Unwrapped Bundle with You Don't Know Jack & Bad Boys in Kilts

by Erin McCarthy

  He leaned on the bus stop pole and watched Jamie unwrap her sandwich.

  Sooner or later he was going to have to do something. Either leave her alone or tell her the truth.

  Jack’s cell phone rang as he was brushing his teeth in the private rest room he shared with Steve outside their offices. Spitting out the toothpaste quickly, he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He didn’t recognize the number.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Jonathon, how are you?”

  Wiping his mouth with a paper towel, Jack tried to place the woman’s voice, but he was way too preoccupied with quickly securing fresh breath and getting over to Jamie’s office.

  “I’m fine. How are you?” He used a cautious, polite tone.

  The woman laughed, and he suddenly realized who it was. “It’s Meredith, Jonathon. How quickly they forget.”

  Rolling his eyes, he put his toothbrush and paste back in his travel case and left the rest room. Just who he wanted to talk to. The woman who’d loved his money way more than she’d ever loved him.

  “Is there something I can do for you, Meredith?”

  “Yes. Come back to the firm. Your old job is available again and we want you back.”

  That gave him pause outside his office. “Really? Tim left?”

  “Yes. Forcibly, I might add. He was no Jonathon Davidson. Look, we’ve got a mess on our hands here and we need you to clean it up. You were the best analyst the company ever had.”

  Well, that was true. Jack felt a little smug as he tossed his travel case back into his desk drawer. “I have other commitments now, Meredith.” Not that it wasn’t incredibly satisfying that they wanted him back. It was. And then some. And it was intriguing, the little familiar jump of excitement he felt at going back to Wall Street, needed. He knew he could fix whatever the situation was, knew that he would enjoy the challenge of untangling the numbers.

  “Look, I know we have our differences…but I’m mature enough to put the past behind us for the good of the company. Even if you dumped me under humiliating circumstances.”

  That was a joke. It was such a skewed version of reality that Jack actually laughed. “Meredith, I broke up with you after you bragged that my best attribute was my money. The only one who was humiliated was me.”

  “What are you talking about? I never said anything of the kind.”

  God, he didn’t want to do this right this very second. Jack could picture Meredith, cool and blond, impeccably dressed, intelligent as hell, her wit as sharp as her fingernails. There had been a time when he’d been very attracted to her appearance of perfection.

  But it was only that—an appearance. Their entire relationship had been false, a coup for Meredith, an embarrassing lesson for him. He didn’t want to wind up one of those fifty-year-old men with no hair and a thick paunch dangling a gorgeous twenty-five-year-old on his arm, denying to himself that money was his sole attraction.

  “I loved you, Jonathon.”

  Oh, God. No, this wasn’t where he wanted to go. “Meredith. I don’t know what to say, except that I’m sorry things ended the way they did.” Sorry that both of them had been hurt. Sorry that the doubts Meredith had given him had made him stumble in this new relationship with Jamie.

  “Come back to the firm. We need you.”

  Jack hesitated in the doorway of his office. Six months earlier he would have thought he couldn’t go back, could never go back to the way he was before, an obsessive workaholic. But that life, the job, called him again, the hook firmly in his back, ready to reel him back in.

  “Let me think about it, Meredith. I’ll be in touch.”

  Chapter 11

  Jamie wondered why in the name of cruel irony had she packed tuna for lunch that day. Now Jack was walking across the street toward the building, and she must smell like the New York Aquarium. She could probably turn every cat in the neighborhood on, but Jack was going to recoil if he got within three feet of her.

  Not that she should care. After all, it was over between them. She had only allowed him to stop by in the first place because she was a fair person, and he was entitled to explain himself.

  Before she told him to take a hike.

  She just could not, would not, allow herself to be talked into forgiving all his lies. If having a long-term relationship meant she had to put up with dishonesty, she’d happily stay single for the rest of her life.

  Apparently her nipples didn’t understand her firm resolve on this matter. Because they perked up enthusiastically as she watched Jack approach, thumb drumming his thigh. He was wearing a suit. A power suit. Dark charcoal gray with a crisp white shirt that showed off his tan, and a red tie. The kind that screamed for onlookers to take its owner seriously.

