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Authors: Anne Oliver
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jacket. It reminded him that back in that room with Ry he’d felt … shut out. As if Ry was about to join a club Jake wasn’t eligible for. Would never be eligible for.
Clenching his teeth against the chill, he crunched through a pile of autumn leaves, sending them scattering and twirling along the pavement in noisy abandon. He didn’t want to join the matrimonial club.
Shut out
.
His mother had shut him out of her life too. ‘You look just like your father,’ she’d accused her five-year-old son. Jake was reminded of that every time he looked in a mirror. She’d left her cheating husband and young look-alike child for a new life and a new marriage. Rejected him—her own flesh and blood.
And, yeah, he might be his father’s spitting image—but had he inherited Earl’s genes? He’d learned a lot about women in his formative years. After all, how many kids got to grow up in the back room of a strip club? With the smell of cheap perfume and sex in their cramped living arrangements. Falling asleep to carnal sounds through his tiny bedroom’s paper-thin walls.
As a teenager blocking out those same sounds while trying to finish homework, because he’d known that to escape the place, to take control of his life and become a better man than his father, he needed to study.
Jake knew how to have a good time. A good time involved no strings, no stress. No emotion. Was he like his father in more ways than looks? He clenched his jaw as he turned a corner and the hotel came into view.
Shoot me now
.
He picked up his pace. Earl had used women, whereas Jake respected his partners. The women he associated with were professional career types more often than not—unlike Earl’s. They were confident, intelligent and attractive, and they understood where he was coming from. He made it clear up front that he wasn’t into any long-term commitment deals and they didn’t expect more than he wanted to give.
It was honest, at least.
Emma was braced to see Jake, not Ryan, waiting in the lobby. So she took the three flights of stairs rather than the elevator. Deliberately slowly. Admiring the delicate crystal lighting along the hallway, the local landscape paintings on the walls as she reached the top of the ground floor. The thick black carpet emblazoned with the hotel’s gold crest.
But seeing Jake standing at the base of the sweeping staircase as she descended, one bronzed hand on the newel post, dark hair gleaming beneath the magnificent black chandelier, with his jacket slung over his shoulder like some sort of designer-jeans-clad Rhett Butler …
Her hand was gliding along the silky wooden banister or her legs might have given out. She might even have sighed like Scarlett; she couldn’t be sure. She was too busy shoring up her defences against those dark eyes and the heart-winning smile. Because she knew in that instant that this man could be the one with the power to undo her.
Slowing halfway down, she leaned a hip against the staircase, sucked in a badly needed breath.
Stay cool
, shetold herself.
Cool and aloof and annoyed
. He thought he’d tricked her into coming but she knew better. Didn’t she? She frowned to herself. She was here, after all.
Because Stella had asked her.
Right. Straightening, she resumed her descent, concentrating on not tripping over her feet, her eyes drawn to him no matter how hard she tried to look away. That sinner’s smile and those darker-than-sin eyes …
‘Are you feeling all right?’ he asked when she reached the bottom step.
She looked at him warily. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘You looked as if you were swaying there for a second or two. I thought you were going to swoon, and then I’d have been forced to play the hero again.’
‘I did not sway. Or swoon. And you are
not
my hero. I’m guessing there are no fortune cookies either.’
He grinned. ‘You’re guessing wrong.’ He took her elbow, led her across the glittering marbled foyer. At intervals floor-to-ceiling
Clenching his teeth against the chill, he crunched through a pile of autumn leaves, sending them scattering and twirling along the pavement in noisy abandon. He didn’t want to join the matrimonial club.
Shut out
.
His mother had shut him out of her life too. ‘You look just like your father,’ she’d accused her five-year-old son. Jake was reminded of that every time he looked in a mirror. She’d left her cheating husband and young look-alike child for a new life and a new marriage. Rejected him—her own flesh and blood.
And, yeah, he might be his father’s spitting image—but had he inherited Earl’s genes? He’d learned a lot about women in his formative years. After all, how many kids got to grow up in the back room of a strip club? With the smell of cheap perfume and sex in their cramped living arrangements. Falling asleep to carnal sounds through his tiny bedroom’s paper-thin walls.
As a teenager blocking out those same sounds while trying to finish homework, because he’d known that to escape the place, to take control of his life and become a better man than his father, he needed to study.
Jake knew how to have a good time. A good time involved no strings, no stress. No emotion. Was he like his father in more ways than looks? He clenched his jaw as he turned a corner and the hotel came into view.
Shoot me now
.
He picked up his pace. Earl had used women, whereas Jake respected his partners. The women he associated with were professional career types more often than not—unlike Earl’s. They were confident, intelligent and attractive, and they understood where he was coming from. He made it clear up front that he wasn’t into any long-term commitment deals and they didn’t expect more than he wanted to give.
It was honest, at least.
Emma was braced to see Jake, not Ryan, waiting in the lobby. So she took the three flights of stairs rather than the elevator. Deliberately slowly. Admiring the delicate crystal lighting along the hallway, the local landscape paintings on the walls as she reached the top of the ground floor. The thick black carpet emblazoned with the hotel’s gold crest.
But seeing Jake standing at the base of the sweeping staircase as she descended, one bronzed hand on the newel post, dark hair gleaming beneath the magnificent black chandelier, with his jacket slung over his shoulder like some sort of designer-jeans-clad Rhett Butler …
Her hand was gliding along the silky wooden banister or her legs might have given out. She might even have sighed like Scarlett; she couldn’t be sure. She was too busy shoring up her defences against those dark eyes and the heart-winning smile. Because she knew in that instant that this man could be the one with the power to undo her.
Slowing halfway down, she leaned a hip against the staircase, sucked in a badly needed breath.
Stay cool
, shetold herself.
Cool and aloof and annoyed
. He thought he’d tricked her into coming but she knew better. Didn’t she? She frowned to herself. She was here, after all.
Because Stella had asked her.
Right. Straightening, she resumed her descent, concentrating on not tripping over her feet, her eyes drawn to him no matter how hard she tried to look away. That sinner’s smile and those darker-than-sin eyes …
‘Are you feeling all right?’ he asked when she reached the bottom step.
She looked at him warily. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘You looked as if you were swaying there for a second or two. I thought you were going to swoon, and then I’d have been forced to play the hero again.’
‘I did not sway. Or swoon. And you are
not
my hero. I’m guessing there are no fortune cookies either.’
He grinned. ‘You’re guessing wrong.’ He took her elbow, led her across the glittering marbled foyer. At intervals floor-to-ceiling
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