by Leanne Banks
Amanda held up her hand. “I’m working from the inside out. I might try a new class. I’m going to read some different books.” She took a fortifying breath. “I might even go out.”
Carol slanted her eyes speculatively. “Sounds like you’re reinventing Amanda. That could include Feminine Wiles 101?”
Amanda gave a wry smile. “Only if it’s the remedial class.”
Over the next week, every time Amanda saw Jack, she hurt, so she made it her goal to avoid him. She started skipping dinner and leaving the house as soon as Jack arrived home. She found that if she timed it just right, she could escape while he was changing his clothes. She returned to put Lilly to bed, then quickly breezed past Jack as he gave his daughter a good-night kiss.
After a week of successful evasions, however, Jack caught her as she left her bedroom. She told her heart not to beat faster.
“I haven’t seen much of you,” he said, studying her, his hands on his hips.
“Busy week,” she said, trying not to feel.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with that night in the hall, does it?”
When you kissed me senseless? When you made me want you so much I was dizzy with it? When I started to believe dreams can come true?
She bit her lip. “No.”
Jack cocked his head to one side as if he wasn’t convinced. “Are you sure? I told you—”
Unable to bear a replay, Amanda held up her hand. “I know you told me it was temporary insanity for you to kiss me. I understand that you don’t want me and will never want me. You’re not attracted to me sexually, emotionally or physically. My only value to you is what I do for your daughter and what I do for you professionally. I understand perfectly.”
Four
Jack could still feel the breeze as Amanda swept past him, telling him she was meeting friends and wishing him a nice evening.
He was still unsettled by that evening when he’d lost control with her. He couldn’t remember experiencing such a rare combination of feelings; arousal, curiosity and a need for her tenderness. Ridiculous, he thought in disgust, tossing the Investor’s Business Daily on the cherry end-table and standing. He didn’t need tenderness. The only things he wanted from a woman were distraction and occasional sexual ease.
Amanda’s parting words stuck in his craw. He’d put on an instrumental CD, background music, but it failed to soothe him. It was stupid, he thought, that her opinion and feelings affected him. She was his assistant and the temporary nanny for his daughter. There was nothing personal between them. Even if he were drawn to her, it wouldn’t work out. She was background music.
So why had he missed her during the past week?
Jack scowled and turned off the stereo. Silence immediately enveloped him. He glanced at his watch. Where was she, anyway? She’d never stayed out this late before.
He heard a sound at the front door, the click of a key, stumbling footsteps, a whispered oath. He walked to the foyer and spotted Amanda. Her hair was slightly disheveled, her balance unsteady, her eyes hazy.
It surprised the hell out of him, but he couldn’t deny the woman was tipsy. “Problems?”
She jumped and gaped at him. “Oops,” she whispered. “Sorry. I had a little problem with the door.”
She stumbled and had a little problem with the wall, too.
“Need some help?” Jack extended his hand.
Amanda shook her head, then winced. “No, no, no. I’ll be fine. I’ll just go slow.”
Watching her as she carefully put one foot in front of the other, he walked beside her. “Did you drive home?”
She blew a strand of hair from her forehead. “No. Carol brought me home.”
“Where did you go?”
“A bar.”
“How much did you have to drink?”
“Carol wanted me to taste all the mixed drinks I’d never tried before. I took a sip or two from each one, but there were just too many,” she said, shaking her head and wincing again.
Jack felt a flash of anger directed toward Carol. “She doesn’t sound like much of a friend.”
“Oh, she is,” Amanda protested, bumping into the wall again. “She was trying to distract me.”
Unable to watch her weaving gait any longer, he steadied her with his hand. “From what?”
“What?” She pushed open the door to her bedroom and allowed him to help her inside.
“Carol tried to distract you from what?”
She lifted her dark gaze to his. “From you,” she whispered.
She was tipsy and dizzy, speaking out of turn, and she shouldn’t have seemed sexy to him. But she did. He suspected he could get more than a few grains of truth from Amanda right now, and he was curious and bothered enough to take advantage of the situation. “Why met?”
“Because you,” she said, pointing her finger at his chest, “are my big oh-no.”
This was going to take some work, he thought. He needed an interpretation. “Your big oh-no,” he repeated.
She nodded and sighed.
“Why am I your big oh-no?”
“Because I did something really stupid. I worked for you. I watched you win, and I watched you lose. I watched you get hurt, and I did something really stupid.” She shook her head sadly.
“What did you do?”
“I fell in love with you.”
She might as well have punched him. He stared at her face in the moonlight from her window, and though he saw the flush of alcohol, there was stark honesty in her eyes.
“Big oh-no,” she muttered and sighed. “But you don’t have to worry because I’m going to stop loving you. I even bought a book.”
“A book,” he echoed, feeling the most peculiar sense of loss. She sounded determined.
“Yeah, it’s called How To Fall out of Love. I’m dizzy,” she said, and sank down on the edge of the bed. She dropped her head into her hands. “I never realized there were so many different kinds of mixed drinks.”
“Are you going to be sick?”
She shook her head and winced. “No. I just need to lie down,” she said, and slowly fell back on the bed.
