The Millionaire's Club: Jacob, Logan and Marc

“Um. Well.”

Is there a really stupid echo in here? And why are my cheeks so hot?

“I’ll…I’ll, um, just go get my purse.”

“It will be my pleasure to wait here and watch you go get it,” he said, another grin in his voice that made her glance back over her shoulder—and get caught off guard by the heated look in his eye.

She turned her head back so fast, she made herself dizzy. At least, that’s why she thought she was dizzy. It had nothing to do with the way he looked in his rich cobalt-blue suit and expertly knotted silk tie. Or the way he smelled—like some pricey, seductive, masculine cologne that brought to mind mint and musk and the subtle undercurrents of testosterone.

And it definitely had nothing to do with the way he was looking at her. As if he wanted to gobble her up in one big, wolfish bite.

Wolfish? Get real. This wolf usually hunted for foxier game than her. He probably had indigestion or something.

She felt a hot river of self-consciousness trickle through her. Why was she putting herself through this? Maybe he did like what he saw—but what he saw was an illusion. A surprise in something other than drab mode.

She was still exactly what Jacob Thorne thought she was—a dowdy, inexperienced, pushing-thirty old maid trying to play dress-up. A woman who was so afraid of men because of what her father had done to her and her mother and so afraid of letting herself fall into that same horrible spiral of humiliation and pain that her M.O. was to make herself as plain and unappealing as possible so men wouldn’t notice her. And God forbid a man ever showed any interest in her, because she’d pop out her porcupine quills and warn him away with her bristles and barbs.

She felt chilled to the bone suddenly. And hot all over at the same time. Talk about self-discovery. Why did she have to experience this particular discovery now? And why did it have tears gathering in her throat?

“Chris?”

She turned her head to see Alison standing in the bedroom doorway holding her purse. The concern in her eyes had Christine blinking back tears again.

“Oh, sweetie. What’s wrong?”

“I can’t do this,” she whispered. “I’m not the kind of woman who can go out to dinner with that kind of man.”

“The hell you can’t,” Alison said, intuitively sensing that Christine was in the midst of a monumental cold-feet moment. “Don’t you dare put yourself down that way.”

Alison shoved the little black clutch purse into Christine’s hand. “Now, you are not going to waste that dress and that hair and that makeup, do you understand me? You. Look. Incredible. Work it. Enjoy it. Feel the power, girl. You own it tonight. And the way you look, you’re gonna own him, too.”

Alison hugged her hard, then turned her around and literally shoved her into the hall.

“There you are,” her date said when she lurched into the living room. “Thought you’d decided to bail on me.”

Alison’s words bounced around in her head.

Feel the power. You own it…

As incredible as it seemed, when she looked and saw real interest—not just surprised curiosity—in Jacob’s eye, she did feel the power. At least, a little power surge. For all of his smooth words and sexy smiles, she’d never seen him quite the way he was tonight.

Off balance. Just a tad uncertain. As though maybe he really did like what he saw—and it had surprised him.

Maybe the balance of power had shifted in that moment when she’d opened her door and he’d seen her standing there. Not looking like Prissy Chrissie Travers, as even she had begun to think of herself. But looking like a woman. A vibrant, self-confident woman who recognized her burgeoning power—yes, power—over a man who had always had the upper hand.

Okay. Maybe that was overplaying it. But there was something. If not power, at least a measure of self-confidence she’d never felt before. With luck, it would last through the evening.

“Bail? No,” she said as a calm resolve descended over her. “I’m not going to bail.”

The stakes were suddenly too high. This was no longer just about acquiring Jess Golden’s things. This was about something bigger. Much bigger. And as soon as she figured out exactly what was happening to shake her and yet empower her, she’d know what she wanted to do about it.

Butterfly, Jake thought as they walked into Claire’s and he got a whiff of some exotic, flowery perfume. She’d definitely turned into a butterfly. Sleek, satiny and mysterious. And, man, had it been worth the hassle to witness the full effect of the metamorphosis.

