Fighting the urge to fan herself with her menu, Jamie knew that she could never be anything but honest with Jack. If this—it, destiny, fate, whatever it was—was even going to have a lick of a chance, she needed to tell the plain truth.
“Because…I’m attracted to you.” Lord, she could not believe she had said that out loud. Allison would croak.
But Jack said, “The feeling’s mutual.” And the burn in his eye confirmed it.
The question was, what exactly were they going to do about it?
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know yet.
“How’s your shirt?” she managed to force out, determined to behave like a normal woman and not grab him and make love to him on the table the way she suddenly wanted to.
“It’s in the garbage.” He shrugged with a grin.
“That bad?”
“Yes, but you’ll be happy to know, despite sloshing around the inside of the bag, my grandfather thought the spaghetti was great. He ate it all.”
“It was your grandfather’s dinner?” She struggled not to show exactly how much it pleased her to hear that a man would take food to his grandfather.
“Yep. I bring him dinner in his nursing home every Thursday. He hates eating in their cafeteria.”
Jack spoke casually, like it was no big deal for a man to give up his Thursday after work every week to visit his grandfather and bring him a meal. And maybe it wasn’t a big deal to Jack, maybe he expected that anyone with half a heart would do the same.
But Jamie had seen too much in her line of work not to appreciate the enormity of such a gesture. The world was filled with selfish, cruel people who constantly overshadowed the many others who were living out their lives as good, caring people.
It confirmed what she had sensed the minute she had looked up into Jack’s eyes on the subway.
He was different. Special. Maybe there was more to Beckwith’s fortune than she had thought. Maybe Jack wouldn’t just touch her body and all its one thousand parts, but her soul, too. Maybe there was such a thing as Mr. Right and she had crashed into him.
She felt a cheesy grin spread across her face. Lordy, she was in trouble.
Jamie smiled at him in a way that made Jack’s insides twist like taffy. She looked so soft and warm and lush. Between yesterday’s floral dress and the clinging sleeveless shirt she was wearing now, he suspected he would never be able to look at another flower again without thinking of Jamie’s breasts.
That wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Jamie’s breasts were a gift to man. A total sexual feast for the eyes.
And his eyes were directly connected to his dick, which was enjoying the view. Jack coughed and tried to focus on her words.
While he was entertaining fantasies of licking her nipples, she was talking about his grandfather.
“That’s so nice of you. I’m sure he likes the company.”
Her green eyes had gone round, her shoulders dropping down into a more relaxed position. He was really having trouble concentrating on their conversation. All he could think about was her, all curvy and sweet, and how he had the sudden overwhelming urge to take her home and keep her there.
Forget Hathaway and illegal day trading. The only thing that seemed important was getting to know Jamie Peters. All of her. Of course, he couldn’t forget anything about the funding request. Because he knew who she was, but she didn’t have the same advantage.
Jack should tell her the truth. Let her come around to it on her own through conversation. Like it was an accident that they’d met. Like he wasn’t a total freak weirdo who had followed her. He would just act surprised when she mentioned who her roommate was.
“Pops is a real character. He’s seen it all, and he gives good advice. Taught me all I know, really.”
Jamie nodded. “I have a granny like that back in Kentucky. She’s never been more than fifty miles from her house, but she knows everything.”
As the waiter brought their wine and took their orders, he wondered why Jamie didn’t look out of place in Manhattan. She should, with her country voice that came and went and her doe-eyed innocent looks. But she also looked earthy and new age, and that certainly blended with New York.
She did not look like the kind of woman who would be friends with his sister. Caroline was meticulous, driven, polished, a little uptight. She had Darien, Connecticut, written all over her, whereas Jamie screamed twenty-first century hippie.
Jack wasn’t sure what was written all over him. Right now probably something like undersexed workaholic looking for woman to share friendship, possibly more. A lot more.
“So, ah, what do you do, Jamie?” Lead her around to it. Yeah, he was slick.
“I’m a social worker.”
Well, that just got him nowhere. Which was a good thing, because rationally, he knew he couldn’t tell her about the potential fraud. But the corner he was backed into wasn’t feeling very comfortable. “Wow, that’s tough work.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not. It’s wonderful. The pay is lousy of course, but what I do has a real impact on people’s lives. That matters to me.”
He could see that it did. Sincerity shone in her eyes. His heart turned over like an engine roaring to life. This was a new feeling, a strange, exciting, vulnerable sort of feeling.
When he’d broken up with his last girlfriend, Meredith, after hearing her tell a friend Jack’s best quality was his money, he hadn’t thought he would ever feel eagerness for a new relationship. But it was there, and it wasn’t as terrifying and horrible as he had expected.
It actually felt a lot like when he’d first start investigating a possible business venture. Like it could be lucrative or a disaster, but in the beginning there was cautious optimism, excitement.
“Do you work with children, or teens?”
“Everyone.” She waved her hand in an all-encompassing gesture. “We try to salvage families if we can. I work with teen mothers a lot, helping them learn how to raise their children. They love their kids, they’re just lacking in basic skills.”
Her voice grew animated as she talked, and he nodded to show his interest. “I can understand that.”
She went on. “We had this mother, she was only fifteen, and her baby was born with colic. The baby cried all the time, and the mother was really on the edge. She didn’t know what to do with the baby, and she hadn’t bonded with her.”
Jamie took a sip of her wine. “After all, it’s kind of hard to fall instantly in love with a creature that does nothing but squall at you no matter what you do. We were afraid she was going to eventually lose it—shake the baby, or leave her home alone or something.”
“So what did you do?” Jack watched her run her finger around the rim of her wineglass, her thin, creamy fingers long and unfettered by fake nails or polish.
“We sent her and the baby to baby massage classes. They taught her how to touch and rub the baby to soothe her and ease her crying. After a month of those classes, the baby had stopped crying, and that mother was glowing with love for her baby.”
She stopped and gave him a rueful grin. “I’m running on and on, aren’t I?”
“No,” he protested immediately. He didn’t want her to stop talking. “We’re having a conversation. You’re talking and I’m listening.”
Jack leaned forward and said, “I want to hear what you have to say. And I had no idea that social work was so creative. We, the general public, have this idea that all you do is take kids away