Dear Prince Charming
Page 27
Their gazes caught in a stream of moonlight. “Room service,” they both said at the same time, then laughed.
Jack ordered while she slipped off to the bathroom. Seeing their clothing strewn carelessly on the tiled floor should have embarrassed her. Instead, it brought back a wave of memories. The way he’d teased her, the way he’d taken her. And the gentle, almost protective way he’d treated her afterward. She sighed and splashed water on her face, not sure she wanted to look at herself in the mirror.
She groaned when she did. Her cheeks and nose were flushed, her neck all red from his five o’clock shadow. Her still-damp hair was a wild nest and her makeup was completely gone. Thoroughly ravished, yes. “Ravishing . . . hardly.” Their bags hadn’t been unpacked, so there wasn’t much she could do about it at the moment. She raked her fingers through her hair, but it was just dry enough that she was only making it worse. Sighing in defeat, she wrapped herself in one of the hotel’s fluffy white robes, hoping Jack had left the bedroom dark. Morning would come soon enough and the cold light of day would likely end whatever it was they thought they’d begun. And though she knew she’d already gone way too far over the line, she wasn’t in any hurry to end it sooner than she had to.
As it turned out, Jack had left the bedroom dark. Mostly. He’d lit two tall candles that had come with the room-service cart. And there was soft music filtering in from somewhere. But she didn’t have time to appreciate the ambience he was striving to achieve. She was too busy watching the way his body moved as he shoved the heavy love seat away from the wall. He’d pulled on gym shorts, and she noticed his suitcase was spilled open on the bed. “What are you doing?”
“Being romantic.”
“Ah.”
He paused in his manly endeavors to glance her way. “I realize Prince Charming would be smooth about this and all, but some of us regular guys have to work at it a little.”
Smiling, she folded her arms and leaned against the bathroom doorway. “I think you’re very charming without even trying.”
He’d gone back to grunting and shoving. “I wish I’d known that before I started this little endeavor. Jesus, what did they build this thing out of, anyway? Cement?”
She went over to the other end of the couch. “Let me help you. Exactly where are we pushing this?”
He nodded behind him. “There. In front of the window. No,” he corrected when she began to swing her end around. “Facing the window. For the view.” He stopped and moved over to the heavy curtains, pulling them the rest of the way open, sheers and all.
Valerie walked up behind him. “Impressive,” she said, looking out over the city. They were high enough to see both a good deal of the area and the night sky, and be above most of the street noise. She turned to him. “Very nice.” She was more touched by the effort than she wanted to be. And yet she was hopelessly gone, too hopeless to fight it.
“I thought we could sit here and eat. Unless you’d rather sit out—”
“No, this is perfect.” And it was. Too perfect. Who’d have thought Jack would be a romantic? Or even try? From the corner of her eye she saw the beads of sweat trickling down the side of his face and swallowed the urge to laugh. Probably not Jack, she couldn’t help but think.
He tugged her against his hips as they looked out the window. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, really. You’re not exactly how I’d thought you’d be. But then I guess . . . well, I guess I don’t know you well enough to judge.” But I want to. She managed to keep that last part to herself. Not that it helped much. She thought about the way Brice had looked at Eric . . . and suspected she was close to looking at Jack the same way.
He didn’t push, or respond. Instead, he shifted her away from the window, and tugged the couch the rest of the way, before rolling the cart to one end. “Madam, your table is ready,” he said in perfect French.
“Pretty decent accent,” she noted. “Do you speak many languages?”
She curled up on one end of the couch and he flipped a linen napkin across her lap. He slid the coffee table into the narrow space between the window and the couch, and laid out their food before taking a seat at the other end of the short love seat. Her toes brushed his thigh and he reached out to massage her ankle. It was casually done, and yet so natural, as if he touched her all the time. Which is what made her heart catch. Jesus, she’d better get a grip, and fast.
“I pick up some wherever I go. Enough to order food and get directions, anyway. You?”
“I’m decent with French and Spanish, a handful of Italian. That’s pretty much my limit.”
They took the lids off their plates and spent the next ten or so minutes eating in surprisingly companionable silence. Eventually, Valerie leaned back into the corner of the cushions and sipped her wine.
“Food okay?” Jack asked.
She nodded, liking the way his hair dried all wavy and messy, yet still looked sexy as hell. His body was a good one. Not overly muscle-bound, but lean and defined. She’d loved every minute she’d had her hands on it. All over it. “I’m not so much hungry for food at the moment.”
He glanced over at her as he cut into the last piece of his steak. “No?”
She smiled and shook her head, sipped her wine.
“Hmm,” he said, his mouth kicking up as he chewed, swallowed. “Dessert, then?”
“Later, maybe,” she said, not realizing she was going to broach the subject until the words were already coming out. “I’m more interested in learning more about you.” She hadn’t known how he’d react, but she’d suspected he might turn a bit wary, perhaps even close himself off. Knowing what little she did about him, she knew he wouldn’t be curt about it. No, Jack would more than likely tease her on to another subject, make her forget whatever it was he didn’t want to talk about.