Superserious, profoundly professional and supremely prickly Christine Travers with her sensible clothes and plain-Jane package was long gone. In her place was a sophisticated, sexy siren possessed of an underlying vulnerability that sent his heart rate rocketing.

He liked it. He liked it a lot. And he was starting to think that maybe she might be a woman he could like a lot, too. Not that he hadn’t always liked her, it was simply that the dynamics of their relationship had changed drastically when he’d invited her to dinner. He was used to prickly Chrissie. Had taken great pains to bring out that side of her.

Now he was faced with sexy Chrissie—a side of her he’d always known existed if she would just let her come out and play. Yet for some reason this new face made him a little nervous—which was nuts because he was never nervous around women.

She’d done something amazing to her hair. Not that he didn’t think it looked cute when she wore it down and straight and framing her pixie face in a businesslike do. It was just that with all that fine blond mass swept up on top of her head…well, it had an effect, was all. It accentuated the model-slim line of her neck and exposed a delectable-looking nape. A nape that tempted him mightily to bend down and place a kiss there when she sat at the table for two he’d reserved and he pushed the chair in for her.

He caved in to a spike of better judgment and had to satisfy himself with wondering how badly him kissing her there would rattle her as he settled across the table from her.

“Good evening, Mr. Thorne.”

Jake smiled at their waiter, Claude Jacques, as he produced open menus. “Hello, Claude. How’s it going?”

“Superb, thank you. Would you and the lady care for something to drink while you decide on dinner?”

“Chrissie?” Jake said over the top of his menu. “Would you like something? The wine selection is excellent.”

“I think I’d prefer a club soda, thanks. With a lime wedge, please,” she added with a flash of her gray-green eyes at Claude before she went back to studying her menu.

“Make it two,” Jake said, deferring to her choice, although he’d have loved to see the color a little wine would have splashed on her cheeks.

Not that she needed color. She was…hell…glowing? Close enough. Her lips shimmered with color— somewhere between a wine-red and hot-pink. And he had another I-never-noticed-that-before moment. He’d never noticed that her lips were so full, so lush, and they looked so kissably soft.

He missed the freckles, though. She’d camouflaged them with some powder or blush or bronzer or Lord knew what little bit of magic she’d pulled out of her woman’s bag of tricks.

Speaking of magic, the dress was the mother of all illusions. It had been driving him crazy since she’d opened her apartment door and magically drained all the blood from his head and shot it directly to his groin. He was a sucker for black, short and plunging necklines. All that pale, creamy skin against and beneath the black silk was a turn-on of epic proportions.

“Did I mention that you look incredible?” he said, watching her studiously avoid eye contact by gluing her gaze to the menu.

Several beats passed before she lowered the menu and met his eyes. “You did, actually. Or words to that effect. Thank you. You, um, you look very nice, as well.”

Aren’t we formal now? Again he thought it was cute. So was the way her gaze sort of lingered involuntarily on his mouth before sliding to his chest, then gliding slowly back to his mouth again.

“So, do you see anything you like?”

Her gaze snapped to his.

“On the menu,” he clarified with a grin.

There was that blush. The one he loved to fire up. The one that told him that she hadn’t been thinking about food when she’d been checking him out but that there might have been hunger involved and that it embarrassed her to be caught whetting her appetite, so to speak.

“I’m not too knowledgeable on French cuisine,” she said, sounding self-conscious.

“That’s what Claude’s for,” he said, wanting to set her at ease. “Let’s ask him what’s good when he brings our drinks.”

He watched with interest when she did just that, leading the waiter through a series of questions, both polite and businesslike in manner, until she finally settled on whitefish in wine sauce.

“Make mine beef, make it red and make it big,” he said when it was his turn. “And I’ll have whatever the lady’s having for side dishes.”

“You will enjoy.” Claude scooped up the menus. “The lady has excellent taste.”

And then they were alone. If you didn’t count the discreetly hovering army of wait staff—one who placed ice in their water glasses with sterling tongs, another who dropped in a wedge of lemon and yet another who finally got to the task of pouring the water.

Her expressive eyes relayed her amazement over all the fuss about filling a water glass.

