every other woman he’d ever met. Most women’s eyes lit up in possessive greed when they first saw his apartment. Jamie was disgusted by the opulence.
And he had never once thought of the lobby as being pretentious, but now that she had planted the seed in his mind, it took root, making him uncomfortable. “The apartment’s not so bad,” he assured her.
His sister was always complaining that he needed to hire a decorator. She thought his apartment needed a theme to pull it together. One besides black plastic electronics equipment, that is.
Jamie clutched that silly little purse of hers that looked like an alligator and licked her lips. She looked as nervous as he felt. Maybe it was time to slow this down before she thought through the ramifications of going home with a guy she didn’t really know. Jack knew who Jamie was, but she didn’t know him. Had no reason to trust him. And given that look on her face, she was realizing that.
“Hey, Jamie, why don’t we go grab some coffee before we head up?” He took her hand and squeezed it in reassurance. She smiled at him, that soft tilting up of her lips that showed her teeth and lit up her eyes.
“You really are a nice guy, aren’t you?” she asked. “I don’t mean to be a tease…”
“Are you kidding? In my book, there’s no such thing as a tease. A woman is allowed to say no at any time, for any reason. No questions asked, no arguing.” Jack pulled her away from the elevators. He already felt like an asshole for not telling her who he was; he wasn’t about to coax her into a sexual relationship she wasn’t ready for.
“I’m not saying no,” she said, green eyes very glassy and bright. “Just…not yet.”
He wanted to groan, but instead gestured to the grouping of four chairs to the left of the mail slots. “Let’s just sit for a minute.”
The chairs were really damn uncomfortable—minimalist, armless jobs with stuffing that felt more akin to steel. It was like perching on a big bar of red soap, but at the moment, he couldn’t care less. Jamie was licking her lips again, and she tucked her feet under her legs on the chair.
“Our names both start with J-a,” she said, distracting his attention from her lips. “Is Jack your real name?”
He didn’t care what his name was, but he thought it was cute the quirky things Jamie said sometimes. “My real name is Jonathon.” He couldn’t force another lie past his mouth. “Is Jamie a nickname, too?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Jamie Lynn, that’s me.”
Jamie Lynn. It fit.
As he studied the upturn of her nose, the wild auburn curls, he wondered which name was the real him. Was he Jonathon or was he Jack? Jonathon at work. Jonathon with his parents.
He was Jack with Pops. And definitely Jack with Jamie.
“Well, Jamie Lynn.” He tried to remove the flatness of his Connecticut-raised voice and inject some Kentucky into it. “That’s a mighty fine name.”
She giggled. “I don’t like southern boys.”
He lost the accent. “I’m all New York, honey. But I bet you broke a bunch of good ole boy hearts when you left Kentucky.”
Rolling her eyes, she smiled. “If I broke Dale’s heart, it recovered quickly. Two months after high school graduation he married Trudy Wythbodden, who some girls used to call Trudy Wide Bottom. He wanted me to stay in La Grange and get married, but I had to leave, had to see a bit of the world for myself. I wasn’t trying to escape Kentucky—I loved growing up there—but I don’t know, I just needed some independence.”
“I never thought about going anywhere else. I grew up forty miles from Manhattan, and I guess it seemed stupid to go anywhere else, especially since I wanted to get into finance. But maybe it would have been smart to explore a little more. Maybe I wouldn’t have found myself so tired and burned out.”
Certain that there was more to life than making money. Winning.
Something he had never admitted to himself was that he had suddenly looked in the mirror and wondered if he was destined to grow old alone, a miser counting his coins.
It had scared the shit out of him, and then some.
But what was even scarier was that a year later he was no closer to content, despite ditching the career. When was he going to be done? Ready to stand still.
In his head he practically heard the screech of subway brakes. Now. He was ready now.
“Maybe this is your time to explore,” Jamie said.
“Aren’t I too old to do that? I’m thirty, for God’s sake. Isn’t there like a statute of limitations on finding yourself?” Jack grinned. “Bet old what’s-his-name isn’t interested in backpacking Europe or taking up yoga.”
“Yeah, but he wasn’t worth the spit for the shine, which he proved by falling into Trudy’s arms about a minute after I left.” Jamie fiddled with her necklace, a twisted rope, kind of a knot with green stones in it. “But most people are like paintings…they take forever to create, and every time you look at them, you discover something you didn’t see before.”
Very true. Jack was noticing that the green in Jamie’s necklace perfectly matched her eyes.
And she had freckles. Right across the bridge of her nose.
Freaking adorable, every inch of her.
Eight hours later, the end table next to them was littered with paper coffee cups, their rims going soft, the liquid contents cold, the aroma stale. Jamie’s legs were stiff, her neck tired, her voice scratchy, and her butt numb from the ridiculous scoop chair she’d been sitting in all night.
Yet, she wasn’t the least bit interested in leaving. She had spent the whole night in the lobby talking to Jack, who was funny and kind and extremely smart.
She was going to have to name her first-born child after Beckwith.
Okay, so maybe it wouldn’t go that far, but it wasn’t like she could name her first orgasm or anything, and she was sure that was coming soon, pun intended. The point was, she was falling for Jack. She wanted him more than Derby pie, and that mile-high gooey chocolate dessert was never to be underestimated.
Admittedly, she was a tumbler, falling for various guys and their hard-luck stories, but inevitably, her legs got caught up in the skirt of half-truths, and she fell on her face. For the most part, she’d never minded, because she had never fallen in love.
It was possible she’d done just that in one night.
Or at least taken a serious turn in that direction.
That was the only explanation for the way she felt—sort of inflated and overaware, her skin prickling everywhere, her throat tight, breath anxious. Excitement and pleasure rushed through her, and an irrepressible giddiness made her feet tap rapidly, her heart race.
At some point she was going to have to leave and go home, but for now she didn’t want this night, this moment, this feeling, to end.
Jamie tucked her legs over the
