The Boss and the Plain Jayne Bride. HEATHER MACALLISTER

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      Nothing. She wouldn’t do anything because she’d never have the courage to be with or even speak to a man like that.

      Such a man was not for her. She acknowledged this fact without self-pity. Beautiful people were attracted to other beautiful people. That was simply a law of nature intended to protect their gene pool. Others might go swimming in that pool, but would soon find they were in over their heads. Survival of the fittest, or in this case, beautifulest.

      “Jayne? Are you listening to me?”

      “Nope.”

      “Figures.” Sylvia pointed to Jayne’s bread plate. “What is with you?”

      Jayne stared at her fingers, which were buried in a mound of bread crumbs. “The bread was dry,” she declared and withdrew her hand, scattering bread crumbs and bits of crust across the table. “Really, really dry.”

      “And you’re really, really distracted. Are you going to tell me about it?”

      “No,” Jayne said as their dinner arrived, “I’m not.”

      

      

      How could she have eaten so much? Jayne stood in the Pace Waterman conference room and regretted each and every bite of the moussaka. Well, maybe not the first half-dozen bites, but after that she should’ve quit eating and would have if Sylvia hadn’t been scolding her for ordering the heavy dish in the first place.

      She was really cross with Sylvia because her scolding kept Jayne from daydreaming about the dreamboat. And then she had to leave the restaurant because of this seminar and didn’t get a chance to see the man’s full face instead of his admittedly perfect profile.

      Thus, when the most gorgeous man in the universe strolled into her accounting seminar, Jayne didn’t recognize him until he turned his head to speak to the dazed woman already seated in the row. Then he sat at a student desk, looking for all the world as though he thought he belonged there.

      He didn’t, of course. Spectacularly gorgeous men did not study accounting at seminars, at least not at the seminars sponsored by the Pace Waterman accounting firm. In general, gorgeous people did not study accounting at all. Jayne knew this, being an accountant herself.

      In two minutes, she would have to start class. This meant that in two minutes, after she welcomed those present to Accounting for Small Businesses, the breathtaking man sitting three seats from the front would recognize his mistake, furrow his brow in attractive confusion, laugh an attractively selfdeprecating laugh and excuse himself, attractively, from her life forever.

      Jayne had two minutes to imprint every detail of his perfect features on her psyche. Two minutes to fuel future fantasies. It wasn’t much, but she could work with it.

      Taking a step closer, she inhaled, as if to absorb his essence into her being, and let her breath out on a sigh as her eyes traced the contours of his face.

      From the cleft in his chin, her gaze climbed the steep slope of his cheekbones, waded through the blue pools of his eyes, tangled in his black brows, slid down an impossibly straight nose and landed in the valley between his lips.

      His lips. Jayne shivered and clutched the class roster to the bodice of her navy-blue suit Not skinny lips and not full, blatantly sensual lips; these lips were kissing lips. Athletic lips.

      Jayne had never been privileged to kiss or be kissed by such a pair of lips. And even if a man of her acquaintance possessed such lips, he wouldn’t know what to do with them. Jayne doubted she would know what to do with them, either, but she was willing to learn.

      Her watch beeped the hour. Lost in the valley of the shadow of his lips, Jayne tried to ignore the beep but a restless shifting and a few stray whispers among the two dozen people seated before her told her she’d better start class.

      Drawing a breath, she spoke the words which would send the stunning god back to Mount Olympus. “Welcome to Small Business Accounting sponsored by the accounting firm of Pace Waterman. I’m Jayne Nelson, your instructor.” She paused, waiting for him to leave.

      He regarded her with an impassive blue gaze.

      “We’ll be meeting twice a week for six weeks,” she continued, and looked at him expectantly.

      He smiled a politely devastating smile. He had dimples. Jayne smothered her small whimper before it could escape.

      “I’ll call roll, so I can get to know you.” Please be on the list. Please be on the list.

      Suppressing the impulse to skip all the female names, Jayne began at the top of the alphabet and was rewarded when a deep male voice answered, “Here” to the name Garrett Charles.

      Garrett Charles. Jayne Nelson Charies Jayne Charles. Jaynie Charles. Mrs. Garrett Charles. She sighed and raced through the rest of the roster.

      He was on the list. He had actually paid money to take the class. He belonged here. The accounting gods were smiling on her.

      Pace Waterman offered a variety of courses and seminars such as this one geared toward people who were thinking of starting their own businesses. Naturally Pace Waterman hoped that the business would grow and eventually require the services of one of their accountants, especially during income tax season.

      The account executives took turns teaching the seminars and this was Jayne’s rotation.

      Lucky Jayne.

      She set the roster on the table, remembering to suck in her moussaka-laden stomach.

      “Ninety percent of all start-up businesses fail within one year due to lack of sufficient operating capital,” she began, wondering what kind of business Garrett Charles was in. He looked like the restaurant type.

      Why don’t you ask him? “I’m going to go around the room and have each of you tell a little about the business you have or plan to start. Then I can tailor the class more to your needs.” I’m good I’m really, really good.

      Boutiques, bookstores, craft stores, a couple of fastfood franchises, restaurants and...

      “I’m taking over the family modeling agency,” he said.

      Of course. She should have known that Garrett Charles was either a model or an actor.

      A feminine purr greeted his announcement as the women unconsciously straightened spines and hair. The men wore varying looks of disdain and threatened manhood.

      Jayne’s stomach muscles hurt. “I don’t know anything about the modeling business,” she blurted out. He knows that. All he has to do is look at you. You’re five-three and...curvy. And why did you let Sylvia give you a home perm?

      “And I don’t know anything about the accounting business.” Garrett stretched those gorgeous kissable lips of his into a smile that revealed teeth so straight and white they wouldn’t need retouching in a photograph. His dimples deepened and Jayne’s knees quivered. “I suppose that makes us even.”

      Even. She was even with a man who could look good in fluorescent lighting.

      “And СКАЧАТЬ