by Cara Colter
“My company booked the room, I’m sure you recognize the name?”
“I do, but—”
“I can give you a generous deposit against any damages.”
“It’s not about damages. It’s a legal requirement. Homeland Security. Medical emergencies. What if, heaven forbid, the hotel caught on fire? Or what if the maid went into the room in the morning, and she was lying there, comatose?”
Was that a dig at the boozy breath? Jessica wondered, narrowing her eyes at him.
“We have to have proof on file of exactly who every person in the hotel is.”
It was just like a scene from that movie. Jessica realized she, most unlikely person to ever be mistaken for a miscreant, was being refused a hotel room. The worst possible thing was happening inside of her, a slow giddy trembling. It was worse than her crying.
Jessica giggled.
Jamie and the clerk both turned to stare at her.
She put her fist to her mouth, but another giggle escaped. And then a snort of laughter. Despite her pressing against her mouth harder with her fist, more laughter.
Okay, it had a hysterical edge to it, enough so that Jamie was staring at her with concern—the Is she going to make a scene? kind of concern—and the clerk with an I knew it expression on his face.
Jamie was suddenly at her elbow, completely composed, guiding her out the door the way they had come in.
They got back in the car that had been waiting for them.
The door whispered shut and she sank into the silence, feeling as if she’d been rescued from a close call with crocodiles.
Jamie was looking straight ahead. His lips were twitching. She couldn’t tell if it was with suppressed amusement or suppressed annoyance.
“I’m sorry,” Jessica said. “I can’t imagine what made me laugh.”
“The cognac?” he suggested.
“Nerves,” she insisted, trying to sound very sober. And then she added, hearing a certain defensiveness in her tone, “I haven’t eaten for quite some time.”
“Maybe just the absurdity of life,” he suggested, rolling his shoulders back. She suspected he much preferred the burst of laughter to her earlier tears. The driver was waiting for instructions, but Jamie was obviously considering his next move.
“My place,” he told the driver, finally.
Jessica felt suddenly and instantly sober. “Your place? I’m not sure. I don’t think—”
“If you can think of some other options, let me know,” he cut her off, his tone reflecting a souring mood. “I can drop you at the homeless shelter, if you prefer.”
He groaned at the horror on her face and tilted his head back against the seat. “Sorry. Kidding.”
Their choices seemed limited, indeed. But, still, his place? It seemed wildly inappropriate.
Though, just under her resistance to the idea, was a shameful curiosity. What did a man like Jamie Gilbert-Cooper live like? She was willing to bet no socks on the floor or dishes in the sink. It would be a rather intimate glimpse into his life. Under normal circumstances, she would not give in to the temptation to know a little more about him. But these were not normal circumstances.
“It will probably be just for tonight,” he said. “Tomorrow, I’ll have someone at the office start to figure out the details of getting your identification replaced. And getting you home.”
He sounded quite eager about that, she thought.
“It’s very kind of you to offer, um, your place,” Jessica said. “I just don’t want to put you out.” She had heard people lived small in New York City. Even very well-to-do people, which he obviously was. Was he going to sleep on the couch? Was she?
“My place is not a studio walk-up in Greenwich Village,” he said, as if he could read her mind. “You won’t be on a roll-out sofa for the night. I think you’ll find it quite comfortable.”
“Oh. It’s just that—”
“You’re concerned about trysts?” he asked dryly. “Dalliances?”
She blushed. “Of course not,” she protested.
He, apparently, was not convinced.
“The perception of trysts? This is strictly business.”
Why would she feel faintly insulted by that—as if he would never even consider a tryst with her! As if she needed to be reminded it was strictly business.
“I can go get a hotel if it would make you feel better,” he offered. “Though I’m just not sure if it’s the best idea to leave you alone. I think we should order some food as soon as we get in, since we’ve determined cognac is not an answer.”
“Oh, I don’t want you to go to any more trouble,” she said, a trifle stiffly. “Just a couple of slices of toast would be fine.”
“I don’t cook,” he said.
She cocked her head at him. She’d been right about no dirty dishes in the sink, then. Still, she had to ask.
“You consider toast cooking?”
“I do.”
“Oh.”
That should have made the differences between them more than apparent—a chasm they could not cross—but she felt, crazily, more curious about his world than ever. Perceptions of trysts aside, she realized she was glad she was going to his place, as if she was a science fiction fan being offered a glimpse into a world that was unimaginable until you had actually seen it with your own eyes.
“What do you think you’d like to eat?”
Toast, she thought stubbornly, but decided not to press the issue. “I bet you can get good pizza in New York City.”
“I’d say the best in the world.”
“My luck is changing!”
He actually smiled at her.
In that smile, she saw something you could rely on and lean into. She had nothing. To add to her other losses today, she had just, humiliatingly, been refused a hotel room. And yet he was just the kind of man who made it seem like everything would be all right.
That he could make everything all right.
