An Unexpected Love

Happily ever after is part of the equation...but something’s not adding up.

Investment analyst Lexi Watts has a social life, but thanks to her demanding job, no love life. After a twelve-hour day going toe-to-toe with her demanding boss, Dan Yeager, she barely has the energy to make her usual stop by her favorite pub for a pint and dinner. Except this night is different. Tonight, the firm’s golden boy, Jack Brogan—a.k.a. the man of her dreams—is in the pub. Drunk, lonely and available. After she takes him home and tucks him into bed, she finds herself joining him there more and more often. A dream come true, yet she can’t quite put her finger on what’s missing. The pieces fall into place one night when she’s a victim of a mugging. And it’s not Jack who comes to her rescue, but Dan. Giving Lexi a surprising glimpse of the real man behind his volatile, irascible office persona. And suddenly Lexi’s once nonexistent love life has become complicated beyond belief… Warning: Contains a heroine who is suddenly the center of attention of two desirable men. And who realizes it’s not the best of both worlds…

eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work. This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. Samhain Publishing, Ltd. 11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B Cincinnati OH 45249 An Unexpected Love Copyright © 2012 by Claire Matthews ISBN: 978-1-60928-872-3 Edited by Jennifer Miller Cover by Scott Carpenter All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: March 2012 www.samhainpublishing.com

An Unexpected Love Claire Matthews

Dedication

To Fred.

Chapter One

It was 9:30 pm when I shut down my computer and grabbed my purse from the bottom drawer of my desk. I was so tired I wanted to curl up and die, or at least collapse in the corner and suck my thumb. Thirteen hours of editing reports, and re-editing reports, and getting frantic calls asking why the second set of edits made it to legal before the first set, and I was done. Done. I kicked the bottom desk drawer closed for good measure, which startled my boss, Dan, who was buried even deeper in reports and frantic calls than I was. He looked at me like he didn’t know who I was for a second. “Dan, I’m leaving. I haven’t eaten since noon. I haven’t peed since before then. I’ve already missed my date—if I end up an old maid, it’s on you, my friend.” He ignored me. He was used to my exhausted, melodramatic rants, but that didn’t mean he knew how to respond to them. “Can your conscience handle it, Bossman? Me, all alone, watching the shopping channel with my forty cats in a shack by the railroad?” “Go home, Lexi.” “Yeah, home to my empty apartment. I could’ve had dinner at Brioche with Tyler. Now I’ll have Beefaroni in front of the TV. Thanks for caring.” Dan glanced up from the papers flooding his desk. He looked stressed, and tired. His dark hair curled over his eyebrows, which meant he hadn’t even taken the time to get a haircut. It was sad, really, because he was only thirty-two, just three years older than me—he should be missing dates and ranting about it too, but he never did. His dark brown eyes, always unreadable, focused on me.

An Unexpected Love

“Did you really miss a date?” I tried to remember if he’d ever asked me such a personal question. The closest I could recall was the time he’d asked if I knew of a good plumber. “Nah, it was a tentative offer at best. Plus, Tyler’s got these thin lips…they kind of look like a big scar under his nose. I don’t think I can get past them.” “You’re very discerning.” I rolled my eyes. “Goodnight, Dan.” I made my way to the elevators, nodding at the cleaning lady emptying the trashcan in the 38th-floor corridor. Titus and Goldblum might have made its money off the backs of low-level grunts like myself, but they gave us a beautiful building in which to work ourselves to death. The plants, the modern furniture, the fountains… Not only did they set the proper tone for the headquarters of a multi-billion-dollar investment banking firm, but they also told us little people, “You’re special… We care about your work environment… We’ll spend more on a piece of abstract art than on the yearly salaries of half-a-dozen executive assistants.” By the time I got to the first floor, I was feeling woozy from lack of basic sustenance. I crossed the main lobby and stepped into McAllister’s, the restaurant/pub where we usually went to lunch, when lunch was not a luxury. I sat numbly at the bar and gave a little wave to Valerie the bartender. “Hey, Miss Lexi.” “Hey, Valerie. Can I get a chicken club and a huge glass of water?” “Sure thing, hon.” I wasn’t until I reached to drape my coat over the back of the barstool that I saw Jack Brogan at the far corner of the bar, by himself. Omigod.

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If there was such a thing as a Big Man on Campus at an investment banking firm, Jack Brogan was it. Beautiful, rich, charming, his name rang off the tongues of the firm’s professional gossips with regularity. He looked like a movie star, his dark blond hair cut close, his blue, piercing eyes framed by dark, thick lashes. His manner matched his looks—he made friends and charmed women without any discernible effort. But even with his looks and charm, the level of interest in his life was surprising, not only in its intensity but in its banality. I’d once walked in on a heated debate over the type of oil he used in his Porsche Boxster. Of course, all Brogan-related gossip for the last six months had focused on his recent divorce from Julia Mundy-Brogan, who had apparently, and quite gauchely, run off with the male nanny, affectionately referred to in the halls of T&G as “the manny”. The entire firm had a field day, as whispering Brogan groupies went from “Why?” (I bet it was the long hours he works… No, I saw the manny once, he’s gaw-geous…) to “What now?” (I heard he’s already got another woman… I heard that’s why the wife left to begin with!). The hero-worship, the gossip, the lives and loves of the beautiful people and their followers… It was all such an incredible turn-off to me. Which made it even harder to accept the embarrassing fact that I was madly in love with Jack Brogan, and had been for over six years. Before Manny-Gate, even before Julia Mundy entered the picture, Jack and I had started at T&G as junior analysts, straight out of college. We’d worked together for about six months before his brilliance was recognized and he was swept away to corporate finance, while I remained back with the dimmer stars in research. We were casual acquaintances, would hold the elevator door for each other, but in the last six years, the torrid love affair between me and Jack took place exclusively in the recesses of my Broganobsessed brain.

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Feigning disinterest, I hung on every scrap of stray gossip, followed his rapidly burgeoning career, and imagined the two of us in every unspeakable naked scenario my twisted mind could produce. It was humiliating. Demoralizing. It went against every notion of self-respect and sanity I’d ever embraced. But there it was. I was Mothra, and he was my giant flame. Tonight, however, it looked like my giant flame was flaming drunk. Not that he had a lampshade on his head or anything, but his eyes were glazed and unfocused, and he seemed to be tilted to the left on his barstool. I tried not to stare, thankful that Valerie came with the sandwich and drink on which I could focus my attention. But before I could salt my fries, Jack slipped gingerly off his barstool and began to walk—or, more accurately, stumble—towards me. Towards me. Now let me stop here and say that I am no simpering wallflower. I’ve had three serious boyfriends since college, and one marriage proposal. Men notice me—I’m no supermodel, but I’ve got good hair, full and dark brown. And my legs are long, and my eyes are wide and hazel. I won’t talk about my nose (too pug) or my breasts (too small), but overall, I’m presentable. So a drunk man approaching me in a bar was not a completely foreign situation for me. But I’d never been approached by a drunk Jack Brogan, and it made goosebumps pop up on my arms. “Hey, Lexi.” He spoke softly, intending to hit my ear, but he overshot, and I felt his hot breath on my scalp. He slurred his words, so it sounded more like Hail, Eck-see. He placed one hand on the bar and the other on the back of my chair. Clearly he needed the help. “Hey, Jack. Are you okay?” His face was flushed, and he didn’t answer me. “Jack?”

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“I just came over to say hi,” he said. “Hi.” He shot me a half smile, the same half smile he gave every woman in his presence. It was as if he knew his gorgeousness was too much, that he couldn’t risk the mayhem a full smile might produce within the general female population. “Hi,” I replied. Just then his palm slipped across the slick top of the bar, and he stumbled back a step. Okay, crazy obsession aside, I needed to deal with this. “C’mon, I think I’d better get you a cab.” For some reason I expected a fight, an indignant denial of his inebriated state. But he just nodded, and after I paid both our tabs and got Valerie to box up my dinner, he followed me out to the street like a beautiful puppy, sweet and cooperative. Boston in January is no place to take a leisurely stroll, so I dragged him as quickly as I could to the next block, where cabs hung out regularly for the after-dinner crowd. I shoved him in the back of an old green cab and slid in after him. I had no idea where he lived, so I reached into his back pocket, feeling the strong muscles of his ass against my fingertips, and retrieved his wallet. After I gave the cabbie the address and we started moving, I debated whether or not to return his wallet to where I found it but settled on slipping it in his jacket pocket. He grabbed my forearm and pulled me towards him, surprisingly fast for a drunk. “Lex,” he said softly. I couldn’t tell if the abbreviation of my name was meant to be some sort of endearment, or if he was just so loaded he’d become monosyllabic. His mouth crashed down on mine with no preamble, and I realized Jack wasn’t the kind of guy who had to deal with subtle persuasion. Women wanted to kiss him so badly, he could probably lean his head out the window of the cab and lock lips with any girl on Atlantic Avenue. I’d like to say I had the strength to resist—that I backed up, pushed him away, told him to stop. But, in my defense, it had been six years. Six years. So I

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kissed him back. And kissed him some more. The kiss went on and on, until we were both making tiny noises into each other’s mouths. He tasted like liquor and smelled like sweat, and it was so sexy I almost wept with longing. He pressed himself so hard against me I could feel everything. And my knees fell apart, because I wanted everything and more.

