Best Of Makeovers Bundle Part 75

The fact that he knew that disturbed him. He shouldn't have looked up her home number last week. He shouldn't have-consciously or not-committed it to memory. Both of which were relatively minor sins when put in the bigger picture, but it rattled him nevertheless.

Jane was quickly becoming an obsession.

He sat up, scrubbed a hand down his face, then swung his legs over the side of the bed. He wouldn't call her. Not yet, at least.

If she could sneak out without so much as waking him to say goodbye, then he could d.a.m.n well wait until tomorrow to call her.

But as he pulled on his jeans, he remembered she'd once accused him of wanting her only because he couldn't have her.

If he didn't call her until tomorrow, would she think she'd been right? That he didn't want her anymore now that they'd slept together?

Okay, he wouldn't wait until tomorrow. He'd call her after lunch.

But as he tugged a T-s.h.i.+rt over his head he remembered how endearingly embarra.s.sed she'd been about fumbling with his belt buckle. What an intriguing contradiction she was. One minute, confident and bold. The next, vulnerable and diffident.

If he didn't call until the afternoon, would she think she'd done something wrong?

He pressed the heel of his palm against his forehead and groaned.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he'd picked up the phone. As he dialed the number he glanced down at his watch. Twelve minutes.

He'd gone from waiting until tomorrow to call her to waiting twelve minutes. Brilliant.

"Why'd you leave?" he asked almost as soon as she answered.

"I had an appointment," she said a little too quickly. "Didn't you get the note? Of course you got the note. You w-wouldn't have had my number otherwise." She laughed nervously.

He lowered himself to the foot of his bed and propped his elbows onto his knees. "I was looking forward to taking you to breakfast," he admitted, staring at the carpet between his bare feet. "Sweetish Hill Bakery is just around the corner. They make great pastries."

She was silent for a long moment and he heard the sounds of traffic in the background, which meant she was still in her car. Apparently, he'd just missed her.

Finally she said, "Sorry I missed it."

"Are you free tonight?"

"Why?"

Why? G.o.d, she was a strange one. "I thought I'd take you to dinner."

"The River City Grill?" she teased.

"Actually, I was thinking of Botinita's. It's a little Mexican place down on South First. It's a real dive. Great food. Spicy. You'll love it."

Again she hesitated. He could almost hear her weighing her answer. "I'm busy for dinner. But I could come by your place afterwards. Around ten?"

"How about tomorrow night, then?"

"Sorry."

"What about lunch?"

"Mmm...still busy."

Drinks? Brunch? High tea? He was tempted to offer, but didn't. He knew what she'd say. Busy, busy, and busy.

Either Jane had the most active social calendar of any woman he'd ever met, or she was avoiding him. Outside of bed, that was.

"What about tonight?" she asked. "Do you want me to come by?"

It was crazy. Clearly, she didn't want anything to do with him outside the bedroom. Just another complication in a relations.h.i.+p that was already way too complicated. It would be so much easier to just end this now.

"Sure," he heard himself say. "Around ten."

At 10:08, Jane sat in her car-parked in the visitor's spot outside Reid's condo-forehead pressed to the steering wheel.

They'd agreed to just one night. So why did he want to see her again? And why had she said yes? Could she handle another night without doing something stupid like falling in love with him?

Yes, she could handle it. She'd never expected this to last forever. She'd wanted one great night. Anything beyond that was part of the bonus round, right?

She sat up and flipped down the visor mirror to check her makeup. She'd spent all day with Dorothea practicing applying her makeup and styling her hair. She'd washed, dried, and styled it three times, until she could recreate Dorothea's creation.

Now, she looked impeccable. One hundred percent Sasha. One hundred percent the s.e.xy woman Reid expected on his doorstep.

Except Sasha wouldn't give a d.a.m.n about getting too involved. h.e.l.l, for that matter, no man would dare reject Sasha. It simply wouldn't happen, because Sasha would be totally in control of every relations.h.i.+p. Totally in control.

