“Everything I do is for those I care about. This child, you. I have no family, Jack, so I work to fill a void. When I stop working, when I stop caring for those around me, I start to think. I don’t want the down time. I can’t mentally afford it. Do you get what I’m saying?”
Jack swallowed the lump in his throat. How could she put his thoughts, his emotions, into such perfect terms? It was like they lived a parallel life, and he desperately wanted to know what made her this way. Why did she use work as her coping mechanism?
He’d already known she had no family. He of all people understood the need to connect with something in life and he clung to work...apparently so did she. He’d never heard her so passionate about it before, but he understood the ache, the emptiness that needed to be filled.
“You’re talking to the workaholic,” he told her, trying to lighten the intensity of the mood. “I just wanted to make sure you were taken care of, as well.”
Shoulders squared, she tipped her head. “I assure you, I’m fine. But I do need to get home and I promise I’ll text you tomorrow. We’ll get this,” she assured him. “We’ve come this far, we’ll make it the rest of the way.”
Jack helped her with the diaper bag, then assisted her with her coat and Katie’s coat—which was no easy feat, considering she was still asleep.
Once Viv was gone, Jack leaned against the front door and stared into the empty two-story foyer. Yeah, he understood perfectly about not having anyone. He’d bought this massive home in Beacon Hill after his wife died. He couldn’t stay in the small cottage he’d bought for her, the place where they’d planned to start their family. While he’d wanted to burn the cottage to the ground, he ended up selling it to a young newlywed couple who had the same dreams he’d once had.
He’d moved on, made more money than he knew what to do with and when he started looking for a permanent residence, he knew he wanted something large...something he’d never be able to fill with a family. He wanted the space so it didn’t feel like the walls were closing in on him.
Some might say he was flashing, living in a huge house all by himself, but he didn’t care. His cars, his vacation home in the mountains, the two homes overseas, they were all material things he’d give up in a second to have someone in his life.
No. Not someone. His wife.
Yet lately, when he would think of someone to share his wealth with, Viv kept popping up. He wanted to scrub that image from his mind because thinking of another woman was surely a betrayal to Carly...right?
As he headed down the hall and passed the kitchen, he instantly remembered the cheesecake. If Tilly came back in the morning and saw that none of it had been eaten, she’d be disappointed.
Easy fix. He’d be gone before she came in and he’d take it to the office with him.
Or he could take it somewhere else.
Viv claimed she didn’t need anyone to look after her, but that was a lie. And Jack would take on the role in the name of business...because that’s all he had time for in his life.
Whatever notions he had in his head about Viv, he had to remember she was his assistant. She could never be anything else.
With Katie turning one next week, Viv had decided that the baby’s shots were going to have to happen on her half day at O’Shea’s.
Now that the doctor’s visit was—mercifully—over, Viv was convinced the shots had hurt her more than they’d hurt Katie. Viv had just walked into her apartment, dumped the diaper bag next to the sofa and put Katie in her Pack ’n Play when someone knocked on her door.
She couldn’t suppress the groan that escaped her. She was soaked to the bone from the chilly rain. All she wanted to do was strip off her wet suit and get into her cozy pajamas. Viv had been able to shield Katie from the elements by wrapping her inside her coat and holding Katie’s favorite blanket over the tot’s head. Now Viv needed to get that blanket into the dryer or there would be hell to pay come bedtime.
The pounding on the door persisted. What were the odds she could ignore her unwanted guest? If she lived in a house, maybe, but in an apartment building she couldn’t have her neighbors put out.
“Vivianna?” Jack’s voice boomed and Viv realized her wish to pretend no one was out there had just vanished.
She crossed the floor, her shoes squishing. She wasn’t even going to glance at her reflection in the mirror next to the door. The drowned-rat look wasn’t becoming on anyone.
Flicking the lock, Viv opened the door. Of course Jack didn’t have one drop of rain on him. The large black umbrella he held at his side was dripping.
“You’re...”
“Soaked,” she finished. “I know. Come on in.”
She stood back so he didn’t have to brush against her as he stepped inside. Katie made noises and clapped when she spotted Jack. Inwardly, Viv tended to have that same reaction, but she wasn’t too keen on the fact that he was seeing her look so haggard and frumpy.
She’d really been confident this morning when she’d left for work in her gray pencil skirt and fitted, pale yellow sweater. She’d even taken extra time with her hair, since Katie had slept in. Now Viv must look like all she’d done this morning was shower...with her clothes on.
She was so over this winter weather. One day it snowed, the next it rained. Spring couldn’t come soon enough. But it was only February, meaning Valentine’s Day was fast approaching. A holiday she could totally live without.
“I brought this for you.”
Katie eyed the dish in his hand. She’d been too preoccupied with her looks to realize he held food.
Glorious food. She didn’t even care if that domed plate held a bologna sandwich, her stomach growled at the sight. She’d skipped lunch because she’d left work late and had barely made it to Katie’s appointment.
“Whatever it is, thank you,” she said, taking the covered plate. She headed toward the kitchen, cringing as her shoes made the most unpleasant noises.
Of all the times Jack could see her, of all the times he had seen her, this was not her best moment. She set the dish on the counter and pulled the lid off. A laugh escaped her.
“Cheesecake?” she asked, turning to glance over her shoulder.
Jacked shrugged out of his suit jacket and hung it on the hook by the door...as if he’d done so a thousand times. Seeing a man’s jacket hanging next to hers did funny things to her belly. Her eyes locked on the two pieces beside each other, and she didn’t want to dwell on it too long, but couldn’t get over the fact that this simple gesture seemed so intimate.
But he wasn’t staying, he was visiting, for pity’s sake. For a second, though, she wanted to pretend. He looked good in his all-black suit, with that rich, dark hair. He’d brought her cheesecake when she looked like a mess, and he didn’t seem appalled by her appearance. If he wasn’t the world’s most perfect man, then one didn’t exist.
Would he ever see her as more than an