By the time we made it to the steps of Jack’s Beacon Hill row house, his eyes were more focused, and he navigated the stairs without help. I stood behind him, watched as he found the right key to unlock the door. “I’d better be getting home,” I said. My lips were raw from his kisses. The cab waited for me on the street. Jack turned and came back down the steps, his feet careful, as if his expensive wingtips were full of water. He passed me without a word, went to the cab and reached for his wallet. His hand cupped his own ass for a second, feeling around his empty back pocket, until he turned to me, looking confused. I cleared my throat. “Jacket.” I pointed in the general vicinity of his waist. He reached in and slumped with relief. After he paid the cab driver, he came back to me. I was kind of surprised I let him send the cab off without even pretending to protest. But not really. “Come in for a minute,” he said, taking my cold hand in his large, warm one. “For a minute,” I echoed. The Vestal Virgin. Once in his house, we hurried down the front hall, straight to his bedroom. No offer of coffee, no tour of the grounds. He flipped on a lamp, then pulled off his suit jacket, letting it fall in a heap at his feet. Before I’d even taken in the cool gray walls, the ultra-modern bed, the glass-top nightstands, he’d torn off his tie and popped half the buttons down his shirt. Finally, he looked at me, and his

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arms fell abruptly to his sides. Obviously he was used to women disrobing on cue. My stillness baffled him. “Jack…” I said. My voice sounded thin. He moved towards me. “May I?” he asked, reaching out to grab the hem of my sweater with his fingertips. I swallowed, which I guess in drunk Jack-speak means “be my guest”, because he pulled the sweater over my head, and of course I raised my arms to help. “You should wear this…” he paused to hook his finger under the strap of my black cotton camisole, “…without a bra. So sexy.” He ran his hands up my stomach, cupped my breasts through the thin fabric. “So sexy.” And now I was shaking, because Jack Brogan just called me sexy. My hands reached out, splaying across the hard expanse of his chest. I felt his nipples against my palms, felt the curly hair tickle my fingertips. His skin was hot, and I needed his heat against me. I ripped off my camisole and bra while he ripped off his pants, and we came crashing back together, both bare from the waist up. He kissed my lips, my chin, my neck, before bending to take my nipple in his mouth. I gasped in pleasure, then bit my bottom lip, embarrassed. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?” he whispered. No, I don’t…please tell me in painstaking detail, I thought. “So beautiful,” he repeated, pulling me towards the bed. There was a terrifying instant when it occurred to me that he might be too drunk to do it, but when I felt his hard length grinding against my stomach, I knew such fears were unfounded. Intoxication would not stop Jack Brogan from doing what he was born to do, which was to make love to me. The sex was fast and rough. I remembered my chicken club sandwich, abandoned in the cab, and realized I was dizzy with hunger. But I couldn’t stop to eat, much less to breathe. All that mattered was Jack, inside me, filling me,

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making me come. He bit me like he was trying to consume me—my breasts, my stomach, the insides of my thighs, leaving tiny blue marks that stayed around for days. Tears streamed down my face, because I was weak with exhaustion and unchecked emotion. When it was over he roared with release, convulsing in my arms, until we collapsed, sated, on the wrinkled sheets. And a moment later, limbs twisted in a sweaty, salty pretzel, we were asleep.

I woke up around midnight and realized that Jack had shifted while we slept. He was stretched out flat on his back, his left arm hanging limp over the edge of the mattress. God, he was hammered. I slipped out of bed and tiptoed quietly across the room to retrieve my clothes, but I’m not sure why I bothered— I could have belted out the national anthem on a tuba over his head and Jack wouldn’t have stirred. I got dressed quickly and became the Lexi I hate the most, the sleazy, morning-after detective. I guess technically it wasn’t morning yet, but with the security of Jack’s loud snores egging me on, I snooped like nobody’s business. Nothing was safe. I learned Jack took one Ambien at night, “as needed for sleeplessness”; I learned he probably hadn’t done the dishes in a week, and that he ate bagels with cream cheese for breakfast; I learned his soon-to-be exwife had not found it necessary to take her half-empty packet of birth control pills with her when she split with the manny. Hmm, now that was interesting. I sat on the couch and tried to turn on the TV in the living room but was immediately stumped by the plethora of remotes and cable boxes. So I wandered across the room and stared out the window instead. I was a model of indecision. I wanted to stay, but I wanted to go home. I wanted to snoop some more, but I hated how it made me feel like a sick voyeur. What finally pushed me to a

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decision was the thought of Jack’s face when he woke up tomorrow and looked at me, and wondered what the hell I was doing there. So I called a cab and went home.

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Chapter Two

The next morning I dragged myself into the office, my legs so weak and wobbly I felt like one of those marionettes from The Sound of Music. I was two hours late, and the look Dan gave me could have curdled cheese, but I knew he wouldn’t say anything. My sixty-hour work weeks made it possible for him to stay afloat, and he was smart enough to leave me alone when I needed the occasional hour or two. “How was Beefaroni?” he muttered from behind his computer screen. “What?” I was distracted, my ability to engage in repartee with Dan cut off by the endorphins staging a fiesta in my brain. He sighed, disgusted that I was late and loopy as hell. “Nothing. Please call Joseph Trimble over at AFC. He’s emailed me for that damn hedge fund prospectus half a dozen times, and I’m running out of excuses.” “’Kay,” I mumbled, stuffing my purse in my desk drawer. While I was leaning down, I noticed a light bruise, the exact shape of Jack’s thumb, on the inside of my arm. I stared at it for a second, mesmerized. He’d held me so tightly, pumped me so savagely…my entire body throbbed with the memory. Not that I had any complaints— “Lexi!” I almost jumped out of my skin. “Will you be making that call, or can I expect a full day of slack-jawed drooling from you?” Dan’s voice wasn’t just exasperated—he was pissed. Something was up. “Is there a problem?” I asked.

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“I don’t know, is there?” “Not at all.” “Good. Get to work.” “Fine.” Screw it—I had too much on my plate to worry about Dan’s mood swings. For the next three hours we worked in tense, hostile silence. At noon, when he went downstairs to check the fax machine, I took the opportunity to leave for lunch. I called my best friend April, and we met at the Thai place down the street, where I knew we could talk. And boy, did I talk. “Did you spend the night?” she asked breathlessly, her Thai noodles forgotten in their huge soup bowl. “No. God, no. April, I’m not even sure if his divorce is final. When I went to the bathroom I saw his kid’s bathtub toys in the sink.” I closed my eyes and rubbed my fingertips against my temple. “God, I’m such a whore.” “You’re not a whore.” “A slut, then.” “What’s the difference?” “A slut doesn’t get paid.” “Oh, yeah. But you’re neither,” she added quickly. April’s green eyes were clear and earnest. If it weren’t unreasonable and a little creepy, April would start the Lexi Watts fan club. She loved me unconditionally and was either unwilling or unable to see anything I did as negative or wrong. She was the best person I’d ever met, and I couldn’t make it through most days without her. “Who goes home with a shit-faced coworker and screws his brains out?” I asked in a semi-hysterical voice.

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April was silent, unable to think of a response that made me look good or noble. I took an aggressive bite of my curry chicken and gulped my tea. “In what possible scenario does this end with me not being fired, or at the very least, humiliated?” April focused all her concentration on her noodles, and I couldn’t bear her stoic silence any longer. “All right, I’m out,” I announced suddenly, like a schizophrenic, throwing down my fork and grabbing my purse. “What? Wait, Lexi, where are you going?” “I’m sorry, I can’t sit still. Here.” I threw a twenty on the table and gave her a quick hug. “I love you. I’ll call you tonight.” I left her staring after my backside, and I know it sounds like I’m a horrible bitch of a friend, but I’d spent the entire summer doing the Biggest Loser workout in her living room, listening to why her ex-boyfriend Preston was scared of commitment, so I felt like I had a cushion. When I got back to the office, I was surprised to see Dan standing at my desk. His expression was still pissed, but now he was pissed and mobile. Jesus Christ, what was up with him? I was honestly confused, because Dan was usually a pretty good boss. I’d moved to his department three years ago, and we’d always worked well together. We weren’t friends, and we didn’t talk much outside of the normal office pleasantries, but as bosses go, he was fair and appreciative, and never expected me to do anything he wouldn’t do himself. Which made his sudden bad temper all the more…vexing. “May I help you?” My voice dripped with fake decorum. His sour face brought out the worst in me.

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“Where have you been?” he demanded. “At lunch. Am I not allowed to eat anymore? Did I miss a memo?” Which really wasn’t fair. He usually encouraged me to get out of the office for a few minutes in the afternoons, but more often than not I just went down to McAllister’s and got a salad to eat at my desk. “Just let me know when you go next time. Why was Jack Brogan up here looking for you?” “What?” “You heard me.” “I…I don’t know. What did he say?” My heart was thwomping in my chest, and I developed a sudden, intense interest in the corner of my desk. “He said, ‘Is Lexi around?’” He spoke as if I were a particularly slow preschooler. “Why is he looking for you?” “I have no idea, but I’m not sure—” “This is really inappropriate, Lexi.” My eyes darted to him quickly. There was no way…even the gossip web at T&G didn’t move that fast…did it? “What exactly are you talking about?” “If they want you up in corporate, they need to go through me. Guys like Brogan think they can come steal every halfway competent person we get here in research, without a thought to how long I spend training them. What we do might not be flashy, but it’s vital. And I can’t do it without help, dammit.” It was the most I’d heard him talk in three years. His eyes were burning with anger, so brown they were almost black. “Dan, Jack doesn’t want to move me to corporate. And even if he did, I’d never go. I can’t think of a job I’d hate more.” It was true. The wining and dining,

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the high-profile mergers, dealing with the press… I was a woman destined to work behind a desk, and I was perfectly happy about it. “Then why else would he come sniffing around here? God forbid I compliment anyone—the next day someone’s trying to steal them out from under me.” “You complimented me?” “I might have complimented your work,” he said grudgingly. Clearly he didn’t want me to get a big head about it. “Look, if Jack came by to see me, I’m pretty sure it was for something, umm…personal.” His brow furrowed briefly, and then his eyes went wide with understanding. “Oh.” I felt the color rise on my cheeks and hurried behind my desk. I don’t know why I cared what he thought, but I did. However, it didn’t look like Dan was ready to sit down over a cup of Earl Grey and share his advice about office romance. In fact, he walked silently back to his desk, sat for two or three minutes while I booted up my computer, and then he got up to leave. “Where are you going?” I asked as he shrugged into his jacket. “To lunch.” “Why?” I blurted. I didn’t think I’d ever seen Dan leave the building for lunch. Truthfully, I didn’t think I’d ever seen him leave the building. “Aren’t I allowed to eat? Did I miss a memo?” he sneered, and stormed out before I could even apologize.

That night, Jack came to my house late, because we both worked insane hours, and because he probably didn’t want to be seen. When I opened the door,

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he said hi, told me I looked pretty. Then his eyes headed south, and I knew he wasn’t interested in sitting on the couch and engaging in the chitchat of a new relationship—Do you have any brothers or sisters? If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?—and, truth be told, in all the years I’d fantasized about Jack, very rarely had I dreamt of leisurely talks about politics or the role that spirituality played in our lives. I wanted his heat, his strength, his body consuming mine again. We went straight to the bedroom. Once we were in bed, things went from zero to flaming in about three seconds. It felt like he was made for me, as if I’d called up and ordered him from “Lexi’s Custom Male”. His smell was the exact smell that drove me wild, his hands the ideal shape to cup my breasts, his skin the perfect texture to bring me alive. Sex with Jack was better than anything I’d dared to imagine. We came together tirelessly, until I lost track of time, lost hold of anything that existed outside of the mattress underneath us. Finally, when we were both so spent we were actually wheezing instead of breathing, we slumped in a heap at the foot of the bed. As my body calmed, I waited for his words, his praise. A reiteration of my beauty from the night before. Even a “holy crap, that was hot” would have sufficed. But his breathing grew slow, then slower, then really loud. He wasn’t searching for the perfect phrase to describe his ardor. He’d fallen asleep.

