Life Shocks Romances Contemporary Romance Box Set

by Jade Kerrion

  “I’d rather you save and invest more, but it sounds like you need a hefty emergency fund on top of your regular clothing budget.”

  For a moment, she felt like a gawky thirteen-year-old again, trying hard—and failing—to impress the twenty-year-old star quarterback of the Stanford Cardinal. She managed a shaky breath. “You’re disappointed with me, aren’t you?”

  “I’m resigned. I’ve known you too long to be surprised or disappointed.”

  Maggie peered at him through her long eyelashes. She wasn’t certain his statement was a compliment, but he did not sound upset or angry. “So my investments are fine and my budget’s fine—”

  His eyes narrowed behind his glasses.

  “—almost fine,” she amended without missing a beat. “So, does that mean I can retire?”

  “Isn’t twenty-three a little too young to retire?”

  Her lips twisted into a faint frown. “Female models don’t have long careers. I’ve got two more years; five, if I’m lucky. I’ll need to marry before that.”

  “Excuse me?” He sounded genuinely confused. “What’s the connection between your career and marriage?”

  “I’ll need a plan for my future.”

  “And that’s your plan?” His brown eyes flashed. “Your plan for a stable financial future is marriage? Do you have any idea how many marriages end in divorce?”

  “Well…” She fought the compulsion to cringe. “But there’ll be alimony, right?”

  “You’re kidding.” If gazes could burn, his would have scalded her. “That’s your retirement plan?” He slammed down the computer screen, apparently all the better to glare at her. “Why the hell do you think I’m doing this?”

  Maggie’s mouth dropped open. When was the last time she’d seen him angry? Never. Drew never lost his cool. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m managing your money, growing your wealth, planning your retirement, so you don’t have to marry for money, so you don’t have to depend on anyone but yourself, ever. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, dumbstruck.

  “Damn it.” He raked his fingers through his hair. The spiky ends stood straight, giving him a boyish look. “What kind of eighteenth-century prehistoric bullshit were you buying into?”

  “Excuse me, but the eighteenth century isn’t considered prehistoric. Technically.”

  He glared at her.

  She concealed a smile. How could she have known that the stern and humorless Drew Jackson would actually be sweetly protective on a rant?

  “Is that why you’ve dated nine different men in two weeks?” he asked.

  Nine? Maggie tried to count them off in her head. She likely double counted some of them and missed others, but Drew’s count of nine was awfully close to her own. Darn, she had not realized she had been that active. “They weren’t serious.”

  “Really?”

  Maggie winced. How could he make her feel so small, shallow, and cheap with a single word? “It’s just…what we do.”

  “We? You mean celebrities?”

  “No, I mean it’s just a social thing people do. They date others.” Damn it, he had forced her on the defensive. Her chin tilted up. “I don’t have to justify what I do, especially not to you.”

  His eyes widened, as if she had struck him.

  Maggie opened her mouth, an instinctive apology on her lips, but he looked away. A muscle twitched in his smooth cheek. “No, you’re right,” he conceded. “You don’t owe me an explanation. Sorry, I was out of line.”

  “No. No, I—” She stared at him. His deliberately expressionless face made her chest ache. She knew him well; the blanker his expression, the more he was trying to conceal.

  But what was he trying to hide? How much he despised her? Oh, God, she couldn’t bear it if he thought of her as a slut, or worse, a snobbish slut. “I…I don’t just date celebrities. I mean, I date normal people too.”

  “When was the last time you did?”

  “Uh…” She couldn’t pin down a name, let alone a time or a place, but surely she must have dated a normal person recently. However, the only person she could think of was Greg Jackson, Drew’s younger brother. Greg had been seventeen then, she thirteen. “I…”

  Drew snorted under his breath. “Guess you haven’t.” He shoved his computer notebook into his bag. “I’ll rework your budgets and send you an updated spreadsheet. Stick to it this time, and I’ll see you next month. You take care, all right?” He pushed to his feet, his movements measured and careful, and then turned away.

