by Lisa Wells
She glanced at the pulse in his neck, at how rapid it was beating. “Since when? You’re the one who said it made sense. That it was doable. That it is your only viable option.” She was doing her best to stay calm until she knew all of the answers.
He took his hat off and ran his hand through his hair. “It is doable. And it’s my only viable option to become partner. But it’s not a good idea…for you.” He tossed his hat on the back seat.
The ice pick sank a few inches deeper. All of her foster parents got rid of her because it was what was best for her. But she had eventually known better. Figured it all out early. When foster parents got rid of you, it was because it was what was best for them. You didn’t fit into their world. “What?” Could he hear the pain in her voice? She didn’t want him to. Didn’t want him to hear the tears she was choking back. “Why?” Better, but still too much emotion.
He reached out as if to touch her, but she pulled back. “Because it forces you to be someone you’re not,” he said, dropping his hands to his lap. “I don’t have the right to ask that of you. You have enough going on in your life with your worry about Dottie. You shouldn’t have to worry about acting the part of my fiancée and dealing with people like Debbie who will force you to prove you’re worthy to be mine.”
Oh. She bit her lip to keep it from trembling. He thought she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t come across as classy enough for the crowd he ran with.
Or maybe, just maybe he was being sincere.
For a moment, she let herself believe that scenario. Let his sincere worry wrap her up in a strong-arm hug. A hug that made her feel vulnerable. A hug that caught her with her walls down. A hug that made her want to lean on someone. Not good. “It’s not like I don’t know how to act in polite society,” she said, going into self-preservation mode. “We’re both prospering from our business arrangement. This isn’t just about you and what you want.” He didn’t need to worry about her. No one needed to worry about her. She came to terms a long time ago that she was flying through the world a solo act.
He loosened his tie, shook his head in disbelief. “Name one thing you’re getting out of this fake engagement?”
Adrenaline rushed through her. She could give him more than one. She could list off the items she placed on her pro and con list for doing what they were doing. The one she updated this very morning. “One: I’m able to prove myself as a good friend to Kinley. Two: I’m improving my French. Three: I’m learning that me being me—contrary and a blurter—isn’t a horrible thing in the eyes of everyone. Four…four doesn’t matter. And five, which is a bonus, I’m having fun being your friend.”
He lifted a brow. “You’re really having fun? You’re not pretending to have fun?”
She cocked her head. Was he insecure about his ability to wow a woman with his charm? “Why would I lie about having fun?” It wasn’t like she said “I love you.” Just “you’re fun.” No big revelation there.
He jutted his chin. “Why did you skip four?”
She shrugged a shoulder. “And four, I’m learning how to trust my judgment.”
There was a flicker of emotion in his eyes. An emotion she could only too well decipher. Four made him nervous. Telling him she was learning to trust her judgment was like telling him that her heart was getting involved. Which is why she skipped four. Four made her nervous, too. For that exact reason. When she thought of herself in terms of having poor judgment, her heart was well protected. But when she started thinking in terms of having good judgment…
She blew air out her lips. “That’s why I skipped four. I knew you’d interpret it wrong. Fun is not an intimate emotion.”
He laughed. A self-mocking noise. “You’re right. We’re just fun and games and a little white lie.”
“Exactly.” A little white lie. Damn. By saying yes to Jack, she was participating in a lie. Her agreement proved Jack’s theory that women weren’t trustworthy. He’d never see Adeline as trustworthy.
“And if we’re going to break a rule, it won’t be the one about our hearts getting attached to one another. It will be the one about having sex.”
And by saying yes to Jack, she had proven Dottie’s theory that she was heading down the same track her mom took. Willing to lie when the situation suited her needs. Bending rules like her mom did to justify doing stupid things. Stupid things like giving up a child to make a man happy.
Adeline panicked, and like a non-swimmer tossed in the middle of the ocean, she floundered, grasping for safety and only finding a tiny piece of driftwood. “We’re living a lie because your bosses have ancient views and an old woman is ill,” she defended, before going underwater, losing her breath, and feeling her insides turn clammy. “It’s not like we want to live a lie.”
Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. “What’s done is done. I trust that if I can do this with anyone, it will be you.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry I screwed this practice date up. But, we have two more for you to use to morph me into the woman of your dreams. I’ll try not to let my own personality monopolize those dates. I’ll even make a list of appropriate conversation starters.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.” He reached for her hand.
“Why not?” She tugged her hand free. No way could she think if they were holding hands.
“I told you the practice dates were to get to know one another.” He unbuckled his seatbelt. “Not so you could practice being someone you’re not.”
“I’m pretty sure you don’t want to introduce the Adeline who dances a stripper pole to your peers. She is not a lady worthy of this charade.”
He reached for her hand again and refused to let her yank it back. “What are you talking about? Your dancing for me doesn’t make you less of a lady.” Using his free hand, he unbuckled her seatbelt. “You blew my mind that night. Blew everything I thought I knew about what I wanted in a woman.”
Her heart thudded against her ribs. Things were getting too real. Unless she was reading more into his comments than he meant. Time to steer the conversation away from matters of the heart. “Your precious Debbie is a bitch.” She stared at him, unwilling to blink or look sorry that she’d said that.
“Harsh. Scoot over here.”
“Why?”
“Because I asked you to. And I misspoke when I said everything about us is a lie. Our friendship isn’t a lie.”
Adeline kicked out of her high heels and did as he requested. Could it be his emotions were as discombobulated as hers? “Are you friends with Debbie?”
“That sounds like a trick question. Why do you dislike her? She’s not that bad.”
“Did you not hear her bless my heart for eating bread?” While Adeline knew she was picking unfairly on Debbie, it didn’t mean she was in the mood to have him defend the other woman. “According to Kinley, that’s how polite society says fuck you.” It was one of the many little things she’d learned from Kinley all those years ago.
He tucked a curl behind her ear. “Debbie wasn’t being rude.”
“You probably have some rule of not saying mean things about women you’ve…been with. Just like you don’t say mean things about your bosses.”
He wrapped his hand around the back of her head as if he planned to kiss her. But he didn’t. “Hearing of our engagement just caught her off guard,” he said, not denying that he and Debbie were once lovers.
Adeline tried not to stare at his lips. “Why would it catch her off guard? Doesn’t she listen to office gossip? I’m sure a cute single guy like yourself is talked about around the water cooler.”
Jack’s thumb absently rubbed Adeline’s neck. “Because she knows my philosophy on marriage. Of all the people you have to fool into believing we’re the real thing, she’ll be the toughest. She was my rebound woman after I was left at the altar. She knows just how much I’m against ever getting married. With her, you’ve got to be beyond convincing.”
His rebound woman? Adeline’s stomach sank. Debbie was t
here for him during his darkest moments. She had an insight to Jack that Adeline would never have. She took a stuttering breath. “What’s your philosophy?” she asked wearily.
He stopped rubbing her neck. Shifted away from her. Placed his hands back on the steering wheel. “I don’t want a wife. I don’t trust women.” He stared forward as if he was having a conversation with himself—not Adeline.
Adeline placed a hand over his. “Until now. Now, you’ve met a woman you can trust. Or, at least, that’s what you better make sure she believes.”
He turned back toward her. Took both of her hands in his. “That won’t be easy. Tell me, what miraculous feat should I tell her you pulled off that suddenly made me able to trust women?” He stared intently into her eyes, like for the life of him he couldn’t imagine Adeline doing one thing that would cause him to trust women.
Adeline bit her lip. Who could blame the man for not trusting her? He asked her to do something dishonest and she had said yes. It would only be reasonable for him to therefore surmise she wasn’t trustworthy. “I don’t know, but I’m sure it was spectacular.”
