lit candles were artistically arranged in the grate. Vases of freesia and baby’s breath—Jenna’s favorite—abounded. Soft music from their youth filled the room.
“And yet,” Jenna continued, looking at Jake as if he were anything but a good guy to have around, “you’re here with me.”
Jake uncovered their salads and poured the wine. “In order to get you to help out Alex and me.”
Jenna accepted the wine with a nod. “Texas is full of designers.” She kept her eyes on his as Jake sat down opposite her.
“But only one of you,” Jake countered, trying to imagine what it would be like to have Jenna back in his life again, not as the grief-stricken teen she had been when they parted, but the strong, self-assured woman she had become.
“Why me?” Jenna whispered, suddenly looking as torturously unhappy as he had felt all these years without her. “Why now?”
Jake wasn’t about to apologize for doing what should have been done years ago. “Because I haven’t been able to stop thinking of you.” Because all this time I thought I had hurt you enough and I was doing you a favor by staying away. And then I saw you on TV and realized I would never love anyone the way I loved you.
For a moment, Jake thought Jenna felt the same way, but the feeling faded, and the sweetly nostalgic look in her clear blue eyes faded and turned to ice once again. “That’s a shame,” Jenna said crisply. “There’s nothing worse than wasting energy or time. Which is exactly what this is.” She started to rise.
Jake caught her wrist and pulled her back down into her seat. He wanted nothing more at that moment than to haul her into his lap and kiss her soundly. But—for Alex’s sake, for the sake of them—he kept his mind strictly on the business at hand. The business that would have Jenna and him spending time together and getting to know each other again. “You haven’t heard my proposition,” he pointed out calmly, releasing her only when he was sure she wouldn’t try to flee.
Not looking at him, Jenna speared a piece of lettuce with her fork, lifted it to her lips. “I don’t want to hear your proposition.”
“Sure now?” Jake taunted as he too dug into his crisp, delicious salad. “It could do wonders for your design business.”
Jenna paused. So it was true, Jake noted, with equal parts satisfaction and disapproval. Her design business did mean everything to her.
“I’m listening,” she said eventually.
Jake reached into the inside pocket of his blazer and pulled out a neatly drawn-up business agreement. “I’m offering to provide the financial backing via J&R Industries to make and distribute a clothing line bearing your name.”
Jenna put down her fork and studied the paperwork for an extraordinarily long time. “And the catch is…?” Jenna said eventually.
Jake polished off his salad and took a sip of wine. “Alexandra needs a wardrobe.”
Jenna narrowed her eyes at him and observed with a faint note of disapproval in her voice, “Why, when she seems to have one she is perfectly happy with?”
Jake shook his head, cutting Jenna off. “She needs to look like a little lady,” he said firmly. “The sooner, the better.”
Jenna arched a delicate brow and went back to eating her salad. “Says who and why?”
Famished, Jake broke open a roll and lavishly spread it with butter. Reluctantly, he imparted, “Melinda is concerned about Alex’s tomboyish phase. She thinks it proves I’m not capable of rearing Alex on my own.”
Jenna paused, her fork halfway to her lips. “But you have custody, don’t you?”
Jake took another sip of wine. “Sole custody since she was two, yes.”
Jenna’s brow furrowed. Finished with her salad, she also reached for the bread. “Isn’t that unusual?”
Jake shook his head. “Not when the mother doesn’t want custody. And Melinda didn’t. All she wanted in the settlement was money. Which, as you and everyone else in the Lone Star State knows, she got.”
“I’m sorry,” Jenna said. “For Alex. I know how tough it is to lose a mom when there’s no helping it. To have that happen when it doesn’t have to be that way, well, it’s got to be tough.”
Jake sighed and got up to retrieve the main course, blackened redfish, scalloped potatoes with jack cheese and French beans. “When Alex was younger, she didn’t seem to mind the fact that her mother lived in Europe and rarely jetted over to see her.” Jake filled the plates and brought them over, one at a time. He sat down opposite Jenna and dug in. “The truth is, even when we were still married, when Alex was a baby, Melinda never paid much attention to her. So when Melinda moved out—well, Alex couldn’t miss what she’d never had. I wasn’t about to leave her home alone. And though my parents would have taken her, that wasn’t an option, either. I didn’t want Alex adopting some of their snobbish attitudes. So she traveled with me on business. Everywhere I went, Alex went—with Clara usually coming along and doubling as driver and nanny, depending on what I needed at that moment.”
Jenna regarded Jake with the inherent kindness that was so much a part of her personality. “And Alex was happy with the arrangement?”
“Very.” Jake exhaled. “But when she went to school this past fall and all the other kids in her kindergarten class had moms fussing over them and picking out their clothes, it hit her hard. And suddenly, she just started refusing to wear dresses—not that she’d ever really liked them. But at least when I needed her to brush her hair and wear a dress so I could take her to some fancy restaurant, I could get her to do so.”
“But no more?” Jenna guessed, as the CD player switched from a Trisha Yearwood album to one of Garth Brooks’s.
“No more. I guess Alex figured if she couldn’t be like everyone else and have a mom and a dad living at home with her, she’d just be different. And that was when Alex went full-bore into this tomboy stage. I thought it was a phase and just didn’t push it. But now Melinda has heard about Alex’s increasingly disheveled appearance from mutual friends. She’s embarrassed, upset. Thinks it reflects poorly on her. Next thing I know she’s threatening to sue for custody and planning to leave Italy—where she’s been living the past couple of years—for good.”
Jenna looked at him quizzically. “You don’t want Melinda to come back to the States?”
Jake sighed, knowing it sounded lousy of him, but also knowing if he was going to drag Jenna into the middle of this mess, he owed her the plain, unvarnished truth. “If I thought it would do Alex some good,” Jake hedged. “If I thought Melinda would be any kind of loving mother, or positive influence in Alex’s life, I’d be lobbying for it in a red-hot minute.”
Jenna’s eyes softened compassionately. “But you don’t think that’d be the case.”
Jake sighed. “Bottom line, Melinda doesn’t have a maternal bone in her entire body. She cares about money and appearances and finding another husband whose only goal in life is to make her happy, and that’s it.”
“So in coming to me you’re trying to head Melinda off at the pass.”
Jake
