Flirting With Forever (6 page)

“Who are you?”

He looked puzzled. “Jake Randall.”

“No. Who in the hell do you think you are? Those are my things.”

He took a deep breath. “Tara?” he said like he was guessing at my name. “I’m going to break the cardinal rule of public relations and be brutally honest with you. I don’t want to be here. I’m supposed to be on vacation right now, but you broke Erin’s foot and I wasn’t given a choice. I’m sorry I’ve got a short fuse, I just want to get through the next thirty days and then vegetate on a beach somewhere.”

The tears were building, my breathing becoming more ragged. I didn’t have time to cry and I refused to give this asshole the satisfaction of thinking he’d made me cry. “I’m sorry about your vacation. I don’t want to be here anymore than you do.”

He looked surprised, then nodded and picked through my jewelry. He held up the lapis pieces. “Put these on.”

I was too embarrassed to argue with him.

“You did well.”
Jake tried not to sound surprised, but he was. The segment didn’t start until almost 8:00. He expected for the cameras to come up and for Tara to fall apart, but she didn’t. She started waffling a little about a minute and a half in, but lucky for her, the news cut in to report on a tornado that had hit a small farm community in Nebraska. Not so lucky for the folks in Nebraska.

“Thanks, Jake. I was terrified.”

“It didn’t show.” He held the door of the town car for her and then climbed in behind her. “We’ve got some time before the signings start. How about some breakfast?”

“That would be great, I’m starved.” When she spoke, she looked out the window instead of looking at him.

He deserved that. He had been a bastard in her hotel room, going through her things like some sort of Svengali. He’d never done anything like that before in his life. Maybe this job was getting to him. Maybe he was getting burned out. It wasn’t unusual, most people hacked away at publicity in the publishing world, thinking they wanted to champion books. But the ones who didn’t have it in them usually didn’t love books as much as they thought they did. But Jake loved books. He still believed in them. At least he thought he did.

What if this woman had rifled through his things? His books? His father’s Hardy Boys collection? The wornout children’s books his mother had read and reread to him? The ones Kate had given him when they were together?

The driver pulled up in front of the 7A Café. Jake needed to fix this before they sat down at a table across from each other. She was getting out of the car when he blurted out the words. “I’m sorry.”

She stood on the curb waiting for him, blushing a little. She licked her lips, waiting for the rest of his apology. He looked down at her flats and followed her out of the car. With some decent heels on he wouldn’t even have to bend to kiss her, just dip his head, and—Where the hell did that come from? “I’m sorry. I know you thought I was a jerk earlier—”

“Either that or a very bitchy gay man,” she said and headed inside the restaurant.

Okay, so Jake
didn’t have to go to the last signing of the day. Not after he’d called a couple of the bookstores and listened to the staff rave about Tara, how funny she was, how Southern she was. But he wanted to see for himself.

He hung back and watched her. She was good with people. And it was kind of priceless to see the looks on the hardcore New Yorkers’ faces whenever she hugged them and thanked them in that sexy southern drawl for reading the book. This woman was no diva. She didn’t have the first clue about how to act like a celebrity, which was fine by him.

“If I could bottle what she has, Jake, I could buy that Caribbean island The Donald has for sale.” The store manager looked as enchanted as the twenty or so people still in line. “Some of those people have waited for hours. They were mean and grouchy and if stones had been available on the sidewalk when they were waiting outside, they would have chucked them. But look at them now.”

“Did you sell a lot of books?”

“What do you think?”

When I handed
the last person in line their book, I looked up to see Jake watching me. I don’t know why I blushed. Granted, this morning, I felt like a bit of a fraud hawking a marriage self-help book when my own marriage was in the toilet, but The Today Show had gone great and the signings had too. I’d sold lots of books and met so many people who swore my book had changed their lives, most all of them women. Assuming there was a partner attached to each claim, that was a lot of people. Even if my marriage was shot to hell, it was sinking in that my book really was helping couples.

Jake said something to the store manager and headed toward me. I was exhausted, but there was no way I was letting my guard down with this guy. Sure he’d softened up a little after apologizing this morning. Conversation at breakfast had been polite but minimal, although he had told me the good things on the menu at the little café where we had breakfast before heading back to his office on Hudson Street.

“Heard you had a good day.” He picked up my briefcase before I could. “Wanna guess what’s next?”

“Dinner?” I said, when I’d really wanted to say, truce?

“Nope.”

I followed him out to the town car, and he gave the driver an address. Soon we rolled up on Fifth Avenue. He glanced at the diamond on my finger, the upgrade Jim joked I earned after fifteen years of being married to him. I would have to hock it soon if this tour didn’t pan out.

“You need an outfit for tomorrow.”

“I have that khaki—”

“I don’t know what your budget is. Bloomingdale’s or Bergdorf’s?” he asked totally ignoring my perfectly good suit. But given the size of my ring and the success of my book, those were good guesses. Not so good if you throw in a husband who’d taken almost everything and left me with two huge mortgages to cover.

This was embarrassing. Some place with gently used clothes? A bargain basement? Maybe I could splurge. “Macy’s?”

“We’ll get out here,” he told the driver who pulled in front of Bloomingdales. “I know someone.”

A tall redhead threw her arms around Jake when we walked into the boutique section of the store.

“Tara, this is my cousin, Jes. Jes, this is Tara Jordan.”

“Nice to meet you, Tara. Now, go find something to do, Jake, and leave us to it.” She looked me over. “Jake told me you’re going to be on The View tomorrow. You must be excited.”

“Yes,” I said watching Jake disappear around the corner.

“You’re what, a size six?”

“Thanks, but not since college.”

