by Bella Andre
* * *
They were lying side by side on the rug, her hand in his, when he told her again, “I had plans for us tonight.” He was still trying to catch the breath she’d stolen from him.
Post-climax, her eyes were hazy but still filled with wickedness as she informed him, “So did I.”
He grinned back at her. “Clearly.” But when he was helping her back onto her feet, he couldn’t stop his eyebrows from going up in shock. “Ruining your dress wasn’t in my plans. Forgive me?”
She seemed stunned when she looked down at the state of her outfit. The bodice of her elegant silk dress was down around her waist, and the delicate fabric was badly wrinkled from where he’d grabbed it in his fist to drag it up by the hem as he’d moved between her legs to take her. One stocking was still in place around her thigh, but the other was a couple of feet away, tossed onto a corner of the rug in the midst of their passion. But Mary seemed most stunned by what she’d done to his button-down shirt—one sleeve ripped, half of the buttons strewn across the rug.
“I did that?” Alongside the surprise on her face was a hint of sensual pride that heated him up all over again.
“I’ll bet that’s how you open Christmas presents, isn’t it?” he teased.
“I would if I ever had a Christmas present as good as you,” she teased back.
They were already behind schedule, but if he couldn’t tell her he loved her, he needed to say it with a kiss instead. Her lips were still heated from his earlier kisses and sensitive now from their wild lovemaking. Quickly, the kiss began to spiral into something more, but Jack carefully drew back from her.
His voice gruff with emotion—and desire that grew from moment to moment—he said, “Go put some new clothes on so I can take you out for a special date.”
“Jack, it’s really sweet that you want to do something romantic for me tonight, but don’t you know you’ve been wooing and romancing me every single second since I’ve known you?”
“Pie and ice cream isn’t wooing. Dinner with my family isn’t romance.”
Her blue eyes were clear and full of emotion as she told him, “It is when I’m with you.”
My God, he loved her. So damned much the word was right there on the tip of his tongue.
“Hurry, or we’re going to be too late.”
He thought he saw disappointment in her eyes before she turned away and moved down the hall to her bedroom to change. It was almost as if she’d secretly hoped he’d break his promise and confess his love for her.
* * *
Mary didn’t recognize the address Jack gave the taxi driver, but she knew his romantic surprise would be amazing. Just as she’d told him earlier, he really did know her.
And yet, instead of being able to completely enjoy it, she felt twisted up inside.
She’d never had a secret relationship before. As a teenager she’d been a good girl, too focused on her dreams to waste time on the local boys at school. She knew some people found having a secret affair exciting, but Mary hated not being able to put her hand in Jack’s in the back of the taxi without worrying that the driver would see them, then recognize her and end up telling someone.
Why, she asked herself for the millionth time, was she still being so careful, so wary? What would it hurt if people knew that she and Jack were falling for each other? Heck, if being careful was her main goal in life, she’d still be in her childhood town, with babies and children playing at her feet while she helped her mother sew wedding dresses for the other women.
But Mary knew that worrying about other people’s reactions wasn’t the main reason she wasn’t ready to give up the secrecy. The real reason was much more complicated.
Jack was wonderful…so wonderful that a part of her was absolutely terrified.
What if he realized one day soon that he’d had his fill of her and decided to move on?
Or what if the product launch ended up going badly and he couldn’t separate the success of his business from her role in it?
Or what if she screwed up and made a rash decision that he couldn’t forgive her for…just as her mother once had?
The happier Mary was every moment they were together, the more she worried when they were apart, simply because Jack mattered to her—more than any other man ever had.
As the secrecy continued to eat away at her, she had to wonder if never publicly acknowledging their relationship would make losing him any easier.
The taxi pulled up to the curb, and when she looked out the window, she realized they were in front of a beautiful old movie theater. The words in lights on the marquee made her heart skip a beat.
“They’re playing Singin’ in the Rain?” She turned to Jack in surprise. “How did you find this?”
“Some things,” Jack said softly, “are meant to be.”
He extended his hand to help her out of the cab, holding it a few moments longer than a friend would have but not long enough that strangers would wonder…unless they happened to notice the way the two of them were looking at each other and noticed the flush of heat spreading across Mary’s cheeks.
The fog off the Bay was thick tonight, and she pulled her coat closer around her as she looked at the long line of couples waiting to get their tickets. But just as people began turning to take a second glance to see if she was who they thought she was, Jack gently propelled her toward the entrance and handed their tickets to the young man at the door.
“Follow the stairs to the left all the way up and you’ll find your seats.”
Instead of heading for the stairs, Jack led her over to the concession counter. “I hope you like your popcorn dripping with butter.”
“Only if it’s doused with salt, too,” she told him with a smile she couldn’t possibly contain. Mary hadn’t been on many movie-and-popcorn dates in the past thirteen years. She felt, for a moment, like any girl out on a long-awaited date with the boy she couldn’t stop daydreaming about.
