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Jane nodded sadly. “It would be a start.”
“Just tell me what you want, Jane. I’ll do whatever you think would be best. If you want me to talk to Gladdy, I will. I’ll be unmerciful in explaining Leo’s lifelong habits with women.”
“Short of hog-tying your uncle to his bed and locking him in his room—”
“Believe me, I’ve wished I could.”
Which actually had Jane smiling a bit.
Wyatt Gray was a reasonable man, and Jane had found that so few men were. She regretted how things had started out between them.
“I’m sorry if I behaved badly toward you at first,” she said, because a polite, well-bred, empowered woman always acknowledged her own unfair treatment of others and apologized. “Gram and Gladdy…Well, I just adore them both, and looking out for them hasn’t always been easy, but believe me, they need someone to look out for them and I try my best.”
Wyatt gave her a reassuring smile and let one of his hands settle softly over hers on the table between them. “I’m sure you do your absolute best for everyone you care about.”
Which was just so nice of him.
People sometimes thought Jane could be overzealous and maybe even a bit aggressive in her attempts to take care of others, when she truly never wanted to do anything but help. Women could just be so mixed up about some things, have such wrong ideas, and she felt it was her calling to straighten them out, to educate them, to help extricate them from the troubles they found themselves in. It wasn’t a job to Jane. It was her calling, her mission in life.
“That’s incredibly kind and generous of you,” she admitted. “Especially when I yelled at you at first.”
“It’s completely forgotten,” he promised, smiling once again.
She could see a bit of Leo in him when he smiled like that. The dangerous charm, that wicked twinkle in his eye. Not that he was flirting with her or anything like that. He’d been perfectly respectful during their exchange. Some men thought flirting was as natural and expected as breathing in any exchange between the sexes, even the most businesslike. Something of which Jane naturally disapproved.
But Wyatt hadn’t been like that at all.
Still, the dangerous charm was there lurking below the surface in the man, even if he didn’t turn it on every time with all women. But when he did…
Jane shivered just a bit, thinking he really was too good-looking for any woman’s good and likely too used to getting his way with women, just as Leo was. She couldn’t let herself forget that.
Not that Jane ever really forgot herself with a man.
“Well,” she said, feeling a little warm and uneasy suddenly. “I suppose the best thing would be to talk to Gladdy first. I’ll try it myself and see how it goes.”
“And if that isn’t enough, I’ll talk to her. Just give me a call,” Wyatt offered, pulling out a business card and scribbling down a phone number on it. “My office and personal numbers. Feel free to call anytime, Jane.”
She pulled out a card of her own, wrote her private number on it and handed it over to him. Picking up his card, she saw Wyatt Addison Gray IV, attorney at law, with what she knew was a pricey downtown address.
“What kind of law?” she asked.
“Divorce.” His mouth twitched, trying to hold back what she suspected would be a mind-numbingly gorgeous grin. “I have to admit, it seemed to come naturally to me. I saw so many of them in my family as I was growing up.”
Jane nodded. “Me too. What was the longest marriage in your family?”
“Leo’s last one. Eleven years.”
“Wow. Impressive,” Jane declared. “We never managed to do better than six.”
Wyatt shrugged, as if to say, What are you going to do?
“I think we’re going to work together well to handle this little problem,” Jane told him, quite pleased with herself and Mr. Wyatt Addison Gray, Esquire.
“I do, too, Jane.”
Jane felt like a dynamo the next morning, charging through her routine with even more enthusiasm and effectiveness than usual. Powering through her morning kickboxing class, getting to the office early, proofing the copy for her latest ad campaign for her Fabulous Female Financial Boot Camp, even sketching out ideas for a series of advanced classes for women who’d mastered the principles laid out in the first seminar.
She felt like she could do anything.
Her assistant, Lainie, showed up at the usual time, looking puzzled at the way Jane rattled off a list of things she already needed Lainie to take care of.
“You didn’t have one of those energy drinks again, did you?” Lainie asked. “I told you, Jane, your system really can’t handle those. You’re already on overdrive. You don’t need the boost.”
“Of course not.” Jane looked puzzled. “After all, a well-rested, well-nourished woman doesn’t need artificial stimulants.”
She reached for her notepad, always close at hand, and started scribbling.
“Sorry,” she said, quite pleased with herself. “I need to write that down. I’m thinking about working on a book of my philosophies. Financial advice for women is such a nice niche market these days, and it would be a wonderful cross-promotion for my seminars. Don’t you think?”
“Sure,” Lainie said, still frowning.
“What?”
“It’s just that…you seem…happy.”
“I am almost always happy,” Jane insisted.
Lainie looked skeptical. “I think you might have been whistling when I walked in.”
Jane thought back. Had she been? And what if she was?
“How did things go with your grandmother yesterday? Did you meet this man she claims to love?”
“Oh, yes,” Jane said. “A complete cad, but Wyatt and I will take care of the situation.”
“Wyatt?”
“The man’s nephew. Wyatt Addison Gray IV. I have to say, I disliked him on sight as we sat down to dinner, but then we went across the street to this bar and had drinks afterward, and he was completely open and honest and reasonable. Altogether, a remarkable man.”
Lainie gaped at her. “You met a man you think is reasonable?”
Jane nodded.
“And honest?”
“I told you, a remarkable man,” Jane repeated even more emphatically than before.
“And you had dinner and drinks? Like…a date?”
“I date,” Jane insisted.