“Not exactly the Royal Diner, huh?”

“Not exactly.”

“It’s a little pretentious,” he agreed, “but the food’s great.”

“It’s a beautiful place.”

Ritzy is what it was. Valet parking, white linen tablecloths, red roses in crystal vases on every table. Women liked it. Besides the great food, the part he liked was the candlelight—something he’d never really paid much attention to before tonight.

Tonight the lighting seemed the perfect accompaniment to the woman sharing his table. It also played into a little fantasy that had been growing in size and scope since the blonde in black had opened her door and rocked his world.

He’d been anticipating staid, stodgy and subdued. The last thing he’d expected was sexy with a capital SEX. And again he felt that niggling sense of unease that he wanted to discount as nothing more than pleasant surprise. Oh, yeah. Had she ever surprised him.

“Are you having a good time?”

“Is that what this is about? Me having a good time?”

It didn’t take much to put her on the defensive. His fault. He’d done little more than give her grief for five years. He wasn’t even sure why he’d changed the game plan now. “Well, I would hope so. What did you want it to be about?”

“Jess Golden’s things.”

“Ah. But I don’t want to talk about that yet.”

A frown brimming with rebuke crinkled up her forehead.

“Later,” he promised. “I want to talk about you first.”

Clearly she hadn’t been prepared for that.

“Jacob—” she began to say, a clear preamble to another roadblock.

“Jake,” he interrupted. “My friends call me Jake. And for once don’t argue, okay? Let’s enjoy the evening.”

He sat back in his chair, toyed with the stem of his water glass and watched her face. It didn’t hide her emotions nearly as well as it hid her secrets. She was uncomfortable. It was one thing for him to put her on edge with a little good-natured teasing. It was another for her to feel discomfort because she thought she was out of her element, which is what he suspected was going on right now. And he wanted to remedy that situation ASAP. “How about we start with something easy? Do you like your work?”

“I do. Yes,” she said without hesitation—and with a noticeable lack of elaboration.

Okay. So he was going to have to pry every snippet of information out of her. “Why a respiratory therapist? And yes,” he insisted at her doubtful look, “I really am interested.”

“My freshman year of college,” she said at long last, “I was awarded some work-study money. My assignment was at the university hospitals and clinics. Cleaning rooms, if you really want to know. I rotated between several floors and got interested in respiratory therapy when I was working in that unit.”

“Work-study? So you worked your way through school?”

“Pretty much, yes.”

“What other types of jobs did you have?”

Their bread came about that time, so she busied her hands with it and seemed to let down her guard a little in the process. “Too many to count. Let’s see…I tended bar, worked the night shift at the front desk of a couple of motels, cashiered at a convenience store. Whatever it took to make tuition and board.”

His admiration for her kicked up a couple more notches. “Sounds tough.”

She shook her head, not an ounce of regret registering on her face. “Sometimes, yes, but for the most part I enjoyed it all. Appreciated every job I had. Without them, I wouldn’t have gotten my degree.”

“Your family wasn’t in a position to help?” He broke off a chunk of bread and picked up his butter knife.

What little reserve she’d let down jumped back up with a vengeance. Instead of answering, she asked her own question. “And what did you study in college? I don’t recall ever seeing any courses in oil-well firefighting on any course catalogs.”

All righty, then. Talking about her family was off-limits. Since she’d struggled to make her own way through college, he had to figure one of two reasons was the cause. Either her family was very poor and she felt self-conscious about it or she was estranged from them, and that just made him more curious about what had precipitated the break.

Regardless, it explained—at least in part—why she was such a serious Sara all the time. She knew hardship. She knew if not poverty, at least slim pickings. He supposed if he’d had to work as hard as she had to get his education, he’d have a tendency to take life a little more seriously too.

He would have liked to press a little harder about her family, but he took his cues from her and let it drop. “Actually I majored in business management with a minor in accounting.”

“Oh, well,” she said, buttering a piece of bread, “I can see how that would make a natural transition into fighting oil-well fires.”