A few minutes later, when their arms were laden with candy and soda and an absolutely enormous tub of popcorn, they climbed up the narrow stairs to the balcony. Mary stopped at the top of the stairs in surprise.
“There are only two seats up here.”
Jack looked incredibly pleased with himself. “I know.”
She hadn’t needed romance or wooing to fall for Jack Sullivan. But now that he was giving them to her on a silver platter filled with popcorn and malted milk balls and ice-cold Coke, Mary wasn’t sure how she could ever have thought she’d be able to resist him.
In their private seats high above the rest of the theater, as the lights went down and her favorite old film began to play, Mary not only didn’t have to worry about secrecy, but she realized she could stop worrying entirely for two hours.
Snuggling into Jack, loving the feel of his arm over her shoulder, she reached into the tub of popcorn and knew she was the luckiest girl in the world.
* * *
A little less than two hours later, Mary was startled when the house lights came up. She’d been utterly lost in the fantasy of being Jack’s girl and in the incredible sensuality of his fingers brushing over her shoulder, his thigh pressed against hers, his breath warm as he whispered into her ear during his favorite parts of the movie.
She hadn’t dated much as a teenager, and as an adult the men who asked her out wouldn’t have dreamed of taking her to see an old movie while munching on popcorn and candy. Just as none of them would have bought her pie and ice cream in a diner.
Jack had been careful to buy tickets ahead of time so that they could walk inside the theater quickly and had also thought ahead about reserving the private balcony to make sure their relationship stayed under wraps the way she’d insisted. Which also meant that they would have to wait until the seats below emptied so that they could sneak back out unnoticed.
Mary thought about the end of Singin’ in the Rain, when Debbie Reynolds’s character, Kathy, had stood hidden behind a curtain as she sang…and how wrong it had been
for her to hide herself away like that.
Wasn’t that exactly what Mary was making the two of them do by forcing them to keep their true feelings hidden, not just from strangers in a movie theater but also from the people with whom they were working?
Her stomach twisted as she forced herself to face the truth.
No! She didn’t want to let go of Jack’s hand when they went back downstairs. And she definitely didn’t want to pretend that he hadn’t come to mean everything to her.
It was time to come clean, not just with the rest of the world, but with Jack…and with herself, too.
To hell with caution. Mary wanted everyone to know she was his.
“I was wrong, Jack.”
She had felt the warmth of his gaze on her as soon as the lights went up. Now, he took her hands in his and gently asked, “Singin’ in the Rain isn’t one of your favorite movies, after all?”
She’d been focusing so hard on her guilt and trying to be brave. Only Jack could have made her smile at a moment like this.
“Not about the movie—I still love it, and seeing it with you has made it even more special. What I meant was that I was wrong about hiding our relationship.”
Even though she knew he didn’t want them to continue as a secret, he said, “I didn’t bring you here tonight to try to make you change your mind, or to make your reasons seem less valid.”
“You could have never done that, Jack.” It was why she’d come to care about him so strongly, so quickly. Working to ignore the flutter in her belly that proved she wasn’t nearly as brave as she was trying to appear, she declared, “I’m tired of letting the past rule my present. And my future.”
The way he was looking at her, Mary swore he could see right down into her soul.
“I’ll wait as long as you need me to wait,” he vowed in a low voice.
Had anyone ever cared for her this much?
“No more waiting.”
And then she pressed her lips to his in a soft kiss so much like their very first under the mistletoe.
Chapter Fifteen
Mary held tight to Jack’s hand as they came down the stairs. By now, there were only a few people left in the lobby to see them together, but when she and Jack didn’t rush into a taxi, several strangers came up to ask for her autograph. Throughout, while Mary made it a point to remain close to Jack, she noted that he was still being careful not to touch her too much or be too publicly affectionate. It was as though he knew one wrong move so close to her decision to share their relationship with the world would make her skittish.
It never ceased to amaze her how well he knew her…and how deeply he’d gotten into her heart right from the first day she’d met him.
Could he know that she was working overtime to try to ignore the voice in her head that said she was moving too fast? Could he hear the cautionary whisper inside her that was trying to warn her she was making decisions too wildly where he was concerned? Could he see her worrying that she was letting her heart run away with her again…and that she would pay for her foolish romantic ideas in the end?
A part of her wished that he’d push her tonight, that he’d force her to admit all of her remaining fears—of being scared to trust him with her heart, and wondering if love could truly last forever…even whether she would still be someone who mattered to him or anyone else when her face was no longer on magazines and TV screens and billboards.
But in the back of the taxi on the drive back to her house, Jack didn’t force her to admit her hidden fears. He simply pulled her close and held her.
Mary had been with men who were flashy, the life of every party, the head of every line, the first in front of every camera. Whereas Jack reminded her of her own father. Steady. Warm. Strong.
Solid, from heart to soul.
When the taxi pulled up in front of her house, she slid her fingers through his. “I’m not ready for the most romantic date of my life to end.”