At three in the morning, I pulled my numb, tingling arm from under Jack’s shoulders and stumbled in the dark to the bathroom. When I returned, I was surprised to see he was awake, propped up on two pillows, looking at me. I grabbed a T-shirt off the top of my dresser and slid it on quickly.

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“Why the false modesty?” he asked. “I’m pretty sure it’s not false.” “You could’ve fooled me. I can think of a hundred words to describe you, Lexi, but modest isn’t one of them.” I wasn’t sure how to take that, so I stored it in my brain to examine later. “Sorry I woke you.” I mumbled, doing my best to slide gracefully back in between the twisted sheets. “Sorry I fell asleep. Being with you…I don’t know, it kind of takes it out of me, I guess.” He sounded a little embarrassed, which made me smile. He slid over, put his arm around me, and touched his lips to my hair. We lay in silence for a long moment. Despite my reluctance earlier in the evening, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we should, you know…talk. About something. Sex was great, Jesus, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t want to be Jack’s fuck buddy. I wanted more. So when I felt his hand slide down my side to massage my ass, my body tensed. I mean, I was pretty sure I’d permanently damage something if we did it again. But more importantly, I didn’t want sex, I wanted answers—answers to questions I dared not ask: Are you divorced yet? Did you think about her while we were doing it? Now that you’re not drunk…did you like it? Did you mean it when you said I was beautiful? What I got was talk about work. Jack was so used to being the crown prince of T&G, it was as if the real world didn’t exist. I discovered over the next few nights that if we weren’t covering sex or the office, Jack’s conversational skills were sketchy at best. I knew that he was in the final stages of his divorce, that he and Julia were working out a joint custody arrangement with Brooklyn (another question I was dying to ask—who names their kid Brooklyn?). I knew he was

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putting his house on the market soon. I knew he liked a girl who swallowed. But other than that, my knowledge of Jack Brogan was about the same as before. “I think he’s still in love with his wife,” I pronounced the next night over cookie dough ice cream and the “Real Housewives” of some metropolis. It was Saturday—Jack had Brooklyn for the weekend, and I had April. “No way—if he’s still in love with Julia, why would he be carrying on with you?” “April, he’s a guy—I mean, the sex…well, shit, the sex is phenomenal, but…” I trailed off. I waited for April to tell me that he would come around, that he was probably just shy, or wary of a new relationship coming off his marriage. After I got tired of waiting, I spoke for her. “I mean, maybe he just needs time before he feels like he can make an emotional connection with someone else.” “You’re probably right,” April slurred over a mouthful of gooey ice cream. “Omigod, look, Charlene is getting more lipo!” But I couldn’t embrace the carousel of crazy on my TV screen—I had my own problems, and they weren’t the kind that Botox and Pilates could solve.

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Chapter Three

Strangely enough, work became the place I went to relax, where my emotions could take a breather and my mind could focus on something other than Jack and what was—and wasn’t—happening between us. Then one day in late January, I entered the office and found myself inexplicably alone. I was struck dumb, as Dan’s presence was as steady and predictable as that of the copy machine in the corner. I checked email and voicemail for messages, then walked to his desk, searching for clues to his whereabouts. Folders and spreadsheets were strewn everywhere, growing like tumors, leaving almost no room for his telephone, his computer monitor and keyboard, his tape dispenser. Had he jotted something down on his desk calendar? I glanced quickly, saw a few reminders, saw “Sterling Ridge Asst. Lvg.” scrawled across Sunday, with a phone number. But there was nothing else for the week—no doctor’s appointment, no working breakfast with scary Edward Monahan, the VP of Research. Wherever he was, he’d left no trail of crumbs in his wake. I supposed he’d probably— “What are you doing?” Dan didn’t speak loudly, but I jumped back a full foot and let out a cry that sounded kind of like “Maah!” I clutched my hand to my chest, my mouth open in surprise, like a pin-curled heroine in a silent movie. “I…I was…where were you?” I demanded suddenly. Wasn’t I the wronged party here? He’d scared the crap out of me.

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“None of your business. What do you need?” His hands were on his hips, his expression one of supreme annoyance. But he looked different for some reason, and it took me a minute to put my finger on it. “Did you get your hair cut?” “What? Yes. Would you get to work?” I skulked to my desk, bumping some papers from the credenza behind his large leather chair along the way. I was feeling rebellious, so I didn’t stop to pick them up. In a few minutes, after I’d reined in my temper and my weird panic over not knowing where he was, I turned to ask him a question about some price and volume forecast that was giving me fits. I stopped when I realized he was staring blankly at the coffeepot across the room, his brown eyes glassy and lifeless, his shoulders slumped. “Dan…” “Huh?” I’d startled him. “Is everything okay?” He sighed, to show me how patient he was. “Yes, Lexi. Please get going— they want that stuff on the divestiture by lunch. Do you need me to help you?” His tone couldn’t have been more scornful if he’d offered to help cut my meat at the dinner table. And suddenly, inexplicably, I was on the verge of tears. My throat closed up, my nostrils flared, my bottom lip quivered. What the hell was my problem? I swiveled my chair quickly, busied myself refilling the bottom tray of my laser printer. I heard Dan take a deep breath. “I was moving my mother into a nursing home. Although now they’re called assisted living facilities.” I closed the printer drawer and turned to him. He looked grimly at the floor. “She has Alzheimer’s, and it’s gotten to be too much for the woman who checks up on her.” He kicked an invisible spot on the carpet

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with his toe. “I can’t…I mean, I’m an only child. I’m here twelve hours a day. Last week she dropped a hot iron on her bare foot. The day after Christmas her neighbor found her burning trash in the backyard, wearing nothing but a housecoat. I just…” He stopped. I wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to justify his decision to me, but I didn’t know how. Speaking to Dan about anything other than financial models made me nervous. “When I left, she started crying. She wanted to go home. She wanted my dad.” I tried to see his face, but he was still looking down, his chin buried in his neck, arms crossed tightly over his chest. “Where’s your dad?” I whispered. “He died when I was in high school. She keeps forgetting.” We sat in silence for a long moment. My tearfulness had subsided, thank God, but my heart felt heavy, unbearably low in my chest. I thought about my own mother, in Cincinnati with my dad, healthy and happy, training for a triathlon, of all things. Even when I was a child, her energy had exhausted me. I thought of Brooklyn, tried to imagine her as an adult, hovering over a doddering Jack, trying to make the same decision that Dan faced today. I wondered if she’d pick the worst facility she could find, as revenge for the stupid name she’d been saddled with. I wished I could find the perfect words to ease Dan’s guilt. “When you’re done with the report, call a courier and have it sent to Kevin over at HCA. I’m up to my eyeballs in this Kellogg crap, so I don’t have time to look it over. Make sure there are no errors.” “Dan…” I searched for something comforting and adult to say but came up with nothing.

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“What?” he spat, as if his moment of personal weakness had left a bad taste in his mouth. “Are you going to keep acting like this, or are you going to get nicer?” His lips twitched a bit. “I’m going to get nicer.” “When?” “Next week, possibly the week after. I can’t be sure.” “Well, I look forward to it.” “Shut up and get to work.”

We were on our way home from dinner, and Jack was in no small hurry to get there, if his hand resting lightly on my lap was any indication. I grinned in the dark and pretended to be disinterested, looking out the window and chatting about the upcoming weekend. He squirmed a bit in his seat and took the last turn towards his apartment a little faster than he should have, his tires squealing in protest. His index finger had inched below the hem of my skirt and began creeping up the inside of my thigh when we both heard the siren and looked in the rearview mirror to see the flashing lights behind us. “Crap,” Jack said under his breath as he began to slow down and pull over to the side of the road. “Crap, crap, crap…” “Were you speeding?” I looked over my shoulder at the squad car behind us. “Probably…I don’t know, I was distracted.” He leaned over my lap to grab his insurance card and registration form from the glove compartment. He rolled down his window and waited as the trooper walked slowly towards the car. I pulled my sweater tight against my chest.

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“Good evening… May I see your license and registration, sir?” I heard, although I was blinded for a second by the policeman’s flashlight. Oh, it was a policewoman—she looked to be in her early forties, with sandy blonde hair tucked neatly into her hat. Jack handed over his papers and license silently. She took them and wrote a few things down on her pad. “Is there a reason you were driving so fast, Mr. Brogan?” “I’m sorry, I must have been distracted…” He paused for a long second, then sighed deeply. “I guess I’ve just been a little…spacey lately, you know. This is embarrassing, but…I’m in the middle of a divorce, and…” He looked up shyly, blinked a few times, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, you don’t want to hear all this, I apologize…” What the…? Oh my God! I cleared my throat softly and looked at him sharply out of the corner of my eye, my lips drawn in a thin line. Jack ignored me, focusing completely on his story and the policewoman in front of him. I wondered who the policewoman thought I was, but Jack was doing such a good job of charming her, I was halfway convinced the woman hadn’t even noticed me in the passenger’s seat. She stopped writing in her pad. Unbelievably, she and Jack began to talk about breakups and agreed that the first few weeks after the end of a relationship were always the hardest. I turned my head and bit my lower lip when the officer brought up her own divorce, while Jack nodded sympathetically at her story. “Well, Mr…umm…Brogan,” she said finally, glancing down at his license to confirm his name, “I’m going to issue you a warning this time, but try to pay more attention in the future, okay?” She returned his documents, and Jack thanked her and gave her a charming smile. It took everything I had not to groan in disbelief.

