do, too, Jane.”
Jane felt like a dynamo the next morning, charging through her routine with even more enthusiasm and effectiveness than usual. Powering through her morning kickboxing class, getting to the office early, proofing the copy for her latest ad campaign for her Fabulous Female Financial Boot Camp, even sketching out ideas for a series of advanced classes for women who’d mastered the principles laid out in the first seminar.
She felt like she could do anything.
Her assistant, Lainie, showed up at the usual time, looking puzzled at the way Jane rattled off a list of things she already needed Lainie to take care of.
“You didn’t have one of those energy drinks again, did you?” Lainie asked. “I told you, Jane, your system really can’t handle those. You’re already on overdrive. You don’t need the boost.”
“Of course not.” Jane looked puzzled. “After all, a well-rested, well-nourished woman doesn’t need artificial stimulants.”
She reached for her notepad, always close at hand, and started scribbling.
“Sorry,” she said, quite pleased with herself. “I need to write that down. I’m thinking about working on a book of my philosophies. Financial advice for women is such a nice niche market these days, and it would be a wonderful cross-promotion for my seminars. Don’t you think?”
“Sure,” Lainie said, still frowning.
“What?”
“It’s just that…you seem…happy.”
“I am almost always happy,” Jane insisted.
Lainie looked skeptical. “I think you might have been whistling when I walked in.”
Jane thought back. Had she been? And what if she was?
“How did things go with your grandmother yesterday? Did you meet this man she claims to love?”
“Oh, yes,” Jane said. “A complete cad, but Wyatt and I will take care of the situation.”
“Wyatt?”
“The man’s nephew. Wyatt Addison Gray IV. I have to say, I disliked him on sight as we sat down to dinner, but then we went across the street to this bar and had drinks afterward, and he was completely open and honest and reasonable. Altogether, a remarkable man.”
Lainie gaped at her. “You met a man you think is reasonable?”
Jane nodded.
“And honest?”
“I told you, a remarkable man,” Jane repeated even more emphatically than before.
“And you had dinner and drinks? Like…a date?”
“I date,” Jane insisted.
“Not in this calendar year,” Lainie reminded her.
“I’m just very selective about the men I find worthy of my consideration and time.”
Lainie’s bottom lip curled over her teeth, and she looked like she might bite herself to keep from replying to that, but finally gave up the battle and said, “And when you do, you don’t show up in the office whistling the next morning. If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you and Wyatt Gray didn’t end things with dinner and drinks last night.”
“Of course we did. I would never take a man home with me that I’d just met, and going home with him would be just as risky and irresponsible.” And Jane never took irresponsible risks. “Besides, this wasn’t a date. It was dinner at the retirement park with Gram, Gladdy and Wyatt’s uncle, the cad. Assessing the situation we’re facing with them.”
“And the drinks afterward?” Lainie prompted.
“A place to talk without them present, where Wyatt and I found out that we’re in complete agreement that the relationship between his uncle and Gram has to be stopped. We plotted our strategy to make that happen.”
“Of course,” Lainie said. “I just got so excited when you said you met a man you think is reasonable.”
“Well, I’m sure there are a few of them in the world,” Jane admitted.
Granted, that might be considered a rather large concession on her part to the quality of men alive on the planet at this moment. But she did consider herself a reasonable woman, and a reasonable woman would have to concede that Wyatt Gray had not been what she’d first thought.
“I’ll even admit we had a very interesting and enlightening conversation,” Jane said, thinking she was being exceedingly reasonable and fair-minded now.
“Okay, tell the truth. He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” Lainie asked with a knowing gleam in her eyes.
“That had absolutely nothing to do with…anything,” Jane insisted, thinking, oddly, that she felt a little…tingly inside and just a tad overly warm all of a sudden.
How odd.
Lainie laughed.
“It didn’t,” Jane corrected. “You know I always say the worst thing in the world a woman can do, besides depend on a man financially, is to judge one by his looks. I would never, ever do that. In fact, the best-looking men are almost always the most spoiled and immature.”
It was true. She knew it. Long experience with the women in her family had proven it.
“We must be talking Greek God in a designer suit here,” Lainie claimed.
“He was beautifully dressed,” Jane admitted, again only trying to be fair.
And still, feeling that unusual, unsettling tingly warmth inside her.
“You know, I may be coming down with something,” she told Lainie. “Does it feel warm in here to you? Could you check to see if anyone messed with the thermostat?”
Chapter Four
Jane waited until Gram was at her regular tennis lesson two days later, because normally Gram and Gladdy were practically inseparable, and then went to do her duty, to save poor Gladdy from Wyatt’s ill-behaved uncle.
Jane pasted on a fake smile, walked into Gladdy’s room, and—
“Oh, my God!”
It looked like Gladdy and Leo were…necking on the love seat! Gladdy had her head on Leo’s shoulder, and his was bent over hers. When Jane burst in, Gladdy gave a start and her head popped up, banging into Leo’s forehead.
Jane stood there, astonished and really, really mad on both Gladdy’s and Gram’s behalf.
“Oh, Jane, dear, will you ever learn to knock?” Gladdy asked, practically giggling.
Giggling?
Jane worked