Of course, she wanted him to come inside and spend the night with her, sweet hours of sinful lovemaking that stole her breath and set her heart to racing. But even more than that, after those moments when they’d temporarily sated their passions and he was holding her in his arms, she wanted to experience the feeling of deep, sweet closeness and joy.
Jack’s dark eyes never left hers as he paid for the taxi, and then they were standing in front of her house once again, two lovers who she now understood had never had a chance of resisting the beautiful pull between them.
What sweet relief it was to allow herself to give in to the heady urge to kiss him out on the sidewalk beneath the moon and the stars for anyone to see. And when his mouth was against hers and his arms were around her, it was easy to ignore her lingering fears, the worries that she wished would stop trying to push their way to the surface.
“Thank you for the flowers, the movie, the popcorn, and the company…they were all wonderful.” With each word, she drew him step by step up the stairs. “I’d offer to make you a cup of coffee, but I have a feeling I wouldn’t give you a chance to let you drink it before it got really, really cold.”
She was just opening her front door when he said, “We’ll have it in bed,” in that low voice that sizzled up her spine. “After.”
Oh, yes. After.
As soon as they were inside, Mary started stripping away Jack’s jacket and shirt, her lips immediately covering each patch of skin she bared. He was doing the same with her, when her phone rang.
She’d never once let the phone go unheeded, even when the timing was as bad as it was now. What if it was her parents calling? What if they were hurt or sick? Or what if her mother was finally ready to talk to her again?
The men Mary had been with before Jack had never understood why she would drop everything to pick up the phone, but when she looked into Jack’s eyes with an apology in hers and said, “I’m sorry, I have to get the phone,” he didn’t look upset.
Instead, she could see that he automatically understood. “I’m not going anywhere. Go see who that is.”
She pressed a quick—and grateful—kiss to his lips before rushing off to grab the phone from its cradle. “Hello, this is Mary.”
Yvette’s cheerful voice came through the line, and Mary had to smile at the girl’s rush of excited words. “Slow down, Yvette,” she said with a laugh. She grinned at Jack, who was in the kitchen filling her moka pot with water. “Start over at the beginning so that I make sure I get all the fantastic, exciting details straight. You were playing cards with your aunt and uncle in your Iowa farmhouse when you got a call about a last-minute shoot in Switzerland?”
Mary had just kicked off her shoes and was tucking her legs beneath her to relax on the couch when Yvette said the one name she’d never wanted to hear again, much less a name connected with one of her young model friends. “Romain?” His name followed a sharp intake of breath as Mary confirmed again, “You’re working with Romain Bollinger in Switzerland?”
Yvette continued to chatter in her ear, while Mary’s hand went numb on the phone as she was hit with a crystal-clear flashback to that horrible day she’d walked into his penthouse and found him in bed with a much younger model.
A young model who had looked an awful lot like Yvette…and one who hadn’t lasted any longer in his bed, or life, than Mary had. Models, they’d all learned the hard way, were totally dispensable objects to Romain. He was, in fact, a thousand times more faithful to his French chef than he was to any of the women he brought in through his revolving door.
On a night when Mary should have been basking in the glow of finding a man like Jack Sullivan, she was forcibly reminded of what a fool she’d been when it came to matters of the heart. She’d believed every one of Romain’s false promises and had been so desperate for someone to love her that she’d turned every one of his pretty lies and every single kiss into so much more than he had ever meant them to be.
Sitting on the couch speaking with Yvette on the phone while Jack was just feet away in t
he kitchen, Mary couldn’t stop her past and present from getting all tangled up again.
Jack and Romain, Mary and Yvette, love and loss, heartbreak and recovery…she simply couldn’t figure out how to separate them.
Belatedly, Mary realized that Jack had left the kitchen and was kneeling in front of her, her free hand in his. His eyes were full of concern and silent support.
A week ago she probably would have run, would have done anything she could to push him away and escape from feelings that were too strong and too frightening. But, amazingly, as she stared into his eyes and felt his thumb stroke over her palm, she actually felt her insides begin to untwist. Enough that she finally realized Yvette was saying her name over and over, asking if their connection was still all right or if they’d been cut off.
Working to refocus her thoughts on the bright, vibrant young woman on the phone, Mary knew she needed to warn Yvette to be careful with Romain. She wouldn’t be able to stand it if the fun, lively girl was drawn in by his false promises and ended up hurt and disillusioned. At the same time, however, Mary remembered all too well what it was like to be a headstrong young woman. Whenever anyone had told her to be cautious, there had been nothing more she’d wanted than to prove she could deal brilliantly with whatever risky situation had been thrown at her.
Very carefully, in as easy a voice as she could manage, Mary told Yvette, “I worked with Romain and his company a few years ago. The photo shoot was excellent, but—”
Oh, how she wished she could find exactly the right words to keep Yvette safe. Barring getting on a plane to Switzerland and watching over the photo shoot to make sure he didn’t try anything, it was simply impossible to play bodyguard to the young models who had come to mean so much to her. And wasn’t it true that they would soon come to hate her for hovering?