Summer Kisses (320 page)

“I’m sure that isn’t…”

“Dead silence, Kel. No ‘I adore you’, no ‘I’m so glad we kissed.’ Nada.”

Kelly rallied, quick to jump to the best conclusion. “Maybe he was nervous too.”

“About what? That I’d reject him? He’s Mr. Perfect, for crying out loud! Who rejects Mr. Perfect?”

“Jessica from Season Two.”

“That was a rhetorical question, Kel. And Jack has never seen Season Two, so he can’t be worried about me pulling a Jessica.”

“So what did you say?” Kelly asked. She abandoned all pretense of doing dishes and sat next to Lou at the table.

Lou groaned. She’d been an idiot. An unqualified idiot. “I told him he should take the kids to the corn maze with one his perfect Suitorettes and that I didn’t have the right to expect calls from him. Or something like that.”

Kelly’s face fell. “Oh, Lou. That’s awful. He’s going to think you don’t want him.”

Lou steeled her jaw. “I’ve been thinking maybe that’s a good thing. We got carried away in the Jacuzzi and things happened that shouldn’t have happened. If we’re going to have a relationship, we have to go into it without our eyes open, not just because we’re both so drunk and horny we grab the first available body. We have to consider the kids. A relationship between us is bound to impact them. Especially if it doesn’t work out. If we don’t have the same vision for our future, if I think we’re happily ever after and he thinks we’re friends with benefits… I just can’t take that, Kelly, and I can’t do that to the kids. I need to know he’s really there for me, for the long haul, and not just because it’s convenient. I have to know that it’s real. And I can’t know that while he’s tangled up in that damn reality TV show.”

To Lou’s surprise, Kelly nodded slowly. She’d expected her friend to be on the side of impulsive romance, but her expression was sober. “You’re right.”

Hearing Kelly agree with her made Lou’s spine sag in defeat. She’d secretly hoped Kelly would talk her back into pursuing Jack. She wanted someone to tell her to do the irresponsible thing and go after what she wanted. But she just couldn’t justify it if Kelly, Ms. Romance-Conquers-All, agreed with her.

Lou took a deep breath, trying—and failing—to convince herself that she hadn’t just lost out on the best thing that might ever have happened to her. “After
Marrying Mr. Perfect
is over…”

And Jack is engaged to someone else
…

Tears pricked the back of her eyes. Lou sniffed them back. “After all this, if he’s free and interested, we’ll sit down and talk about it. We’ll be adult and rational. And if it isn’t meant to be—” The words caught in her throat.

“Oh, honey,” Kelly murmured, scooting her chair closer so she could wrap her arms around Lou and give her a squeeze. “It’s gonna work out. Jack isn’t an idiot. He knows a good thing when he sees it. And you, Louisa Renee Tanner, are a very, very good thing.”

