Jack and his brothers had been raised to honor and respect everyone, especially women. And yet, the few times he and Mary had been together, he’d had a hell of a time trying to respect her wishes by not letting their kisses spiral off into more.
He was just pulling up the driveway when he realized he’d have to figure out how to get a grip on himself, and fast. Because Gerry wasn’t there waiting for him with the photos for the campaign.
Instead, the most beautiful woman in the world was standing right there.
* * *
Mary had expected to see Howie and Larry with Jack but, obviously, something had held up the other two men. She couldn’t ever remember being this nervous around a man, not even when she’d been a young teenager with her first school crush.
Jack’s eyes were darker, even more intense, than she remembered them being as he walked toward her. She worked to keep her legs from trembling, or from running straight into his arms.
It didn’t help one bit when Jack said, “I’ve missed you, Mary.”
Her breath caught in her throat at how much she wanted him at that moment. Oh God, why had she agreed to let Gerry maneuver her into coming here? She knew he thought he was doing what was best for her, probably thinking she’d been playing it safe for too long, but surely that didn’t mean she should dive headfirst into the most dangerous waters she’d ever known. Did it?
Trying to break through the heated moment, she said, “I can’t wait to finally see where the magic happens.”
“I’m afraid there’s far more dust and a mess of wires than magic,” he said as he reached down to unlock the garage door.
The muscles in his arms and back flexed beneath his cotton shirt as he pulled the heavy door open, and though she knew it was rude to stare, she couldn’t have stopped herself for the world. Especially when she knew firsthand just how good those hard muscles felt pressed against her.
She caught her breath for a different reason when he motioned for her to come inside. He was right about the dust and wires, but what really made an impact on her was the wonder of creation in every spare inch of the room.
“It’s amazing, Jack.” She had no idea how any of it worked, but she wanted to. She pointed to a screen with a bunch of knobs all around it. “What’s this for?”
“It’s an oscilloscope, which is a type of electronic test instrument for looking at wave signals.”
She walked over to a group of similar, smaller boxes. “And what about this?”
“This is a voltage generator. It’s what we use to power up the prototype motherboards.”
She put her hand on his arm. “It really is magic, isn’t it?”
A muscle jumped in his jaw as he stared down at her. “I think you’d better show me the pictures you brought.”
Suddenly realizing how close she was standing to him, she took a step back. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be wasting your time—”
“You don’t have a damn thing to be sorry for,” he said, cutting her off before she could finish her apology. “But I will be sorry in a moment if I don’t figure out how to gain some self-control around you.”
She’d always thought she was a fair person, and a strong one, too. But how could either of those things be true when she was desperate for Jack to lose control and kiss her again so that she could get lost in his arms and not have to make any tough decisions at all?
He deserved her honesty at the very least, if she couldn’t give him fairness or strength. “I missed you these past few days, too. There’s no point in trying to pretend I didn’t.”
But even that wasn’t nearly honest enough. She needed to finally tell him why she was trying so hard to keep things professional between them during the campaign.
“Remember how I told you about the mistake I made a few years ago? His name was Romain. He owns a big Swiss watch company, and I was the model they chose for a crucial campaign. He was very charming, very persuasive and attentive, and we began dating soon after I started working for his company. We were seen everywhere together. He made sure of it so that his profits would soar even higher. Until he decided profits would be even higher without me.” She sighed, thinking how young, how foolish she’d been. “He was about to inform me of my future replacement on the day I decided to surprise him at his penthouse.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “All three of us were surprised.”
“Three?”
“Me, Romain, and the model in his bed. She was quite a bit younger than me, one of the up-and-coming girls who was as naive as I used to be when I first started in the business. Clearly, she’d been just as easily charmed by him as I’d been. I broke things off with him, of course, but I had signed a contract, and I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I broke my promise to his board and the investors. Those last few photo shoots were horribly painful.”
“You would have been perfectly within your rights to break a business promise, since he had done far worse by breaking his personal promise with you.”
“No. I couldn’t let him know how badly he’d hurt me, or admit to the world what a fool I’d been. I was just as foolish as my mother accused me of being all those years ago.” She took a breath to try to shake it all off and come back to Jack and his garage full of magic. “Since then, I’ve always been careful not to blend my work life with my personal life.”
“I would tell you I’m not like him, but you already know that, don’t you?”