Her hair splayed out silky and soft on either side of her flushed face. Her lips were parted, her eyes hooded in mystery. He remembered how her mouth had tasted beneath his, how her nipples had hardened against his chest, how she had grown liquid and eager for him so quickly. He remembered wanting to slide inside her. At this moment she looked ready for love, Jack thought, and again felt a forbidden need to take her. He squelched it.
“Do you want to change your clothes?”
“After the room stops moving,” she said, and closed her eyes.
Jack watched her for a few moments. He didn’t know who would regret this conversation more, Amanda or him. He left the room, again stuck with the surprising taste of loss.
Amanda awakened next morning to the mother of all headaches. Her head throbbed as if someone was banging her with a sledgehammer. The sliver of sunlight through her curtain hurt her eyes, her mouth felt like cotton, and the sound of Lilly’s knock on her door might as well have been a gong.
Carefully easing herself into a sitting position, she clutched her head. “Just a second, sweetie,” she called, and her own voice vibrated through her head.
She shuddered, but pulled herself to her feet and opened the door. Lilly stood with Jack beside her. Barefoot, with damp hair, he wore a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that emphasized the muscles in his arms and chest. He also wore a slightly mocking grin.
“I told her I thought you might not feel well this morning, but I couldn’t persuade her to wait any later,” Jack said.
“Hi, sweetie,” Amanda said, giving Lilly a hug.
“Are you sick?” Lilly whispered, concern darkening her green eyes.
Amanda shook her head and winced. “Not sick. I just don’t feel great this morning. I’ll feel better later,” she said. “Would you like to feed Delilah all by yourself this morning?”
Lilly nodded hugely, the
n scampered toward the kitchen.
Amanda felt Jack’s gaze and wished she were invisible, truly invisible.
“Have you ever been tipsy before?” he asked.
“No. I always thought it was an incredibly immature and stupid thing to do.” She swallowed over her dry throat. “I was right. I may kill Carol,” she said, “if I survive. I’ll get a shower and some breakfast.”
“Take it slow,” he cautioned.
“Food or shower?” she asked.
“Both.”
She nodded, ready for him to leave, but he stood there still looking at her. “Let me know if you want me to give you a lift to get your car.”
“I forgot about that,” she said, then fuzzy images from the previous evening slid through her mind. She frowned in concentration. “You helped me to my room last night. Thank you,” she murmured, and another image taunted her.
“You’re welcome.”
A conversation between them echoed through her mind like bricks in a pond. “I, uh—” She cleared her throat. “We, uh, didn’t talk much last night, did we?”
“I didn’t,” Jack said.
Amanda’s stomach sank. She covered her eyes. “I didn’t say anything about—”
“Falling in love with me?”
Amanda groaned.
“You also told me about the book.”
It wasn’t possible to be more embarrassed. “People say all kinds of crazy things when they’ve had too much alcohol.”
“It can have an uninhibiting effect.”
She sighed. “If you have a kind bone in your body, you’ll forget you heard it.”
“Not likely,” Jack said.
She met his gaze.
“I’ve never had a woman tell me she loved me in one breath and in the next assure me that she’ll get over me.”
Her heart picked up at the masculine challenge in his eyes. Was she imagining it? Confused, she shrugged. “It’s nice to know I’ll be unique.”
He nodded, his gaze seeming to take her apart like a puzzle he was determined to understand. He gave a maddening half grin. “Will it be that easy for you?” he asked in a deep voice.
Her stomach dipped. Was he flirting with her? No, she thought, he couldn’t be. “The book will help.”
“Let me know if it works,” he said, the glint in his eyes mockingly suggestive.
He was too much for her this morning, too much for her eyes and senses, too much for her poor head. Too much for her poor heart. “I’ll send you a memo,” she mumbled, closing the door as his laughter rumbled through her like the first tremors of an earthquake.
“Kiyah!”
Jack heard the chorus as soon as he opened the front door after work a few days later. He turned the corner to find the extraordinary sight of Amanda and his daughter in white martial arts outfits standing in fighting position in the middle of the kitchen.
“You decided against ballet,” Jack said, referring to the lessons Amanda had mentioned in a note she’d left him. She avoided him like the plague. He suspected that instruction was in her book.
Amanda turned and bowed Lilly bowed, too, and Jack smiled and bowed in response. “Hi, princess. You want to be a karate kid?”
Lilly nodded solemnly, then reached down to pet Delilah.
“I thought about ballet, but I took Lilly with me to my first few karate lessons, and she copied the instructor, so I thought she’d enjoy it.” She moved to his side. “There’s a funny thing about karate,” she whispered.
“What’s that?”
“You can’t whisper your Kiyahs.”
Jack nodded. He had mixed feelings about his little girl taking martial arts.
“You’d rather see her in a pink tutu and leotard?” Amanda asked.
He remembered how happy Lilly had looked when she’d been playing in the mud and shook his head. “Nah. I just want her happy.”
“Me, too,” Amanda said. “I didn’t plan it this way, but she’s so shy. I imagine she doesn’t feel like she has much control over her life since her mother died. I hate the idea of her feeling like a victim. So maybe a little screaming, kicking and punching would be a good thing.”
