The worst part of it was that Adam hadn’t asked her to change or lie.
Nope. That was all her.
The phone rang twice before Mauricio picked up. “Jane, my love. What can I do for you, bella?”
Mauricio had worked for the W for as long as Jane had been booking rooms for Mike. He always went above and beyond to make sure the Congressman, Jane, and whoever else was in their party had everything they needed.
“Hi, Mauricio. Actually, I was trying to book a suite for Nikki and Mike for this Wednesday night—”
“Oh no, there is a large tech convention happening in town, and this week’s been booked solid for months.”
In Jane’s world, that was good and bad news. Good news: it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d tried to book the room on Saturday. It’d already been sold out. Bad news: she’d just told Nikki she’d already taken care of it.
Liars never prospered.
“Okay, well, thanks any—” Jane was trying her best to suppress the disappointment in her voice when Mauricio interrupted her.
“Now hold on just a second. All is not necessarily lost.”
Jane could hear the melodic sounds of fingers flying across a keyboard, only this time, it wasn’t hers—it was Mauricio’s.
“Oookay, I have juggled a few of our guests and the Extreme Wow Suite for this Wednesday night is now open.” Pride flooded Mauricio’s voice at his announcement.
“Oh my gosh! Thank you so much, Mauricio!” Jane exclaimed.
“Will you need any other accommodations?”
“Oh shoot. Actually, I’ll need two additional rooms.” Jane had almost forgotten about getting herself and Adam rooms. “But if it’s too much trouble, don’t worry. I can—”
“Okay, two Fabulous rooms for one night. Done. I’m e-mailing you the confirmation now.”
Jane let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you again, Mauricio. You are my hero! I owe you!”
“Nonsense. I’m just doing my job.” Mauricio gave that standard response whenever Jane tried to pay him a compliment. “See you in a couple of days, beautiful! Ciao.”
“Ciao,” Jane repeated before setting her phone down.
A smile pulled at her lips as she clicked over to her e-mail and saw the confirmation sitting as pretty as could be in her inbox.
Crisis averted. Thank you, Mauricio!
All she had to do was proof the proposal once more and press send. Easy peasy.
She closed the screen. But when the browser window disappeared, her desktop appeared.
Hmm. She scanned her toolbar, searching for the icon of her document. When she didn’t see it, she pulled up the folder she’d stored it in. Nothing. Had she accidentally deleted it? Her finger scrolled the ball on her mouse to move over the trash. Right clicking, she saw that it was empty.
The panic that had risen up a few minutes before was back, and it had multiplied.
“No, no, no. This can’t be happening!” She breathed. “Where is it?”
*
“Did you have fun Saturday?” Vivien asked, glancing over her shoulder as she prepared Adam’s drink.
“Yeah,” Adam said, trying to walk the fine line between friendly and flirtatious. He had no problem flirting, but he absolutely did not want to lead anyone on, especially in a town this small.
“I didn’t see you tearing it up on the dance floor.” Her left brow rose as she made the astute observation.
“Two left feet.” Adam grinned as he went the self-deprecating route. It was the easiest path to take in this conversation, even though it was far from true.
He’d had to learn to dance to prepare for one of his first assignments in the field. It was the one the CIA had recruited him for when he was stationed in Iraq. That first dance lesson was also when he’d met Alexis.
Adam still couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that that was a decade ago.
“I seriously doubt that. You look like you’ve got some moves.” Vivien winked as she handed Adam his coffee.
“Thanks,” he spoke as he nodded, “for the drink and the misplaced belief in my dancing skills.”
“Any time,” Vivien smiled.
Although Adam could appreciate how pretty she was, it didn’t do anything for him. Even though, if he were going to get involved with someone, Vivien would be a much better choice than Jane. She was a keep-things-casual, fun, no-strings type, and he wasn’t just assuming that. That had come straight from the redheaded barista’s mouth. Which was exactly what Adam would have wanted if he’d been looking. Which he wasn’t.
Jane was the last thing he needed. She had commitment written all over her. Not to mention Adam hated how he felt around her. He hated it because he actually felt…a lot. That wasn’t a road he was willing to go down again any time soon.
The small chimes above the glass door of Brewed Awakenings sounded as Adam walked outside. The sun was hanging low so there was a beautiful orange tint in the evening sky. Adam paused, to take in the breathtaking vista before heading back into the office. It had only been a moment before his phone buzzed loudly.
Grabbing it, he saw that it was Declan. Adam knew that his friend had news that, whether or not he wanted to, he needed to hear.
“Hey, man,” he answered.
“Do you want the bad news or the bad news?” Declan asked.
It wasn’t his favorite way to start a conversation, but he played along, figuring he might as well get it over with. “Bad news.”
“She’s refusing to sign or vacate until she sees you,” Declan explained.
“Impossible,” Adam stated. He was on the opposite side of the country, and even if he hadn’t been, he had zero desire to sit down and listen to Alexis try to manipulate the situation so that she came out looking like the innocent party.
She was a lot of things, but innocent wasn’t one of them.
“I’m trying to make that clear. It’s not going as smoothly as I’d hoped.”