His smile at her little joke was slow. “So she does have a sense of humor.”

“When motivated, I can be funny,” she said, sounding a little defensive.

“Well, then, I’ll have to see what I can do to motivate you more often.”

Yeah, he thought when she gave him a wary look. That means exactly what you think it means. We are going to do this again. This is not a one-time deal, so get used to it, sweetie. I plan to see more of you.

He wasn’t sure when that intention had become apparent to him or why he was so certain he wanted to see more of her. For that matter, he didn’t understand the edgy sense of calamity that accompanied his thoughts. He shook it off and rationalized the situation instead. Why did some men find it impossible to resist the lure of Mount Everest? Why did some risk their lives jumping out of planes? Why did he make a living with men who marched into the jaws of oil fires risking everything, including their lives, in the process?

Sometimes the why wasn’t nearly as important as the want itself. And right now he wanted to get to know this woman better.

“This bread is delicious.”

Nice table talk, but the segue wasn’t going to work. “So is the view.”

She actually looked behind her to see if she’d missed seeing something. When she turned around and correctly read the look on his face, she didn’t exactly roll her eyes, but he could tell she wanted to.

“That was a compliment, Christine.”

She set her knife on the edge of her plate, propped her forearms on the table and took his measure. “You don’t have to flatter me, Jacob.”

He wagged his knife at her. “Jake. And I’m just calling it like I see it.”

Oh, that long-suffering look. Oh, that heavy sigh. She was just too much. Was she really that naive?

“You don’t really think that tonight is just about Jess Golden’s things, do you?”

Now she looked wary again. Maybe not naive. Maybe it was more a question of distrustful. Again. His fault.

“I want to get to know you, Chrissie.”

“For what possible reason?”

From any other woman he’d consider the question coy. From her it was exactly what it appeared to be: utter puzzlement.

“I’ve been giving that some thought.” He shrugged. “Maybe because you intrigue me. Maybe because I find you a contradiction. Or maybe because the way you look tonight only increases my curiosity about something that’s got me wondering.”

She’d grown very still. Even her eyes didn’t so much as flicker, although they were wide with the unasked question, What have you been wondering about?

“I’ve been wondering,” he said, responding to both the wariness and the anticipation revealed by the accelerated pulse thrumming at the base of her throat, “why you normally go to such lengths to hide the fact that you are a very beautiful woman. And why it embarrasses you to be told that you’re beautiful.”

“I’m not embarrassed.”

Yet she was flushing pink—something he chose not to point out. “What, then?”

“Uncomfortable,” she finally said. “I could do without the scrutiny.”

He laughed. “Then you shouldn’t have worn the dress.”

“My thoughts exactly,” she grumbled under her breath.

“Okay, look,” he said after a moment of her looking as though she wished she was anywhere else but here with anyone else but him, “just lighten up a little. You’re taking yourself way too seriously.”

“Right. Something you’re an expert on.”

“Hell, no.” He grinned, appreciating her sarcasm. “That’s the point. Life’s too short to take so dismally se rious. You, sweet woman, need a few lessons in loosening up.”

“And I suppose you’re just the man to teach me.”

“There you go. I am definitely the man. And starting tonight, I’m leading the class in the education of Christine Travers, good girl with a yen to go bad.”

She smiled. A full-out, bona fide, no-holds-barred smile. Okay. So it was laced with the same sarcasm that sometimes put a bite in her words, but it was a smile. The first one. It felt like a major victory.

“You are so full of it, Thorne,” she said, sitting back in her chair when the waiter brought her salad.

“I am, for a fact. Full to bursting with possibilities on how we can loosen you up.”

“Not going to happen.”

“Because?”

“Because,” she said on an exasperated breath, “this is a ridiculous conversation.”

He couldn’t resist baiting her even more. “Scared?”

Her head snapped up. “Scared? Of what?”

“Of letting go, sweet cheeks. Of living life.”

“Just because I’m cautious, just because I’m discriminating, doesn’t mean I’m scared. Believe me, I know what scared is…it’s something I no longer choose to be. No matter what you think.”