Jack met Amanda’s gaze again and felt a stab of admiration. “How did you get your insight?”
“Experience and observation. Remember, I lost my dad when I was young. And I watch a lot,” she said, her gaze darkening.
“You have the advantage,” he said, thinking of the years she’d watched him and he’d barely noticed her.
“Advantage over Jack Fortune,” she said in disbelief. “How is that?”
“I told you before, you seem to know more about me than I know about you,” he told her. “But that can change. I’m a fast learner.”
He saw the sensual light come and go in her eyes. She drew back, and he immediately sensed the distance.
“No need for change,” she said. “It’s just business as usual between us.”
Jack clenched his jaw in irritation. She was merely repeating his words, his wishes. His attitude toward Amanda, however, had been anything but business as usual lately. The more he was around her, the more he wanted to know, and she wasn’t making it easy for him.
Amanda continued to avoid Jack over the next few days. It wasn’t a matter of convenience. It was a matter of survival. Tonight she’d slipped out the back door to take advantage of the indoor pool while Jack read the paper.
Falling out of love with him was turning out to be more difficult than she’d hoped. If only he weren’t so concerned for his daughter. But she wouldn’t want that any other way, she told herself, as she swam her third lap on her back. Lilly needed him, and in a special way, Jack needed Lilly. If he weren’t kind to his household staff, if he didn’t have a sense of humor, if he were uglier...
Amanda sighed and turned over on her stomach, putting her face in the water. Determined to keep her mind focused even though her heart went its own way, she tried one of the techniques from the book. She was so focused she swam straight into Jack.
Her hand encountered bare flesh and she gasped, sucking in a mouthful of water that went down the wrong way. She hacked and coughed at the tickle in her throat.
Jack patted her on the back, but that only made it worse. She turned away from him and coughed again. At last, she drew a breath, but she still didn’t face him. The sight of his muscular bare chest conjured images of the night she wanted to forget. Her blood burned with the memory.
“You surprised me,” she finally said and headed for the ladder. “I thought I had the pool to myself.”
She felt Jack’s hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to go,” he said.
She bit her lip. “Oh, it’s okay. I just thought I’d swim a few laps to help me sleep.”
“Restless at night lately?” he asked.
Amanda took a careful shallow breath. “A little.”
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
She didn’t bother to deny it. “Yes, I have.”
“You haven’t sent me a memo on how the book is working,” he said.
His light tone nettled her. She turned around. “You think this is funny, don’t you?”
“You’ve got to admit the book is a little...”
Amanda’s temper sparked. “A little what? The book was written for people who are desperate. People who have fallen down desperately, hopelessly in love and don’t know how to pick themselves up.” She lifted her chin and met his gaze. “Have you ever been desperate?”
His eyes turned hard. “After my marriage broke up—”
“It hurt,” Amanda said. “But were you desperate for Sandra?”
He took a deep breath. “No. By the time she left, I was ready for her to go.”
“Then you don’t know what desperate is, so don’t make fun.”
“Amanda, we’re living in the same house. It’s ridiculous for you to avoid me.”
“Perhaps, but it’s necessary.”
“It’s crazy.”
She sighed. “I don’t expect you to understand. You have the edge, here. You’re not attracted to me, so—”
“I never said I wasn’t attracted to you.”
Amanda felt his gaze travel over her lips, her throat, then her breasts. Her heart leaped and her mouth went dry. She shook her head. She could accept his laughter far more easily. “Don’t be kind. I was wrong. Make fun of the book. It’ll be easier for me to—”
“I miss you,” he said, as if he weren’t pleased about that fact, but accepted it.
Amanda’s chest squeezed tight and her eyes burned. “Stop being kind,” she said, hating the tremble in her voice.
“I’m not,” he said, moving closer to her. “I miss you.”
His chest was too bare and muscular, his voice too gently seductive. He was too close, too sexy and too focused on her. And she still wanted him far too much. She gave a breathless wry laugh. “You’ll get over it,” she said and left the pool.
Jack stifled a groan after he hung up from a brief conversation with his father. It had been a rough day and it wasn’t over yet. Stuart had called to arrange a meeting with Jack and his brother. Garrett, a rancher at heart, was in town making one of his rare appearances as legal consultant to Fortune Corporation.
“What’s up?” he asked, entering Jack’s office.
Jack shook his head. “I don’t know. Dad hasn’t been acting right. He’s worried someone is investigating him.”
Garrett poured himself a drink and sat down. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Jack gave a half grin. “You’ve been overwhelmed with matrimonial bliss.”
Garrett smiled. “Life could be worse than marrying a woman who makes the sun shine. When are you going to belly up to the wedding bar again?”
“No time soon. It’s gotta be the right woman this time.”
“Sometimes what you want is right in front of your face,” Garrett said.
Jack’s mind drifted to Amanda, and he immediately dismissed the thought. She was part of the reason for his rough day. Although his new assistant was competent, she didn’t anticipate his needs the way Amanda had. He’d never realized how easy she’d made his professional day. She knew his schedule like the back of her hand, understood his method of operation and did a thousand little things that made him comfortable. And damn if he didn’t miss her.
