After That Night

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“That explains why you were plastered against the penthouse wall when I met you this afternoon.”

“I wasn’t plastered against the wall. I just don’t see any reason to get close to the edge of anything. Nothing dramatic in my past. I just don’t like being up high and looking down.”

“What else should I know about you?”

She met his gaze. “I’m an open book.”

“With a couple of pages missing.” He reached to spear a Spanish olive with his fork, then extended it toward her. “Last one. Want it?”

Without taking the fork from him, without thinking, she leaned forward and closed her mouth around the olive. She saw that Mark’s eyes suddenly glittered with desire. The heat in his look made her toes curl. She hadn’t meant her action to send a sexual message, but it was too late to worry about that now. She took another breath and tried to calm the panic that stitched up her spine.

Inspiration struck. “Oh, I got you a birthday present.” She swung her arm in his direction, and he laughed when he saw the jar of macadamia nuts in her hand. “I didn’t have time to wrap it.”

“I’ll treasure these always,” he said playfully. “I know you share them only with special people.”

“That’s right,” she agreed, filled with a pleasant silliness. “Don’t forget it. They’re a unique gift from a unique person.” Someone who remembers how to have fun.

“A very special person,” Mark agreed softly.

She found herself locked in his all-consuming gaze. He didn’t seem to be breathing. She knew she wasn’t.

The need to kiss him rose in her like a powerful thirst, and he must have seen it, because in the next moment he leaned forward, lowered his head and placed his mouth against hers, very gently. At some point during their picnic he’d eaten an orange, and his lips were flavored with it now. He stroked his tongue along the seam of her mouth, soft and curious, slow and suggestive. He didn’t touch any other part of her, but blood rushed through her as though she could feel him everywhere.

She couldn’t have said how long the kiss lasted. Short enough to make her want more. Long enough to make her realize she was perilously close to tripping over the edge and sliding down a very steep slope.

Mark sat back. He stared at her, and she knew he didn’t regret a single moment. Come to think of it, neither did she.

“Jenna…”

Traces of heat lightning zigzagged across the Manhattan sky. A sudden breeze made Jenna shiver.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Almost midnight.”

Her father’s storm warning. Right on time. He’d be worried about her flight tomorrow. He always worried. His good little Jenny-girl. What would he think to see her now? Ready to make love to a man she hadn’t even known twenty-four hours ago.

Oh, Lord, what am I doing? This wasn’t like her. She was the kind of person marriage had been invented for, and Mark…well, Mark wasn’t. He was probably used to having women throw themselves at him. She’d been begging to be kissed, and he’d been more than happy to oblige. But it would be foolish to take this lovely interlude any further. It was midnight. Pumpkin time.

“I have to go,” she said.

She pulled her feet out of the chair and stood, snatching up her shoes and jacket.

“You don’t have to,” Mark said, coming to his feet, as well.

“I do. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give you the wrong idea. I didn’t mean…” She realized she was starting to babble and stopped, void of explanations that would make any sense even to herself.

She pulled the sliding glass doors wide and passed quickly through the suite, Mark close on her heels. She plunged her arm into one of her jacket sleeves, missed and tried again just as Mark came up behind her in the foyer.

Mark settled one of the sleeves up over her shoulder. “Didn’t mean to what, Jenna? Let me kiss you?”

“Yes. No! What I mean to say is, I liked it. Too much.”

“So did I. So stay here. Let’s find out what else we have in common.”

Dammit! Why wouldn’t her jacket cooperate? She fished around in it awkwardly, finally finding the second sleeve and shrugging into it. She turned to face Mark. “I can’t. I’m not a one-night-stand kind of girl.”

His brow furrowed as he stiffened a little. “Do you think that’s the way I would treat you?”

“No. Well, yes, probably.” She took a deep breath. “I just think that where that kiss was heading is someplace that’s a lot easier for you than it is for me. My life is very structured. Very simple. Very sane. Some people even find me boring. Ask Lauren, she’ll tell you.”

She finished yanking her jacket into place, then realized she was still barefoot. She pulled one shoe on, but the other refused to slip into place. She took a couple of ungraceful hops. “Damn! I hate these shoes.”

“I don’t care what Lauren thinks. Or anyone else. I don’t find you boring at all. I think you’re one of the most intriguing women I’ve met in a long time.”

Her attention swung away from her shoe and back to his face. “For a man who claims not to believe in romance, you’re very good at it.”

She was losing her balance. Mark reached out to steady her, his hands on both her shoulders. “Will you stand still? Let’s talk about this.”

She wobbled on one foot for a moment, then steadied. She should have known he wouldn’t make this easy for her. Her mind was a jumble of guilt and confusion and embarrassment, and Mark wasn’t willing to play fair. Forget nice and friendly. His hands were quiet on her shoulders, but his thumbs were massaging the base of her throat, and that touch was so warm. Supple. Alive.

She shook her head. “Stop that. It’s not going to work.”

Now his hands did move. Up her neck in a gentle, whispery caress. Cupping the base of her skull so that her head was drawn upward and back, and his fingers stroked pulse points that had been sleeping for years.

Unfair! Jenna wanted to cry. Stop! But the words simply wouldn’t come.