  He looked intelligent. Powerful. Rich. Hot. Especially hot. Really hot. Like she was having a little trouble sitting comfortably with this kind of heat in her skirt.

  Never once in her adult life had she looked at a man wearing a suit as a sexy thing, and yet here she was drooling over Jack. Imagining yanking that jacket off and ripping his shirt apart again. Picturing running her tongue over his chest, down his navel, taking his thick, firm erection in her mouth and making him groan with naked pleasure.

  “Hi.” He smiled at her.

  “Hi,” she said, her voice sounding like she’d been hitting some helium on her lunch break.

  He put his foot up on the seat and leaned over, in that guy stance of not sitting, but not standing either. Casual. Confident.

  And she was staring at his crotch.

  Jamie caught herself and glanced away, feeling heat streak across her cheeks. What was the matter with her? Focusing on the tomato plants she’d planted with some of the program participants’ children, she reminded herself that Jack was a liar.

  Liar, liar.

  Yet Jamie’s skirt was on fire.

  She sighed.

  “You look beautiful,” Jack said.

  He was staring at her intently, the way he had when they had talked all night, the way he had when he had been deep inside her body.

  “Don’t do that. Just tell me the truth. Did you know I was Caroline’s roommate?”

  The temperature was in the eighties, but she didn’t think it was humidity that had her shirt sticking to her chest, sweat trickling down her back. It was nerves. It was fear that she wouldn’t be able to stand firm against his smile, his persuasiveness.

  “Yes. I knew.”

  She knew that. Had known it all along. But damn, it hurt to hear him admit it. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Jamie stared at his knee, because she couldn’t bring herself to look at his face.

  “Because when Beechwood requested funding and I investigated the agency’s financials, I found some money shifting that didn’t add up. Someone is using the agency’s funds to trade, and then moving the money earned out of the account.”

  That wasn’t what she had expected him to say. “What? That’s impossible. Who would be able to do that? There are only a handful of us who have access to the computer system.”

  “And one of you is making money borrowing Beechwood’s money to trade with. Not stealing, since the money is always put back, but borrowing. Shifting lines from one column to another, you know what I mean?”

  Not really. Her financial savvy was less than zero. “I can’t imagine who would possibly do that.” Not her boss. Janine had dedicated her life to the agency and lived in a dinky little apartment in Queens to prove it.

  “I need to poke around a little, see if I can find out who. Otherwise, I’m obligated to call in the FBI.”

  “The FBI?” Jamie glanced up at Jack. He couldn’t be serious. But he looked serious. “You can’t do that!”

  “I have to. I’ve seen the crime, Jamie. But if you let me look into it, I’m sure I can figure out who it is. You can just quietly fire them and forget this ever happened so your operations don’t have to be shut down.”

  “So what did this have to do with me meeting you on the subway? Did
you know who I was then?” That’s what didn’t make sense to her. If Jonathon Davidson of the Hathaway Foundation had known who she was, how did Jack on the subway?

  His jaw clenched, but he gave a sharp nod. “Yes. I had been to your office here…” He gestured toward the building. “And given what Caroline had told me about you in the past, I didn’t think that you were involved in any criminal activity. So I wanted to make sure you weren’t in any danger. Everything that happened after that…well, I didn’t set out for any of that to happen.”

  Everything that happened. Like dinner, hours and hours of conversation, the most romantic and sexual experience of her life? Relegated to an accident of opportunity.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, looking appropriately contrite. “Really, truly sorry.”

  Feeling a little sick, Jamie started packing up her lunch, desperate to get away from him, needing to maintain a little dignity. If she cried in front of him, she would just die, shrivel up like a puddle in the heat.

  “You’re just sorry that I found out.” She balled up her sandwich baggie and stuffed it in her soft-side purple lunch box. “And you can leave now. I’ve heard all I want to.”