His forehead puckered. “That’s not good enough. She’s going to ask me, and I have to have an answer. I don’t have an answer. There isn’t anything any woman could do that would suddenly make me start trusting in love again.”
“Tell her— Love’s funny. It just hits you out of the blue, and you jump in with both feet hoping like hell you remember to swim when you hit the water.” Where did that pie-in-the-sky bullshit come from?
“What?” he asked.
She gave him a tired smile. “You don’t owe her an explanation beyond that.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “You think that will work?”
“I’m sure it will work. Stop worrying. I’ve got this. When we get home, you can write down a description of your perfect pretend fiancée, and that’s who I’ll be. I will erase myself from existence and become the woman of your dreams. A woman she’ll believe you fell in love with. Just like I became a college professor the other night. I’ve got this. Acting is something I can do.”
“Damn it, stop putting words in my mouth. I don’t want you to erase yourself.”
“Sure you do. If you didn’t, you could pick out one thing about me that caused you to start trusting women. I wouldn’t have to do it for you. And who knows, maybe I’ll pick up a trait or two that I’ll want to adopt as part of my future persona. I mean, your own sister once said I’m a Rembrandt in need of a good dusting.”
“She said that? Why?”
Adeline glowered. He’d taken enough of her self-esteem for one day. And that college memory probably should’ve stayed buried. But now that she’d blurted it, she had to explain… “Because she thinks I have a lot of worth.”
“Oh… She’s right… Beneath all of your shock-and-wow bluster is a Rembrandt.”
Adeline didn’t bluster. And what in the hell did he mean by shock-and-wow? “Your sister wasn’t talking about my personality. She was talking about my exterior.” Which meant, in Jack’s eyes, it was her personality in need of a dusting. Crap.
His lips puckered like he was chewing on a sour grape. “Why would you listen to her? She’s a whack job most of the time.”
Adeline snorted. “That’s what she says about you.” Adeline wasn’t going to wallow in hurt. “Tell me what needs dusted off of my personality.” He was her boss. If her boss didn’t like her muffins, she’d create a new recipe for him. No—
He grunted. “Damn it, that’s not what I meant. This isn’t what I want.”
“Then what do you want?”
“To kiss you,” he growled before his lips crashed onto hers. Hard, exacting, demanding, greedy lips.
She moaned. Dear God the man kissed like a warrior. A handsome, sexy-as-hell warrior about to leave his woman to go off and fight in a Viking battle. She pressed into him, needing the kiss like a chef needed a kitchen. Then his lips were gone, and he trailed tiny kisses down her neck.
She whimpered, wanting her warrior. She tugged on his hair. Forcing his lips back up to hers.
The kiss softened, and he pulled a fraction away. Resting his forehead against hers. “Beautiful, there’s nothing wrong with who you are.” His voice was raspy, his breathing ragged. “Let’s go home. I want to do things to you. Things I have no intention of ever regretting. Please tell me you want the same thing. That you want to break our rules as much as I want to break our rules.”
Chapter Nineteen
Their drive home vibrated with silent promises. The need to get naked and continue had them both breathing heavy enough that the windows were fogging over.
Of course, the windows weren’t the only things fogged over. Jack’s heart was, and he was reeling. Somehow, without meaning to, he’d allowed himself to let his walls down around Adie. The way she was honest, even when it didn’t benefit her. But her words about love, the words she wanted him to say to Debbie to convince her of his and Adeline’s relationship, hit him like a stomach punch by a heavy weight boxer. They had a ring of truth to them.
Love’s funny. It just hits you out of the blue, and you jump in with both feet hoping like hell you remember to swim when you hit the water.
He had broken his own rule. He opened his heart to a woman. Sure, Adie seemed like someone he could trust. But so had his ex. He usually compartmentalized so efficiently, and perhaps that was the problem. Adie didn’t fit into any of the careful labels he assigned.
How had he not realized Adeline Rigby was finding a way around his barriers? He should have noticed it. She was all he thought about when he’d been gone. Hell, she’d been all he’d thought about since running into her at Kin’s book signing.