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As soon as he rolled up the window, I slapped his arm. He shrugged away from me and held up his hand in self-defense. “You did not just do that!” I huffed. “Do what?” he asked, the picture of innocence, except for the hint of a grin on his face as he pulled back on the road and carefully merged with traffic. “Oh, please…flirting your way out of a ticket? Batting those eyelashes around?” “Hey, everything I said was true,” he said defensively. “Still, you knew what you were doing,” I argued, crossing my arms over my chest tightly. “Like you’ve never talked your way out of a ticket?” I didn’t answer. “Women do it all the time, but guys hardly ever get the chance. We can’t cry. We usually can’t flirt, since most cops are guys. I just saw an opportunity and took advantage of it.” He grinned smugly as he pulled into the driveway of his house. “Sooo…” he drawled, “you wanna…you know…take me upstairs and punish me?” He wiggled his eyebrows and grinned lasciviously. “Tie me up, handcuff me, you know…whatever it takes,” he continued as he got out of the car and walked around to open my door. When we reached the house, he grabbed my wrist and dragged me quickly to the couch, pulling me on his lap as he sat down with a thud. His lips captured mine, and I felt the urgency in his kiss immediately, his lips and tongue and hot breath hitting me like a steamroller, knocking the breath right out of my chest. “Jack,” I gasped, when I could finally speak. “This…this is what I’ve been waiting for all night,” he panted against my neck feverishly. “I couldn’t let a stupid speeding ticket get in my way.” It was becoming increasingly obvious that nothing ever got in Jack’s way.

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Chapter Four

I woke up in Jack’s bed at midnight and couldn’t go back to sleep. I had a sudden but urgent need to sleep in my own bed, by myself. I’ve always been kind of a loner, and my body longed for the solitude of my saggy double bed, with the quilt that was rubbed soft and shiny around the edges. I knew if I woke up Jack, the possibility of more sex far outweighed that of a ride home. And so it was that I found myself on the streets of Jack’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, walking six blocks to the Charles Street Station to take the subway back to my apartment. I felt the ice crunch under my heels and began to regret not calling a cab. I’d lived in Boston for six years, but I couldn’t seem to throw off my penny-pinching Midwestern roots. I turned the corner off Jack’s street and heard footsteps behind me, but before I could even turn around to look, I felt my purse being ripped off my shoulder. I stumbled a bit but stayed on my feet. By the time I could focus in the dark, I saw two men who were already halfway down the block, surprisingly sure-footed on the icy sidewalk. “Hey!” I yelled, and started to run, more out of instinct than a belief that I could actually catch them. The irony of being robbed in posh Beacon Hill, by thugs who probably lived in my neighborhood, was not lost on me. “Stop! Please, I don’t even live here, I’m from Savin Hill… The damn purse is from JC Penney, for Christ’s—” And then I was facedown in the street, my heel stuck in a drainage grate. I froze for a moment, catching my breath, taking inventory of my body. My ankle

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throbbed, and I tasted blood from where I’d bitten the inside of my cheek, but I wasn’t badly hurt. I heard a dog bark from across the street and tried to sit up. When that didn’t work, I just buried my head in the crook of my elbow and moaned, feeling the grit of dirt and ice under my fingers. In what seemed like seconds, but was probably closer to five minutes, a squad car pulled up with an ambulance close behind. I finally sat up and begged them not to take me to the hospital, but the paramedic really thought someone should look at that ankle. I wanted to tell her that someone should really shut their goddamn mouth, but I was so cold even the warmth of the ambulance sounded good. A cop took my statement, and then a man from the ambulance asked if I wanted to call anyone, and I stared at him blankly. Logic said to call Jack—he could come to the hospital with me, then take me home or back to his place. But when I tried to imagine him, dressed in his Brooks Brothers camel coat, seeing me bruised and filthy, I just couldn’t. His presence would be more nerve-wracking than comforting, and don’t think that realization didn’t make my heart hurt more than my ankle. So I took the cell phone and called April. But it was one am, and she didn’t answer. I left a voicemail, forcing levity into my voice so she wouldn’t worry—I was such a klutz, I fell off the sidewalk, could she swing by and pick me up at Mass General? Hopefully she’d get the message in the next few hours, because I had nothing—no cell phone, no purse, no money. I felt tears of self-pity rising as I hung up the phone and focused on the blinking monitors in the ambulance as we drove the few short blocks to the hospital. The overly cautious paramedic busied herself applying ice to my ankle, which actually stemmed my tears and made me laugh, because they’d found me in the damn snow. In the unique time-continuum found in all emergency rooms, it took three hours for them to x-ray my ankle and determine it was sprained. I nodded off as

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a sullen nurse wrapped my foot and awakened a few minutes later to a hand on my shoulder, and a deep voice saying, “Lexi…Lexi…look at me…” And I opened my eyes and saw Dan. “Lexi, are you all right?” “What are you doing here?” He put his hand over mine. “I just popped by to see what was up.” I tried to smile but started crying instead. I knew it would piss Dan off so I tried to stop, but the tears had a mind of their own, so I just sat there, gulping and sobbing. “Shit,” I whispered. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” “Shit,” I repeated, but he helped me sit up, and I managed to get my wits about me. “Seriously, what are you doing here? Who called you?” “Your friend April. She got your message, but she’s in Schenectady.” “Oh God, her stepbrother’s wedding, I totally forgot.” He called the nurse and got a wheelchair, and I sat there like an overgrown baby in a stroller as they wheeled me to the check-out desk. When we got to Dan’s car, he helped me slide into his front seat, then reached across and fastened my seatbelt. He was being so nice it made me nervous, as if they’d told him they discovered a brain tumor when they were checking the dilation of my eyes. “You’ll have to tell me where you live—somewhere in Dorchester, right?” “Yeah, Savin Hill… But it’s the middle of the night, Dan, you can just drop me at the T if you want. It’s a straight shot on the red line.” “Jesus, Lexi, shut up.”

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Okay, so there was no brain tumor. I felt slightly better and tipped my head back on the seat cushion behind me. I must have fallen asleep, because before I knew it he was shaking my shoulder gently. “Hey, Lex,” he whispered. “Mmm?” “What’s your address? I need to put it in the GPS.” I told him and went immediately back to sleep. When I woke again, he was pulling me out of the front seat, carrying me to my front door. “Dan.” “What?” “Put me down, I can walk” “Yeah, but you’re slow as hell, and it’s freezing out here.” I buried my head in his shoulder. “I’m too heavy.” He didn’t speak, just grunted a bit. “Am I too heavy?” “Yes, you weigh a ton, okay?” We made it to the front door, and he balanced me on one foot while retrieving my spare key from under the potted plant on the porch. Once inside, he led me to the couch and took my coat. “Do you want something to drink?” he asked, standing in front of me like a waiter. “No, no…you can go, I’m fine.” I looked at my lap. I didn’t want him to see my face, because then he’d know that I really wanted him to stay. But he must have sensed something anyway, because he sat down beside me on the couch. “Does your ankle hurt? They gave you a prescription for some pain pills—I can go down to Rite Aid and get it filled for you.” “No, it doesn’t hurt that bad. I think the inside of my mouth hurts worse than my ankle.”

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We were silent for a moment, listening to the wind slapping across the ancient windows of my apartment, making them rattle. Then, without saying anything, he put his arm around me and eased me down so I was stretched out, my head pillowed in his lap. After another moment, he started stroking my hair. My eyes were closed, my breathing shallow. “Lex.” “What?” “I’m sorry I yelled at you.” “What? Why? You yell at me all the time.” “No I don’t.” “Wanna bet?” I waited for him to argue, but he didn’t. “I’m sorry for all those times.” Another long silence, as if our conversation was taking place in slow motion, or underwater. “Dan?” “Hmm?” His hand still stroked my hair, his fingers lifting single strands, then dropping them. “Are you saying you’re sorry because they told you to at the hospital? ‘Be nice to her, she’s terribly overwrought.’” “Shhh. Relax.” “See? You sound like a hostage negotiator.” He sighed heavily. It was the sigh he always used to let me know how much I tried his patience. It was familiar, comforting. I went to sleep. My throbbing ankle woke me a few hours later. I lifted my head and saw that Dan was asleep, his head bent at an awkward angle against the back of the couch. I sat up and looked at him. His eyelashes were ridiculously long for a man. They were black, and looked like tiny little fans against his cheeks. His

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mouth was open a bit, and I had a weird desire to touch his bottom lip with the pad of my index finger, so I did. “Huh,” he groaned as he opened his eyes. He accidentally kissed my finger before I had the chance to pull it away. “Dan, it’s four in the morning. You can go home now. Or if you’re too tired to drive, go sleep in my bed—I’m fine here on the couch.” “No, I’m okay. Lie back down, you need to rest.” His voice was so comforting, it was like he was singing a lullaby. “My mom used to make me tomato soup and Ritz crackers when I wasn’t feeling well,” I murmured. Where did that come from? “Would you like some?” he asked, rubbing his eyes roughly with the heels of his hands. “No, no…I was just remembering. I don’t even like tomato soup, but I never told my mom. I didn’t have the heart.” “My mom always made me grilled cheese sandwiches. With Velveeta cheese.” He looked down at me, his gaze wistful. I wondered if he was thinking about his mom in the nursing home. I changed the subject. “My ankle hurts.” “I can go to Rite Aid and get you those pills. The one down the street is open twenty-four hours.” “No, it’s okay, it’s not that bad. But I do have some ibuprofen in the bathroom—would you mind getting it for me? It’s in the medicine cabinet by the sink.” “Sure.” When he came back he had the ibuprofen, and a blanket and pillow from my bed. He helped me sit up and gave me the pills and some water, then eased me

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down onto the pillow. He tucked me in with the blanket, and I felt awkward— exposed, almost. He stood beside the couch for a long moment. “When I was a kid, my mom would tuck me in, and we’d play this game where she traced messages on the palm of my hand, and I had to guess what she had written.” He smiled at the memory. “Do it to me,” I demanded sleepily. So he picked up my hand and started tracing letters gently on my skin. “Close your eyes, Lexi,” I whispered. “Good.” He traced some more. “I’m glad you are okay.” My voice broke on “okay”. I figured it was because I was so tired. He squeezed my hand and placed it under the blanket. Then he sat on the floor with his back propped against the couch. We both fell asleep, but when I woke up, he was gone.

As soon as Jack heard what happened to me, he came to my place with Chinese takeout and a half-dozen DVDs, which made me feel guilty for sneaking out of his house to begin with. “Why didn’t you call me?” he demanded, propping my foot up with a cushion, a little ill-at-ease in the caretaker role. Jack’s entire life revolved around people catering to him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to wake you. I seriously thought I’d just get up, dust off my skirt, and walk the rest of the way to the T, but then the cops and the ambulance showed up…” I didn’t want to tell him the real reason I hadn’t called. “Well, I hope you’ve learned your lesson.” He sat beside me on the bed.