He gave her a long, speculative appraisal from beneath his lashes. His tender smile had a melting effect on her insides. “You realize, of course, if you go now, you’ll never find out.”

“Find out what?” she asked. Her voice sounded detached and foreign.

His mouth widened into a grin. “Whether it’s boxers or briefs.”

She stared at him in mute misery. The dark, heavy truth descended on her in full force and without mercy. She might as well acknowledge the terrible inevitability of this moment, that something was breaking, breaking like a cord, in her mind….

Jenna nodded slowly. “You’re right, damn you. I have to know.”

She tossed the remaining shoe over one shoulder. By the time it hit the floor, she’d put her arms around Mark’s neck and pulled him to her. She kissed him, thoroughly. And he responded.

If this was a mistake, she’d find a way to make it right somehow. And if there were regrets, she’d never lay claim to them. A premonition of danger flared at the edges of her mind, but her body was already on a wild journey now, and the feeling didn’t last long enough to become a nuisance.

CHAPTER FIVE

THINGS HAD HAPPENED pretty much as Jenna expected when she and Lauren returned to Atlanta. They called Vic in California, giving her the bad news that the interview with Mark Bishop was a bust. Their friend had been so thoroughly immersed in talking sense into her little sister that she hadn’t been able to give it much attention.

But now, a week later, Vic was back. Disappointed and annoyed. Ready to hear the full story. Eager to find out if there was anything that could be salvaged. Lauren and Jenna, seated in Vic’s plush office chairs, had just given her all the details.

Well, not all the details, Jenna admitted. Some things just weren’t meant to be shared with anyone. Even your best friends and business partners.

Victoria Estabrook’s disheartened sigh cut into Jenna’s musings. In the merciless sunlight pouring through the glass windows of the office, Vic’s expression was crestfallen. “So you just dropped the interview and left?” she repeated as though she couldn’t have heard correctly. “Without even trying to find out what was in that prenup to make Shelby Elaine go nuts?”

“We couldn’t ask,” Jenna said. “It wasn’t appropriate to intrude. And certainly it was none of our business.”

“Of course it’s none of our business,” Vic agreed with an incredulous snort. “But it’s newsworthy. Readers have a right to know.”

Jenna frowned. “Our readers want to know where to buy wedding gowns that are designer knockoffs and what kind of mother-in-law gift costs ten bucks but looks like a hundred. I seriously doubt they care about Mark Bishop’s prenup agreement.”

Lauren, who had been polishing one of her camera lenses, stopped long enough to grab Vic’s attention. “Maybe you could find out more from Debra Lee.”

Vic nodded thoughtfully and rifled through her Rolodex. “She might be willing to talk.”

“I think we should consider it a dead issue,” Jenna got out with some desperation. After everything that had happened, she was eager to see the incident—including her part in it—put well behind them.

“Maybe by now they’ve patched things up,” Lauren suggested.

“That’s not going to happen,” Jenna said. When Lauren gave her a mildly surprised look, she realized she’d sounded too vehement. More reasonably she added, “I mean, Shelby looked very distraught and determined to put an end to the engagement.”

“She could rethink it,” Lauren said.

Seated behind her desk, Vic rested her chin on her hands. “Well, right now we still seem to be short one article. Any suggestions?”

Lauren lobbed a few ideas, but nothing that seemed to solve the dilemma. Jenna mostly sat back in her chair and listened. She’d brought the latest company expense reports to this meeting to go over, and she fingered the edge of the file lovingly. Numbers were so wonderfully cut-and-dried. So finite. As a partner in FTW, why couldn’t she have stayed firmly behind the scenes, instead of getting pulled into these kinds of discussions? They always seemed to underscore how completely unimaginative she was when it came to brainstorming.

Although…

She remembered the conversation she’d had with Mark that night on the sidewalk. He’d promised to help the magazine get an interview with one of the other eligible bachelors. Considering how their night together had ended and subsequent events, it seemed very unlikely now that he would help her. But he might be willing to talk to Vic.

She cleared her throat, and both her friends glanced her way. “Supposedly number eight on the list is about to pop the question to some Hollywood actress,” she said. “We could contact him. See if he’d give us the story.”

“How do you know this?” Vic asked, and already Jenna could see the wheels turning in her head.

“Mark Bishop told me,” Jenna said without thinking.

Lauren frowned at her. “When did he tell you that?”

Jenna realized her mistake instantly. “I’m sure I heard him mention it,” Jenna said with a shrug. “Or maybe it was Debra Lee.” Think, Jenna. Don’t just sit there! “What time is your flight to New Zealand, Lauren? I’d be so excited about this assignment. Aren’t you?”

She ducked her head, certain that the furious blush creeping up her neck would give her away. Lauren was too sharp not to wonder just when that information had passed between the two of them without her hearing it.

Luckily, just then Vic’s secretary interrupted to say Lauren had a phone call from one of the magazines she regularly contributed to. Lauren wanted to take it in her office, which was only a couple of doors down, leaving Jenna and Vic alone.

Jenna was about to leave the office when it occurred to her that, since Vic’s return, she hadn’t mentioned the problem with her sister, Cara, at all. She turned back to her friend. “Is everything all right? How did it go with Cara?”