Now what? His plan to tell her he wanted to date for real suddenly didn’t seem like a fine idea. That plan had been launched when he was still cocky enough to think he could keep his heart out of all dating equations.
And if he couldn’t keep his heart out of the way, they could end up with a messy ending. Something he didn’t want for either of them. He wanted both of them to walk away thinking to themselves—damn, that was a good time. Not, damn she broke my heart. And damn, why did he go and get all mushy.
Hell, she was moving out of the country as soon as Paris worked out. Not someone he should be considering as the woman who could fix his battered heart.
They stepped into his condo side-by-side. Pausing to sanitize their hands, kick off their shoes, and scratch Dexter under the chin.
Adeline turned and stared at him, her eyes a beautiful shade of blue.
He reminded himself to remember what shade of blue they were after they had sex. He did have a ring to buy, and he needed to be sure and get the right color of blue diamond. Did blue diamonds even exist?
He shrugged out of his jacket and threw it on her pink chair. “Let’s forget about the baggage we both have and just be together in the moment.”
Adeline bit her lower lip. “For tonight?”
He pulled off his tie and tossed it over the back of the chair. “For tonight.” He’d worry about tomorrow night, tomorrow.
Adeline reached behind and unzipped her dress. “We’re breaking a rule. A rule we have for a reason.”
His dick, already hard, grew another three inches. “I like women who aren’t afraid to break a few rules.”
She worried her bottom lip. “I like men who leave it up to the woman if they’re going to get broken.” Her dress floated to the floor. She stood in front of him wearing nothing but her undergarments. Lacy red bra, thigh high hose, and lace panties that drew his gaze between her legs.
“You’re nothing like any woman I’ve ever met,” he said. He unbuttoned his shirt. Slipped it off and let it drop.
She tilted her head. “I’ve wanted to have sex with you since before you told me you didn’t want to have sex.” She sat on the arm of her pink chair and lifted one leg, slowly removing one stocking and then the other.
He forgot to breathe until the act was
over and she stood. Then he toed out of his socks. “Are you always honest?” The longing in his voice wasn’t just about sex. It was about wanting to trust.
She paused in the act of pulling the bobby pins out of her hair. “You and I are in a relationship that’s a lie. What do you think?”
Her warning didn’t scare him the way it should. “If you ever love me, hate me, want to kill me, do you promise to tell me immediately and not wait until it’s too late to do anything about the why behind the emotion?”
She tossed her bobby pins on the end table. “Love? Let’s take that one off the table right now.” She placed her hands on her hips. “I promised you from the beginning I wouldn’t mess this plan up by falling in love with you. I’m going to keep that promise.”
“You are?” Why wasn’t he reeling with joy? He should be ecstatic she was going to save him from his stupid self if his stupid self didn’t get a grasp and quick.
“Of course. But if I ever hate you or want to kill you, you’ll be the second to know.”
He frowned. “Who will be the first?” He unbuttoned then unzipped his pants.
“Your sister who has been known to talk me down…” Her words trailed off when he let his pants fall to his feet. Her mouth fell open.
“You were saying?” he asked in a cocky tone, lifting an eyebrow. Totally turned on by her reaction.
“You went commando tonight,” she noted, not raising her gaze to his.
“I couldn’t remember if you said you liked boxers or briefs.”
Chapter Twenty
Adeline couldn’t tear her gaze away from his huge erection pressing into his stomach. “You should warn a girl before you show her your prize possession,” she murmured, her heart pounding loudly in her ears.
He ran a hand up the length of himself. “Does that mean you approve?”
“Definitely,” she said, swallowing thickly before forcing her gaze to move around the room at their clothes lying haphazardly here and there. Except for his tie, which was lying across the pink chair that now occupied his living room. Her pink chair that looked like a rose petal dropped into a fall scene. She picked the silk tie up and looped it around her neck. “What do you think? Does it go with my outfit?”