  His leg dropped to the ground, and he was moving around to her side of the table. Jamie scooted down the bench, reaching for her soft drink can. This was much, much worse than lying about being rich. This had required cunning, and more than withholding a few facts. He had set out to meet her. A sob ripped out of her mouth before she could stop it.

  Jack reached for her. “Jamie, don’t, baby…please. I’m sorry, I should have been honest with you. But I was worried if I told you the truth, you’d confront the perpetrator on your own and get hurt. And then, later, well, shit, I was just selfish. I liked the way you saw me as a man, not a millionaire, and I wanted that. I knew the minute you collided with me on the subway that there was something between us, something that had potential…and God, I meant every word I said Saturday.”

  “Except for the times when you were lying.” Jamie stood up and pulled her lunch box to her chest, knowing she only had about five seconds before she lost it. “Do your little investigating into Beechwood’s computers. But stay the hell away from me.”

  She whirled around, wanting to run, determined not to, when he caught her by the elbow.

  “Don’t do this…”

  “Let me go.” Or she was going to shove her sandwich baggie up his nose.

  “No,” he said stubbornly, looking frustrated and way too cute for someone who was a jerk.

  “I’ll scream.”

  “No, you won’t.” He actually looked amused by the idea.

  And damn it, he was right. She wouldn’t scream. She didn’t like to make a fuss or draw attention to herself. “If you have a single shred of decency, you’ll just leave me alone.” She tried to pull back again.

  “Jamie.” He wasn’t exactly pulling on her, but he wasn’t letting go of her arm either, so she kind of jerked to a halt when she tried to leave.

  “I’ll make a donation to Beechwood. How does five thousand dollars sound? Could you do something with that?”

  That made her stop all on her own. She whirled around to face him, horrified. Outraged. “Excuse me? Are you trying to buy my forgiveness?”

  “Uh…no.”

  He looked slapped, bewildered, but she wasn’t about to let him off the hook. That was exactly what he was doing whether he realized it or not. And it was why rich people boiled her blood. They thought they could have whatever they wanted if they just flashed enough cash around.

  “Of course you were. But I can’t be bribed, and I don’t fall in love with liars.”

  Oh, God, why had she used the L word? Confused and flustered, hot and indignant, she tried to stumble back a step.

  “It was meant to be a gesture of apology, yes, but to show you that I understand your job means the world to you.”

  She was about to mention that he was the one threatening to call the FBI on Beechwood, but movement to her right drew her attention away from him.

  “Is everything okay?” a man asked cautiously. “Is this guy bothering you?”

  Giving one last jerk on her arm, she broke free, her soft drink sloshing up and out of the top of the can, splashing Jack’s shoes. Served him right. She’d be damned if she’d worry about ruining his four-hundred-dollar shoes.

  “He’s not bothering me, he’s leaving.” She gave a brittle smile to the man, who looked a little down on his luck. His shirt was faded to a soft gray, and his jeans were thread-bare. There were myriad tattoos decorating his arms, and he looked pale for July, his brown hair stark against his skin. But he had a kind look of concern in his dark eyes, attractive bone structure, and a firm, proud jaw. “But thank you.”

  “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Jack asked, frowning at the man.

  “Can’t imagine that would be possible.” The man gave a wry grin. “Don’t look like we run in the same circles.”

  But Jamie felt it, too, an odd tug of familiarity. It wasn’t his face, but his voice. It tripped around the edges of her brain, teasing her, reminding her of something, someone, but she couldn’t quite grasp what it was. The sensation was already sliding away, making her doubt it had even existed.

  “I know I’ve seen you before,” Jack repeated.

  Good to see he wasn’t just stubborn with her.

  The man just shrugged and turned to her, his hands in his pockets. “Sure you’re alright?”

  “Yes, thank you. Jack’s stubborn, and a liar, but he’s also decent. Most of the time. He’ll leave if I really want him to.” She directed those last words to Jack, mentally pleading with him to let it go, to leave her to repair her broken trust, her broken heart, damn it.

  “Shit,” Jack swore, looking out across the street. “Alright, Jamie. I’ll leave. But I’m not giving up on us. I’ll call you.”

