Beyond Breathless
Kathleen O’Reilly
To my Dad, always frugal, never cheap
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Coming Next Month
1
JAMIE MCNAMARA STOOD on the street outside Grand Central Station and shook her head in disbelief. Two million commuters were sharing the same miserable situation. Stranded, stuck, marooned in Manhattan.
Why today? Of all days. Why not tomorrow, when Connecticut really didn’t matter?
“It’s not an insurmountable problem,” said a deep, ear-tickling voice behind her, obviously not privy to the rage that was precariously close to boiling over inside her.
Insurmountable. Yeah, right. Like she could just walk the ninety-five miles from Grand Central to Stamford—in Jimmy Choo heels, no less. Not in this lifetime.
Jamie whirled around, partially to condemn the smug voice, but there were parts of her—devious, womanly parts, that wanted to see if the face matched the vocal chords.
“Thank you for that bit of blind optimism,” she said, caught by the serious, dark eyes. Almost black. Then she noticed the suit, the leather briefcase, the same gray jacket that had nearly run over her earlier as she’d dashed for what was the last running train.
Very hot, but very rude.
Just her luck. People talked about the luck of the Irish, but you never heard about the luck of the Scottish. That’s because they didn’t have any.
The dark eyes flickered over her again. Efficiently, like an accountant jumping right to the bottom line. Jamie felt a slight flush and then mentally flogged herself for the lapse in confidence. She was classically tailored, buffed and polished herself. “Study hard,” her mom used to tell her. “There’re women who coast by on their looks. We’re not them.”
“Excuse me,” Jamie said, brushing past the tightly muscled frame. The suit didn’t hide his physique; it magnified it, as only a good custom job can do.
Italian wool, too. Probably Sergei Brand. Then she realized what she was doing and stopped, reminding herself she was currently in a man-free phase, which sounded much more acceptable than “my last boyfriend married my secretary, Amber.”
Todd had whined continuously about her work hours, but not to Jamie. Oh no, he spent his quality time on the phone with Amber. She’d ask him “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he’d said. Jamie read the engagement announcement in the New York Times before he had the guts to tell her in person. That’d been nearly two years ago and she’d restricted her relationships to mostly non-existent since then.
The old anger erupted inside her, flowing through her like hot liquid goo. Jamie elbowed the suit’s briefcase, not quite an accident, and jumped right into the Forty-second street traffic, fighting all the other commuters for the six cabs that were currently on duty. She raised her hailing hand, stepping in front of a mousy touristy type.
“We should split a car,” the suit said, stepping into traffic with her.
Jamie’s hand lowered. A cabbie—occupied, of course—honked for her to move, and she jumped back to the curb, before taking another long look at the suit.
Split a car?
It was a fascinating suggestion because it couldn’t be economic reasons that prompted the invitation. Clearly she and he shared the same financial echelon. It could be practicality, two strangers needing to find a way out of the city when a power outage stopped mass transit.
But what if the reasons were more carnal? Good, old-fashioned lust.
Thoughts of lust during business hours wasn’t Jamie’s standard operating procedure; business was her ruling passion, but she felt the dizzy pull of—him.
It was rash, it was spontaneous. It was thrilling.
Briskly—because she’d already had three cups of coffee—she gave him an efficient once-over, starting at the spit-polished wingtips, then over long, long legs, up past lean hips, beyond the ogle-inducing broad chest and shoulders, taking note of the tiny dimple in the left side of his mouth, before finally coming to stare into those dark, velvety eyes.
Just her luck, the one time she felt a spark, the dark eyes were distinctly sparkless. Instead they just looked puzzled.
Jamie dismissed the moment of fantasy and sighed.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“New Haven. You?”
“Stamford.”
“It would make sense,” he said with a curt nod.
He seemed polite, logical, with that extra quotient of testosterone that fluttered her insides.
Jamie didn’t need fluttered insides today, or any day, so she started to tell him no.
But those eyes.
Intense, sexy, and slightly geeky. Those eyes currently held her tongue in check.
You need to get to Connecticut. He’s right.
Weak, very weak, McNamara.
Her insides fluttered again, she nodded. “Okay.” She held out her hand. “I’m Jamie. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Andrew,” he said. His hand touched hers briefly. Nothing too personal. The handshake was crisp, businesslike.
Andrew. The name fit. Strong, intelligent, steadfast.
He spoke again, and embarrassingly, it took her ten seconds to realize he wasn’t speaking to her. He was speaking into the wireless earpiece hanging low next to his mouth.
It was a nice mouth, if you were a woman who noticed the male mouth. Jamie usually didn’t, but this bottom lip belonged to a man who would never spout poetry or renegotiate a deal. Firm, decisive, driven.
Just like her.
For a moment, Jamie let herself relax. Her mother had always said she was too driven, that she’d have a heart attack before she was thirty-five. Maybe, but at least Jamie would know that she had tried. She had plans, goals, ambitions, and she could get there, heart attacks notwithstanding.
In Manhattan, you had to be hard, driven, and relentless in order to make it.
And sometimes, you needed a reward.
Jamie fished in the briefcase, finding the inside pocket that held her secret stash. She broke off the tiniest of pieces, just a bite, just a hint, just a taste, and popped it in her mouth while no one was looking.
The milk chocolate sugar rush washed over her, and she closed her eyes in bliss.
Oh, God, that was good.
Immediately the cravings struck again, but some of her mother’s lectures were too deeply ingrained, so with a look of longing, she closed her briefcase, and