Tentatively, she smiled back at him. And then, before he took it as an affront to his strictly business attitude, she quickly turned her attention out her window, watching with interest as New York City unfolded before her.
He pointed it out when they passed through Times Square, and the famous Theater District. She recognized Macy’s and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Empire State Building. The traffic was chronically snarled and it seemed to take forever to move a small distance, but the constant noise and activity outside the car held her interest. New York City was a constant swirl of movement, light and sound.
His apartment building, across from a park, impossibly seemed fancier than the hotel they had left behind. When they got out of the car, she didn’t know what to look at first.
“Is that Central Park?” she asked.
He followed her gaze, and said with affection, “None other.”
“I thought it would be scary. Especially at night.”
Instead, she saw that even though it was now after 11:00 p.m., the park was a well-lit beautiful space. Young couples were strolling...people were walking their dogs. A runner in colorful spandex flew by. A horse-drawn carriage was clopping along in the distance.
A horse-drawn carriage ride through Central Park was on her secret list of things she wanted to do in the short period of time she was here.
“One of the many misconceptions about New York is that Central Park is not safe,” Jamie told her. “The park is closed between 1:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. but most of the rest of the time it’s pretty well populated. Naturally you would want to stay to the well-traveled paths, but it’s quite beautiful at night.”
In Timber Falls everything was closed after six at night! Except Wilbur’s Watering Hole. Somehow, Jessica didn’t want to share that with him, though.
A doorman opened the door, greeted Jamie by name and tipped h
is hat to her, supremely indifferent to her business with Jamie. Did that mean he came through here with women frequently, not as unfamiliar with dalliances and trysts as he was letting on?
None of your business, Jessica told herself firmly. She turned her attention to the lobby of the building, which was more understated than the hotel lobby had been, but every bit as opulent.
The lobby should have prepared her for his apartment, but it didn’t. He had a special key for the elevator and it opened directly into his apartment, which made her think of something out of a James Bond movie. Lights whispered on automatically as soon as the elevator doors opened. There was a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the park and made the nightscape of the city that surrounded it look like a sparkling painting.
The living room, kitchen and dining room were all one large open space.
She could not stop herself from moving toward the kitchen. She ran her hand along the leathered granite of a huge kitchen island and then turned to look at the banks of white cabinets and the shining stainless steel appliances.
“It’s incredible that you don’t use a kitchen that looks like this,” she mused. “Look at it. Double ovens!”
“What does one use a double oven for?”
She shot him a look to see if he was kidding. He was not.
“Thanksgiving dinner. Christmas dinner.” She could not contain a sigh of pure longing. “Turkey in one. Pies in the other. It’s always a problem.”
He was giving her a look as if she came from another planet. That look should have been enough to stop her exploring, but no, she might never see anything like this again.
She shamelessly oohed and ahhed over the wine cooler, a built-in barista-style coffee maker, the cleverly hidden pull-out-drawer-style dishwasher.
She stopped at the fridge. “It looks big enough to park a Volkswagen in,” she said. “Can I peek inside?”
He nodded, watching her with that look, the one she couldn’t quite decipher. The one where she didn’t know if he found her annoying or amusing.
The fridge had zones in it! And yet, it was relatively empty. A few condiments, a container of cream, three bottles of imported beer.
The fridge seemed to mirror the rest of his space. Nothing had a “used” look to it. The polished counters were bare of the clutter of daily life. There wasn’t even a sugar bowl or a paper roll out. Where were the dish towels?
She turned her attention to the rest of the space. No books out, not even a newspaper tossed carelessly. No family pictures. Definitely no socks. The artwork was gorgeous, but all abstract, revealing nothing about him.
The space should have cemented him in her mind as what he was: cosmopolitan, busy, not home much.
Instead, the perfection of it, the ready-for-the-posh-interiors-magazine-cover-shoot, made her feel oddly sad. His home was beautiful, and yet it did not have any soul.
When she turned to study him, it was obvious to her that he was beautiful, too, but that he did have soul, a great strength of character, a composure that rose above the inevitable chaos of life.
“Your space is gorgeous,” she said, quietly.
“Why do I sense a but?” he asked, cocking his head at her.
“It doesn’t really suit you,” she ventured, feeling as if she was being way too personal, and at the same time that honesty was called for.
“Ah. I’ll have to speak to the designer about that.” She could tell he wanted to leave it there, but curiosity got the better of him. “In what way doesn’t it suit me?”
She did not know him well enough to weigh in on that. He could be her future boss, after all. Still, she couldn’t stop herself.
“It doesn’t feel like a home. It feels like a hotel.”
For a moment, he looked stunned. And then he raised an eyebrow at her. “But that suits me perfectly,” he said.
No, it doesn’t. For just a moment, she could picture him tossing a child in the air, toys on the floor, the space filled with the good smells of things cooking and laughter and motion, and his vitality.
That imagined picture brought a tinge of color to her cheeks.