With renewed determination, she thrust open the door to her car and climbed out. She repeated the words like a mantra as she waited for him to buzz her through at the street-level door. By the time she rang his doorbell, she almost even believed them.

When he opened the door, he looked so handsome, she had to remind herself again. Sasha didn't get emotionally involved. It didn't matter how unbelievably handsome the man was.

And Reid was unbelievably handsome. So much so that he took her breath away.

He was dressed in blue jeans and a green T-s.h.i.+rt. The exact color of his eyes. The s.h.i.+rt was untucked. The jeans faded in all the right spots. His feet were bare.

The simple intimacy of his bare feet made her heart pound. She could picture him padding barefoot around the kitchen, making coffee on a Sunday morning. Or stretched out on the sofa watching a DVD on a lazy Sat.u.r.day afternoon, his bare feet rubbing against hers, their legs intertwined as she lay sprawled across his chest, mercilessly distracting him from the movie.

Before she could melt into a puddle on his front doorstep, he tugged her inside, shut the door behind her and pulled her to him.

Cradling her face in his hands, he kissed her soundly. Slowly. And with excruciating thoroughness.

Her blood pounded in response. For a moment, she could barely remember her own name, let alone that she was supposed to be controlling this.

Finally, he released her mouth, nuzzling his nose against hers as he pulled away.

"I wasn't going to kiss you," he said.

"You weren't?" she asked, her voice sounding as breathless and weak as she felt.

"No." He tugged on her hand to pull her further into the condo. "I was going to politely invite you in. Offer you a drink. Ask about your day."

"Why didn't you?"

He flashed her a smile. One of the crooked half-smiles that did terrifying things to her insides. "You looked too good. I couldn't help myself."

"And now?"

"And now...would you like to come in? Have a drink?"

"Sure," she said weakly.

With his hand warm and strong on her back, he guided her out of the entryway and into the living room. Last night, he'd barely turned on the lights as he'd led her to the bedroom. This morning, she'd been too preoccupied to notice much. Now, waiting for him to return with her drink, she looked around. She didn't want to be nosy, but how could she resist?

Like his bedroom, the furniture in this room sported clean lines. A leather sofa and vintage club chair, a flat-screen TV with all the accompanying paraphernalia. On the floor beside the TV sat the latest gadget from PlayStation, with half a dozen video games. A shelf nearby stored a collection of DVDs. One that overlapped quite a bit with her own collection. Over the fireplace hung four framed cells from Warner Brothers' cartoons. Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, the Tasmanian Devil, and-of course-Marvin the Martian.

When he returned from the kitchen, she was running her finger along the spines of his DVDs.

"Most of those were my mother's," he said, holding out a gla.s.s of red wine. "When she pa.s.sed away a couple years ago, I couldn't bear to get rid of them. She loved watching movies."

She wanted to ask more about his mother, but resisted the temptation.

Figured. The one thing they had in common and they didn't really have it in common at all. She accepted the gla.s.s. "I did wonder about Anne of Green Gables."

"Which one?" he asked, not even recognizing the t.i.tle.

She extracted the DVD from its slot and held it up.

He glanced at it, then smiled. "Oh, that. It's a cla.s.sic."

"Never seen it, have you?"

"Nope."

She slid the case back onto the shelf with a sigh. "And the games? Were those your mother's, too?"

He laughed. "Purely research. You never know when they're going to put out a request for proposals. I just want to be prepared."

And that seemed to say it all. She was cla.s.sic, romantic movies, he was testosterone-driven video games. Worlds apart, in so many ways.

Disconcerted by the thought, she sidled away from him to stand before the fireplace and pretended to study the framed photos of him and his parents that sat on the mantel.

"That was taken on our first family vacation." He pointed to a shot of them on a ski trip, bundled into parkas, skis in hand.

Reid appeared to be about sixteen, lean and rangy. His eyes narrowed with teenage rebellion not even a family vacation could banish.

"Your first family vacation?" she asked, searching his face for some sign he was teasing her. She laughed nervously. "I mean, I've heard about the Forester family work ethic, but no family vacations? That's ridiculous. You've gotta be, what? Fifteen, sixteen in this picture?"

