He smiled at her personal reminiscence and sat down. “When was that?”
“Oh, four years ago. I haven’t had a vacation since.”
“Sounds like you could use one.”
“Not really. I like to work.”
He sat down on the sofa again. She sat at the other end.
“Everybody needs time off.”
“I get time off between assignments, although I’m usually doing the advance work for the next one. But you know what they say—a change is as good as a rest.”
“Maybe.” Just then, the doorbell chimed. “It’s the food.” Donovan stood to answer it, but Jocelyn stopped him.
“Let me.” She went to the door and used the peephole, then opened it using the chain. “How much, please?”
The delivery man told her. “Just a minute.” She closed the door again and locked it.
Donovan was right behind her with a couple of bills. “He can keep the change.”
She opened the door and paid the man, then closed it and turned all the locks again.
“You are certainly thorough,” he said, carrying the large paper bag toward the kitchen.
“It’s what you pay me for.”
She followed him into the kitchen. They pulled the white boxes out of the bag and set them on the large, marble-topped center island.
Jocelyn pulled out the wooden chopsticks.
“I have better ones here somewhere,” Donovan said, pulling open drawers until he found his good set. He fetched plates, then sat next to Jocelyn on one of the stools.
They popped open a couple of cans of ginger ale, then served themselves and began to eat.
“You have a beautiful formal dining room, and I suppose you eat here most of the time.”
“Yeah, I do. Everything’s handy here, and it’s just usually me anyway.”
“But I thought you liked to cook.” She poured her fizzing ginger ale into a glass. “I’d imagined you inviting dinner companions over, to impress them with your gourmet meals and fancy cutlery.”
He drew his eyebrows together to give her a look that told her she was doing it again.
She covered her mouth with a hand. “God, I’m sorry.”
He swallowed. “Apology accepted, on one condition.”
“Uh-oh. I don’t like the sound of that.” Her playful tone sparked an awareness of her as a woman again. Damn his libido.
“Don’t worry,” he replied. “It’s nothing indecent. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy a little indecency with my very attractive bodyguard, but somehow I doubt it’s in your job description.”
She grew serious. “Even talking about it is inappropriate, Donovan.”
Hearing her use his given name for the first time—after urging her unsuccessfully more than once in the past twenty-four hours—sent his pulse on a bumpy road trip.
“I understand that,” he said soberly. “I don’t mean to make your job difficult. I just can’t help it every once in a while. You’re a very attractive woman.”
He saw her swallow hard. “And you’re an attractive man, but we’re both adults and more than capable of controlling our baser instincts, especially when there’s danger involved. Someone might be trying to kill you, and I can’t afford to lose my focus.”
He nodded, feeling somewhat disappointed in her unwavering proclamation of “self-control.” Feeling that way was completely ridiculous, he knew. He’d hired her to do a job and do it well, not act negligently and become his lover. He wanted her to be reliable. Didn’t he?
Jocelyn sipped her ginger ale. “You still haven’t told me the condition involved in your accepting my apology.”
“Ah, yes. The condition.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Well, you’ve expressed these somewhat biased perceptions of me more than once, and I would like to know why you have them, or more importantly, why you seem to disapprove of me.”
She inhaled deeply and moved her spring roll around on her plate with a chopstick. “I don’t disapprove of you. I barely know you.”
“You do disapprove of me, and you’re also great at avoiding questions.”
“And you’re great at being bold.”
“Still avoiding.”
She gazed directly at him, incredulous. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“Nope.”
Eric Clapton’s “Layla” started to play in the other room, its sexy rhythm lightening the tension-filled silence. Donovan watched Jocelyn lean against the wrought iron back of the bar stool. Her lips were glossy from the cherry sauce.
What he wouldn’t give to taste the flavor of those sweet, sticky lips….
His body began to react tumultuously to the image of his mouth on hers, so he swerved his thoughts back around to what he and Jocelyn had been talking about a few seconds ago. He’d asked her a question and she hadn’t answered it.
He waited.
And waited.
She poked a chicken ball and swirled it around in the red sauce. “All right, if you must know, I used to be involved with a doctor, years ago. Only he wasn’t a doctor at the time. He was in medical school.”
“What, the guy was a jerk, so all doctors are jerks? Or you’re not over him, and I remind you of it?”
“No, it’s neither of those things.”
“What is it then?”
Lord, talking to her was like getting blood from a stone.
She took a drink. “We lived together when he was going through school, and I supported both of us while I put off going to the police academy. Then, as soon as he graduated, he dumped me and went off to marry a rich debutante, and basically changed his whole identity. He bought a Mercedes Benz, started going to the opera and ballet, when he was never into that sort of thing with me. We used to go to hockey games and sports pubs where the draft was cheap. I guess the worst part was that he’d been seeing this woman while he was still with me. He lied to me and left me with all the debt I’d incurred to support us while he was in school, and never looked back. I met him once a couple of years ago in a bookstore, and he was with his wife. He never even acknowledged me. They treated me like I was dirt under their shoes—in another class far below them.”
