by Jill Shalvis
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not that—” He couldn’t think with the blood running out of his head and his entire body on high alert. “Em—Wait.”
But she didn’t, and there was something about her slightly fumbling hands and mouth, the endearing inexperience mixed with the sexual yearning that completely and totally undid him.
He exploded. And when he lay there, annihilated, still quivering, humbled to the core and just as shocked, she put her hand on his chest and leaned over him until her face wavered in his view.
“Jacob?”
“Still here. Barely.” He smiled.
Hers wobbled. “I love you,” she whispered, and destroyed him all over again.
15
Note to Housekeeping:
Guest requested more silk scarves in room 1214.
There’s some wild action going on in there!!
“LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT.” Pru blew the steam from her mug of Maddie’s coffee and looked at Jacob. “You stood us up last night for that cute little TV producer you accosted a few nights back?”
Jacob had known this was coming. He’d stumbled home from Em’s room at dawn. Pru and Caya had dragged him out of bed a short time later, bringing him here for the interrogation. He concentrated on not burning his tongue on his coffee and said nothing, silently pleading the Fifth.
At his lack of comment, Caya raised a brow. “Interesting.”
“There’s nothing interesting,” he said.
“Uh-huh.” This from Pru. “You went back for seconds. That’s very interesting.”
“Look, just because you two have found…whatever it is you’ve found—”
“Love,” Caya said, and reached across the table to squeeze Pru’s hand.
Pru smiled in a way Jacob had never seen, a soft special curve of the mouth. He sighed. “It doesn’t mean everyone has to be just as happy as you guys.”
“What’s wrong with being happy?” Caya wanted to know.
He stared into his mug and thought about that. Thought about other things, too, things that started with “I” and ended with “love you.”
Holy shit, had that really happened? Had he had the most mind-blowing orgasm of his life flat on his back in Em’s hotel room floor, and then blinked back to consciousness to find her leaning over him, smiling with her entire heart in her eyes as she said “I love you”? “Nothing’s wrong with being happy,” he finally answered. “It’s just not as easy for some.”
“You think it was easy for us to get to the point where we know it’s real, that beneath the passion there is enough to sustain us for the long haul?” Pru asked. “Because you know it wasn’t easy, not at all.”
“I do know. But—”
“No buts,” Pru said. “Look, Jacob, I think you have this thing, like you believe you somehow don’t deserve love and happiness the same as the rest of us.” Her eyes were warm as she looked at him. “You’re wrong, Jacob. You do.”
He frowned at the both of them. “I thought we had an agreement. You two worry about your own lives, and I’ll worry about mine.”
“By your own words, that agreement was to be null and void once I got my own love life in order,” Pru reminded him.
Caya’s eyes shone brilliantly at her. “And your love life is most definitely in order.”
The affection that shimmered back and forth between the two of them was so powerful it was overwhelming, and Jacob felt his throat tighten. He was really losing it here.
He’d had someone looking at him like that, and he’d walked. What did that make him?
A smart man, he reminded himself.
“Tell us about her,” Pru said softly.
“Oh, I’ll tell you,” Maddie said as she came up to refill their cups. She smiled into Jacob’s frowning face, utterly unimpressed by his silent imploring. “She’s beautiful, of course. That’s what attracted him.”
“That is not what attracted me,” he said in his defense. “I’m not that shallow.”
“You’re a man, aren’t ya?” Maddie patted him on the head. “She’s also sweet and smart, but the most important thing…” She leaned in as if departing a state secret. “She makes him yearn for things he didn’t know were missing in his life.”
“Maddie—”
She smiled warmly at Jacob’s warning, then kissed him sweetly on the cheek. “Oh, luv. Just accept it. She’s yours. And you’re hers.”
Pru and Caya were staring at him in shock as Maddie walked away.
“She is different from your other lovers,” Pru said thoughtfully.
“Really?” Jacob asked, annoyed. “And how do you know that?”
“Because she lasted more than one night,” Caya said.
Ouch. Was he really that quick to move around?
Yeah. He was.
“Tell us more,” Pru said.
“Look, there’s nothing to tell. She’s leaving, so what does it matter?” Was that his voice, sounding shaken at the thought of Em going back to Los Angeles? Maybe he was just tired after the past few nights of incredible, wild sex.
Okay, not just sex. Sex he’d have been able to get past. Whatever the hell they’d done had been more, enough to grab him by the throat and hold on good.
And then there had been those three shocking words he’d never heard directed at him before.
I love you.
“She loves me,” he heard himself say.
Pru and Caya stared at him, then burst out laughing.
“What the hell is so funny about that?” he demanded.
“Because every woman falls in love with you,” Caya said. “Hell, I’m half in love with you and I’m taken—” She broke off at the look on his face. “Oh. Oh,” she breathed, and put her hand to her chest. Her eyes misted. “This one is different,” she said softly. “She’s different because you feel it back. Oh, Jacob.”
“My God,” Pru murmured in wonder. “It’s happened. And I didn’t even have to do a damn thing.”
