by Bella Andre
“Yes, they were.” His eyes were gentle as he said, “She had you.”
It took Mary a few seconds to push away the emotion his simple words evoked. “Do you have any sisters?”
“Nope, three brothers.” Her eyes widened at the thought of all that testosterone in one family as he asked, “Why do you ask?”
“Because if you had had sisters, you would have known that headstrong young girls and their mothers are rarely a conflict-free combination.” Feeling that she’d already said too much, and knowing she should change the subject before her emotions got the best of her, she asked, “Did you and your brothers grow up here?”
“Born and raised. I went to college locally, too, and haven’t really had much time to travel.”
“That’s another great thing about San Francisco,” she said, pausing in her extremely enthusiastic bites of pie, “between Chinatown, Japantown, the French Quarter, the Mission and North Beach, it’s like having the world at your fingertips. The people, the traditions, and especially the food.” He was so easy to talk to that she realized she’d gotten off track again. “What about your family? Are they all close by?”
“I wish. My oldest brother is up in Seattle with his wife and toddler. Another brother has a house in San Francisco but he is usually in a skyscraper overseas concluding another major business deal. My youngest brother is probably locked in his studio back east painting a masterpiece, and my parents are happily wintering in Florida.”
It amazed her how their conversation was so effortless and yet so totally full of sparks.
“What do you do?”
“I’m an engineer. I’ve been working on a product I invented for most of the past decade.”
Sexy and smart. Now that was a wonderful combination in a man, she thought as she took another bite of pie and ice cream. A cherry popped on her tongue, and the combination of sweet and creamy, warm and cool sent a soft moan of pleasure falling from her lips.
“You were right,” she said after she’d swallowed. “This is amazing cherry pie.”
Jack’s dark eyes were intense as they held hers and he agreed, “Amazing,” though he’d hardly eaten any pie at all yet.
“Help Me,” the hit single from Joni Mitchell, was playing from a portable radio set up in a corner of the diner. And with Mary’s heart pounding hard for a man she barely knew but already wanted so badly to know better, she felt as if Joni were singing about her.
Because after only fifteen minutes with Jack, Mary could tell that she was already falling too fast…with hopes about the future and worries about the past circling inside her mind and heart at the same time.
What if she didn’t let those worries imprison her this time? What if she trusted her instincts, the same way she had when she was a nineteen-year-old girl? And what if, for the very first time in a long, long while, she let herself believe that true love might actually be possible?
“A decade is a long time to work on one thing,” she said softly. “You must have incredible focus.”
“When I’m passionate about something and want it bad enough, I always make sure I get it.”
Her breath caught in her throat at the pulsing sensuality behind his statement. An impulse to lean close and kiss him wound through her, and she might have given in to it had she not noticed out of the corner of her eye that some of the other diners were pointing at her.
Mary wanted her first kiss with Jack to be special. So instead of a kiss, she simply leaned slightly forward to try to get closer to him across the bright yellow Formica table and said, “Tell me about your invention.”
She could tell he was pleased by her interest in his engineering career. She wanted to know everything about him—his passions, his dreams and his fears. And if things worked out between them, maybe she’d tell him about her passions, dreams and fears, too…something she’d never done with any man before.
He pulled something out of his pocket and placed it on the table between them. “We call it the Pocket Planner. It’s an electronic calendar and personal organizer. It even has reminders built in for the items on your to-do list. After a decade of trial and error, my two partners and I have finally not only got it working, but technology has made it small enough to be able to carry it around without a forklift.” He was even more gorgeous with the look of pride on his face.
“May I?” When he nodded, she picked it up and ran her fingers over the very interesting machine. “I think it sounds fantastic. In fact, I can think of half-a-dozen ways I could have used something like this in the past few years.”
He beamed at her. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear you feel that way.” She smiled back and was about to ask him more questions, when he added, “In fact, that’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”
Mary felt her smile falter on her lips. Years of holding poses regardless of whether she was happy or under the weather were the reason she was able to keep it in place. “It is?”
Jack pushed his plate away in his excitement. “We’re hoping to get it onto shelves this Christmas, and there are thousands of units waiting in a warehouse already but, though the retailers like the product, they’re convinced we need to add some se—” he cut himself off “—mass appeal to it. As soon as I saw you in Union Square I knew you would be the perfect person to represent our product.”
Her lips flattened, and the cherries that had tasted so good just minutes ago now felt like little round bricks in the pit of her stomach. She worked to keep her voice steady. “So that’s why you asked me here for pie? To see if I would consider representing your product?”
His eyes searched her face for a long moment, and she could see his sudden confusion at her cool reaction. She could almost read his mind, the way he was asking himself how he could have misplayed things with her already.
Especially when he clearly thought he needed her to make his dreams come true…
“Mary?” Jack shook his head, the tips of his hair moving over his broad shoulders. “No.” He shook his head again. “Yes, but it wasn’t the only reason.”