“So that’s why you disapprove of me? You think that just because I own a penthouse and go to the opera occasionally, I’m a stuffed shirt?”
He hoped she realized how mistaken she was. He didn’t grow up with this wealth. He had come into it later when he would have given anything to trade it for what he had lost. God, he’d trade all of it today and live like a pauper, if it would mean he could erase the tragedy from his childhood, and see and touch the parents he never really knew. Even just for an instant.
He swallowed over the aching sense of loss that still lived deep inside him—the fleeting, vague memories, like little fragments of a dream: his mother’s loving smile, his father’s boisterous laughter as he swung Donovan around in circles. If only he could remember more…
He brushed the grief aside, like he’d learned to do years and years ago, and brought himself back to the present.
“It’s not just that.” Jocelyn gestured around the room with a hand. “Tom became a doctor to have this very thing. For the prestige. It had nothing to do with wanting to help people. This kind of lifestyle was more important to him than any person ever could be.”
“I see, and because I’m a successful doctor and live alone and have women leaving messages on my answering machine, I don’t care about people, either?”
She shrugged.
“You really don’t know much about me, Jocelyn. You realize that, don’t you?”
Nodding, she seemed to agree. He was glad. Maybe he’d give her the whole story sometime.
“I said I was sorry before,” she replied. “Old habits and values die hard, that’s all.”
Donovan gazed at her face while she fiddled with her food. She’d barely eaten half of what was on her plate.
“Look,” he said, “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot or make you feel b
ad or anything.”
“I don’t feel bad.”
He lightened his tone, smiling. “Yes, you do.”
Thank goodness she smiled, too. She picked up her fortune cookie, wrapped in plastic, and hurled it across the corner of the island to hit him in the chest. “I don’t.”
Donovan laughed. “Okay, okay.” He looked at the cookie in his hand. “Is this yours or mine? I don’t want to mess with fate and get the wrong fortune.”
She picked up the other one. “It’s yours. I want this one.”
They both opened their packets. “What does yours say?” he asked.
“It says, ‘You are a deep, complex individual.’ What about yours?”
“Hmm. Let me see.” He broke the cookie and unfurled the little piece of paper. “Wow. It says, ‘You’re going to get lucky tonight.’ What do you think it means by that?”
Her face lit up like a baseball park at night. “Let me see that!” She grabbed it out of his hands. “It does not say that you big jerk! It says ‘You like to fix things.’”
She handed it back to him, then rose to clean away the dishes and put the leftovers in the fridge. “Nice try though.”
Donovan watched her from behind. Unfortunately, not nice enough.
Five
He was a brilliant heart surgeon, Jocelyn learned from just about everyone she talked to about Donovan at the hospital. The best around. Nice man, too, they all said, including the nurses, who didn’t seem to imply that he ever tried to make moves on them, which was somewhat surprising to Jocelyn, considering how many moves he’d tried to make on her the past couple of days.
The thought sent a shiver dancing down her spine, as she sat in Donovan’s waiting room reading a magazine and remembering all the times he’d given her “that look.”
It was like he thought she was hot stuff….
Another shiver went down her spine, close on the trail of the first one.
She couldn’t deny that she enjoyed those looks from him. It was flattering, especially because she’d never imagined herself as “hot.” She wore plain suits and flat shoes to work, sensible cotton underwear. She had a conservative shoulder-length hair cut, and she was definitely not a flirt. In fact, she made a conscious effort not to give off signals—at least the kind that alerted hungry male hormones to a potential meal. She didn’t spread her scent around. Consequently, she was dull. Downright dull.
In her defense, being dull came with the job. She didn’t go places with her principals to be a part of their social lives. She wanted to blend in, to be polite and generally not speak unless spoken to, and where possible be invisible. In addition to that, she had to be paranoid all the time and keep an attitude that no one was to be trusted, which didn’t exactly make her Miss Charisma at social functions.
Hence—she was dull.
Jocelyn lowered her magazine, feeling suddenly dissatisfied. Throughout her life, it seemed like she’d always made a conscious effort to be dull, whether it was in the way she dressed or the way she talked.
Why? Was it because she’d grown up being pushed to act cute in front of the neighbors and wear fancy dresses with lace, her hair in shiny curls? Was it because that was the only time anyone seemed to approve of her—when her appearance was perfect or noteworthy—and this was some sort of rebellion against that kind of shallow thinking?
She continued to flip through the fashion magazine, looking at all the skinny, glamorous models with big hair and small boobs. Blah. She didn’t want to compare herself to them. She’d spent her whole life reminding herself that it was what was on the inside that mattered….
She shut the magazine and tossed it onto the table in front of her chair, thinking more about Donovan and the way he flirted with her.
How long had it been since she’d had a date with a man? she wondered. Ages. Sure, she went out with her professional colleagues for a beer occasionally, and they were mostly men, but those weren’t dates. They all treated her like one of the guys.
It was the female signal thing.
She wouldn’t know how to send one out if her life depended on it.
Not that it did.
Yet, Donovan was responding to something….