Jacob shoved his fingers through his short hair. “Not helping.”
“Oh, honey.” Pru grabbed his hand. “Why can’t you just admit it?”
“Admit what? That you’re a helpless romantic?”
“That you love her back.”
“Maybe some of us don’t like to wear our hearts on our sleeves,” he said. “Maybe some of us have healthy caution inside and don’t feel the need to rush into anything.”
“Maybe some of us are terrified of feeling it at all,” Caya said very softly, and leaning in, hugged him tight. “Is that it?”
“Damn it.” He gently pushed her off him and went back to staring into his coffee and brooding.
“You aren’t going to be stupid about this, right?” Pru asked. “You’re going to go after her, this one-and-only woman who’s ever turned your head.”
She’d turned him upside down was what she’d done. “I’m not doing anything.”
Caya and Pru looked at each other in dismay.
“Look, this little coffee get-together has been sweet, but…” He shoved to his feet and tossed down some money to cover everything.
“Jacob,” Pru chided gently. “You can’t just ignore it.”
Sure he could. Especially when the alternative was something he couldn’t even contemplate.
“You can’t just walk away,” Caya called after him. “You’ve always gotten away with that, I know, but one of these days it’s going to catch up to you.”
Maybe. But not this time.
ERIC AND LIZA flew home on an earlier flight than Em. With a few hours left before she had to leave for the airport, she sat in the lobby with her clipboard, trying to put some cohesive notes together for Nathan. Her cell phone rang. One glance at the caller ID had her wincing. The boss himself. “How’s it going?” she asked him in the most chipper voice she could muster.
“That’s my question for you.”
“Oh, everything’s fabulous,” she said. Which was sort of the truth. Parts of this
trip had been fabulous.
Mostly the parts when she’d had Jacob buried deep inside her, but that was definitely too much information.
“Have you got him yet?” Nathan wanted to know.
“Actually, I’ve got several candidates but I’ve decided to hold auditions in Los Angeles, as well.”
“What happened to Hill?”
“He isn’t interested.”
“I thought you slept with him.”
Em closed her eyes and winced. “I am never going to sleep with someone for my job.”
Nathan sighed. “If you’re going to be so damn empathetic, at least use it to your advantage. Have it help you instead of hurt you.”
Though he couldn’t see her, she lifted her chin. Being empathetic might have caused her more than a few embarrassing or uncomfortable moments, but it had helped her. It had helped her become the person she was. If he couldn’t see that, then she couldn’t make him. “I’ll find someone just as good. Trust me.”
There was a long silence. “You still have three weeks. Work on him.”
Her stomach sank. “I’m not going to ‘work’ on anyone, Nathan.” She couldn’t. Wouldn’t. But sometimes there were other ways, better ways. This was one of those times, she was sure of it. “But if you’d just trust me, I can do this.”
“Your way, right?” he asked dryly.
Determination blazed. “That’s right.”
“I suppose you have ideas.”
“You know it.” Her mind whirled. “In fact…I wanted to talk to you about a few changes.”
“I don’t like changes.”
“Just listen. I was thinking about a traveling cooking show.”
“Traveling?”
“We’d still need a chef, but this person would be almost more like a host, coming to us from a different restaurant across the country each week.” Her thoughts raced. “He wouldn’t need to be a big celebrity chef. In fact if he’s unknown, it’ll be better for the ego of the chef at the restaurant we’re visiting.”
“Hmm.”
Not exactly encouraging, but he hadn’t said no yet so she went on. “With the spotlight on the variety of settings, people will want to tune in each week to see and learn about a new place,” she said earnestly, getting more and more excited. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? “No stagnant studio. The restaurant will get promo, the sous or executive chef at that restaurant will get promo, and we’ll get—”
“Drama.” Nathan’s voice became excited. “Love it. Do it. Stay another day and keep thinking. New York is good for you. Oh, and while you’re there, find some New York hot spots. You’ve got a gold ticket here.”
She thought of Eric and Liza already cozy on a plane heading west. She was on her own. But that was okay, because she could do this. She would do this. She slipped the phone back in her purse and dropped her head, needing air. She’d been given another night here….
“Em?”
Her entire body reacted. Lifting her head, she faced the man she couldn’t stop thinking about, even with her career on the line. He wore those battered black Levi’s she loved so much because they contoured his body to mouthwatering perfection. Old and clearly beloved, they were soft and faded in all the stress spots, of which there were many. His long-sleeved shirt was black with a caramel-brown stripe that matched his solemn gaze. He stood before her, hands shoved into his pockets, a frown marring that wonderful face.
“What’s the matter?” she asked him.
“I was going to ask you that same thing.”
“Oh.” She forced a smile, trying not to remember that the last thing he’d done with that handsome face had been to bury it in her hair, inhaling her as he squeezed her tight, so tight that she thought maybe he never wanted to let her go.
But he had.
And she had. “Nothing’s wrong,” she said, adding another smile when he only cocked his head and studied her for a long heartbeat. “Really. In fact, things are great.”