  “Wait!” She reached for his hand. She could not let him walk away, not when the glimmer of hurt in his eyes made her feel like she had crushed that fragile connection between them. “Can…can we have dinner?”

  “What?” His brow furrowed. “Here? Tonight?”

  “No, no.” She had finally struck up the nerve to ask him out; she would be damned if they had stale sandwiches for dinner. She needed time to plan. More importantly, she needed to find a way to avoid the spotlight. Her friendship with Drew was too precious to expose to the fickle cruelty of public scrutiny. “My place, next week. How about Saturday?”

  He stared at her as if trying to ferret out her reasons for the spontaneous invitation. “You don’t have to date me to prove a point. You know I’m seeing someone.”

  “I know,” Maggie said, and tried not to hate the pretty and excessively talented Felicity Rivers. “It’s just dinner. Old friends. That kind of thing.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “No, don’t think about it at all. You’ll insult me if you say no. Dinner between friends shouldn’t have to be complicated.”

  “It shouldn’t, but it is.” Drew released his breath in a silent sigh. “Fine, dinner next Saturday.”

  “Wonderful!” Maggie grinned. “You won’t regret it.”

  The look on his face, however, said he already did.

  He walked away, and Maggie realized he had not even smiled at her. Not once in the entire hour. She stared down at her $4,000 Armani dress. Worthless one-off. Damn it.

  On the other hand, a warm thrill of delight surged through her. She finally had a date with Drew Jackson, and it had only been ten years in the making.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Maggie stood in the foyer and tried to survey her three-bedroom condominium through fresh eyes. It had to be perfect, absolutely perfect, for Drew.

  The cleaning crew had come through earlier that day. Maggie had not managed the timing quite right. The chef she hired had not appreciated sharing the kitchen with the vacuum cleaner, but Maggie hastily negotiated a fragile peace, and all was well.

  The chef had departed ten minutes earlier, leaving behind an exquisitely prepared dinner on the granite countertop of the kitchen island. No pork, she had told the chef—Drew hated the smell and taste of pork—but otherwise, the chef was to spare no expense, and he hadn’t. The arugula salad, topped with beef carpaccio, shaved reggiano parmesan, truffled oil, and spicy aioli, would launch the meal on an elegant note, followed by a delicately flavored rack of lamb, garnished with fresh mint and thyme leaves and cherry tomatoes. The chef swore by the Cru Classé Bordeaux, which she had poured into a decanter. The dessert, milk chocolate crémeux with sesame crème anglaise, chilled in the refrigerator.

  The scent of fall spices—pumpkin and cinnamon—wafted through her condominium, subtle enough to not interfere with the fragrance of the meal, but enough to set the mood. Lyrical piano music set against the soothing sounds of a waterfall flowed from hidden Bose speakers.

  Maggie had never taken such care with a date before, and it had included another one-off expense—a flowing turquoise dress that hugged her curves in all the right places, the overall effect sensual rather than sexual. Her pale lipstick conceded attention to her smoky eyes, exactly as she knew Drew preferred. Her fragrance was a classic—Beautiful by Estee Lauder. Drew had reacted to it once, inhaling deeply when she’d worn it around him. If she were any less attuned to him, she
would have missed his subtle reaction; a faint smile had flickered over his lips.

  Maggie pressed a hand to her chest; she could feel her heart racing like a Ferrari on a Formula One track. She huffed out a breath and tried not to hyperventilate. It simply would not work with the sophisticated image she wanted to project. She wanted, needed in fact, Drew to see her as more than a thirteen-year-old nuisance, one that he had apparently been relieved to put on a one-way plane trip to Milan.

  She had not seen Drew for four years after that; her modeling career kept her in Milan from the age of fourteen through eighteen. She had then returned to the United States to attend Parsons The New School for Design in New York City. Drew had relocated from California to New York City shortly thereafter, and their friendship had picked up where it had left off—as if she were still only thirteen. He played the frequently indifferent, occasionally protective big brother role well enough, but she was tired of him acting as if they were blood-related when they were not.