  She really wished he wouldn’t, but since he was backing up slowly, she wasn’t going to argue.

  “You’re going back into work?” he asked, nodding toward the building.

  She realized he probably wouldn’t leave until he saw her safely in, away from the guy who was still hovering by her side. She glanced at him now as she took a step toward Beechwood’s front door, her smelly lunch still bundled in her hand.

  “Thanks again,” she told the stranger.

  He nodded. “Take care of yourself, Jamie Lynn.” And he turned swiftly on one foot and started down the street, his footsteps pounding on the concrete sidewalk.

  Jamie frowned, that teasing memory dancing in front of her again. Puzzled, she backed up until she was next to the big sand-filled ashtray/garbage can that stood in front of the building. Stuffing her trash through the hole, she watched Jack wave, turn, and head toward his car, clearly the fancy blue one wedged in between a Camaro and a rusted-out Chevy Cavalier.

  The man was headed in the opposite direction of Jack, walking quickly, head down, the back of his dingy T-shirt darkened with sweat between the shoulder blades. He started jogging when the bus pulled up to the corner.

  Jamie Lynn.

  Suddenly it was there, and she couldn’t understand why she hadn’t seen it, felt it, right away. “Wait!” she shrieked, lurching forward.

  Jack stopped, turned around, but Jamie barely spared him a glance. Running for all she was worth, wishing she weren’t so fond of ice cream, both heart and lungs full to bursting, she headed south down the street, headed for the bus stop.

  “Daddy!” she screamed, tears blurring her eyes as he disappeared into the bowels of the bus, and it moved forward with a choke of exhaust before the doors were even finished closing.

  She followed for ten feet, screaming for the bus driver to stop, before stumbling to a halt in shock, a stitch in her side. For the first time in twenty years she had seen her father, and just like that last time, he had just walked away without a word.

  It was that voice. She could hear it in her mind, locked deep in her memory. Jamie Lynn, my gi
rl. Jamie Lynn, my angel from heaven. Jamie Lynn can ride her horse without the leash, Myra, don’t fuss so. She’s a big girl now, ain’t ya, honey bun?

  He’d never talked as much as her mother, who was prone to chatter like Jamie did now as a woman, but when Jim Peters had spoken, it was steady, calm, loving. The big hands that held her safe and strong against barking dogs, thunder and lightning, and the big boom of fireworks, and the voice that whispered, ’night, firefly, when she was warm and sleepy in bed.

  But it wasn’t his hand that touched her now, not his voice. But Jack’s. Jonathon Davidson’s. He slipped an arm around her shoulder, turned her to him.

  “Hey.” His voice was gentle, concern in his eyes. “What’s the matter? What’s going on?”

  She wanted to repel him, this other man who had lied to her, betrayed her trust, but she needed Jack’s arm more than her pride. Tears leaked out of each eye, fat and unchecked, as pitiful as she felt.

  “That was my father,” she whispered, emotion roiling up her throat, making her want to gag.

  “Your father?” He brushed her hair back, wiped her tears with the pad of his thumb. “I thought you hadn’t seen your father since you were little.”

  “I haven’t. Not until today. It was him, Jack. The way he said my name. He called me Jamie Lynn, and I just knew.” Then suddenly, embarrassingly, she was sobbing, her shoulders shaking, her voice shattering. “He left again…he just left.”

  Jack gathered her in his arms. Her face pressed into the crisp white shirt, her eye on his tie, her fingers gripping his suit jacket. Steady hands smoothed over her back as he made little sounds of comfort. Pressed kisses to her forehead, the top of her hair.

  “I’m so sorry, baby. Maybe he didn’t want to upset you. But he obviously stepped forward to protect you when we were arguing. I don’t know why he left, but maybe there’s more going on than you know about. He obviously didn’t know you knew.”

  Jamie was grateful he didn’t try to tell her she was cracked. That it couldn’t possibly be her father, or that she wouldn’t know him after twenty years. And she thought he was right, that maybe it was time to call her mother. It seemed odd that her father knew who she was, was standing right outside her building.