Adam recognized the frustrated sound in his friend’s voice. Alexis wasn’t an easy woman to say no to. She wasn’t aggressive. She just wore people down to the point where they gave her what she wanted.
“The good news is, once she’s signed, everything will be legal within forty-eight hours.”
“I thought you said it could take up to six months.” Adam wanted this to be over yesterday, but what his friend was saying didn’t seem realistic, either.
“I worked my magic. That’s why you pay me the big bucks,” his friend teased. “Plus, Alexis isn’t the only one with connections.”
“Okay, man. Keep me updated.”
“Will do, homie,” Declan said, using the term they used to call each other when they’d been punk-ass kids in the system.
“Later days,” Adam volleyed back with their preferred parting line as teens, before putting his phone back in his pocket.
A smile spread across his lips as he made the short walk back to the office. Adam was glad he and Declan had kept in touch. From what he’d seen, that wasn’t the norm for kids who came from the system. They’d beaten the odds—in more ways than one.
Chapter 14
‡
As Adam gripped the office door, a feeling he didn’t often experience—but had several times since arriving in Hope Falls—swept through him like a cool breeze on a hot day. Nostalgia. Not that he’d ever want to go back to the hell he’d lived through as a teen, but nostalgia for the days when things had been simpler. When his only worry had been how to sneak downstairs in the group home after curfew to play video games and not get caught.
Things might not have been easy for him then, but they’d been simpler. However, when he stepped inside, his eyes landed on the definition of complicated.
“Where are you? I know you’re here! You have to be here!” Jane’s voice rose with each word. She was standing at her desk, her eyes glued to her screen as she clicked her mouse furiously.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, taking two long strides across the room.
“I lost it. I lost it,” she repeated, lifting her hands to her face and shaking her head.
Adam wasn’t sure if she was answering him or even aware of his presence. There was a good possibility that she was talking to herself.
“Lost what?” He intentionally used an authoritative tone, hoping it would get him answers faster.
“The proposal. I lost it. I clicked to go make reservations and then it was gone.” She sounded desperate. Hopeless.
Thankfully, Adam was confident she wouldn’t be for long.
Stepping around her desk, he gently moved her to the side so that he could go to work.
“It’s not there,” she said as she sat back in her chair with a sniff. “I looked everywhere. It just disappeared.”
“Why didn’t you back it up?” He regretted asking the question as soon as he saw the crumbled look on her face. He wasn’t trying to be an asshole, but that was exactly how he was coming off. “It’s okay. It’ll be fine.”
“Great.” Her voice cracked, and she sounded anything but convinced that everything would actually be fine.
Tears were starting to fall down her face. Without missing a beat, he grabbed a tissue from the desktop and handed it to her. When she reached for it, her body shifted and her leg brushed against his. As with everything when it came to Jane, it affected him a lot more than it should have.
Complicated.
His entire body was so acutely aware of her nearness that he was having a hard—literally hard—time focusing on retrieving the missing proposal. It also didn’t help that the entire space smelled like the perfect combination of fresh, flowery, and fruity. The scent was Jane’s, which turned him on like a light switch.
“Is this it?” he asked after finding what he thought she was looking for.
“Oh my God!” Her eyes widened as she looked at the screen. Her entire face lit up like she’d just won the lottery. She reached for her mouse and her face was a mix of wonder and disbelief.
A disproportionate amount of pride swelled in his chest. What he’d done was basic. Very basic. But Jane’s reaction made him want to puff his chest out, pound on it like Tarzan, and swing on vines to take her back to his cave.
Me Tarzan, you Jane.
“Holy… What the… How did you…?” she asked as she scrolled through the forty-page document.
“Just have to know where to look.”
Adam was happy that she was happy, but if he stood this close to her for another minute, he would no longer trust himself not to pull her into his arms and do something he was sure they’d both regret.
Before he turned to walk away, he found himself in the exact position he was trying to avoid like the plague. Jane’s arms flung around his neck, the supple curves of her body pressed firmly against him.
“Thank you so much,” she murmured against his neck.
Adam’s situation got harder when the gentle touch of Jane’s lips brushed against his skin as she spoke.
Gratitude, he tried to tell his solider downstairs, which was standing at attention. That was all this embrace was about. Jane was happy that her file had been saved. Nothing more.
His arms remained at his sides while she squeezed him tight once more before lowering. That should’ve been the end of the interaction. That should’ve been the end of their contact. That should’ve been all she wrote.
It wasn’t.
The second Adam no longer felt Jane’s body against his, one arm wrapped around her lower back and returned her to the sweet spot she’d just been in. The other hand cradled the back of her neck, tilting her head up, giving him complete access to her mouth.
The confusion in Jane’s eyes morphed into awareness as he slowly lowered his head. He felt her sharp intake of breath as he watched her irises dilate just before he captured her mouth with his.
The second their lips met, arousal spiked through Adam’s body, rushing through his veins with tsunami-like power. He brushed his mouth back and forth against hers, pausing only to pull first her bottom and then her top lip between his. With each sweep, his body demanded more.