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“What, that I should stick to my own neighborhood, where the criminals know I’m broke?” “No, that you should never leave my bed until I’m done with you.” He grinned and edged his palm between my thighs. God, he was gorgeous. Like movie-star, fairy-tale-prince gorgeous. When he smiled, his eyes crinkled at the edges. They were the color of twilight. A familiar twinge of desire shot down my spine, and heat pooled between my legs. “Jack,” I said reluctantly, as he leaned in for a kiss. “Hmm?” He planted his lips on my neck when I turned my head to the side. “I can’t…I mean, I’m pretty bruised up, I think I’d better lay off the heavy petting for a day or two.” He lifted his head to look at me blankly. I seriously doubted that anyone had ever denied Jack Brogan sex. “Are you sure?” His grin was back, his hand sliding farther up my thigh, cupping me fully. He took my hand and placed it on his crotch. “Jack…” God knew it was tempting, but I felt like I’d been hit by a Mack truck. He sighed and moved away. “Okay, I’m sorry. You just drive me crazy.” He kissed the top of my head. “I’ll leave you to rest. But if you need anything, promise you’ll call me, okay?” I nodded, even though his phone number was in my stolen cell phone, and I didn’t have it memorized. But it didn’t matter.

I went back to work on Tuesday, so embarrassed by the huge, plastic boot on my foot that I used the garage entrance to the building. I limped to my desk, my head low, feeling awkward and embarrassed to see Dan, who didn’t even look up from his computer screen.

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“Morning,” I muttered. He acted surprised to see me, even though I knew he wasn’t. “Hey. How are you feeling?” “Better. Thanks.” He nodded, then looked back at his computer. I was dismissed. “Thanks for Friday night too. I mean, you kind of snuck out, and I didn’t get a chance to tell you how much I appreciated your help.” “No problem.” “No, really, you saved me. I didn’t have anyone else to call.” He said nothing. I knew my attempts at conversation were making him uncomfortable, so I shut up. I opened my bottom drawer and shoved my purse in it. He went back to a report he was working on, and I turned on my printer. “Why didn’t you call Jack?” “What?” “Nothing. Never mind.” “I guess I just—” “I said never mind,” he mumbled, and then he stood up and left.

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Chapter Five

For the next four days, Dan was out of the office more often than he was there. I had no idea what was up, and since he remained his usual chatty self, I remained in the dark. At first, it seemed strange to work alone, like I was a kid left at home by my parents for the first time. By the end of the week, though, I was behaving like a Kardashian, cranking up the radio on my desk, eating honey-roasted peanuts out of the can, shopping online for some face cream April swore would make my skin as soft as velvet. In fact, I was engaging in all of the above when Dan walked in the office on Friday afternoon. Of course I didn’t hear him come in. Dan’s raison d’être was to scare the living crap out of me. “What the hell?” “Oh, shit.” My mouth was full of peanuts. I dropped the can on my desk and slapped the top of the radio to turn it off. And then I almost fell off my chair, because Dan grinned. Honest-to-God grinned. He had really nice teeth—not too big, but straight and white. “C’mon,” he said. “Huh?” “Come. On.” He paused for a second. “No questions.” My mind started spinning. Was he mad? Had the peanuts crossed some invisible line? Was he going to fire me so he would no longer be bothered with tawdry late-night rescue missions? “Where are we going?”

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“Just come on,” he moaned, but then he grinned—again! I couldn’t help it, I grinned back. “Fine, Mr. Mysterious, no questions. What’s in the bag?” “Jeeesus.” “Okay, okay…” By the time we got to his car, I was feeling downright giddy. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and I couldn’t remember leaving the office so early in…ever. “Can you at least give me a hint?” “No.” “If I guess and I’m right, will you tell me?” “No.” “Are we going somewhere nice? Do I need lipstick?” “No.” “No, we’re not going somewhere nice, or no, I don’t need lipstick?” “God, are you incapable of shutting up?” We sat in silence for a moment. “May I ask a question that’s not about where we’re going?” “No.” “Please?” He pretended to think about it. “Okay.” “Do you think I talk too much?” That earned me a sideways smile, and I felt warm inside, pleased to have pleased him. By now I’d figured out that we were going to my apartment, and I began to get a little nervous, trying to remember if I’d left dirty dishes in the sink, or my bras hanging off the mantel to dry. By the time we pulled up to my

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front door, I’d done a mental inventory and decided there was nothing there Dan couldn’t see. “Well, thanks for the ride home, Boss.” I opened the door and let myself out, and he followed me silently. He had the bag in his hand again, so I reached over and grabbed it while I was pretending to search for my keys in the bottom of my purse. He didn’t try to take it back, just followed me through the front door. When I peeked in the bag, I let out a snort of laughter. “What did you do, mug a women’s self-defense instructor?” One by one, I pulled out pepper spray, a flashlight, a keychain alarm that looked more like a vibrator—I snorted again as I imagined Dan buying it—and some contraption that resembled a plastic clock radio with too many wires. “What’s this?” “It’s an alarm for your door—you can connect it to the front windows too.” “What in the world for?” I asked. My apartment complex was large and well-lit. It may not be in the best neighborhood, but I never feared for my safety. “Well, if you’re determined to walk the streets of Boston alone at all hours of the night, I thought you might want some protection.” “I can take care of myself.” “Oh, like you did last Friday?” His tone was just patronizing enough to tick me off. “I didn’t ask for your help,” I huffed. “No, your friend April asked for my help. You were so stupid you weren’t going to ask for anyone’s help, were you? What if you’d ended up dead in a ditch?” “Then I guess you’d be stuck without an assistant. But hey, there are plenty more where I came from, so don’t knock yourself out.” God, why was I being such a bitch?

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“Lexi.” His look wasn’t angry, it was dead serious. “When I got that call…” He closed his eyes. “When they told me what happened… Those guys could have done a lot more than just take your purse.” “They wouldn’t have hurt me.” “How the hell do you know?” he roared. I shut up. He dropped his head, and I noticed his hands were balled into tight fists by his sides. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I tried to swallow around the lump in my throat. He’d been scared for me…worried about me. And I was acting like an inconsiderate brat. He didn’t say anything, just turned around and stared out the window. It had started to snow. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful. It’s just that no one’s ever worried about me before.” I paused for a second. “Well, April worries about me. But she worries that everyone on Gilligan’s Island will end up with skin cancer, so I’m not sure if she counts.” Dan didn’t speak, but his hands unclenched a bit. I couldn’t stand the silence, so I kept up my nervous chatter. “Listen, I was going to make chicken spaghetti for dinner. If you put up that alarm thingy for me, I will treat you to the culinary experience of your life. Seriously, people have driven from Dayton to Cincinnati for my chicken spaghetti.” “I didn’t know you cooked.” He was still facing the window, mesmerized by the snow. “Well, chicken spaghetti and fried egg sandwiches. Would you like one of those instead?” I was already halfway to the kitchen, jumping at the chance to atone for my poor behavior. “Lexi, you don’t have to cook for me.” He followed me to the kitchen. “But I want to. Please?” My voice sounded small, almost desperate.

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“Okay, but no fried egg sandwich. It sounds like prison food.” “You’ve never had a fried egg sandwich?” I asked incredulously. “I’m not a big egg eater. The yellow part makes me gag.” “God, Dan, I thought better of you. My fried egg sandwiches are Nirvana on toast.” “I’ll take your word for it.” We worked in companionable silence, me in the kitchen, Dan in the front foyer hooking up the alarm, until the sun started to set and the aroma of chicken and pasta brought Dan into the kitchen, nose first, sniffing appreciatively. “Holy Rachael Ray, it smells good in here.” I think I actually blushed, but the heat in the kitchen hid my pleasure. He reached over to dip his pinky in the sauce I was stirring, but I swatted it away. “Wash your hands,” I commanded, and he held both palms up to me in mock surrender. “Sorry,” I said. “My grandmother taught me to cook. She was a bit of a germaphobe. ‘Wash your hands, you’ll get a stomachache,’ she’d say. That and ‘Don’t eat bananas after five o’clock.’ Oh, and ‘If your lips itch, it means you want to be kissed.’“ Dan stopped drying his hands on the dishtowel. “How do your lips feel?” He was right behind me. I turned around, expecting to see a teasing gleam in his eyes, but they weren’t teasing. At all. “They might be a little itchy,” I whispered. He was so close. He smelled really, really good. I followed the nervous dip of his Adam’s apple, then reached up and pressed my lips to his cheek. “Lexi,” he breathed. “Kiss me.” He leaned forward and kissed my forehead. That wasn’t what I meant.

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“Dan…” He opened his mouth to speak, but words didn’t come. “What?” I prompted. He looked at my lips. “If I kiss you, I’ll never stop.” I took a stuttering breath as he traced the curve of my jaw with his finger. His eyes were so dark—they went right through me. I reached for his hand and placed it on my cheek. That touch, or something in my eyes, must have released whatever was left of his reticence, because suddenly I was in his arms, his embrace tight, his lips hot and demanding on mine. Our mouths opened at the same time, as if by agreement, and we wrestled each other with our tongues. His had a sharp, frantic taste, and it made me gasp with pleasure. With his lips still on mine, he began to drag me from the kitchen. I reached blindly for the stove, twisting off the burner under the saucepan so I didn’t torch the place. “Hmph,” he grunted against my mouth, congratulating me on my display of fire safety. We made it to the couch, and I shoved his shirt up, high on his chest. My hands explored the contours of his body, caressing the sexy spattering of dark curls, tiny Cs traveling down his stomach. He was trim and hard, his shoulders broad, hips narrow, as if he spent his days doing gymnastics instead of writing market analyses. He growled low in his throat as I scraped my nails across his ribcage. As I moved closer to his waistband, he diverted me, pushing me down and kissing my cheeks and throat. Then he laced my fingers between his and plucked wet, soft kisses from my lips. There was no more crazed heat between us, just a slow, steady burn. And although part of me wanted to sit up and climb him like

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a jungle gym, the other, softer part never wanted this sweet embrace to end. We kissed for so long I lost track of time, and soon all that existed was Dan, enveloping me with his warm, gentle mouth. At some point I must have started to cry, because he finally stopped and caught a tear on the side of my face with his thumb. “Don’t cry.” “I’m not. Am I?” And then I let out a choked sob, answering my own question. “I’m sorry,” he said as he sat up. “I shouldn’t have started this.” “No…Dan…I mean—Wait!” He stood up, and I could see him changing back to the real Dan, the one who treated me like an annoying little sister. But that wasn’t the real Dan, was it? I could have sworn the real Dan just kissed me as if he could never get enough. He moved toward the front door, his arms crossed over his chest. He spoke with his back to me. “Last week. You and I got into some kind of argument at the office. I behaved badly, and I knew you were upset. It’s just…we sit there all day, talking and laughing, and when it’s time for you to leave…I dread it, more than I should. So I pick fights.” He paused for a moment. “After you left, I sat at my desk, trying to understand myself: I don’t even try to charm her—and on occasion, I can be pretty goddamn charming. Instead, I just alienate her. Because I can’t…” He shook his head. “Why can’t you?” “Lexi, I’m your boss.” “So?” I wasn’t being obtuse. There were more hook-ups at T&G than at a Match.com happy hour.