"Fifteen." For a moment he merely stared at the picture, his shoulders slightly hunched and his hands shoved deep into his pockets. Then he slanted her a smile. "It wasn't Dad's first vacation in fifteen years. It was just our first vacation after they adopted me. I was still in my angry and rebellious stage. We went skiing over spring break. Up in Colorado. I'm lucky they didn't leave me there."

He rambled on a bit about the lodge they stayed at, but when he noticed her staring at him in surprise, he broke off. "You didn't know."

"That you were adopted?" She shook her head. "No, I didn't." Then, after a second, she chuckled. "I guess it makes sense, though. With all the pro bono work the firm does for adoption groups."

"Actually, it's the other way around. Dad was doing the pro bono work when he stumbled across me. I was in a group home up near Waco when he came by to film an ad for the Texas Adoption Council."

"A group home?" she asked. "Like an orphanage?"

Her shock must have shone through in her voice, because he chuckled wryly. "Nothing quite so d.i.c.kensian."

She raised her eyebrows in disbelief.

"It wasn't so bad. Better than at some of the foster homes I stayed in."

Which, she knew, wasn't saying much. She'd watched enough 60 Minutes and 20/20 in her lifetime to know that sometimes life in the foster-care system was no day at the beach. Still, his voice held none of the resentment or anger she might have expected.

"I was fourteen at the time, but kids that old never get adopted. But I figured, the younger kids, they still had a shot. Whenever anyone would come by the home, I'd try to sell the younger kids. Talk about how smart and well behaved they were."

She couldn't help but laugh at the image of a young Reid trying to hawk children like used cars.

"I knew the crew was just there to film the spot," he went on, "but I figured it couldn't hurt. The next weekend, he came back and he brought his wife. There was this real cute freckled kid-maybe nine or ten. I was sure I'd sold them on him. But it was me they wanted."

Even now, all these years later, she heard a hint of disbelief in his voice. That blatant vulnerability tugged at something deep in her heart. Something real and far more complicated than the simple s.e.xual fantasies she was used to.

"They must have loved you very much."

"Hmm, maybe. Dad used to say he just hadn't been able to resist someone who was a such natural adman."

"Is that why you never told your father you didn't want to run Forester+Blake?"

He turned sharply to study her. "How do you know that?"

Suddenly, she felt very aware of him. He stood so close to her, yet didn't touch her. His mere proximity made her senses reel and her skin tingle. She felt herself sway closer to him. But instead of kissing her, as she hoped he would, he seemed to be waiting for her to say something. To answer his question, she realized.

"What? That you never wanted to run Forester+Blake?" She held his gaze for only a moment longer before returning her attention to the photos on the mantel. "You just don't seem to love it, I guess. You take it all so seriously. Matt's not like that. Your father wasn't like that." He stiffened and she felt him withdraw from her. So she added, "Maybe you should try to have more fun with it."

"That seems to be a popular opinion these days."

There was a wry, self-deprecating quality in his voice, but a tightness, as well. She'd offended him.

"I didn't mean-"

"I know what you meant. And you're right. I don't love it. But it's my job. Forester+Blake is my responsibility. It's what I've worked for ever since the Foresters adopted me."

"But it's not what you've always planned to do. If they didn't adopt you until you were fifteen, then before they came along you must have had some idea what you wanted to do with your life. Some plan for the future. Maybe you could-"

"Before the Foresters adopted me, I was in and out of trouble my whole life." He spoke quietly and without emotion. But she heard the hurt behind his words. Saw it in the tilt of his chin and the sadness of his gaze. "I'd been in fights. I'd been arrested at least half a dozen times. I'd been suspended from school too often to count and I'd been in more foster homes than I remember. Before they came along, I had no future. So what I wanted to do with it is irrelevant."

She ached for that troubled boy he'd been. A boy with no future. And she ached to pull him into her arms, hold him close to her, and whisper to him that it was okay for him to dream again.

Unable to say all the things she wanted to, she said, "Your father was very proud of you."