So he surprised her by using the linen napkin to dab at his mouth, then settled comfortably back in the cushions with his glass of wine, turning so he could rest his back on the armrest, and tangle his legs with hers. His gaze was direct, and though he was very relaxed, there was a definite intensity in his eyes. “Like what?”
Of course her mind went completely blank. She didn’t want to get too personal—well, she did, but not right off the bat—and she wasn’t sure where that line was drawn at the moment. “How did you get started in sports journalism?”
He just looked at her. “You mean, other than what I’ve told every reporter who’s asked?”
“I know the story about helping that girl—”
“Candy Kenner.” He said it with a sigh, then lifted his glass in a mock toast.
Valerie just rolled her eyes. “—on your high-school newspaper write an article about the football team. Surely there was more to it than that.”
“If you’re expecting me to kiss and tell on what I did with Candy—”
“No, I don’t want your sordid high-school adventures, especially with a girl named Candy.”
“She was sweet.”
Valerie groaned and shook her head. “Stick to sportswriting.”
“I’d be more than happy to,” he said with such heartfelt sincerity that it tugged at her heart. She and Eric had turned his life upside down. How easy it was to forget that during her all-about-me moments.
“But you went to college on a partial athletic scholarship and majored in physical education,” Valerie said, pushing onward, not wanting to dwell on the real world at the moment. Beyond making sure tonight was all about him. About them. “Obviously, Candy didn’t alter your entire life’s path.”
“Well, yes and no. She was my first love . . . and my first, you know.”
“Ah. Well, that is special, I guess. Or it must be for some people, anyway.”
Jack grinned. “Your first time wasn’t so hot, huh?”
“Apparently I shouldn’t have been looking for love on the yearbook committee.”
“The football team wouldn’t have been any guarantee, either,” he said with a laugh.
Jack slowly sipped his wine. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Let’s just say I was in my experimental phase with finding myself. I think I scared most guys off.” She laughed. “No, I know I did. I wasn’t too concerned with being attractive to the opposite sex. While most girls were twirling their hair and popping gum outside the boys’ locker room after practice, I was in the art hall, immersed in fashion and the world of glamour and figuring out what the next hot runway trend would be.”
“Hey, guys dig models. Even teenage guys aren’t that stupid.”
“Well, let’s just say I was usually a trend or two ahead of myself. And though I was gangly and scrawny, I never really managed to make a good hanger.”
He nudged her leg with his toes. “But you showed them in the end, huh? Look at you now.”
She laughed outright. “Oh, yeah, I sure did.”
He cocked his head. “What’s that supposed to mean? You know, you’ve commented several times about this being your last chance. Eric mentioned that, too. What does that mean? You seem pretty damn good at your job as far as I can tell. You’re an incredibly capable woman.”
It surprised her how much his opinion mattered. So naturally, she had to push it away. Dangerous territory. “I thought we were talking about you.”
He smiled over the rim of his glass. “Were we?”
“Okay, fine. I’ll tell you all about my failures, lay myself bare, then you must reveal something personal and awkward.”
“What failures? Somehow, you don’t strike me as someone who would tolerate failing. At anything.”
She lowered her glass to her lap. “I can’t decide whether to thank you for what is perhaps the best compliment I’ve ever received. Or laugh hysterically and say, ‘Boy do I have you fooled.’ ”
“Come on,” he said seriously. “What do you define as failing, then? We probably have different ideas on—”
“I’m thirty years old. I’ve been fixated on the glamour industry since I was nine, and working in some form of it since I was sixteen. And I’ve never held a job more than eighteen months.”
He didn’t try to hide his shock. “Meaning, you got canned? Or bored? Bored isn’t failing; it’s just admitting you haven’t found what’s right for you yet.”
“It wasn’t always boredom. And it’s taken me twenty years to find what’s right for me.”
“Being a publicist?”
She nodded. “Being part of this world is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. And I’ve done and tried pretty much every job you can imagine. I did recognize early on that I wasn’t cut out to wear fashion, design fashion, or even take pictures of fashion. So I ventured into the world of fashion magazines, and hitched my star there. Then, after another dozen years, I was humbly forced to admit I wasn’t cut out to write about fashion, assist those who write about fashion, edit, lay out, or market fashion. In fact, I was pretty much at the brink of giving up altogether.” She paused, staring down into her wineglass as she ran her finger around the rim. “Have you ever wanted anything really badly? So badly you just refused to believe it was totally wrong for you?”
She glanced up, and he held her gaze for the longest time. The shift in the tension was subtle at first, then grew in intensity the longer he stared directly at her. Then, very quietly, he said, “Until recently, I would have said no.”
She didn’t know quite how to interpret that, or what to say. And she was just chicken enough not to try. “Well, that was me and fashion. It caught my full attention early on, and I don’t even really know why. But it’s a fascination that just refuses to die.”
“I think I understand that more than you realize,” he murmured.
Her body quickened at the heat in his voice, the surety. It made her nervous as hell to think he could be talking about . . . what she thought he might be talking about. And secretly, it thrilled her at the same time. “Anyway,” she said quickly, “I stumbled across this opportunity, and almost the instant after I talked my way into it—”
“Meaning, you’ve never done this before.”