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“So? It’s inappropriate. And a great way for both of us to get fired.” He still wasn’t looking at me, but I knew it was more than our work situation that was holding him back. I walked over and wrapped my arms around him from behind, my face buried in his back, between his shoulder blades. He was so warm. He lifted my hand from his chest and kissed my palm. “I’d better go. The alarm’s installed. Please set it after I leave, okay?” His back was tense against my chest. “You’re dying to get out of here, aren’t you?” He didn’t answer. “Why? Why do you want to leave?” “Lexi, I can’t…I have to go.” “But what about dinner?” I pulled away from him and grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to turn and face me. “Some other time, okay?” He tried to make his voice light and casual, but we were both unsettled. He took my hands tight in his and held them close against his heart. And then he let go of me and left.

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Chapter Six

The next day I was cranky, one of those mornings when you wake up and feel as if you haven’t really slept at all. I went through my Saturday routine— oatmeal for breakfast, then a long, slow bike ride around the neighborhood, then a shower and the lazy woman’s cleaning routine, which consists of washing the dishes, vacuuming and running over the tile in the kitchen with a Swiffer. When I opened the door to take out the garbage, I accidentally set off Dan’s alarm, which made me want to sit on the floor and sob. Instead I threw a shoe at it, which left a nice, satisfying crack in the plastic casing. My phone rang as I was going through the mail. I jumped, then forced myself to calm down. “Hey, Lexi.” Oh, God. “Hey, Jack.” “What’s up?” I could tell from the deepness of his voice that he was still in bed, probably touching himself, probably thinking that I would be more satisfying than his right hand. “Not much.” And I wondered how I could get him off the phone, because I felt nothing. Nothing. The thought of being with Jack, making love with Jack, having a torturously boring conversation with Jack, left me cold. Depressed. He was just another pretty face, and it was not the face I wanted. Not anymore. “I miss you. How’s your leg?” “My ankle. It’s fine. I got my boot off on Thursday.”

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“Well, since you’re on the mend, would you like to come by my place? We could have some lunch.” Lunch, my ass. “Jack…” Deep breath. It was go-time. “Listen…you’re a great guy, and I’ve had a lot of fun with you, but I’m not really ready for a relationship right now.” “Who said anything about a relationship? We’re just having a good time, right?” “Okay, let’s try this again. The truth is, I am ready for a relationship. Just not with you.” Wow. Was that the truth? “Lexi, I’m sorry that I haven’t been more attentive. Listen, work right now is crazy—Turner and Bradshaw are nipping at my heels, and I’ve been trying to make time for Brooklyn…” The daughter or the borough, I wondered. “Jack, listen, this is my point. You’ve got a lot on your plate, and so do I. I just think it’d be best if we didn’t see each other anymore.” Silence. This had to be a lot for him to swallow. I mean, even with all his charm and beauty, he’d been dumped by Julia for the manny, and now I was giving him the heave-ho. I searched for words to soften the blow, but before I could soothe his ego, he cut me off. “Fine. Listen, I think you still have that pair of gloves I let you borrow at the Black Goose last week. Slip them in an interoffice envelope on Monday, would you?” Okay, so maybe he wasn’t as broken up as I imagined. “Sure, Jack. Bye.” And I hung up on the last six years of my life.

Monday morning I was greeted at the office with an email from Dan. He had a morning meeting with some guys from Qualcomm, and he’d be in after lunch. I wondered if he really had a meeting or if he was just avoiding me. Pulling out

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my can of peanuts, I booted up my computer and turned on the radio. But it wasn’t fun anymore. By ten thirty, Dan had over a dozen calls, and it was starting to put me over the edge. We had a habit of not answering each other’s phone, but by eleven it was driving me nuts, and I lunged for his desk. “Yes!” Calm down, Lexi. “Dan Yeager’s office.” “Hello, this is Nancy Sullivan from Sterling Ridge Assisted Living. May I please speak to Mr. Yeager?” “I’m sorry, he’s out of the office this morning. May I take a message?” “Do you know how I might reach him? It’s quite urgent.” I felt a shaft of dread go through me. “Is this about his mother? Is she okay?” There was a pause. “I really need to speak to Mr. Yeager about the situation.” “Listen, let me put you on hold, I’ll try to get in touch with him.” She agreed, and I raced for my purse. I called Dan’s cell, his home, sent a text, sent an email. Nothing. Where the hell was he? Who’s completely unreachable in this day and age? I went back to his desk. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Sullivan, I can’t locate him at the moment. If you could just let me know what’s going on, I’m Dan’s…” What—Assistant? Friend? Irritant? “I’m Dan’s girlfriend. I’m very close to the family. He’d want you to tell me what’s wrong.” She seemed to consider this. I held my breath. “Well, I can’t give you any medical information, but I can say that she’s very agitated. We can’t give her a sedative without Mr. Yeager’s consent. I’m afraid she might hurt herself if we can’t calm her down.” I thought for a second.

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“Listen, why don’t I come down and sit with her until we can get in touch with Dan? He always calls me as soon as he gets out of a meeting.” A total lie, but I wanted her to swallow the girlfriend story. “Well, why don’t we wait—” “Terrific, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Tell her Lexi’s on her way—that should calm her down.” I hung up. Tell her Lexi’s on her way? Jesus. I grabbed a cab downstairs, and together the driver and I managed to find Sterling Ridge. It was a small, well-landscaped facility on the north side of town. Nancy was at the front desk, and she still seemed reluctant to talk to me. However, I could tell she was tired of dealing with Dan’s mom, so I pressed her. “Just take me to her—I know I can calm her down.” Oh God, I knew no such thing. I’d called Dan fifty times on the cab ride over. Where the hell was he? When we got to her room, Dan’s mom was pacing the floor, being watched by an orderly who looked about twelve. “Mrs. Yeager, you have a visitor,” Nancy announced in a loud, slow voice. God, she was crazy, not deaf. “Hi…” Shit, I had no idea what her name was. I couldn’t call her Mrs. Yeager. We were practically family. “Hi, Mom.” “Who are you?” she demanded. She was very thin, and short. Her eyes were black, just like Dan’s. She gave me an irritated, impatient look. Just like Dan. “It’s Lexi, Mom.” I chuckled indulgently and gave Nancy a knowing, ohthese-nutty-Alzheimer’s-patients look. “I can take it from here,” I told Nancy and the preteen orderly. “We’ll just visit for a while, okay, Mom?” She gave me such a sneering Dan-look that I almost laughed. “I need to go home,” she announced as soon as the others had left. I’d dealt with my own grandmother before she died, and I knew the best thing to do in these situations was to just go with the flow.

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“Of course you do. We’ll get you there soon, okay?” “No, I need to go now!” she spat. “Dan’s waiting for me.” “No, no—Dan’s on his way here.” I clarified. “What?” This confused her. “Is he taking the bus?” “No, ma’am, he’s driving. He’ll be here very soon.” I tried to take her shoulder and lead her to the edge of her bed, but she was having none of it. “He’s driving? Absolutely not, I told him I don’t want him driving without an adult. Three weeks with a learner’s permit, and he thinks he’s Mario Andretti. He’ll kill himself!” Her eyes were wide with anger and fear. Oh, shit. Shit. “Oh, no, you’re right, he is taking the bus. I forgot. I’m sure that’s why he’s late. The traffic’s horrible this afternoon, there’s a lot of ice on the road.” This seemed to satisfy her, and she allowed me to scoot her to the bed. We both sat on the edge. “How do you think he’s doing?” she asked me. “Who?” “Dan.” “Oh…Dan’s great. Terrific. I know he’s anxious to see you. He should be here any minute.” Please, please let him be here any minute. She looked at her lap. “I wish I could do something for him. But you know Dan, he’s so quiet. He won’t tell me anything. I mean, I guess all teenagers are like that with their mothers, but I know how much he’s hurting. I heard him crying in his room last night.” I didn’t know what to say, so I just placed my hand on her knee. She didn’t seem to notice. I tried to imagine Dan as a teenager, crying in his room. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.

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“Jim could talk to him. I mean, they mainly talked about sports, but they talked, you know?” I nodded. “How am I going to raise him alone? He’s only fifteen, he needs his father. He misses him terribly.” I needed to say something. I didn’t know this woman, but I knew Dan. “Mrs. Yeager, Dan’s going to grow up to be a wonderful man. He’ll be kind and funny and caring… I think he’ll always be quiet, but you know what they say about still waters, right?” She was silent for a long moment. “I hope you’re right.” “I know I’m right.” “Hey.” And there was Dan, in the doorway. “Omigod,” I breathed, clutching my throat. How did he creep up like that? I was so relieved to see him I jumped up and grabbed his arm, as if he might try to escape. “We’ve been waiting for you, haven’t we, Mrs. Yeager? Where the hell have you been?” I murmured the last part under my breath. “My phone’s screwed up, the battery won’t charge anymore.” His eyes were sorry and worried, and something else I couldn’t think about in front of his mother. “Mom, what’s wrong? Nancy said you were upset.” He sat on the bed and took her hand. Mrs. Yeager began the second chorus of her favorite song, “I Want to Go Home”, and I caught Dan’s eye and gave him a little wave. “I’m going to go,” I mouthed, pointing behind me towards the door. “Wait, Lexi…please don’t go.” Oh, those words, from his lips. His eyes held mine, and I suddenly remembered the first time I did a backflip in my cousin Katy’s pool—I felt disoriented for a second, but then perfectly, joyously right. So that’s what it felt like to fall in love.

