скачать книгу бесплатно
“What do you mean, old thing? It’s only—” She stopped and thought. Hmm. It had been a long time since she’d bought the suit.
“Tomorrow we’re going shopping during our lunch hour,” Alison said. “And you’re going to buy something sexy.”
“I am not.”
“Are, too.”
“I. Am. Not.”
“We’ll see,” Alison said. “Now let’s watch the movie. I’m due for a good cry.”
The dress was black. And short. And low cut.
The heels were silver. And spiked. And strappy. And they showed off siren-red toenail polish that Alison had insisted was perfect for the total look.
She had a look, all right, Christine thought, hovering just one notch to the left of panicked on Saturday night. A look she’d never in a million years thought she could pull off. Yet as she took it all in—experiencing a mixture of disbelief and shock and a pleasurable womanly confidence—in her full-length bedroom mirror, Christine had to admit Alison was right.
She looked hot.
“Okay. That settles it. I’m changing.”
Alison laughed. “Don’t even think about it,” she said, standing behind her like a drill sergeant.
Right. She’d forgotten about Alison for a minute there. Her friend had insisted she help Christine get ready for her dinner meeting and then informed her she was going to stick around until Jacob arrived just to make sure she didn’t chicken out and ditch the new duds for the black pantsuit.
“Alison, I look ridiculous.”
“You look fabulous.”
“I look obvious.”
“I really like the hair, too,” Alison added, ignoring Christine’s discomfort.
Yeah. Christine had to admit Alison was right about that, too. Her hair did look great. Alison had scooped it up to the crown of her head and wrestled it into a spiky little puff that looked chic and hip and—yeah, she admitted, still amazed—sexy.
It was a word that had never fit her.
Conservative—now, there was a word she wore well. A word that was comfortable, unlike the way she felt wearing this dress. She had to change clothes. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
“Okay. Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything. You’ve transformed the pumpkin into a fancy coach, Fairy Godmother. You must be exhausted. Why don’t you go on home now?”
“Yeah, right,” Alison said. “And give you a chance to change into something less revealing, less sexy and more conservative the minute I walk out the door? Uh-uh. Besides, it’s too late. Mr. Wonderful just pulled up.”
Well, yikes, Christine thought and tugged up the plunging neckline in a vain attempt to cover a little more skin.
“Go,” Alison said and gave her an encouraging squeeze. “Answer the door. And let the begging begin.”
Yeah. As if Jacob Thorne would ever beg for her.
On a deep breath she walked out of the bedroom. Her knees were wobbly as she headed down the hall and regarded the front door to her apartment as if Jack the Ripper were about to make an impromptu appearance.
Not Jack. Jacob. Jacob the Thorne. And his knock was solid and confident.
She wished she could say the same about her knees. This was so ridiculous. The way she looked. The way she’d dressed. The outrageous way her heart was hammering. All because the man on the other side of the door had orchestrated a pretend date to have a little more fun at her expense.
The reminder was all she needed to regain her composure. He wanted to make a joke of her? Fine. At least she was turned out in a way that might give him a twinge of regret.
She wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt and immediately regretted that she may have soiled the delicate silk crepe. Regrouping, she pasted on a smile and opened the door.
“Hi,” she said and had the disarming experience of watching his arrogant hey-baby grin slowly deflate to be replaced by a look of complete and utter shock.
Chapter Four
“Um…hello?” Christine repeated again after several long, uncomfortable seconds had passed.
He hadn’t said a word. He just stood there. Looking her up and down. Slowly. Very slowly.
“Hello,” he said finally, his voice deep and gruff. Very, very gruff. “Hello, hello, hello,” he repeated slowly.
His smile had returned. A pleased, surprised, uniquely charming smile, and if she wasn’t careful, she might start to think he actually was happy to see her. And that he actually liked what he saw.
“You have legs,” he said, standing back to take another long, blatantly appreciative look. “Nice legs.”
“Um. Well.”
Sparkling response, Christine. Just sparkling.
“Nice, Chrissie,” he said, meeting her eyes again. “You look very, very nice.”
“Um. Well.”
Is there a really stupid echo in here? And why are my cheeks so hot?