Lou hugged Kelly back, telling herself she was crying because she was so lucky to have such an amazing best friend. She was getting pretty good at lying to herself. She almost believed it.

~~~

Jack realized his sense of reality had been screwed up beyond recognition when he didn’t even feel strange climbing out of a limo in front of his house and strolling up the walk slowly to allow the cameras on either side of him to keep pace.

He wondered how long it would take his sense of reality to get back on track after all this was over.

Only two weeks left
.

That thought comforted him as nothing else could. This week the girls would visit his house and meet his family—the kids, his parents, and Lou. Next week would be the two-day exotic destination dates, culminating in the finale where he picked between the final two. Then it was over. He headed home, never to see the girls again until the reunion show aired live at the end of the season. Free to live his life and figure out what was between him and Lou, once and for all.

The front door opened when he set his foot on the first step of the porch. The kids must have been watching for him. Jack grinned and threw his arms open in time to catch TJ and Emma as they barreled out the door. “Daddy!” they squealed and the cameramen shuffled eagerly in circles, trying to get the best angle on the happy reunion.

Lou’s earlier warning about exploiting the kids rose up in his mind.
Was
this bad for them? Had he failed to consider how this might impact them? Miranda had assured him they would be a minor part of the show. Nothing was demanded of them other than they be themselves. He couldn’t imagine a few minutes of screentime would really do them any harm, but Jack still cut the welcome-home hugs shorter than he normally would, ushering the kids inside.

He didn’t see Lou immediately and wanted nothing more than to look for her, but the crew was already swarming in the door behind him, getting ready to set up for their first day of home life. The first of the girls wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow, but there was a lot of work to be done to wire the house the way they wanted it.

Emma latched onto her favorite cameraman’s ankles while TJ ran to high-five the sound guy he’d bonded with in LA.

Jack nodded to himself. They were fine. The show was a good experience for them. He was sure of it. Though he was less and less sure it was good for him.

Or for Lou.

He couldn’t help wondering, if she did have some feelings for him, if he had hurt her by going on
Marrying Mr. Perfect
. He’d thought he was doing the right thing—for her more than anyone, freeing her from the life he’d imposed on her when she moved in here—but now he wasn’t so sure.

If only he could see her. Where the heck was she?

He found her, twenty minutes later, upstairs in Emma’s room, putting away laundry.

“What?” he said from the doorjamb, devouring her with his eyes. “Don’t I merit a welcome home?”

God, she looked amazing. Snug jeans with a frayed hem, a T-shirt worn soft and thin by the years, and her blondish hair yanked high in a ponytail. The everyday familiarity of the outfit was made oddly erotic by the knowledge that the sultry woman in the red bikini was under there, waiting to get out.

Her shoulders stiffened at his first words and she turned, wrinkling one of Emma’s shirts in the tight grip of her hands. “Jack.” She nodded in greeting, not moving an inch toward him. “Welcome home.”

He arched his eyebrows, giving her a lazy smile. “That was pathetic.” He shoved away from the doorjamb and crossed the small room to her, noting the way her eyes widened slightly—was that alarm?—as he approached. “Now, do I get a real homecoming?”

He hadn’t meant the words to sound suggestive. He hadn’t meant them to be a sensual challenge, but the way her breath caught, raising her breasts up like a feast for his eyes, said she heard the seductive undertones he couldn’t keep out of his voice.

She met his eyes—hers were startled, perhaps wary, but not repulsed. She didn’t look like she was angry with him for taking advantage of her inebriation in the hot tub. She looked like she’d just been offered the biggest chocolate sundae of her life and was debating whether or not her hips could take the indulgence.

She wet her lips and Jack knew—with a certainty and decisiveness he usually reserved for surgery—that he was going to kiss her. Now. He knew the taste of those lips now, the sweet promise of them. Everything else could be worked out later. This kiss couldn’t wait.

Jack bent his head. Lou rose up on her toes, her eyelashes fluttering down to veil her hypnotic gray eyes. One more inch…

“Jack, darling, if we can steal you for a minute…”

Miranda’s voice instantly diffused the expectant charge in the room. Lou dropped back onto her heels with a thud then pivoted to shove Emma’s shirt into her dresser. Jack straightened reluctantly.

“Lou!” Miranda said, seeming to notice her for the first time. “I was wondering where you were hiding.” She cleared her throat, shooting a meaningful glare at him. “Jack? Downstairs? We’d like a few fireside confessional moments—just a bit about how intimately you feel toward each of the girls right now… how difficult your decision is going to be… that kind of thing. If you would?”

“I’ll be right there,” he said, hoping she would leave.

“I know how hard it must be, not being able to tell the women how you really feel, but you know the rules.”

“Right.” He hesitated.

Lou had moved on to shoving Emma’s socks into a drawer. She refused to look at him. Jack hovered for a moment, hating
the rules
with every fiber of his being.

He’d go quietly, but he lived here and so did Lou. They couldn’t watch him every second of every day and he had unfinished business with Louisa Tanner.

“I’ll see you later, Lou.”

“Mm-hmm,” she agreed without looking up.

He exited the room in front of Miranda, who smacked him hard on the back of the head as soon as they were out of Lou’s sight. “Five million dollars, dumbass.”

“I know,” he growled.

“We’re wiring the kitchen with audio and video. You can talk to her in there, but there will be absolutely no protestations of eternal devotion. You can be exactly as forthcoming with her as you can with the other girls. Don’t think I didn’t notice that thing with Marcy. You’re lucky she’ll make an amazing Miss Right.”

Jack smiled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Cute. Talk to Lou. Play with your kids. Stay in the public areas where the cameras can see you. And then you will go to the hotel suite and wait for Katya’s arrival tomorrow.”

Jack stopped at the top of the stairs, turning to frown down at Miranda. “What hotel? I thought I got to spend the week with my family.”

“Jack. I’m not an idiot. Either you go to a hotel or Lou does. Those are the rules.”

“I hate the rules.”

“Then I know the process is working,” Miranda said, smiling sweetly.

“This has nothing to do with your process.”

Miranda arched a brow. “Doesn’t it?”