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Chapter Seven

I took a cab back to the office from Sterling Ridge—Dan shoved a wad of bills in my hand as I left, and I didn’t know how to refuse it in front of his mom. I sank into the backseat and thanked the Lord for my blessedly silent cabbie. Still feeling a little shaky, I called April. Her voice was always like a salve to me, calm and sweet. I told her what had happened at the nursing home. “What do you mean, you fell in love with him?” “Well, I think I fell in love with him a long time ago, but I didn’t realize it until today. When he looked at me and asked me not to leave, there was something in his eyes. I just knew from his expression that he loved me. And then I knew immediately that I loved him too. It was weird, especially right there in front of his mother. I never imagined falling in love with the smell of arthritis cream in the air.” “But Lexi, it’s Dan.” April had met Dan, and she was not his number one fan. She couldn’t handle anyone who didn’t worship me, and Dan wasn’t one to shower me with praise. Or even complete sentences, for that matter. “I know it’s strange, April, but he’s so—he’s just so good. And I know he’s quiet and kind of scary, but deep down he’s a sweetheart.” “Real deep down,” she drawled. “He loves me. Doesn’t that count for something?” I heard her sigh. “Just be careful. You thought you loved Jack too.”

An Unexpected Love

“Oh, Jack,” I scoffed. “Jack’s a pretty boy with the personality of a constipated brick.” April giggled, and it made me smile. “I just want you to be happy.” “He makes me happy, April. I promise.”

It was almost midnight, and I was still at the office. There are some days when I just can’t stomach the thought of going home to an empty apartment, and this was definitely one of them. Typically I go hang out at April’s place when I’m feeling too alone to function, but I couldn’t face her. I couldn’t face anyone with all the emotions flowing through me, both dreadful and wonderful at the same time. So I plowed through market trend analyses until my eyeballs literally dried up. I stopped to take out my contacts and pop them in the case and was rummaging through my desk drawer for my extra pair of glasses when Dan walked in. He took fast, determined strides towards me. As usual, I almost jumped out of my chair. “Dan! Holy crap! Would it kill you to make a little noise? Maybe wear a bell—” He reached me and pulled me into his arms. He hugged me close, burying his face in my neck. His breath was hot and damp on my skin, and he held me so tightly my back started to go numb. Then he pulled back and kissed me. What happened next? I’m not completely sure, because I was in some kind of white heat, and Dan’s lips and hands were everywhere, so hot, so incredibly hot. I remember watching him, spellbound, as he took off his shirt, completely oblivious to the fact that it was midnight and we were on the 38th floor of T&G. All that mattered was that the man I loved was taking off his clothes, and I got to watch.

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I moved close then, and touched him through his boxers. He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply. I tried to reach inside, but he grabbed me and pulled my blouse clumsily over my head. I reached behind me and unhooked my bra, flinging it over his shoulder. He stopped for a second, stared dumbly at my breasts, then touched them briefly, reverently. I think I made some kind of moan of impatience, because he jerked his hands from me and yanked down my skirt and panties, thrusting his knee high between my legs. We were too far gone for teasing and foreplay. He scooted me back against the lateral file cabinet behind my desk, pushed down his shorts, and entered me, hard and deep. I’d never, ever had sex like that before. It wasn’t just that I let go, sobbing and biting and clawing his smooth, muscled back. It was that I had no choice, no control. Just when I thought I’d ridden out the last spasm of my orgasm, just when I would try to bring it down and moderate my breathing, another, bigger wave would knock the sense right out of me. Finally, Dan made a quiet, tense sound in his chest, and I knew he needed something to push him over the edge. I sucked his bottom lip between my teeth, biting it hard, and with a final hoarse groan, he came. Gasping, shaking, we slumped weakly against the file cabinet and made the slow slide down until I was sitting on his lap. It took a while for us to catch our breath, and then I needed to talk. “Dan.” I leaned back a few inches so I could see his face. “I know you love me. I figured it out this afternoon.” “Lexi…” “I love you too.” “You don’t know what you feel right now. One day you’re with Jack Brogan, the next day you’re with me.” “Are you saying I’m a slut?” “No, I’m saying you’re confused.”

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“I’m not. I’m not in love with Jack. I never was, not really.” “You sure acted like it.” His voice was tight. “I guess I thought I should love him. I mean, I saw his looks and his smarts and his money, and I thought, ‘this is what I should love’. Like he was better than me, and by loving him, I’d be better too.” “He’s not better than you.” “I know.” We were silent for a moment. “Listen, Lexi…” He pushed my hair behind my ear tenderly, which was both weird and sweet, considering we were slumped half-naked behind my desk. “I came here to thank you for this morning. My mom, she has good days and bad, and—” “That was a hell of a thank-you.” “Well, I was really appreciative.” “When did you start loving me?” I demanded. He was turning into distant, smartass Dan again, and I wasn’t going to let him. He lifted my hand, kissed my palm. “I don’t know…it’s been a while, I guess.” “You don’t know? For Christ’s sake, Dan, this is a pretty significant conversation we’re having.” “When you were transferred to Ed’s group, okay?” “Oh my God…that was over three years ago!” No way, I couldn’t believe it. “Lexi, there were fifty junior analysts I could have chosen to come work for me. Why do you think I chose you?” “I thought it was because of my superior risk analysis skills.” He began to laugh. “Shut the hell up!” I slapped his chest.

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He pulled me into his arms. “Your risk analysis skills are fine. But they aren’t why I hired you.” “You hired me because you loved me.” I grinned against his chest. “Yes.” He didn’t sound as thrilled as I would have liked. “Lexi…I know you think you love me right now, but this is new for you. I think maybe you’re disappointed because things didn’t work out with Jack, and now you have these feelings for me that might be…fleeting.” “You think I don’t love you? You think I’m some flighty idiot who falls in love as often as she changes underwear? How come you can love me, but I can’t love you back?” He sighed, closed his eyes. “I just…I don’t think we should move too fast, because I’m not sure that you can love me— “ “But I do!” “—the way I love you. Madly. Obsessively. So much it scares me.” I smoothed his hair off his forehead, away from his temples. His eyes, which were normally so dark and sharp, were wide, and I could see the brown when I was this close. “You don’t have a clue how I love you,” I whispered. He leaned forward and kissed me, then kissed me again, so sweetly that I felt a crazy ache in my chest. And after his lips began to get a little hotter, and his tongue a little deeper, I reached for him, felt his hardness with my hand. “God, Lexi, you feel so good. I’ve never felt like this.” He leaned down to kiss my nipple, then began to tease it with his teeth. How did he know how much I loved that? “Meh…it was passable.” I leaned my head back against the file cabinet and grinned. “Better than with third-rate Brogan,” he growled. “He was second-rate. With you it was third-rate.”

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“Bullshit. You never came so hard. You know it. Admit it.” Dan was teasing me. I giggled, and believe me, I am not a girl who giggles. “Dan, I scratched a highway map on your back. You might need a tetanus shot. It was indescribably good.” He gave me a look that was full of male ego, and I laughed and kissed his forehead. “Tell me again,” he demanded. “It was great sex!” I yelled, feigning exasperation. “No, not that.” “Then what?” “You know what.” “Oh Dan,” I sighed, cupping his face in my hands. “I love you more than you’ll ever know.”

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Epilogue

We had been fighting for ten minutes about who got the aisle seat and who had to sit in the middle. I had the distinct impression that the thinning-haired businessman sitting by the window was already sick of us, and we hadn’t even left the ground. “It’s a proven fact that women have to go to the bathroom more often than men. Ergo—” “Ergo?” he repeated. “—Ergo, I should have the aisle.” “But I’m bigger. I need more room.” “Do you really want my ass in your face every time I have to get up?” Dan raised his eyebrows at me but said nothing. I crossed my arms and sat back huffily, but he just ignored me and made a big show of stretching out his legs and swinging his arm around in circles in the empty aisle. We were on our way to Cincinnati, to attend my parents’ fortieth anniversary party. It was a testament to our relationship that he agreed to take two days off work and come up early with me. Not a lot of guys would do that for their girlfriends. I kept telling myself that as he buckled his seatbelt and luxuriated in the twenty inches of personal space to his left. Well, truth be told, I was more than just his girlfriend—I was his live-in girlfriend, for going on three months, and it was going swimmingly. When I first left T&G I was worried that it might hurt our relationship—what if work was all

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we had? What if we came home at night and found nothing to talk about, without investment banking to hold us together? But my worry was short-lived—Dan and I still had plenty to talk about. And as an added bonus, I discovered a whole new life. When I got home from my new job as a federal regulatory reporting manager for Morgan Stanley, it was still light outside. I had time to shop and read books and talk to my friends. I had time to cook real meals and pick out the perfect Roman shades for the living room in our new condo. And when Dan got home after one of his fourteen-hour days, I was able to help him relax. Sometimes I met him at the front door and helped him relax right there in the entryway, shoved up against the coat closet. One time we even relaxed in the service elevator, but that’s a whole other story. Once we were in the air, I stopped being pouty, because it wasn’t working. Dan was keeping his seat, which, truth be told, kind of surprised me. He always gave me the better choice—the coldest soda, the plushest towel, the biggest slice of cheesecake—and I had come to expect it. When the “fasten seatbelt” light went off, I immediately stood up to go to the bathroom, making sure I elbowed Dan several times, and slid myself artlessly across him, upending the newspaper on his lap and smushing it against his chest. “I’m so sorry,” I panted, placing my hand on his shoulder as I straightened myself upright in the aisle. “I didn’t mean to trample you like that.” “Did you bump me? I didn’t even notice.” He gave me a dazzling smile, all sparkly eyes and white teeth, and it made me want to kiss him, but I resisted the urge. As I stood in line, I could feel Dan’s eyes on me, but I wouldn’t turn around to look. Okay, maybe once I peeked, and sure enough, his steady gaze held mine for an instant before I edged forward and shoved myself into the tiniest bathroom I’ve ever had the displeasure of visiting.

