She was in the trenches.
This sweet, smiling woman who looked like she wouldn’t swat a fly no doubt saw all manner of horrific things in her job. Obviously there was a layer of toughness to her to deal with that day in, day out. Yet he couldn’t find it. Not yet anyway. There was nothing but warmth and compassion.
“Right now I’m working mostly with a reentry employment program. We train ex-prisoners to fill out job applications, make a résumé, how to handle tough interview questions about their conviction, and guide them to jobs that can utilize their skills.”
“You work with prisoners?” That alarmed him a little.
“Ex-prisoners. It’s an important program because a lot of these men only have a window of a few weeks to get their lives back on track before passing bad checks starts to seem like a good idea. We support them so they won’t commit a crime out of desperation.”
Jack wasn’t sure desperation was what lead men to commit crimes. He thought it was probably greed. He’d seen plenty of that in the corporate world. “So you teach them how to get a job?” The thought of Jamie, who looked like a poster for naïve white girl, working with prisoners made him a little nervous. A lot nervous.
“Yes. And sometimes we let them work around the office, answer the phones, do data entry, to practice their office and people skills.”
There was his potential thief. And it was worse than he’d thought. This could be a criminal straight out of prison who wouldn’t hesitate to use violence if confronted. Jack did not like the way this sounded at all.
“What do you do, Jack?”
He froze with his wineglass at his lips. “Uh.” Truth or evasion?
There was her safety.
And there was his comfort in not having to wear the mantle of millionaire for one night.
If Jamie could like him, just the way he was with no knowledge of his money, then expanding on the truth later wouldn’t matter in the least. Probably.
“I’m between careers right now. My last job was very stressful, and I’m looking for something that will allow me to actually have a life outside the office.”
The minute the words were out of his mouth, he wanted to groan aloud at his idiocy. What woman wanted to date a man who was unemployed?
In striving to hide his wealth, he had made himself out to be a loafer. That was sexy. Not.
But Jamie only nodded. “It’s important to be happy with what you’re doing. No one should be a slave to the workplace.”
“Exactly.” He beamed at her. That was exactly why he had walked away from the firm after cashing in his stocks. He had felt as though he lived and breathed nothing but work every minute of every day. He had felt strangled and old at twenty-nine. Restless. Ready for the next challenge.
Most people had considered him nothing short of crazy for quitting his high-paying job, but Jamie seemed to understand. She didn’t care about his money, or lack thereof.
God, she was damn near perfect.
He was almost perfect. The thought hit Jamie like her latest rent increase had, leaving her feeling stunned and incapable of speech.
Of course, no one was perfect. After all, he had admitted to liking action movies as they had talked over their dinners. And horror of all horrors, he didn’t see the charm in her favorite flick, Gone With The Wind.
But everything else seemed to yell and scream and shout that this man was perfect for her.
He was kind, considerate, he listened to her talk, and he had insisted on paying for dinner, despite the fact that he had admitted he was between jobs. She felt extremely guilty that her calamari and wine had cost forty-five dollars. Had she known he intended to pay, she would have ordered a salad and water.
But he hadn’t blinked at the bill, had paid it with cash while telling her about playing Little League as a kid. Unless he was doing something illegal, he had obviously planned to quit his job with a hunk of money set aside.
Now as they walked down Broadway, his hand rested across the small of her back, guiding her, protecting her from the crowd. It felt right. Tingling.
There was nothing awkward or uncomfortable about being with Jack.
Jamie breathed in the scents of fried food and exhaust fumes that permeated the summer air and sighed with contentment. Tourists were rushing along to catch shows at various theaters, and the crowd surged across the intersection, daring the taxis to hit them as they ignored the Don’t Walk sign.
It felt as though they, too, were careening forward with the speed of a cab, eye on a future fare.
“I never come to Times Square,” she said.
“Most New Yorkers don’t.” Jack stopped walking in front of a store and looked down at her, his blue eyes dark. “It’s a tourist trap.”
His words were absent, spoken in a whisper, but his eyes were focused and intense, bearing down on her. He was leaning, bending, right there on the sidewalk while they were jostled by people on either side of them.
“Jack?” Jamie fought to steady her breathing. This was it. Right here, right now, he was going to kiss her.
And she had no ability to stop him. She wanted it. Bad. In a way that made her tilt her head back, slide her mouth open, and wait.
“I’m going to kiss you,” he said, his hands gripping her back as his mouth came closer and closer to hers.
“Okay…” Any other words were cut off by his lips on hers, brushing with a lightness that made her tremble.
Then he increased the pressure, and her thoughts scattered like marbles. Excitement. Desire. Confusion. All colliding in a powerful burst of emotion, so that she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back.
Their lips slid together, hot and moist and anxious, while Jack’s hands guided her hips against his, grinding them together.
Oh, yes. This was it. This was kismet.
This felt like everything she’d been waiting for, a surging of heat and excitement, as his tongue dipped into her mouth. He tasted like wine, smelled like aftershave, his chin chafing hers. There was no goof, no incorrect tiltage of head or nose, no awkwardness. There was only hot, thrusting tongue and more emotion, more tenderness, more questing than she could have ever expected on a first date.
They stood there, mouth against mouth, locked in passion, striving, reaching, yearning fully for that connection, that magic, that fantastical moment of anticipation, of understanding that this was special, this was going farther.
Until someone bumped Jack’s back, sending them stumbling backward. Jamie connected with the glass window of a kitschy T-shirt and souvenir shop, her head giving a resounding smack.
It didn’t hurt, but Jack pulled her quickly forward, his voice full of alarm. “Are you okay? Let me see.”
He