  She had not had any luck convincing him otherwise even though five years had passed since they had both moved to New York City, the passing of time marked by their monthly financial meetings. Tonight, however, was the first hint that he might be willing to step beyond the roles they had defined for themselves ten years earlier.

  Right on time, the doorbell rang. Maggie’s chin tilted up. Mature. Elegant. Sophisticated. She swung the lock back and opened the door. “Hello, Drew.”

  His lips curved into the faint smile that always made her heart race. “Maggie.” He held out a brown paper bag.

  The scent was unmistakable and irresistible. “Pork buns!” She snatched the bag from his hand. “Thank you! Are these from Jade Palace, or the other place you usually get them?”

  “Jade Palace.”

  Her perfectly tweezed eyebrows drew together. “Chinatown is way out of your way.”

  “Thought you might like them.”

  “I do. Thank you.” She brushed a kiss against his cheek and felt him inhale. Did he recognize the scent of her perfume?

  He must have; his smile deepened in response. He looked both casual and at ease in a white shirt and dark gray pants. The navy blue blazer was a nice touch; he had obviously taken extra care in dressing for the evening, which helped Maggie feel better about the $4,499—and it was on sale—she had spent on her dress.

  She stepped aside. “Come on in.” Maggie led the way into the kitchen and tucked her pork buns into the microwave for safekeeping. “Can I offer you a glass of wine now, or would you rather have it with your meal?”

  Drew stared at the elaborate display of food on the island. “Quite a spread. Who cooked it?”

  “Henri Garcon, from the International Culinary Center,” Maggie said, unoffended by Drew’s assumption that she had nothing to do with the meal preparation. She knew, as he did, that she could burn water. “He swears it will be fantastic.”

  “It smells great.”

  His simple compliment widened her smile into a grin. “Shall we start with salad?”

  “Sure, but first, I have something for you.” He held out a wrapped gift that she had not even noticed in his hand because she had been too caught up playing the perfect hostess.

  Her eyes brightened as she reached for the package. It was her first non-birthday and non-Christmas gift from Drew. Chalk it up as another win on a night of memorable firsts. “Can I open it now?”

  He shrugged, which she took to mean “yes.” Maggie tore the wrapper off and stared at the print-on-metal of a lovely winter background on the far side of a wood-paneled windowpane framed on either side by dark blue curtains. The silver inscription on the wood panel, in a handwriting-like font, read, “I lost the view when I found you.”

  The picture itself seemed familiar, although she could not recall where she had seen it. It was probably a famous photograph in an art museum. The words were poetic but made no sense.

  She shrugged it off. It was probably something an artist, high on hallucinogens, had concocted to screw with the minds of normal people. “Thank you, Drew. It’s lovely.” She walked away from him to set the photograph down on the sideboard in the dining room and angled it to catch the gleam of the overhead spotlights. What an odd gift. Pretty, though. Maggie turned back to Drew.

  He stood in front of her fridge, his attention on the pencil sketches held in place with magnets. “Did you do these?”

  Darn, she had forgotten to put them away. “Yes, I did. I was just messing around with a few ideas.”

  “They’re wonderful, Maggie.”

  Her eyes brightened. “Really?” She moved to stand beside him. “That’s a sundress. It’ll be gorgeous in white, with a bright cyan trim. The other one’s—” She bit down on her lower lip. She couldn’t admit to Drew that she had been designing her wedding gown while dreaming of him waiting for her at the end of the aisle. “—an evening gown. Lace and satin. Dark blue, I think, with black lace,” she added, proud of that little obfuscation.

  “Cream,” Drew said. “With white lace.”

  Maggie blinked. He had described the dress exactly as she had envisioned it. To cover her confusion, she looked toward the kitchen island. “Are you ready to eat?”

  The food, as Henri had promised, was fantastic, but Drew’s company made the evening exceptional. Maggie could display her sparkling personality on a whim; it was part of her job to be social and lively at all the right times. She knew it was often harder for Drew to feel at ease in public, but that evening, he was relaxed, perhaps because he was not in a crowd.