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For the first few months we were dating, Dan’s eyes were almost always following me—he looked at me with love and with desire but also with a bit of wariness. Like he wasn’t sure I’d be staying around for long. Like I might jump at the next Jack Brogan who crossed my path. I did everything I could to prove to him that he was it, that no one else would be turning my head—not now, not ever—but it was still there, the look that I couldn’t erase. And then one night, a few months ago, we were sitting on the living room floor, trying to connect the dozens of wires that hooked up our new flat-screen TV to the cable box and the DVD player and the surround sound system, and he just stopped. For a second I didn’t notice, my attention diverted by red, white and yellow wires and all the potential ways I could plug them in the wrong holes. “Lexi.” “Wait. Seriously, I think I’ve got it figured out this time.” My wires looked like a bowl of multicolored spaghetti, but I still felt like I was on the verge of a breakthrough. “Lex, put those down for a second.” I did as he asked, then stared at him blankly. “I need to ask you something.” Holy crap, he looked so serious. Did he want to return the TV? “Like, right now. Right this second. Is there anyplace else you’d rather be? Anything else you’d rather be doing?” It was a strange thing to ask in the middle of a hugely unsuccessful home theater installation, but when I looked at his face, I knew exactly what he needed to hear. And why. “Dan, there is nothing I’d rather be doing at this moment than making a mess of these wires. With you. And tomorrow, there’s nothing I’d rather be doing than sitting here waiting for the technician from Best Buy to show up and fix everything we fuck up tonight. There’s nothing else. No one else. Ever.” I

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stared deep into his eyes, willing him to hear me, and listen to me, and believe me. “Okay,” he said slowly, his eyes dark and serious. And sexy. Goddamn, what that man could do to me with his eyes. “I was just checking.” And yes, we did completely destroy the installation job. But after that night, Dan changed. There were no more worried glances when he left for work; no more doubtful grunts when I told him I’d rather stay in and watch home improvement shows than eat at some stupid, trendy restaurant. Except for today. Despite our teasing, Dan looked nervous. Uneasy. I couldn’t think of what I’d done to put him on edge. Maybe he was just worried about something at work. Or maybe he was dreading meeting my parents. I couldn’t blame him for that—my parents can be a bit much, especially for someone as quiet as Dan. When I returned to my seat, I climbed over his knees deftly and slid my seatbelt on. I’d decided to be nicer to him, just in case he really was upset about something. “Hey, they’re coming with drinks—do you want a beer or something? My parents are always more palatable after I’ve knocked back a few.” Dan nodded uncomfortably, barely even acknowledging my joke. “Are you okay?” “Fine,” he said tightly, his eyes glued to the drink cart making its way down the aisle towards us. Wow. Even loving him the way I did, there was no denying that when Dan was in a mood, he could still be kind of…imposing. Not in a scary kind of way, of course, but in a way that made me wonder what was going on in his head. I so rarely got to see what he was really thinking. As the drink cart got closer, Dan seemed to get more jumpy, and pretty soon, I needed a drink. The flight attendant stopped and asked our row what we’d like. Thinning-haired guy ordered a club soda, I ordered a rum and Coke, and

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Dan didn’t order anything. The flight attendant immediately leaned over Dan and placed a can of Coke, a tiny bottle of rum and a cup of ice on my tray. “Hey, why don’t you get something, you know I feel cheap when I drink alone—” I opened the baby rum bottle and was about to pour in a generous shot when my eye caught something floating in the cubes of ice. Something shiny. Holy shit. I leaned forward and began digging around in the ice with my fingers, and pulled out a beautiful, pear-shaped solitaire, set in platinum. It was freezing in my hand. When I looked over at Dan, he was sliding down on one knee in the aisle beside me. He was pretty squished, and if I didn’t already feel tears gathering in the corners of my eyes, I would have burst out laughing at his face, which was frozen in a mask of terror. The flight attendant was standing behind him, looking like the cat that ate the canary. When had he set all this up? He took my left hand in his. “Lexi, I’ve loved you for so long, and these last nine months have been the best of my life. I can’t remember what my life was like before you, and I can’t bear the thought of what it would be like without you…” Okay, so by then I was crying, and people were staring, and even thinning-haired guy was leaning over, listening with interest. “Will you marry me?” I let forth some kind of horrible sound, which might have been a sob, or a cough, or a laugh, I’m not sure which. “So this is why you took the aisle seat,” I squeaked triumphantly. Dan closed his eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience. “Lex, can we focus here?” “Oh God, sorry, of course I’ll marry you.” I lunged forward and threw my arms around his neck, and we kissed and kissed, until the drink cart started to jam Dan in the ribs. Finally he rose stiffly, and a bunch of passengers

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congratulated us, and I slipped the ring on my finger and absolutely could not take my eyes off it. When it was finally time to sit back down, Dan took the middle seat without my having to ask. I scooted as close to him as I could and rested my head on his shoulder. “I love you,” I whispered in his neck. “You love me because I gave you the aisle seat.” “I love you because you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You know that, right?” I moved back and looked into his dark brown eyes, so dear to me now, and traced my finger along the edge of his jaw. “Right?” “Yes, I know that,” he said roughly, and I hugged him, and he hugged me back, and I finally stopped talking. Because everything was perfect.

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About the Author

Claire Matthews caught the writing bug soon after her youngest daughter started school, leaving her to either write or seduce the FedEx guy. Since the FedEx guy was a woman, an author was born. After her first five stories were accepted for publication, Claire began to realize that this was more than just a hobby, and set up shop in the attic, with an old TV table, an ancient laptop and a well-worn thesaurus. Focusing on short contemporary romance, Claire finds time to write between teaching political science at a nearby community college and caring for her two demanding daughters, her slightly neglected husband and her antisocial dog. Find more about Claire at clairematthews11.blogspot.com.

She has a deft hand with banana flambé…and a touch that sets his body on fire.

Unnatural Calamities © 2011 Summer Devon

Janey knows all too well she looks a wreck. What hard-working chef wouldn’t, operating on three hours of sleep? Stuck in a dull Connecticut town, taking care of her beloved niece, Rachel, Janey spends her days looking for a job and her nights working high-end catering gigs. Just her luck, she runs into Mr. Perfect two days past her designated laundry day. And she’s just found out her niece is passing her off as “Mom” to avoid the embarrassment of admitting her real mother, Janey’s identical twin, is serving time. Despite Janey’s questionable fashion sense and the juicy gossip about her checkered past, venture capitalist Christopher Dunham finds himself drawn to her spark. And warmed by her obvious affection for Rachel, so like what he feels for his own daughter. When sexy, way-out-of-her-league Toph offers her a business loan, Janey can’t believe her long string of bad luck with bad boys has come to an end. At least, until a blast from her sister’s shady past turns up the heat on their attraction. And sets off a chain of events that could snuff out the flame just as their love starts to come to a boil… Warning: A comedy of errors, mistaken identity, poor girl meets rich guy, kidnapping at gunpoint, and hot handcuffed sex in a hotel bathtub—and that’s all before lunch. Enjoy the following excerpt for Unnatural Calamities:

But God almighty, let Janey count the ways she hated West Farmbrook as a place to live. She counted as she dismembered the green pepper. Thump. One. Thump. The thin, chic mothers who stood in closed little circles at the one and only PTA meeting she’d gone to, and gave her the weirdest looks. Two. Thump, thump, thump. The tennis club. Three. Thump, thump. She grabbed another pepper and continued her list. The lack of any kind of life outside the PTA, the soccer team, the lacrosse team and the swim team. Four. Thump, thump. The commute to reach any kind of life other than the PTA, soccer, etc. A half-hour drive, no buses, of course, to any of Janey’s friends and her various jobs and even a decent movie in the center of the city. No sidewalks. Thump, thump. She tossed the peppers into the pan and began to clean up. Libra-girl time— rants had to be followed by a counter-balancing “the place could be worse” viewpoint. The great schools. Right, did that already. And at least Margaret Hamilton, a talkative stay-at-home parent of another nerdy girl, was friendly. She provided some companionship and gossip and even better, had an older daughter, a college student, who loved to babysit on the nights Janey worked. A car door slammed. Then another car door. Oh damn—no, darn and blast the child, she was not alone. Janey rubbed her hands on the stainless steel sink. Someone had told her that got rid of the stench of garlic. She didn’t exactly feel like a toad the few times she met up with the fabulous Cynthia, but she didn’t feel she came across as the right kind of grown-up. The slight narrowing of the well-groomed Cynthia’s blue eyes made Janey wish she had better posture or wore designer clothing or didn’t cut

her own hair. Rachel had said that Cynthia’s mother had been a model or something. And Cynthia’s father sounded even worse. “He has buckets of money and is a mover and shaker of massive proportions,” Rachel had solemnly told her. “Sounds like a sumo wrestler.” Janey had snickered, which had somehow offended Rachel. Janey had deftly changed the subject of the two near-perfect Dunham households by asking, “So what do you guess a dance called The Mover and Shaker should look like?” The two of them had ended up boogeying, moving and shaking, around the tiny kitchen. Give Rachel a chance to sing or dance and she tended to forget everything else. The door flew open. Rachel and Cynthia thumped into the small apartment shrieking with laughter, as usual. They skittered down the hall to Rachel’s room. “Hey, you puny, lily-livered, young rapscallion, how many times do I have to tell you to close the door?” Janey called after Rachel. She went to shove the door shut. “Excuse me?” The man she’d almost slammed the door on smiled. Perhaps the most gorgeous eyes she’d ever beheld stared down into hers. Deep-set brown eyes. Heavy lidded, with the hint of laugh lines at their corners to add character. “Is that puny, lily-livered thing a line from a play?” he asked. Her examination shifted to the smiling mouth again. The rest of his face had character too. His body was nothing to sneeze at either. Too bad he appeared to be fairly prosperous, unlike the men she’d had the instant hots for. He wore a gray suit and burgundy tie instead of the usual greasy jeans her hormones sang out for.

“Um. Well. It’s a thing. An insult thing. A Shakespeare insult page on the net. The ah, Internet. We. Um. So.” She held out her hand and smiled brightly. “You must be Mr…ah.” Fabulous? Mover and shaker? She felt fairly moved, and not just because he’d scared the bejeezus out of her. Despite the tie, he was not bad. No, indeed. She could almost hear Penny’s whisper. “It’s a TD&H, hon. Go ferrit.” Tall, dark and handsome. Except in Penny and Janey’s past men, the “h” stood for hellish, horny, heavy-metal, Harley or ham-handed. Penny still liked bad boys. Janey had given them up years ago, about the same time she stopped smoking and a few years after she stopped drinking too much. The TD&H shook her hand. “Toph Dunham. Cynthia’s father.”