“I’ll…I’ll, um, just go get my purse.”
“It will be my pleasure to wait here and watch you go get it,” he said, another grin in his voice that made her glance back over her shoulder—and get caught off guard by the heated look in his eye.
She turned her head back so fast, she made herself dizzy. At least, that’s why she thought she was dizzy. It had nothing to do with the way he looked in his rich cobalt-blue suit and expertly knotted silk tie. Or the way he smelled—like some pricey, seductive, masculine cologne that brought to mind mint and musk and the subtle undercurrents of testosterone.
And it definitely had nothing to do with the way he was looking at her. As if he wanted to gobble her up in one big, wolfish bite.
Wolfish? Get real. This wolf usually hunted for foxier game than her. He probably had indigestion or something.
She felt a hot river of self-consciousness trickle through her. Why was she putting herself through this? Maybe he did like what he saw—but what he saw was an illusion. A surprise in something other than drab mode.
She was still exactly what Jacob Thorne thought she was—a dowdy, inexperienced, pushing-thirty old maid trying to play dress-up. A woman who was so afraid of men because of what her father had done to her and her mother and so afraid of letting herself fall into that same horrible spiral of humiliation and pain that her M.O. was to make herself as plain and unappealing as possible so men wouldn’t notice her. And God forbid a man ever showed any interest in her, because she’d pop out her porcupine quills and warn him away with her bristles and barbs.
She felt chilled to the bone suddenly. And hot all over at the same time. Talk about self-discovery. Why did she have to experience this particular discovery now? And why did it have tears gathering in her throat?
“Chris?”
She turned her head to see Alison standing in the bedroom doorway holding her purse. The concern in her eyes had Christine blinking back tears again.
“Oh, sweetie. What’s wrong?”
“I can’t do this,” she whispered. “I’m not the kind of woman who can go out to dinner with that kind of man.”
“The hell you can’t,” Alison said, intuitively sensing that Christine was in the midst of a monumental cold-feet moment. “Don’t you dare put yourself down that way.”
Alison shoved the little black clutch purse into Christine’s hand. “Now, you are not going to waste that dress and that hair and that makeup, do you understand me? You. Look. Incredible. Work it. Enjoy it. Feel the power, girl. You own it tonight. And the way you look, you’re gonna own him, too.”
Alison hugged her hard, then turned her around and literally shoved her into the hall.
“There you are,” her date said when she lurched into the living room. “Thought you’d decided to bail on me.”
Alison’s words bounced around in her head.
Feel the power. You own it…
As incredible as it seemed, when she looked and saw real interest—not just surprised curiosity—in Jacob’s eye, she did feel the power. At least, a little power surge. For all of his smooth words and sexy smiles, she’d never seen him quite the way he was tonight.
Off balance. Just a tad uncertain. As though maybe he really did like what he saw—and it had surprised him.
Maybe the balance of power had shifted in that moment when she’d opened her door and he’d seen her standing there. Not looking like Prissy Chrissie Travers, as even she had begun to think of herself. But looking like a woman. A vibrant, self-confident woman who recognized her burgeoning power—yes, power—over a man who had always had the upper hand.
Okay. Maybe that was overplaying it. But there was something. If not power, at least a measure of self-confidence she’d never felt before. With luck, it would last through the evening.
“Bail? No,” she said as a calm resolve descended over her. “I’m not going to bail.”
The stakes were suddenly too high. This was no longer just about acquiring Jess Golden’s things. This was about something bigger. Much bigger. And as soon as she figured out exactly what was happening to shake her and yet empower her, she’d know what she wanted to do about it.
Butterfly, Jake thought as they walked into Claire’s and he got a whiff of some exotic, flowery perfume. She’d definitely turned into a butterfly. Sleek, satiny and mysterious. And, man, had it been worth the hassle to witness the full effect of the metamorphosis.
Superserious, profoundly professional and supremely prickly Christine Travers with her sensible clothes and plain-Jane package was long gone. In her place was a sophisticated, sexy siren possessed of an underlying vulnerability that sent his heart rate rocketing.