  It was just the two of them, enjoying a quiet meal as she had promised. The conversations on his job, her job, his friends, and her friends flowed easily over appetizers and the entrée until she spoke about Westchester, their hometown, an hour north of New York City. “Do you ever think about going back?” she asked.

  “To visit, perhaps. Not to live.”

  “I didn’t realize you were so attached to Manhattan.”

  He chuckled, the sound low and amused. “I’m not.”

  “I thought you were happy in San Francisco. Why did you move to New York?”

  Drew shrugged. “Seemed like the right thing to do at that time.”

  “You ever miss living in California?”

  He nodded. “Loved the beach and the mountains. I even liked the fog that rolled in from the sea and turned the streets into a lighted fairyland.”

  Fairyland. She had never expected to hear that word from his mouth. Maggie smiled. Was there a poet lurking in Drew? “I didn’t peg you for a surfer dude.”

  Drew laughed as he set his fork down next to his empty plate and reached for his glass of wine. “Never surfed before. Probably never will.”

  “Will you ever move back?” Maggie asked. She ignored the little twinge of panic she suddenly felt at the thought of Drew moving away from her.

  “No reason to. Everything I have is here now.”

  “Like your job and Felicity?” Damn. She winced internally. Her voice had grated slightly on Felicity’s name.

  Drew’s eyes locked on her face. Maggie fought the shiver that raced down her spine at the intensity of his gaze. “Like my job and my friends,” he said simply.

  He did not elaborate further, but the omission seemed telling. What was he really trying to say? And why was she behaving like a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl, analyzing every single thing he said for some hidden meaning? Ugh. They were both adults. Couldn’t they communicate like adults?

  Perhaps he was communicating like an adult—with adult needs and desires. Confusion flooded her. She shot to her feet and turned to conceal her sudden blush. “I’ll get the dessert.” She retreated into the kitchen. Oh, God, she thought with disgust. I can flirt my way into dates with Hollywood’s top actors, but my financial advisor hints that he’s staying in New York to be with me, and my brain goes blank.

  No wonder Drew hadn’t been interested in her ten years ago. She had been an awkward, tongue-tied, starstruck teenager. Since
then, she had gained a little weight and a whole lot of curves, but apparently not much else had changed.

  She prepared the dessert according to Henri’s written instructions, carefully pouring the chilled crème anglaise over the crémeux, and then garnishing with black sesame seeds, lime zest, and fleur de sel. Her presentation looked professional, if she dared say so herself—the perfect conclusion to a flawless evening. She carried the dessert glasses out on a tray and offered one to Drew. She took her seat and looked up, startled, as something buzzed. “What’s that?”

  “My phone.” Drew pulled his smartphone out of his pocket. He stared at the screen and frowned.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I don’t know yet.” He hesitated.

  Maggie stared at him. Alarm pricked her. “Drew…”

  “You’re trending on Twitter.”

  “Why?” was her first question. Her next question, the one she did not voice, was, “And how do you know?” She peeked over his shoulder as he clicked on the linked article. Her eyebrows drew together. He’s got a Google search on me? Isn’t that like stalking?

  The hyperlink launched a YouTube video. As Elvis Costello crooned the words to “She,” a montage of Maggie’s modeling photographs flashed across the screen in time to the music. Ever so often, the image cut to a good-looking young man in a tuxedo, lip-synching, his arms extended. The expression in his eyes alternated between a lost puppy and a mischievous marmoset. As Costello’s voice rose in the final words of the song, the man spoke. “Help me score five million ‘Likes’ in five hours, and Marguerite Ferrara won’t be able to say no when I invite her to my ten-year high school reunion.” He grinned, flashing white, straight teeth. “Help a guy score the girl of his dreams.”

  Maggie snorted, amused yet unmoved. “Who does he think he is?”

  Drew glanced at the name on the account. “His name is Tyler Lamarck.” His shoulders stiffened. “And he already has more than four and a half million likes on that video.”

  “What?” Maggie searched for the timestamp. The video had been posted two hours earlier. Five million likes within five hours was a foregone conclusion. She snorted. “I’m not going to get blackmailed into going out with a random stranger.”