Of course he had to say that. With as much elegance and pride as she could still muster, considering she’d been gazing at him like a love-struck teenager when he’d simply been calculating his potential gains all the while, she carefully slid out of the booth. “Thank you for the pie and coffee.”
Jack reached for her hand before she could take more than a step away from the table. She looked down and saw how tanned his skin was against hers, how large his hand was as he held hers.
“Please, Mary, don’t go.”
God, it was pathetic how much she wanted to stay, even now that she knew the real reason he’d wanted to meet her. It now seemed as if the idea that she could eventually convince him to want more than that was mere fantasy.
But that wasn’t how love worked. She’d learned over and over throughout the years that there was no point in wishing for a miracle…even at Christmastime.
“Today was my last shoot. I’m not modeling anymore.” She didn’t owe him any explanations, but she hated to come across as a spoiled princess who was storming out because she hadn’t gotten her way…or because he’d inadvertently hurt her too-delicate feelings. “I’m sure you’ll find someone perfect to represent your product.”
She waited for him to lift his hand from hers, but he only gripped her tighter. “I already have found somebody perfect, Mary.” She couldn’t help but lift her eyes to meet his as he said, “You’re perfect.”
It was what she’d fought so long—the false perception that she was perfect. “I’m not.”
She steeled herself for his protests. The last thing she expected him to do was smile at her and say, “You’re right. How could anyone be perfect with ice cream and cherry juice on her face?”
He brushed the corner of her mouth with the tip of his index finger and so much warmth flooded her from the tiny touch that she was amazed all of the ice in the diner didn’t melt into a puddle right th
en and there just from the heat being generated between the two of them. And then, in the most shockingly sexy way, he brought his finger to his own lips and ran his tongue over his fingertip to lick off the cherry juice and ice cream.
“Please, Mary, let me start over and get things out in the right order this time.”
They’d been standing by the side of the table for long enough now that people were starting to stare. A few of them pointed to her and she heard her name in loud whispers. But none of that mattered.
Only this man standing before her did.
He’d had her at the surprisingly sweet comment about cherry juice and his gentle touch to her lips, but she would never forgive herself for folding that easily. “The right order?”
He nodded and moved closer, his body lean and muscled and warm against hers. “My invention isn’t the only reason I wanted to take you for pie and coffee.”
“It isn’t?”
“You’ve got to understand, Angel, a man like me looks at a woman like you and it’s inevitable that I’m going to screw things up.”
He had no right to make up a nickname for her or to say it in such a warm and inviting voice. And she had no business enjoying both those things.
But, for all her vows to protect herself from men like him who only wanted her for the improvements she could make to their bottom line, instead of walking away from him, she found herself saying, “It is?” in a breathless voice that hardly seemed to belong to her.
He nodded, his eyes growing darker still as they dropped to her lips for a split second, then moved back to meet her gaze again.
“You’ve got class. Beauty. Intelligence.” He gestured to himself. “All I’ve got is a degree that took me too many years to finish and a dream that I’m praying will finally become real one day.”
If he had gotten down on one knee to praise her beauty, if he had rhapsodized about her “charms,” she would have forced herself to slip her hand from his and walk away.
But talk of dreams?
Dreams were the one thing she’d always understood, how they could take hold of you and make you risk everything.
Besides, she thought as she studied him, she had a feeling that once Jack Sullivan made up his mind about something, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. And the truth was that the reason she hadn’t chosen a new direction for her career yet was because she wasn’t terribly excited about any of the opportunities that had come her way.
Representing a new technology like this would be fresh. Exciting. Yes, it might fail, as models and technology had rarely been paired successfully. But Mary hadn’t let herself step into a position to fail in a very long time.
Maybe, she thought, it was time to take a risk again.
The biggest question remaining was whether the risk would be strictly professional…or personal, too? Because when he’d called her Angel, the sweet endearment had warmed her in places she hadn’t realized had grown so cold.
“Your ice cream is melting,” she finally said. “Why don’t we sit back down so that you can eat some of your pie before it drowns.”
Relief flared in his eyes, but beneath it she thought she recognized the same desire she hadn’t been able to push down within herself. Which was why, as he finally let her hand go and they both sat, she said, “Before you tell me more about your product, there’s something you need to know about me. I don’t mix business with pleasure.”
Jack looked surprised, and she got a sense that women hadn’t turned him down very many times in his thirty-two years. And why would they, she asked herself, when he was not only extraordinarily gorgeous, but he had a smile that could instantly make you feel as if you were the only woman in the world who mattered.
“So if you agree to represent my invention,” he clarified, “you won’t let me ask you out?”
Her stomach fluttered at the sheer thought of a proper date with Jack. One that would likely end in a kiss.
Or more…
“It makes things too complicated.”