“I think my cousin wants you in something a little more tailored. After he called, I went online and took a look at The View’s set. I don’t know why some of the hosts wear patterns, especially with that backdrop of the city. It’s just too busy.” She flipped through some dresses she’d set aside, all gorgeous. All expensive. “Come on, let’s get you in a dressing room.”

I looked at one of the price tags, $435. “Um, Jes? I really appreciate your help, but I can’t afford these.”

“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “They’re are sale. I’m buying them with my employee discount, so they’ll be at least forty percent off the regular price.” Even at that, not having any money coming in any time soon, made this seem sillier than I felt in the first two dresses I tried. Both of them were too tight and too short. “How are we doing in there? Have you tried on the Ted Baker yet?”

She knocked on the dressing room door but didn’t wait for me to open it. “Does Diane von Furstenberg know how to make a little black dress or what? Jake, get over here, you have to see this.”

She pulled me out of my hiding place. “By the way, dressing authors is not in my cousin’s job description. I think he likes you,” she said under her breath.

“He just wants to be done so he can go on vacation, and I just want to get this over with so I can go back to working in my pajamas.” I was pulling at the short hemline when he rounded the corner. He looked as shocked as I was that women who wear broomstick skirts religiously really do have legs.

“Stop that, honey. You’ve got legs for days. Show them off,” Jes said, swatting at my hand. “Ooh, he likes.”

“All right, Jes, She looks good,” Jake said, trying not to look at me. Where I come from, they call that gawking,
mister.
“Thanks. I think we’re done here.”

“What about shoes? You can’t put her back in those black flats.” She sounded like he’d given me a pasteboard box and was turning me out to sleep on the sidewalk. He rolled his eyes and she took that as the go-ahead sign. “Give me a minute, I’ll be right back.”

“Sorry, Jake, I know this is taking too much of your time. I’ll just change—”

“No—” he said, still staring. “Not yet, you want to make sure the dress looks okay with the shoes.”

I sat down on a bench across from him in my nearly naked dress, praying Jes would hurry up. Soon a tower of boxes was walking toward me. She peeked around them at the dress again and ordered me to stand up. “Forget the rest of these. I’m thinking the B. Brian Atwood peep-toe sandals.”

She slipped the butter-soft high ankle cuffs onto my feet. After wearing flats for years because Jim was only an inch taller than me, the four-and-a-half-inch heels were perilously high. I looked at Jake to see what he thought. “How much?” he asked, his eyes glued to my legs.

“These are not on sale,” Jes said sheepishly, “but they look amazing. You should invest in them, Tara.” She sounded like Marsha with a hot stock tip. “Really you should.”

“How much?” I asked.

“After my discount,” she whispered, “$350.”

“I can’t—”

Jake handed her his credit card, not the company Amex card. “Forget the discount. Ring them up, we’ll take them now.”

I shook my head, sure this wasn’t part of his job description either. “No, Jake.”

“Don’t worry about it, honey,” Jes whispered. “You can pay him later.”

‡

T
hey rode back
to the hotel with the shoebox between them. He wanted to say something to this woman, but every time he opened his mouth he sounded like a jerk. “Jes will drop off the dress at the hotel on her way home from work.” But that wasn’t it. “You were great today, Tara.” That wasn’t it either.

“Thanks, Jake,” she said slowly, like she didn’t know if it was okay to tell him what she was thinking. Her look said she was going for broke anyway. “I wouldn’t have, if you hadn’t pissed me off this morning. It sounds weird thanking you for that, but—.” She smiled at him.

She was beautiful. And trouble. Starting something with Tara Jordan was a bad idea, he’d come too far in his career to screw up now. For starters, there’d be no more shopping trips for dresses to show off those incredible legs. No more whipping out his credit card to buy her heels like the ones he was sure would be in his dreams tonight. Nope, from here on out he was going to be all business.

“Thank you, Jake.”

“Do you want to get some dinner, Tara? Maybe start over?” Yeah, that sounded real professional.

“I’d love to.”

She drawled those three little and his chest felt tight. It wasn’t like his job depended on this tour, but damn if he didn’t feel relieved that she wanted to have dinner with him.
All business my ass.
He needed to get his shit together, and fast.

The maître d’ gave them the worst possible table between the kitchen and a disgruntled couple who complained that none of the four courses they had ordered compared to Ruth’s Chris Steak House back home in Cincinnati.

Jake picked up the wine list. “Should we order a bottle of wine?”

Tara shook her head and actually blushed, but she didn’t hold back when it was time to order. A salad, Maryland crab cakes with potatoes, and a reminder that she would definitely want to see the dessert list later on. “Look I really am sorry about this morning. I was way out of line.” Her finger traced a line across her neck where the blue necklace had been earlier. “And the necklace was a bad choice too?”

“It’s just a piece of jewelry,” she said, but something in the way she said it made him doubt her.

“So tell me something about you, something that’s not in your bio.”

She shook her head. “No fair. You have my bio and I don’t know anything about you.”

“Okay, what do you want to know?”

I could have
used a glass of wine or two to take the edge off of feeling like this was a date, a date with a gorgeous, younger man. Did that make me a cougar? Or did I inherit the title, thanks to Jim? Either way, Jake Randall was a charmer and was way more than easy on the eyes.

“How’d you end up in New York?”

“I moved here after I graduated from Wisconsin; I was sick of the cold.”

“But then you moved here? Where it’s cold.”

“Yes, but the winters aren’t as long as back home. Besides, it’s New York.”

“So I’m guessing you’re what? Late twenty-something?”

“Thirty,” he said.

“A baby,” I said as much to myself as to him.

“Really?” he challenged. There was nothing about Jake Randall that wasn’t all man candy and he knew it. “So if I’m a baby, that makes you how old?”