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“Nice to know my private life is public property,” he finally managed to say.
She laughed, one of those short, sharp mocking laughs that women use to cut men off at the knees.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” he squawked. He sounded more than a little defensive, and he forced his shoulders to relax.
“Come on. You’ve dated more than half the eligible females in the building. You think they don’t talk about you, compare notes? You think they don’t warn every new woman who joins the company?”
Compare notes? For a moment he felt exposed and vulnerable, and then he reminded himself that he had nothing to be ashamed or worried about. He prided himself on the fact that no woman left his bed unsatisfied. If half the women’s magazine complaints he’d read over the years were true, he was doing okay.
“Yeah? What do they say?”
He could see his cockiness got under her skin, and he felt on firmer ground now.
“You want the truth?” she asked, daring him.
How tough could it be? Maybe a few complaints about him breaking up with some of them, but most of his office flings had been just that—two adults satisfying a mutual curiosity. He was confident he could handle a bit of woman-scorned bitterness.
“Sure. Hit me.”
Her expression should have warned him. She actually looked wary, almost as though she was afraid of what she was about to say.
“They say that you’re fun and adventurous, but as soon as anything serious develops you run scared. Also, that you’re afraid of commitment, afraid of feelings and impossible to talk to. That even though you’re good in bed, they never really felt as if you were really there with them. That—”
“Okay, thanks, I think I get the drift,” he cut in, holding up a hand to stem the tide.
A profound silence settled between them as his brain whirled round and round trying to process, adjust and justify her words.
“You did ask.”
She actually sounded guilty.
“Hey, don’t worry about me. I think I know enough about human nature to understand where those kind of comments come from.”
She didn’t say a word, but she didn’t need to. After just an hour of one-on-one with her, he was becoming finely attuned to her body language. A shift of a shoulder, the sniff of her nose, and she might as well have shouted at him.
“What? Fine, then. Where do you think those sorts of comments come from?” he demanded.
Her eyes measured him for a moment before she answered. He fought the urge to squirm.
“You think they’re just bitter because you broke up with them, don’t you? And you’re probably right, I’m sure that’s some of it. But there are plenty of them who aren’t bitter, just sad.”
He couldn’t let that slide by.
“Because I broke their hearts? Let me tell you, I am never anything but honest with women. They all know the score.”
“They’re not sad because you rejected them, Jack. They’re sad because for a man with so much potential there’s so little on offer. Katherine told me that she’d never met a man who was more afraid of his feelings in her life. She said there was no point pursuing anything with someone who was never going to let himself go.”
If she’d quoted anyone else, he would have been able to blow it off as sour grapes. But Katherine…He’d thought they’d had a real understanding. A short, hot fling, an absolute meeting of minds—two people who enjoyed each other, looking for nothing more than a bit of companionship and human comfort. No strings, no hassles.
He frowned as he remembered that she’d been the one to drift away, the one to call a halt before the usual awkward time when the relationship should move into the next stage but was never going to, thanks to his own fierce commitment to being uncommitted.
He tried to shake off the strange feeling of oppression that settled over him as he considered that Katherine’s assessment was right.
Immediately he thought of Robbie, and he hardened himself. So, maybe they were right, maybe he didn’t have anything to offer on that level. That was simply the way it was. He’d given it all to Robbie, and he didn’t have anything left to share.
His thoughts snapped back to the woman sitting opposite. He now knew why she judged him the way she did. A spark of anger sprang to life inside him. She had judged him, big-time. She’d listened to office gossip and rumor, and she’d formed her own opinions of him, and decided he was lacking. Hence all that talk about him being the action-man about the office. Hence her thinly veiled contempt for him.
Vaguely, he was aware of how quickly his temper had gone from zero to one hundred.
“And let me tell you, that air-conditioning story is bull. Judy never told me she got heat rash. I said I didn’t like the air-conditioning, sure, but she never said she’d get a rash if it wasn’t on.”
He felt small and stupid as soon as he’d said it. What was he defending himself to Claire for, anyway?
“I told you, I didn’t believe it at the time.”
Now she was being understanding. She even looked like she was regretting what she’d said to him. He didn’t like it that she suddenly seemed to have the upper hand. He was much more comfortable with their normal status quo, where he disdained her repression and she expressed her contempt for his freewheeling attitude.
“I’m surprised you haven’t got better things to do than sit around gossiping about me all day. Workload must be a bit lighter than I remember it down in Homes,” he snipped.
She rolled her eyes at him. “Spare me. You think I want to stand around and talk about the office stud all day? It’s impossible not to pick this stuff up. It’s like osmosis.”
He sat up straight, bristling.
“I’d prefer it if you didn’t call me that, thank you,” he found himself saying stiffly.
Can you hear yourself? Now who’s uptight?
“I beg your pardon?”
Her incredulity was clear. But he’d drawn a line in the sand, and he had to stand by it.
“Office stud. I find it offensive. How would you like it if I called you the town bike?”
She surprised him by laughing out loud. “Go ahead, see if I object.”
For a moment he stared at her, taking in the transformation in her face when she laughed. She looked…nice. Approachable. Attractive.
All just a sugarcoating for her inner shrew, he reminded himself. Don’t forget that. Never forget that.
CLAIRE PLUCKED at the neck of her heavy silk shirt, trying to get some air between it and her hot skin. Why hadn’t she picked a cotton shirt this morning? She pictured the litter of clothes all over her bedroom and declined to comment on the grounds that she already knew why: she was a pig, and she needed to do the laundry.
She spared a glance for the office stud opposite. Now that she knew he hated being called that she’d make sure to slip it into as many conversations as possible. See how he liked being pigeonholed.
His face was closed, quiet, but she could feel his vulnerability. She’d shocked him with her revelations about what his exes and flings thought of him, there was no question. She felt a vague guilt at having spilled so many beans on him. For the first time, she questioned some of the stories she’d heard about him, and some of her value judgments. So, he dated a lot. Was that so bad? And then she remembered twenty-three-year-old Fiona from Legal, her heart-shaped face blotched with tears as she explained how Jack had made an excuse for not staying the night in her bed after they’d done it. He’d ended their short romance the next day at lunchtime.
He didn’t deserve sympathy. Fiona deserved sympathy—as well as a good kick in the wazoo for letting herself be suckered in by Mr. Silvertongue.
Claire was considering trying to take a nap when movement caught her eye and she looked up to see Jack shrugging out of his shirt.
“What?” he asked defensively. “You want me to ask permission or something?”
What a jerk.
“You can take it all off for all I care,” she told him stiffly.
He raised an eyebrow, obviously doubting her. “Feel free to take off whatever you want, too,” he said idly, the glint of his eyes giving away the fact that he was mocking her.
She could feel her lips disappearing again and she forced them to behave before he noticed. He was sooooo annoying. She’d truly never met anyone else who could get her so riled so quickly.
What was it about him that got up her nose so much? She studied him through her eyelashes, trying to work it out, and found her gaze drawn to the broad expanse of hairy chest he’d just exposed. All that huntin’-shootin’-fishin’ obviously agreed with him because he was in pretty good shape, his pecs nicely defined, his stomach flat, the hint of strong abdominal muscles showing as he breathed. She knew from experience how tough it was to get lean enough to see those ab muscles, and she reassessed her notion of his sybaritic lifestyle. Okay, maybe he wasn’t out wining and dining every night. Every second night, probably. He’d need to, just to fit in all his office romances.
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