Whoa.

I know what scared is…it’s something I no longer choose to be.

Her statement shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it had—to her as well as to him. The expression on her face said she hadn’t meant to reveal something so intimate about herself. He hadn’t expected the revelation. He’d guessed that there had been some not-so-great events in her life that might have shaped her, contributed to her defensive reserve, but he hadn’t wanted to think it was something ugly.

I know what scared is…

Not knowing what she’d endured, only that she had endured it, increased his desire to show her how to have a good time.

“What’s the wildest thing you’ve ever done?” he asked as he dug into his salad. On the other side of the table, she shoved the greens around on her plate. “And don’t say it’s that you wore your Monday panties on Tuesday ’cause that ain’t going to cut it.”

He could see that she was a deep breath away from telling him to take his question and put it where the sun don’t shine. But reserved, controlled soul that she was, she swallowed back the urge.

“I cut class once,” she said.

He grunted in disbelief. “That’s it? That’s the best you can come up with?”

She shot him a defiant look.

“Oh, Chrissie. Sweetheart. That’s pathetic.”

“So sue me. I’m a model citizen.”

He leaned forward, his fork poised over his salad. “Don’t you ever get the urge to be bad? Just do something a little shocking? A little wild?”

Her silence as she finally met his eyes said it all. No. No, she didn’t.

“I often work double shifts. I volunteer hours at the Historical Society. I don’t have a lot of time left to pursue a sideline of mischief and mayhem. Much like you don’t have time out of your fun and games to get involved with something of a little more substance.”

“Sticks and stones,” he singsonged and pried another reluctant and very small grin out of her.

“You know, there is such a thing as being too frivolous,” she pointed out.

“And I would be a prime example?”

“You said it, I didn’t.”

“So, what if I stepped up to the plate and did something…oh, let’s say, civic? You’d consider that a move in the right direction?”

“What direction you move makes no difference to me.”

She’d tried to make her words sound snippy but didn’t quite accomplish it. She also tried to make him believe it. He didn’t.

“I think it does. I think that if I did something—how did you say it? something of substance?—that you might begin to see shades of gray instead of black-and-white and that might prompt you to loosen up a bit.”

“It is still beyond me why you care about what I do or think.”

“It’s a little beyond me, too—or it was until you wore that dress. The fact is, I think we could help each other. I can loosen you up and you can straighten me out.”

She patted her mouth with her napkin. “Do you ever quit?”

“No, really, listen. I’m beginning to like this idea.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “How about we make a little deal? I do something you categorize as adult and you do something I categorize as juvenile.”

“I’m already doing something juvenile. I’m a party to this conversation.”

“You get to pick my project,” he pressed on, “and I get to pick yours.”

She was about to launch into another protest on the ludicrous content of their conversation—which Jake admitted he’d started and pursued on a lark but now was warming up to—when Gretchen Halifax appeared at their table.

Only his mother’s insistence on good manners prompted him to stand and acknowledge her presence.

Chapter Five

“Hello, Gretchen,” Jake said stiffly when the city councilwoman made it clear she expected an audience. “How are you?”

Gretchen Halifax was not on his list of favorite people. The tall, severe-looking woman with the cold gray eyes and pale blond hair was self-righteous, humorless and demanding. He’d gone toe to toe with her a time or two at city council meetings when she’d refused to see reason and failed to compromise.

“I’m wonderful, Jacob.” She smiled, all gleaming white teeth and politician sincerity. She’d perfected that sincerity along with her manipulative ways and somehow had managed to build a large circle of influence in the city.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she added with barely a glance at Chris, “but I saw you sitting over here and knew I simply must stop by and say hello.”

Not on my account, Jake thought but made nice anyway. “Gretchen, this is Chris Travers. Chris, Gretchen Halifax.”

With a cool smile Gretchen turned to Chris and extended her hand. “My pleasure, Ms. Travers.”

“Gretchen is on the city council,” Jake added as Chris extended her hand and said a soft, “Hello.”

“Should I know you from somewhere?” Gretchen asked after swiftly appraising Chris.