Content to observe and listen, both with a measure of awe, Janice assumed that no one noticed her silence. It amazed her that not only Kelli but Gordon seemed to be completely taken with Philippe. Their reasons, however, were obviously different. Kelli hung on the man’s every word because she was apparently caught up in a spate of hero-worship. As for Gordon, even though he and Philippe appeared to be worlds apart, the two had some things in common.
Would wonders never cease?
So as Gordon and Philippe talked about sports and action movies, and Kelli interjected enthusiastically from time to time, Janice took in the exchange and smiled to herself. And tried not to notice the feeling of contentment that wrapped itself around her.
“You didn’t talk much at lunch.”
Janice sucked in her breath, startled. Preoccupied with gathering her things together, she hadn’t heard Philippe come up behind her. Hadn’t seen him at all for the last four hours, not since they’re returned and she had gotten back to work.
Turning, she looked up into brilliant green eyes that took her breath away.
“You, Gordon and Kelli didn’t leave any openings to get a word in edgewise.” Her pulse was dancing, she noted. He was standing too close. “I’m surprised you even noticed.”
His mouth curved just the slightest bit. “Hard not to notice things about you.”
It wasn’t a line. He looked incapable of grinding out lines, she decided. Which made him completely different from her brother, Gordon, and probably his brother, Georges, too, she’d wager. From his manner, and the fact that he’d winked at her as she left, she had strong suspicions that Georges was much like her own brother.
She could feel Philippe’s eyes working their way along her face, studying her. Looking right into her.
Heat traveled up her body as a blush worked its way to the roots of her hair.
Now that had to be a sight, she thought disparagingly. A twenty-eight-year-old woman, widowed and a single mother to boot, who had, if not been around the block a few times, at least had gotten off the family stoop, blushing.
She caught herself wishing that the house didn’t catch too much of the afternoon sun. There was no way the man could miss the fact that she was blushing like some adolescent school girl.
“Thank you,” she murmured, acknowledging his compliment. “For everything.”
“Everything?”
She elaborated. “The easel, lunch.” Hiring me in the first place. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, debating her next words, but she didn’t want him getting the wrong idea.
“You know I didn’t invite you along with us to pay for it.”
A surge of desire rose out of nowhere, making him want to nibble on the same lip she’d carelessly taken prisoner. Did she have any idea how delectable she was?
“As I recall, you didn’t invite me at all,” he contradicted. “That was Kelli’s doing.”
He was right. Janice shrugged. “I thought you’d be uncomfortable.”
Although he wasn’t as outgoing as either one of his brothers, because of the kind of life he’d led with his mother during his childhood, he was able to fit into almost any situation.
“I wasn’t uncomfortable.” His eyes searched her face. “Were you?”
She had been, but it wasn’t the kind of uncomfortable he meant. It was the “uncomfortable” of realizing that feelings were being roused, feelings that could only lead to disappointment. But her thoughts were her own, not to be shared with someone who was, for all intents and purposes, a stranger.
She lifted her chin defiantly. “Why should I be uncomfortable?”
“I don’t know.” He watched her, the soul of innocence. Innocence about to go awry. “I’m harmless enough.”
Had the man even looked in the mirror recently? She laughed shortly. “Not hardly.”
He could listen to the sound of her laughter all day, even when it was aimed at him. “Care to elaborate?”
She shook her head. Tiny pinpricks of panic assaulted her body. That was the trouble when you brought your brother and daughter with you, she thought. You couldn’t just beat a hasty retreat and drive away. You had to collect them first. “No.”
It was an effort to keep his hands at his sides. A stray hair along her cheek begged to be pushed back into place. “Then I was right, I do make you uncomfortable.”
He made her fidget inside. Made her restless.
Made her remember that there were other things besides two by fours to put her hand to. Small, nameless desires materialized out of the mists where they’d been banished. She yearned to touch this man, to feel his muscles beneath her fingertips, his stubble against her cheek in the morning. Yearned to catch a whiff of his scent on the pillow beside hers even after he was gone.
God, but she missed being part of a twosome. She and Gary had had their problems, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t have been worked out in time. She’d married him to get out of her father’s house, where she felt unloved and ignored. All she’d wanted was to begin a life of her own, to matter to someone. That was her goal and she was willing to make all kinds of compromises to reach it.
But then Gary had gone and died on her. Leaving her just as her mother had. Just as her father had, in his own way, years before he died. With her parents, she’d endured emotional abandonment before they ever left her physically. With Gary, it had been physical, but this didn’t lessen the pain of the loss.
There were just so many times she could expose her heart. She no longer needed approval, she was her own person. And as for love, well, Kelli loved her and in his own confused way, so did Gordon. That was enough.
Oh God, he was touching her, his fingertips moving against her face. It took everything she had not to melt into Philippe’s hand, not to melt against him. Her breath backed up in her lungs.
“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, J.D.”
“Janice,” she whispered.
He leaned in a little closer, his lips so close to hers, she could almost feel them moving as he asked, “What?”
It was an effort to think, to speak. “You’ve hired me, that means you get the right to call me by my first name.”
“Janice.” He nodded, repeating the name. And then he smiled. “It suits you.”
“How so?” Damn it, was he ever going to drop his hand? She was having trouble thinking.
He didn’t know how much longer he could refrain from acting on the impulse that kept doubling in size every second. “Short, to the point, yet feminine.”
That made her laugh under her breath and she shook her head. “Been a long time since anyone called me feminine.”
Very slowly, he moved his thumb along her lower lip, enticing them both. “Don’t see why. You are. Under those jeans and that T-shirt, you are.”
What the hell was he doing? his conscience demanded. It was like having some kind of out-of-body experience. He’d somehow stepped outside of himself and now he watched this unfold. Watched himself flirt with a woman even though any relationship would be doomed from the start. He knew he wasn’t going to follow up on any of these feelings he was having, even if they were so strong they made it hard for him to breathe.
He was his mother’s son, which meant that no matter what he felt now, he was going to move on. Something always seemed to stop him, made him turn away, before he became even mildly serious. Janice didn’t deserve to have her life messed up like that.
He needed to stop, to walk away.
Now.