Slow Hands. Leslie Kelly

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СКАЧАТЬ let it go to your head,” she said as they reached the corner of Madison and State, heading for the closest lunch café. “Despite his business reputation, my father is a hopeless romantic, who’d love to see me settle down. He’d be happy if an intoxicated mime in full makeup came to take me to lunch, as long as he was single and breathing.”

      “I hate mimes.”

      “Who doesn’t?”

      “I mean, what kind of kid thinks ‘Gee, when I grow up, I wanna paint my face and annoy people for a living.’”

      She raised a droll brow. “One who wants to be a clown?”

      “I think I’d feel better if my kid said he wanted to be a lawyer.”

      “Perish the thought,” she said with an exaggerated shudder.

      “I’ve never seen a drunk one, though. That might be entertaining.”

      “You obviously don’t lunch at the Chicago Club with all the rest of the high-priced defense attorneys.”

      “I meant the mime,” he explained, enjoying sparring with her, liking the smart comebacks and that smile lurking on her mouth. What he most wanted now was a full frontal attack of those gorgeous dimples and that light laugh he just knew was hiding behind the twitching lips and the twinkling eyes.

      “Watching them fall and not be able to get up in their invisible box might be fun.”

      It finally worked, he got her to relax. “You’re right.” A tiny grin appeared, finally widening into that brilliant smile, complete with a flash of those dimples. God, she had the kind of smile that could stop traffic. She was absolutely made for it.

      Among other things.

      Feeling even more confident about his sneaky way of getting her to have lunch with him, he took her arm as the light changed. Instinct. Good manners toward females had been hammered into him from the time he was old enough to understand what the words put the seat down meant.

      One good thing—she didn’t flinch. A second one—she didn’t pull away, either. It was something, at least.

      “So your dad’s a real romantic, huh?” The image didn’t quite fit with the “ruthless mogul” the papers made him out to be.

      “Don’t go there.”

      “Touchy subject?”

      “His romantic track record’s not exactly one for the books. Yet he still wants everything to be roses and fairy tales, true love all around, as impossible as that may be.”

      They crossed the street with the rest of the streaming flow of humanity. On a sunny summer afternoon, everyone stepped outside to bask in the sunlight. And many of them did it at Millennium Park. That was where he intended to take Madeline after they grabbed a take-out lunch. He sensed she wasn’t the picnicking type, especially in the middle of a workday, but he intended to try to convince her, anyway.

      “Why is it impossible?” he asked as they stepped onto the opposite sidewalk.

      “What?” she asked, glancing up at him in confusion, obviously having forgotten what she’d just said.

      That said a lot. Mainly that she didn’t think about love very often. He tucked the realization away, knowing he’d have to get to know this woman bit by bit, piece by piece, because that was all she was going to allow until she let her guard down.

      “Why is falling in love impossible?”

      She sighed as they continued walking. “Falling in love isn’t the problem,” she murmured. “It’s the staying in love part that I don’t have much faith in.”

      “I have two parents, four grandparents, and about fifty aunts, uncles, cousins and friends who’d say you’re wrong about that.”

      She finally turned to really look at him, a hard, skeptical glint appearing in those big brown eyes. That was when he knew—the woman had been burned. Badly. The realization made something twist inside him, deep down, to the nice-guy core who detested the jerks who hurt women.

      “And I have a father, a sister, a couple of former stepmothers, several cousins, aunts, uncles and friends who say I’m right.”

      He gaped. “Not a single successful marriage in the bunch?”

      Her gaze shifted, her lashes lowering over suddenly sad eyes. “My parents were supposedly happy.”

      Confused, he waited for her to continue.

      “My mother died when I was very young. My father once said the years he spent with her were the most blissful of his life.”

      “So it is possible.”

      “They were only married for five years before she got sick.”

      “God, you’re a pessimist.”

      “And you’re an optimist?”

      “Hell, yes. My glass may only hold beer instead of champagne, but it’s almost always half full.”

      Jake had seen too much sadness and tragedy in his work to let himself feel anything but intensely grateful for all the good things in his life. His family, the great childhood, his job, his friends.

      And now…well, now, maybe Madeline Turner. If only she’d let him get close enough to find out.

      “So, what do you want to grab for lunch?” he asked, still not telling her he intended to get her to the park so she could unwind, unbend, maybe let her guard down a little.

      He wanted to see the breeze off the lake blowing in her hair. Wanted to see another genuine smile, maybe even a flash of unguarded interest, as he’d seen in her eyes earlier in her office. Just like the flash that she had obviously seen the other night when they’d met.

      Women hated being objectified, he knew that. And Jake had never—ever—treated any woman like a sexy body with a head stuck on it. But pausing to appreciate the soft, mouthwatering curves on this particular one had been as instinctive to him as drawing in his next breath of fresh June air.

      She’d noticed. He’d noticed her noticing. Even now his hands tightened and his mouth hungered at the thought of watching her shimmy out of that glittering blue cocktail dress she’d had on.

      He’d wager she’d been wearing something very black, very silky and very sinful underneath it. The thought of exactly what that might have looked like against the unbelievably lush curves of her body had been enough to keep his imagination racing and his libido roaring throughout the long, sleepless night after she’d left.

      He sensed tonight wouldn’t be much better, though she couldn’t look more different than she had then. Today, dressed in her businesswoman’s armor—a tailored light blue suit, silky blouse, skirt short enough to show a stunning pair of legs, but not so short that she’d send a man into cardiac arrest—she looked entirely in control. Every hint of the sexy, almost-impulsive woman who’d cut through all the bullshit games and bid a small fortune for an evening with him was gone. She had been replaced СКАЧАТЬ