She still remembered the pain of having to continue working with a man she could barely stand to be in the same room with, of having to listen to Romain’s endless critiques and demands. She’d been too much of a professional to tell him where he could stick it and had had to make do with the vivid fantasies of what she’d wished she’d said to him.
Jack studied her for a few moments. “In that case, we’ll have to take care of business first.” But he reached across the table for her hand again and brushed his thumb across her palm. “And then we’ll move on to pleasure.”
It took every ounce of self-control for Mary to slide her hand away from his and to convince herself it was better this way. Instead of jumping into a sizzling-hot affair that could burn out just as quickly as it flared up, they’d get a chance to know each other better by working together first. And then, after they’d concluded their business affairs, if the sparks were still there between them, perhaps they could see about starting another kind of affair entirely.
Only, as Jack showed her how the Pocket Planner worked, instead of being able to keep her distance, she was increasingly seduced not only by how gorgeous he was—and she’d seen plenty of handsome men in her career—but also by his incredible intelligence.
And his passion.
Chapter Four
“Thank you so much for agreeing to work with us, Ms. Ferrer,” Larry said as he pumped Mary’s hand enthusiastically in the lobby of Walter Industries the following day.
“You’re a lifesaver, Ms. Ferrer,” Howie said as he reached for her hand the very second Larry let it go, nearly pulling her arm loose from her shoulder socket in his excitement. “My girlfriend wanted me to tell you that she’s your biggest fan.”
She smiled warmly at both of the men. “Please, call me Mary.”
Jack had done his research after putting Mary into a cab in front of the diner last night. He’d quickly confirmed that he’d been having pie and coffee—and fumbling through every last second—with one of the most successful models in the world. No doubt, she had men throwing themselves at her feet, men with a hell of a lot more to their name than a dream.
She’d been right to get up and start to walk out on him last night at the diner. He’d deserved worse than that for the way he’d gracelessly asked her to be the face of their product, without making it clear that business wasn’t the only reason he wanted to spend time with her. It was just that as soon as they’d started talking about his invention, and she’d been clearly interested in it, he’d automatically fallen back into engineering mode, the same way he would have with Howie or Larry.
The hurt that had flashed across Mary’s face when she’d thought he was only interested in her as a spokesmodel for an advertising campaign had kept him up half the night.
Jack had lived his life using intelligent calculations and analysis. Not only did a model and an engineer not make any sense as a couple, but a serious relationship had never factored into his plans or his life. What’s more, it had been less than twenty-four hours since he’d met Mary. He should have been up all night planning for this meeting today with the board. If ever he needed to have perfect focus on his work, on making his long-held dream come true, it was right now.
But thoughts of Mary had remained front and center since the moment he’d set eyes on her.
Placing his hand gently on her lower back, he guided her away from his partners. She looked incredibly beautiful this morning in a long-sleeved navy wrap dress and high-heeled boots. There was a slim gold chain around her neck and another on her wrist. Her dark, glossy hair moved over her shoulders like silk, and her complexion was so perfect he honestly couldn’t tell if she was wearing any makeup. She was both naturally sensual and, at the same time, approachable and down-to-earth.
He wanted to tell her that he’d thought about her all night long, but he knew he needed to respect her request to keep business and pleasure separate.
“Do you have any questions for me about what
’s going to happen in the boardroom?”
“I don’t think so. From what you explained to me last night, and the documents you couriered over early this morning, I think I have a good understanding of the selling points for the Pocket Planner.”
When they’d first met yesterday in Union Square, she’d smiled so easily at him. Now, her eyes were guarded. Jack silently cursed himself for putting those shadows there. She must still believe he wanted her more for business than he wanted her as a woman.
She was wrong.
“You don’t have to do this, Mary.”
She blinked at him, confused. “I don’t understand. I thought you needed me to help you.”
“You’re perfect for the job,” he agreed, “and we do need your help, but if it’s a choice between selling a million Pocket Planners this Christmas and getting the chance to be with you…?” Maybe it was out of line to reach up and stroke her cheek with the back of his hand, but he’d never been this drawn to a woman and he honestly didn’t know how to stop himself. “I’ll figure out some other way to get this product off the ground.”
When she put her hand over his where it rested against the incredibly soft skin of her cheek, he could have sworn his heart actually expanded inside his chest.
“I’ve never done anything I didn’t choose to do, Jack. Not when I was nineteen, and certainly not now at thirty-two. If I didn’t want to be here with you, Howie and Larry, I wouldn’t be. You’ve worked hard to create something great and you deserve this chance at the big time.” Slowly, she lowered his hand from her face and slipped her fingers from his. “I’m just asking you to be patient so that we can see the business through first.”
He had so many questions for her. What had happened in her past? Who had hurt her to make her so cautious, so wary of his motives? But before he had the right to ask for answers, he knew he needed her to trust him. Which meant he needed to be completely straightforward with her at all times, no matter what.