He hunkered down before her to take her hands, his gaze holding hers. “Great, huh?”
Oh, God. Physical affection. If she knew nothing else about him, she knew this much—for Jacob it was the same thing as waving a fifty-foot sign saying that he cared about her.
Her pathetic heart rolled over and exposed its underside and she fought an overwhelming desire to throw herself at him. “I’m fine,” she repeated weakly.
“But—”
“Jacob. Do you really want me to tell you what’s wrong? Really?”
He stared at her, and she could see that running through his head was the moment when she’d blurted out, “I love you,” and he’d gone white as a sheet and said, “Thank you.”
Thank you.
Yeah, that was what every girl dreamed of hearing from her prince after a lifetime of toads.
“Look,” she said, pulling her hands free and standing. “I’ve got to get to work, which is finally going somewhere.”
“You find a chef?”
“I sort of worked around the issue for now.”
He nodded, slipping his hands back into his pockets rather than touch her again.
Good, she thought, even as her body missed the contact with every fiber of its being. She might as well get used to it.
“I thought you were leaving today,” he said.
Which would make things easy for you, wouldn’t it? “I thought so, too.”
“But…?”
Was she wrong? Or had an odd flare of hope flickered in his eyes? “But it turns out I have one more day here.”
Nope, definitely a flicker of emotion in those eyes. But the question was, was that flicker just sexual excitement at the thought of having her again? Or more?
“One more night is good,” he said very quietly.
And damn if her body didn’t quiver. “It’s about work,” she said. “The show, it’s going to be a traveling cooking show. Same host, but instead of an L.A. set, we’re going to hit different locales around the states. My boss thought that while I was here, we should be scoping out New York City to stack up a few restaurants.”
“Ah.”
“So I guess I need to run around to nail down some good places.” They both knew he was the man to show her such spots. That Amuse Bouche should be, and was, at the top of her wish list.
Having a show set here, even only once, would be huge. But she had pride, too, and she couldn’t, wouldn’t, ask him one more time to disrupt the life he appeared to love.
“I have something I should show you,” he finally said.
“Really?” She was afraid to read anything into that, into the way he was looking at her.
What did he have to show her? Himself?
“I’m due in the kitchen right now,” he said. “But after—”
“Yes?”
“Meet me here?”
He was actually, in his way, asking, not telling. Unable to keep from melting just a little, she simply nodded. She’d meet him tonight.
16
JACOB FINISHED AT the restaurant late and, without taking time for his customary shower and late-night drink with the staff, rushed out into the lobby.
Em stood near the windows, hugging herself, looking out into the night. She wore one of those long flowing flowery skirts he loved on her, and a snug black angora sweater his fingers were already itching to touch. Remove.
As if she felt him coming, she turned slowly, her eyes unerringly meeting his across the filled lobby. And hell if his heart didn’t start to pound.
Crazy. He was here only to give her the information he knew would help her search. When he reached her, she licked her lips as if nervous, and he couldn’t help it, despite knowing he shouldn’t, he leaned in and kissed her.
A little murmur of surprise came from her and for that perfect beat in time, her lips clung to his.
Then she pulled back and smiled at him, more sure of herself now. God, that was something, her sexual confidence. “Ready?”
Her gaze search
ed his. “I didn’t know exactly what you had in mind or how to dress…”
A flicker of unease worked its way through him. “To walk to my apartment? To get the information I have for you?”
Her eyes never left his. “Information.”
“When I was getting ready to hire on here, I had a stack of offers. I still have all the files at my apartment. You can flip through them for the spots that interest you. For the show.”
“Gotcha.” Face carefully blank, she nodded. “Right.”
She sounded funny, and that dread grew. “Em—”
“No, it’s all good. Thanks,” she added with extreme politeness, and turned away, toward the outside doors.
He pulled her back around, having to work at it because she was stiff as a piece of drywall. Searching her face, now so completely shuttered to his, he shook his head. “What did I miss?”
“Nothing.” She gave him a smile, a surface-only smile that didn’t come close to the warmth and wattage of her real one. “Let’s go get the information then.”
They walked. The night was chilly, and she refused his sweater, preferring instead to walk at his side, keeping her distance, arms crossed over herself. Through Bryant Park, pretty and peaceful at night, she said nothing. Across the street, toward his apartment building, where they were parted by a pack of teenagers on their way toward trouble, still nothing.
He stopped her at his building.
She looked up at the brick-and-glass front, lit with tiny white lights that no one had bothered yet to take down after the holidays. When he looked at the building, he always felt an odd surge, a sort of marvel that he’d found this place to call his, a nice, easy-on-the-eyes, classy yet warm and welcoming home.
Warm and homey had never been a requirement, and yet now that he had it, it was amazing how much he’d grown to like it. “Home sweet home,” he said, and smiled.
She flashed him a quick one, and again it didn’t meet her eyes.
More dread. “Third floor.”
When he held open the front door for her, she went in ahead of him, careful not to brush any part of her against him, and he found himself leaning in to catch the scent of her. Pathetic.