The door to his office opened, and a middle-aged woman walked out. Donovan, wearing a cotton shirt and jeans and sneakers beneath his lab coat, followed her out. She stopped at the reception desk to speak to the nurse, and was laughing at something Donovan was saying to her.
Carrying his clipboard, he turned away from her and said, “Enjoy yourself at the golf tournament, Marion.”
He was certainly charming, and very caring with his patients. He seemed less and less like Tom every day. No wonder everyone liked him.
He passed through the waiting room and glanced down at Jocelyn—who sat in a chair like the other patients—and winked at her.
Heat licked all the way down to her toes and back up again. She forced herself to smile politely and open up another magazine, but God! He was so gorgeous! She couldn’t breathe. She didn’t have a clue what she was even looking at. Ads? Articles? Little green men?
Jocelyn cleared her throat and tried to calm her clanging heart, but she couldn’t. She discreetly glanced around the quiet room, wondering if anyone else could hear it. Apparently not.
She watched Donovan invite the next patient in—an elderly gentleman with a walker.
“George, how are we doing today?” Donovan said to the man, just before he closed the door behind him.
Jocelyn continued to flip idly through her magazine, repeating to herself over and over in her head: He’s your client, you idiot. Your client, your client, your client.
Contrary to Donovan’s usual routine of taking the El to work and back, they started taking his car, as Jocelyn didn’t feel it was safe to walk to the train at the same time each day, nor to stand in the crowded compartment, where anyone could pull a knife without warning and be gone just as fast.
In the parking lot after work, she conducted her usual vehicle search before allowing Donovan to get in. She began by checking the small pieces of tape she routinely affixed at inconspicuous spots along the door, hood and trunk openings, to detect if the vehicle had been tampered with during the day. Then she proceeded with a detailed search of the interior and exterior of the car, looking for trip wires, stripped screws, leaking fluids and such. Donovan waited nearby, watching.
She gave the vehicle a clean bill of health and got in. Donovan got behind the wheel and they headed home.
“How about dinner and the theater tonight?” he asked her, shifting gears and gaining speed out on the road.
The question caught her off guard. Principals didn’t usually ask her to dinner with them—not phrased like that anyway.
He gave her a perceptive, sidelong glance, taking his eyes off the road only for a brief second. “Sorry. What I should have said is, ‘I’m going to eat out tonight and take in a play. I’ll need you to work late.’”
Jocelyn smiled, appreciating his courteous rephrasing of the invitation. “Yes, sir.”
“I’d like to go to an upscale place for dinner, so if you’re going to fit in, you won’t be able to wear that.”
She glanced down at her suit. “Uh, I don’t really have anything with me that’s—”
“We’ll get something for you on the way home.” He turned down a street in the opposite direction from where he lived.
“Really, you don’t have to buy me clothes,” Jocelyn said. “We can stop by my apartment and I can pick something up.”
“You live on the other side of town. This’ll be much quicker. I know a great spot.”
She reluctantly agreed, and they drove down a narrow, tree-lined street. Donovan pulled up in front of an exclusive ladies’ boutique on the bottom floor of a late-Victorian mansion, and turned off the car. “What are you…a size five?”
“Seven, actually,” she replied awkwardly.
“Great. Let’s go.”
He led the way in,
and bells chimed over the door as they entered. An older lady with her hair in a bun, wearing a pale yellow silk suit and pearls, approached. “Dr. Knight, what a pleasure. What can I help you with today?”
They know him here?
“Actually, Doris, you can help my friend. We’re going to La Perla tonight.”
“Lovely.” She turned her warm gaze on Jocelyn, who felt more than a little out of place in this high-end clothing shop. It was not a place she would ever set foot in on her own.
“I have some stunning gowns over here that would look wonderful on you,” Doris said. She gestured for Jocelyn to follow. Donovan followed, too. Doris picked a gold, sequined dress off a brass rack. “What about this?”
Jocelyn glanced down at the tag. The dress cost nine hundred and fifty dollars. Good God. “Uh, that might be a little too…”
“Too flashy?” Doris said. “I understand. What about this?” The smiling woman moved to another rack and presented a deep crimson off-the-shoulder dress. It was twelve hundred dollars.
Jocelyn touched her index finger to her lips. “That, I think, is…um…”
“Not the right color?”
Not the right price! “Yes, exactly.”
“Okay, I think I know exactly what you’re looking for.” Doris moved to the corner of the boutique and found a black, sleeveless, curve-hugging dress with a train. “Perfect for La Perla.”
“Perfect for Jocelyn,” Donovan said, moving past her and touching the delicate fabric.
Jocelyn didn’t dare look at the price tag on that one. The odd thing was, Donovan didn’t look at it, either.
She shook her head in utter disbelief. The rich.
Feeling more than a little uncomfortable with all this, Jocelyn looped her arm through Donovan’s and gently pulled him away from Doris. “Could I have a word with you?” she whispered politely.
“Sure.” They moved behind a mannequin dressed in a sailing outfit.
“This is too much,” Jocelyn whispered. “I can’t let you buy me a dress here.”
“Why not?” he asked innocently.
“Because it’s too expensive. I couldn’t possibly accept a gift like this.”
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