.”
“Double yawn. Come on, take a chance.”
Uh-uh. The shallows suited her fine. Here she could safely ignore any thoughts of her personal life. Along with working insane hours, she’d been dealing with the usual family crises, including Tabby’s upcoming wedding. The social functions she attended were more a matter of courtesy and professionalism than pleasure and the men she met at them always fell into two camps—the boring and proper, or the greedy, who saw dollar signs on her forehead.
The first type could never catch her interest. The second made her skin crawl. None of them could ever make her consider swimming out into those romance waters again. She just wasn’t interested.
Until now.
Yes. Until now. This man had slowed her down, made her think, made her aware of herself for the first time in ages. For that, at least, she owed him thanks. Because though she still had no intention of letting anything happen between her and a paid companion, she had at least begun to wonder if she should accept a few more invitations, get out more and perhaps meet someone else who could get her heart tripping and her palms damp. And maybe even her panties.
She’d guard her heart, set out for some physical satisfaction and never let herself be hurt. As long as she went into it with that in mind, it could be possible for her to have some kind of sex life again.