~~~

By the time Jack managed to corner Lou in the kitchen, he was starting to wonder if being in debt to the network for the rest of his life wouldn’t be worth it just so he could kick all the reality television people out of his house once and for all. If not for the fact that he had Emma and TJ’s college educations to pay for, he might have given it some serious consideration. As it was, he was screwed.

But at least he was home.

Lou was making coffee. The kids were in bed. Jack’s chair screeched across the tile as he pulled it out from the table and dropped onto the harder-than-bricks seat. How many times had they talked about replacing the chairs? Buying cushions? Remodeling the kitchen? All that little domestic normalcy so he never had to own up to the fact that Lou was the emotional center of his entire world.

Gillian had been that center and it had shattered him when she died. He hadn’t wanted to see that Lou had inched her way to the center of his heart, but there she was. And it would kill him to lose her now.

If only he could tell her that.

“It’s good to be home,” he said, trying to imbue his voice with extra weight so he would hear what he wanted to say beneath the words he could. “I wish I didn’t have to stay at that hotel tonight.”

Lou handed him his coffee—prepared exactly the way he liked it—and sank into the opposite chair with her own, tucking one leg up on the chair as she always did. “Only a couple more weeks. The kids are really amped up about the three days in Disney Miranda arranged after the Finale.”

She said the words without looking at him. If she would just meet his eyes he would know everything was going to be okay. He needed to see those pale blue eyes.

Maybe if he just attacked the elephant in the room. “Lou, about the Jacuzzi—”

“We don’t have to talk about that,” she said quickly, still not meeting his gaze. “We got carried away. All that champagne… You’re very attractive—what woman wouldn’t want Mister Perfect, right? We both know it was a mistake. Nothing more to say.”

“I didn’t say it was a mistake,” he said, irrationally irritated. “I’m glad we kissed. I liked it.”

That got her looking at him. Her jaw dropped like he’d told her he wanted to get a tattoo on his face.

“I’d like to do it again,” he said into her stunned silence.

She started shaking her head and couldn’t seem to stop. “Kissing is all well and good, but what about the kids?”

He wanted to revisit the
all well and good
portion of the question, but he played along. “What about them?”

“Have you considered how a fling between us would confuse the children?”

“A fling.” He hadn’t been thinking about
flings
at all, but if that was where Lou’s head was… He set his coffee on the table, sliding it away from him,

“Whatever you want to call it,” she went on.

“Why do we have to define it?” Especially now when he couldn’t tell her what he really wanted. “Can’t we just see where it goes?”
A few weeks, maybe an altar.

“Are you high? Of course not. The children already want us to end up together. Can you imagine what Emma would have thought if she’d seen something the other night?”

Okay, he did not want to think about his daughter walking in on him fooling around with Lou. That was a fair point. “We can be discreet—”

“While you’re on national television? This can’t just be because you like it or it’s fun. Not with Emma and TJ involved. Emma already asked me why I couldn’t be the mommy.”

“They both asked me why I didn’t marry you,” he admitted.

“See? That’s exactly what I’m talking about. What if it doesn’t work out? How could it? Everything is so complicated right now. You’re being pulled in a dozen different directions and I don’t want… I’m not going to pull you, Jack.” She studied a worn spot in the hall rug, avoiding his eyes. “With that damn show here, everything is under a microscope and it’s all out of whack. How can you even really know what you want right now?”

He felt like he was finally clear on what he wanted for the first time in years, but he knew Lou. He knew the way she would subvert what she wanted for whatever she felt was for the best. Was she denying herself what she wanted now? Or was she using all these—perfectly legitimate—excuses to tell him that she didn’t want him the way he now wanted her?