It had just been a too long and eventful day that had brought on this flight of fancy. You did not picture the man who could be your boss—obviously single and successful and not willing to change one thing about his glorious playboy lifestyle—in a scene of domestic contentment.
Was she in that scene with him? Good grief! Was that their baby the Jamie of her imagination was playing with?
The renegade thoughts were stunning. She had put away such longings what seemed to be a lifetime ago. To hope for such things was to reopen a place in herself that was completely barricaded from the possibility of ever hurting the way she had once hurt...hadn’t she known, even when she met Ralph in Copenhagen, he could not touch that place inside of her? But this man...
“I have to call my parents,” she blurted out, as a way of grounding herself.
“Sure. Let’s just get the pizza ordered first. Have a seat,” he invited with a careless sweep of his hand. He was unknotting the tie from his throat, and it felt enticingly intimate to witness that moment. She scurried over to a deep leather chair that looked toward the view, instead of at him.
“Pizza,” he said, still taking charge, still solving problems. Of which, she reminded herself firmly, she was one. “Any preferences?”
“The wilder the better,” she said.
When she cast a look at him, she could see his mouth had dropped open, and she was happy to have surprised him.
He was studying her with interest. “You are a walking contradiction, aren’t you? The big family gathering dinners, and then the wilder the better taste.”
Her happiness at his surprise dissolved as she realized the possibility for double entendre. “I was only talking about pizza!” she stammered.
“Of course you were,” he said soothingly, but not before she saw the wicked satisfaction cross his features. She had caught him off balance by weighing in on his style, and now he was enjoying catching her off balance, as well.
“Don’t you have traditional family celebrations here?” she asked him, remembering he had mentioned his sister, the one who would be shopping with her tomorrow.
“No,” he said, a little too curtly, as if by asking about his family, she had crossed a line.
“I have to call my parents,” she reminded him—and herself—again. And she could see the fact she was going to check in with her parents negated, completely, any wild thoughts he was having concerning her.
As if.
He ordered pizza first. When he handed her the phone, she said, “Please keep track of the costs, for the pizza and the long-distance call. I’ll pay my share when I have funds.”
His lips twitched. Again, she could not tell if it was amusement or annoyance. He didn’t address her offer to pay at all, just handed her the phone.
“Let me show you the guest room and you can make your call there in privacy—”
As if she would have anything private to say to her parents.
Hey, Mom...hey, Dad. It’s been a crazy introduction to New York City. I’ve been robbed, but rescued by this gorgeous man who might be my boss someday if I abandon you and Timber Falls, and by the way I’m staying in his apartment with him.
Her mom would have a heart attack and her dad would be on the next plane to New York.
“—and freshen up. By the time you’re done, the pizza should have arrived.”
Jessica trailed him down a wide hallway, taking a peek in the master bedroom as they went by. It faced those same Central Park city views, and held a massive bed that made her think, to her eternal horror, the wilder the better.
The guest room was gorgeous. The views did not face the park, and yet the cityscape was utterly breathtaking. He showed her through to the attached
bath, and she saw it had a stand-alone tub and a deluxe Italian-tiled shower stall in it.
Bubble bath? Or shower? Somehow, she was not sure she could stand having a bubble bath in the same space he was in, even if walls did separate them. Besides, she was hungry, and a proper bath required a commitment of time.
Shower it would be, and she could not wait!
“Do you suppose I could borrow a T-shirt to use as a nightie?”
“Of course,” he said smoothly, but something had flashed, just for a moment in the dark depths of those eyes, when she mentioned a nightie.
Or maybe not, because he continued speaking, the ideal host, unruffled by mentions of nighties. “Meanwhile, there’s a canvas bag on the back of your bathroom door, if you put your clothes in that and set it outside, I’ll have the concierge pick them up and have it laundered.”
“At this time of night?”
He lifted his shoulder. Obviously anything was possible here, at any time of the night or day, and he didn’t give it a second thought.
“So, you don’t cook or do laundry?” she asked. The truth was that the thought of someone else doing her laundry was embarrassing to her.
“I’m often short on time. I cheerfully delegate anything I don’t enjoy doing.”
He left her, and then came back a few minutes later, knocking softly on her door before coming in and placing a selection of neatly folded T-shirts on her bed. Then he laid a plaid bathrobe—obviously his—beside the shirts.
He gave her his security code and left her his phone, then closed the doors behind him. Jessica unlocked the phone and called her parents. How high school crush was it that she was aware that her mouth on the phone was very close to where Jamie’s mouth had been on that same phone?
I do not have any kind of crush on Jamie Gilbert-Cooper, Jessica told herself sternly.
He was her rescuer in a bad situation. Naturally, there would be some feelings of transference, like a hostage might feel for the Navy SEAL who saved her from a certain and horrible death at the hands of bad guys.
When her father picked up the phone, he wanted to know, immediately, why she was calling from a strange number. Her mother had started to worry an hour ago, and had been texting her. They were on speakerphone now, her mother denying she had been worried.