When his fingers tightened on her hip, pulling her even closer to his body, Jane moaned and encircled her arms around him again, this time threading her fingers through the hair at the base of his neck. Her body relaxed, molding perfectly to his as she parted her lips in a silent invitation.
That was all the encouragement Adam needed. He slipped his tongue between her full lips, and she met him with hers. He massaged her tongue with his own, licking, teasing, and exploring her mouth with knowledge he shouldn’t have. Then Jane tightened her fingers in his hair as she leaned her head back and rolled her hips against his. A weighted need so fierce that his knees threatened to buckle crashed over him.
This didn’t feel like a first kiss. It felt like a kiss between two people who knew each other’s bodies, desires, kisses.
This kiss felt like home. What Adam had always imagined “home” would feel like, at least. This felt right.
However, somewhere in the back of Adam’s mind, he knew that this was wrong on several levels. He shouldn’t be kissing Jane at all, much less at work. And if they didn’t stop soon, this kiss was going to turn into a whole lot more.
Reaching deep down, he called on every ounce of self-control he had and fought against every cell in his body’s plea to pick Jane up, put her on the desk, and take this encounter further. He didn’t want it to be over. Knowing that there was no other choice, he reluctantly broke their kiss.
Not yet able to pull away from her completely, Adam rested his head on her forehead. Their labored breaths mingled as they both held each other in silence.
Adam was so focused on how powerful what had transpired between them had been that he didn’t hear the front door of the office open.
“Ooooh la, la! Wally, it looks like we interrupted some afternoon delight,” an elderly woman’s voice said, snapping Adam out of his lust-ridden state.
The surprise of people being in his space without him knowing caused Adam to act out of sheer instinct. He spun around, facing the unknown voice, and positioned Jane behind him to shield her from any possible perceived danger. When he saw the intruders, he immediately knew that his knee-jerk reaction had been overkill.
A man and woman who looked to be in their mid-eighties were holding bags and rolling suitcases. The man was wearing a Yankees hat and the woman had a Red Sox hat on. They also had on matching sweatshirts that read California or Bust.
“Nana! Papa!” Jane exclaimed as she moved from behind him before he could speak.
He was still taking in these two people, who seemed like very colorful characters.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as she threw herself between them in a three-way hug. While they were embracing, Jane’s tone changed. “Wait! Is something wrong? What’s wrong?”
He heard the tremor in her voice, and it tore his heart in two. How had this woman managed to get so deep under his skin that he felt her worry in his soul?
“We came to see you and meet your beau.”
She has a boyfriend! Adam froze. He could’ve sworn she’d said that she didn’t have a boyfriend. Damn. Now, that kiss had been a bad idea for even more reasons.
“Oh…um….well…actually…” Jane was stuttering and stumbling over her words. Which, although it was not unusual for her, seemed even more stumbly and stuttery than normal. When she turned towards him, her face was bright red.
Adam’s first thought was that she must have been embarrassed to have been caught kissing another man by her grandparents when she had a boyfriend. He hated that he’d put her in that position and was working on a plan of action when the older gentleman stepped forward and held his hand out.
“You must be Adam. Jane’s told us so much about you. Nice to meet you, son.”
Not a whole lot surprised Adam, but the fact that this man knew who he was shocked him.
“Yes, sir. Nice to meet you, too.” Adam shook t
he man’s hand, assuming he was Jane’s grandfather, Walter.
He remembered her talking about them when they’d had lunch on Friday. She’d said that they were more like parents to her than grandparents and that Dolores and Walter Marshall had stepped in and raised her after her parents’ tragic accident.
Turning his attention to Dolores, Adam extended his hand. “Ma’am, it’s so nice to—”
Before Adam was able to get his full greeting out, he found himself in one hell of a bear hug.
“Oh, Adam, it’s so good to finally meet you!” Jane’s grandmother burst out. She then squeezed him tighter than anyone had in…well, ever, making a loud squealing noise before releasing him.
Then Adam was in for his second surprise of the day. Dolores cupped his face in her hands, which were ice cold.
Tears formed in her eyes as she said, “I’m just so happy that my Jane has finally found someone as amazing as you.”
Adam’s eyes cut up to Jane, who was standing just behind her grandparents. She was white as a ghost, swaying a little. There was no way he’d let her fall. Not on his watch.
Smiling down at Dolores, Adam smoothly moved out of her grasp and stepped beside Jane, wrapping his arm around her for support. She was shaking beside him.
He wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but all he wanted to do was pick Jane up and take her someplace where they could be alone and he could apologize for the kiss—not that he was genuinely sorry. Then he would tell her that everything was going to be okay. He would take care of whatever was upsetting her. He would fix it.
He would do anything to protect the woman beside him.
Shit. When did that happen?
Chapter 15
‡
“Jane, honey.” Nana’s face grew concerned as she rushed over to her. “You look as white as Casper. Do you need to sit down? Are you feeling all right? Are you pregnant?”
“No!” Jane yelled. Her hands defensively rose. “I am not pregnant!”
“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod!”
How was this happening?!
Jane wanted to die. She wanted the earth to open and swallow her up. She wanted to disappear. She wanted to be anywhere but here.
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