“Not in this calendar year,” Lainie reminded her.
“I’m just very selective about the men I find worthy of my consideration and time.”
Lainie’s bottom lip curled over her teeth, and she looked like she might bite herself to keep from replying to that, but finally gave up the battle and said, “And when you do, you don’t show up in the office whistling the next morning. If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you and Wyatt Gray didn’t end things with dinner and drinks last night.”
“Of course we did. I would never take a man home with me that I’d just met, and going home with him would be just as risky and irresponsible.” And Jane never took irresponsible risks. “Besides, this wasn’t a date. It was dinner at the retirement park with Gram, Gladdy and Wyatt’s uncle, the cad. Assessing the situation we’re facing with them.”
“And the drinks afterward?” Lainie prompted.
“A place to talk without them present, where Wyatt and I found out that we’re in complete agreement that the relationship between his uncle and Gram has to be stopped. We plotted our strategy to make that happen.”
“Of course,” Lainie said. “I just got so excited when you said you met a man you think is reasonable.”
“Well, I’m sure there are a few of them in the world,” Jane admitted.
Granted, that might be considered a rather large concession on her part to the quality of men alive on the planet at this moment. But she did consider herself a reasonable woman, and a reasonable woman would have to concede that Wyatt Gray had not been what she’d first thought.
“I’ll even admit we had a very interesting and enlightening conversation,” Jane said, thinking she was being exceedingly reasonable and fair-minded now.
“Okay, tell the truth. He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” Lainie asked with a knowing gleam in her eyes.
“That had absolutely nothing to do with…anything,” Jane insisted, thinking, oddly, that she felt a little…tingly inside and just a tad overly warm all of a sudden.
How odd.
Lainie laughed.
“It didn’t,” Jane corrected. “You know I always say the worst thing in the world a woman can do, besides depend on a man financially, is to judge one by his looks. I would never, ever do that. In fact, the best-looking men are almost always the most spoiled and immature.”
It was true. She knew it. Long experience with the women in her family had proven it.
“We must be talking Greek God in a designer suit here,” Lainie claimed.
“He was beautifully dressed,” Jane admitted, again only trying to be fair.
And still, feeling that unusual, unsettling tingly warmth inside her.
“You know, I may be coming down with something,” she told Lainie. “Does it feel warm in here to you? Could you check to see if anyone messed with the thermostat?”
Chapter Four
Jane waited until Gram was at her regular tennis lesson two days later, because normally Gram and Gladdy were practically inseparable, and then went to do her duty, to save poor Gladdy from Wyatt’s ill-behaved uncle.
Jane pasted on a fake smile, walked into Gladdy’s room, and—
“Oh, my God!”
It looked like Gladdy and Leo were…necking on the love seat! Gladdy had her head on Leo’s shoulder, and his was bent over hers. When Jane burst in, Gladdy gave a start and her head popped up, banging into Leo’s forehead.
Jane stood there, astonished and really, really mad on both Gladdy’s and Gram’s behalf.
“Oh, Jane, dear, will you ever learn to knock?” Gladdy asked, practically giggling.
Giggling?
Jane worked herself up into a good, steaming rage and pointed her finger at Leo, who didn’t look guilty in the least over what he’d done. “You,” she said, advancing on him. “Get your hands off my aunt! Right now! Now!”
She’d beat him off with her briefcase if she had to. Jane lifted it up and back, preparing to take a swing.
Leo Gray stood up, all too slowly for Jane’s current mood, smoothed out his shirt, brushed back the bit of hair on the sides of his head and looked for all the world like he was the insulted party here.
“Girly,” he said. “You’ve got to learn to have a little fun.”
Jane’s mouth fell open.
Girly?
He’d called her Girly!
“I’ll have you know that I am a twenty-eight-year-old adult woman! I am no girl,” she yelled after him, as he left Gladdy’s room. “I should have you arrested for this!”
“Arrested?” Gladdy said, taking her arm and pulling the briefcase out of her hand. “Jane, what are you doing?”
“I came to warn you about that awful man! Did he force himself on you? Tell me, because if he did, I’ll—”
“Leo Gray’s never had to force himself on a woman in his life,” Gladdy insisted. “I mean, have you looked at the man? I know you’re not seventy-five years old like me—”
“Gladdy, you’re eighty,” Jane reminded her.
“Shhhh. He doesn’t know that. A woman should never admit to her real age and never look her real age. There’s no reason to in these days. Speaking of which, Jane, darling, is it too much to ask for you to use that nice ageresistant face cream Kathleen and I bought you for Christmas? You have beautiful skin, dear, but you want to keep it that way. You’ll care about these things one day. At least, I pray that you will.”
“That I’ll worry about wrinkles one day? That’s what you pray for?”
“No, that you’ll learn how to enjoy a man and want to look your best for him.”
Jane sank down into the love seat Leo had just vacated, suddenly so tired and frustrated, she could have cried or screamed. That awful man!
“Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked Gladdy.
“Of course, I’m all right. I’m better than I’ve been in years, in fact. Nothing like a fabulous man to make a woman feel young again. I think I’m going to get my hair done and have a facial. What do you say, Jane? A facial? My treat?”
Jane felt like she might turn into a stark raving lunatic at any moment. “A facial? Gladdy?”
“Good skin care is nothing to scoff at, Jane.”
“What about Gram? You love Gram. You always have, and she thinks she’s in love with that man, that awful man—”