He liked it. He liked it a lot. And he was starting to think that maybe she might be a woman he could like a lot, too. Not that he hadn’t always liked her, it was simply that the dynamics of their relationship had changed drastically when he’d invited her to dinner. He was used to prickly Chrissie. Had taken great pains to bring out that side of her.
Now he was faced with sexy Chrissie—a side of her he’d always known existed if she would just let her come out and play. Yet for some reason this new face made him a little nervous—which was nuts because he was never nervous around women.
She’d done something amazing to her hair. Not that he didn’t think it looked cute when she wore it down and straight and framing her pixie face in a businesslike do. It was just that with all that fine blond mass swept up on top of her head…well, it had an effect, was all. It accentuated the model-slim line of her neck and exposed a delectable-looking nape. A nape that tempted him mightily to bend down and place a kiss there when she sat at the table for two he’d reserved and he pushed the chair in for her.
He caved in to a spike of better judgment and had to satisfy himself with wondering how badly him kissing her there would rattle her as he settled across the table from her.
“Good evening, Mr. Thorne.”
Jake smiled at their waiter, Claude Jacques, as he produced open menus. “Hello, Claude. How’s it going?”
“Superb, thank you. Would you and the lady care for something to drink while you decide on dinner?”
“Chrissie?” Jake said over the top of his menu. “Would you like something? The wine selection is excellent.”
“I think I’d prefer a club soda, thanks. With a lime wedge, please,” she added with a flash of her gray-green eyes at Claude before she went back to studying her menu.
“Make it two,” Jake said, deferring to her choice, although he’d have loved to see the color a little wine would have splashed on her cheeks.
Not that she needed color. She was…hell…glowing? Close enough. Her lips shimmered with color— somewhere between a wine-red and hot-pink. And he had another I-never-noticed-that-before moment. He’d never noticed that her lips were so full, so lush, and they looked so kissably soft.
He missed the freckles, though. She’d camouflaged them with some powder or blush or bronzer or Lord knew what little bit of magic she’d pulled out of her woman’s bag of tricks.
Speaking of magic, the dress was the mother of all illusions. It had been driving him crazy since she’d opened her apartment door and magically drained all the blood from his head and shot it directly to his groin. He was a sucker for black, short and plunging necklines. All that pale, creamy skin against and beneath the black silk was a turn-on of epic proportions.
“Did I mention that you look incredible?” he said, watching her studiously avoid eye contact by gluing her gaze to the menu.
Several beats passed before she lowered the menu and met his eyes. “You did, actually. Or words to that effect. Thank you. You, um, you look very nice, as well.”
Aren’t we formal now? Again he thought it was cute. So was the way her gaze sort of lingered involuntarily on his mouth before sliding to his chest, then gliding slowly back to his mouth again.
“So, do you see anything you like?”
Her gaze snapped to his.
“On the menu,” he clarified with a grin.
There was that blush. The one he loved to fire up. The one that told him that she hadn’t been thinking about food when she’d been checking him out but that there might have been hunger involved and that it embarrassed her to be caught whetting her appetite, so to speak.
“I’m not too knowledgeable on French cuisine,” she said, sounding self-conscious.
“That’s what Claude’s for,” he said, wanting to set her at ease. “Let’s ask him what’s good when he brings our drinks.”
He watched with interest when she did just that, leading the waiter through a series of questions, both polite and businesslike in manner, until she finally settled on whitefish in wine sauce.
“Make mine beef, make it red and make it big,” he said when it was his turn. “And I’ll have whatever the lady’s having for side dishes.”
“You will enjoy.” Claude scooped up the menus. “The lady has excellent taste.”
And then they were alone. If you didn’t count the discreetly hovering army of wait staff—one who placed ice in their water glasses with sterling tongs, another who dropped in a wedge of lemon and yet another who finally got to the task of pouring the water.
Her expressive eyes relayed her amazement over all the fuss about filling a water glass.
“Not exactly the Royal Diner, huh?”
“Not exactly.”
“It’s a little pretentious,” he agreed, “but the food’s great.”
“It’s a beautiful place.”
Ritzy is what it was. Valet parking, white linen tablecloths, red roses in crystal vases on every table. Women liked it. Besides the great food, the part he liked was the candlelight—something he’d never really paid much attention to before tonight.
