She stood up, picked up her coffee, and turned away to stare out of the window for a minute. When she turned back, her lips were pursed. “Is that why you were so upset the night I stole that car?”
“Partly. I’m also a law-abiding citizen, and I don’t actually think stealing cars is something you do for kicks. But yeah. They would have thrown the book at me and smiled the whole time they were doing it.”
She gave a small nod, came back, and sat down. “Okay, finish the story.”
He told her everything he could think of, then sat back while she considered it.
“So,” she said eventually, “you’re a witness for the case?”
“Yes, though they have enough other witnesses to seal it without me.”
“Then this is more in the way of retribution than saving their asses.”
“Maybe. To be honest, I have no clue. This has never happened to me before.”
“What? You mean no one’s ever tried to kill you?” She frowned. “Hey, you’re not married are you?”
He didn’t like how she made the connection between someone wanting to kill him and his being married. “No.”
“Fiancée?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Friendly neighborhood prostitute who pops over and relieves the pressure every now and then?”
“No.” He’d been over here for just under a year now and hadn’t been laid in all that time. Well until Jess. He hadn’t even been on a date. And he hadn’t noticed. Before that there had been Penny. “I was engaged. We broke up before I moved over here.”
“Why? What was wrong with her? Didn’t Rory like her?”
“Nothing was wrong with her. She was perfect, and my father loved her. She was my mother’s best friend’s daughter, and my mother loved her as well.”
“Wow. So what went wrong between you and little Ms. Perfect?”
That was why he’d gone out with her. He’d tried the not so perfect and that had gotten him nothing but a whole load of grief. So why not try the opposite? Penny was beautiful, clever—she was a corporate lawyer—smart, sophisticated. The perfect wife. And he’d been bored out of his mind with her. The relationship had lacked any spark, but wasn’t that what he’d wanted? No danger of falling for her, and no danger of crashing at the end of that fall.
“Nothing went wrong. It just didn’t work out.” Penny had actually ended the engagement. From the outset, she’d told him she was happy with a marriage that had more to do with convenience than with love, but in the end she had broken it off. She’d told him he wasn’t the man she had first thought. That she didn’t believe he would be happy with their loveless marriage. But he wasn’t expecting “happy.” In the end, breaking up with Penny hadn’t bothered him and he supposed that proved her point. “We’re still friends.”
“How sweet.”
“So why the interest in my love life?”
She grinned. “Or lack of it. Just considering options.”
“You think you want the position?” Why the hell had he said that? “You want to be my girlfriend, Jess?”
She allowed her gaze to wander down over him. Her tongue poked out, small and pointed, swiping over her plump lower lip, and heat pooled in his belly.
“Bloody hell, no,” she replied. “I have absolutely no aspirations to be your girlfriend, Declan. Been there. Done that. Have no wish to repeat the…mistake.” She gave him a smile that didn’t reach her midnight-blue eyes. “The sex is great, and I’ve no problem with a little extracurricular activity providing it doesn’t interfere with the job. But be your girlfriend? I’d rather strip naked, roll myself in honey, and sit on an anthill.”
“Nice visual. At least the stripping naked bit.”
She ignored the comment. “But the girlfriend thing would be an ideal cover, so it’s best if the position is open. It will allow me to stay close without being too obvious. And it will have the added benefit of stopping your dad’s matchmaking habit. If that’s what you really want.”
“I want.”
“But be very clear, this relationship is not real and it’s totally temporary. Once the job is over, we’re done. Finished. We walk away.”
“Of course.” Just under three weeks. Would it be enough to get her out of his system?
“Okay, I’ll run it past Jake.”
“Jake?”
“Jake Knight. He owns the company.”
He didn’t like that she was on such familiar terms with the guy. “How about you?”
She’d gotten up and placed her mug in the dishwasher. Now she turned back to him, leaning against the machine, hands in her pockets. “How about me what?”
He pushed himself to his feet and took the couple of steps that brought him directly in front of her. “Do you have a man in your life, Jess?” From this position, he could look down to the swell of her breasts beneath the white cotton shirt. Not that there was a lot to see, no cleavage on show.
“And why is that any of your business?”
“Well, I’d hate to get one lot of bad guys off my back only to piss off someone else.”
“There’s no one you need worry your head about.”
“I thought you and that Steve guy were an item.”
“Well, you thought wrong. There’s nobody right now.”
He liked that. But he didn’t like that he liked it. God, he was fucked-up. At least where Jess was concerned. On a good note, she had said she wasn’t averse to sex with him. Hardly a romantic comment, but then he didn’t want romance. But he did want her. Quite desperately. In fact he couldn’t remember wanting a woman quite so much since… Since more than ten years ago when he’d last slept with Jess.
But then she hadn’t been a woman back then. She’d been a seventeen–year-old girl, who’d been crazy for him. He’d known that. Just as he’d known there would be nothing long-term between them. But every time he’d tried to walk away she’d pulled him back. Until the last time. When he’d succeeded in staying away by the simple action of putting an ocean between them.
He’d been supposed to study at the London School of Economics. At the last minute his father had talked to his mother, who’d pulled some strings and got him the chance of a place in Harvard. He’d known it was the right thing to do but it had broken something inside him.