“Meaning, I’ve never had proper training for anything I’ve done before. But I’m observant, a quick learner, and willing to work hard.”
“So, you’re telling me you talked your way into this job—and God knows how many previous jobs—with no direct experience, no references?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t have references. I have loads of references. From every possible corner of the fashion industry.” She dipped her chin, smiled wryly, and added, “Just never for the actual job I’m applying for.”
“So you’re a bullshit artist.” He raised his palm when she opened her mouth to argue. “An artist with a passion for what she’s bullshitting about. I can get behind that. It’s pretty much exactly what I do. I write about things I know nothing about but find fascinating nonetheless. So I learn just enough to find an angle that can connect this oddball sport with the common readership. It’s challenging, personally rewarding. The pay’s not stupendous, but I get to travel to the four corners of the earth and see things, talk to people I’d otherwise never meet. Well, I used to, anyway.”
She frowned, no longer miffed at his summation. In fact, admittedly, he was pretty much right on target. “Surely you’ll find another job. Eric told me you were already moonlighting for some wire service in Europe.”
He nodded. “Trying. And there might be a full-time position for me with them when this hoopla is over. If they still want me, that is.”
“You think this whole Prince Charming thing would keep them from offering you a job?” It was shaming to realize that throughout all of this, she hadn’t really considered the future impact on Jack. Eric had told her he would compensate Jack generously for his help, and she knew he was already working freelance. It just had never occurred to her that he might be permanently affected by agreeing to help his friend. And her.
“I don’t know,” he said quite frankly. “Hopefully not.”
“But Eric told me he’d worked something out with you, and so at least you have that to—”
“I’m fine,” he said, his expression tightening somewhat. “I don’t need Eric holding my hand. I agreed to do this and while I might not have known what I was getting myself into, I’ve also done my share in making it a bigger deal than it had to be.” He shrugged. “I’ll be fine when it’s done.”
“This is an awfully big favor to do for a friend.”
“He’s earned it.”
“You’ve alluded to that before. What did he do for you that earned such a blind sacrifice?” She lifted her hand. “I swear this won’t end up in some press release or interview bio. This is just between you and me.”
Now it was Jack’s turn to stare into his wine. And just when she thought he was going to shut her out, he said, “He saved my life.”
“Literally?”
“Close enough.” He looked up then. “My mom died when I was eleven. Car accident, drunk driver.”
“I’m sorry.” The idea of a motherless Jack tugged hard at her heart. “I can’t even imagine.”
“Are you close with your parents?”
She half-shrugged. “My mom and dad never planned on having children, and they sort of ended up treating parenting me more like a business decision, with corporate policies and managerial strategies. And I still grew up to be someone so different from them that they never really knew what to do with me. But they supported me, still do.” Her lips quirked. “Though I know they’ll be much happier when I—”
“Let me guess, settle down and give them grandchildren?”
She laughed. “Heavens no, are you kidding me? They didn’t know what to do with me; the last thing they want is a grandchild they don’t know what to do with. No, they want me to find my niche in life and prosper. Not necessarily even monetarily, alt
hough both my parents do very well in the corporate world, but they want me to find something that excites me and that I enjoy and that I can succeed at.” She sipped her wine. “What about your dad? What does he think of you traveling all over the world?”
“My, uh, my dad didn’t do so well after my mom died. He sort of had a breakdown.”
“Jack, I’m sorry. You don’t have to—”
“When I was sixteen, he killed himself.”
She gasped, horrified.
“I’d been hanging out at Eric’s house a lot by then. His dad had died when he was young, so we had that in common. And even though his mom was never all that healthy, she was great about letting me hang around. My dad had pretty much checked out in terms of parenting, and there was no other family to speak of. Mrs. Jermaine wasn’t exactly the mother figure I was missing, but their house was bright and cheerful, very different from mine. And when she was well enough, it smelled like fresh-baked bread. I’ll always love that smell.”
He smiled briefly. “She was addicted to soap operas and if Eric or I weren’t careful, she’d have us wheel her into the living room, then make us hang out there and watch a few of her ‘stories,’ as she called them, with her.” He shuddered in mock horror, then shook his head and laughed. “I know Eric spent a large part of his formative years watching As the World Turns and One Life to Live, so maybe that’s where he honed those advice skills of his. Anyway, I used to go home with him after school, help him with his chores, then we’d hide out together in the tree house his grandfather had built for him in their backyard when Eric was little.”
He trailed off, then tipped his chin down again. “I slept out there many a night, and Eric covered for me with his mom. She probably knew, I think now. But at the time, I knew I’d never be able to repay him for giving me that place to escape to. After my dad died, they more or less took me in. I had a job after school with the local parks and rec department, so I wasn’t around much, but I pitched in as much as I could. We both graduated a year later and went off to college together. Eric had a full ride and I got a partial scholarship and qualified for some assistance. But there is no doubt that if Eric and Mrs. Jermaine hadn’t been there for me, I’d have never kept my shit together. God knows how I’d have ended up. Probably as lost as my dad. It wasn’t easy and I wasn’t always easy, far from it, but Eric stuck it out with me.” He looked at her again. “So in terms of payback, this is a drop in the bucket.”