Debbie Macomber - Ready for Romance

She walked directly to her desk, keeping her face averted when she passed Damian’s office. His door was open, and when he saw her walk by he stood up, called her name and then glanced pointedly at his watch. It was all Jessica could do not to tell him it had been a business lunch.

Damian had made it painfully clear that he expected her to do her job. He wasn’t paying her to romance his brother during three-hour lunches, and Jessica didn’t want him to have that impression. She longed to explain, but she’d look ridiculous doing so in front of Evan. The only thing she could do was stay late that evening in an effort to make up for the time spent over lunch.

Although it was after seven when she started out of the office, a number of others were still there. With her sweater draped over her arm, she was on her way down the long corridor when Damian stopped her.

“Jessica.”

“Hello, Damian,” she said. He was standing just outside his office.

He relaxed, crossed his arms and asked, “How’d your lunch go with my brother?”

“Very well, but…”

“Yes?” he prompted when she didn’t immediately finish.

“I want you to know it was a working lunch,” she said, rushing the words in her eagerness to explain. “We discussed the Earl Kress case. I didn’t want you to think we’d spent three hours socializing.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered.”

“But it does!” she insisted fervently. “The lawsuit was the reason Evan asked me out. He wasn’t interested in renewing an old friendship.”

Damian’s frown was thoughtful. “Did he seem pleased with the assignment?”

“Very much so,” Jessica recalled Mrs. Sterling’s saying that “things just haven’t been the same around here for quite a while,” implying Evan hadn’t been the same. She wondered if Damian realized the extent of his brother’s unhappiness.

Damian grinned; Jessica had the feeling he didn’t do that often, which was a shame. The grooves in his cheeks and the sparkle in his gray eyes were very attractive. “I thought he might need a change of pace. Did you two have a chance to talk about old times?”

This was a casual way of asking if she’d noticed the changes in his brother, Jessica guessed. “A little. Evan really was hurt, wasn’t he?”

Damian nodded. “Generally he disguises it, but I wondered if you’d detect the changes in him.”

“I couldn’t help noticing.” She’d seen it almost from the first moment. Even though she hadn’t seen Evan for years she could see how hard he was struggling to hide his misery. No wonder his parents and brother were so concerned.

Damian glanced at his watch and arched his brows. “It’s late. We’ll talk again some other time. Good night, Jessica.”

“Good night, Damian.”

As she waited for a train in the subway station, Jessica at last understood what Damian had meant when he’d told her that everyone needed to be looked at with wide worshipful eyes sometimes. It made perfect sense now that she thought about it. Damian still viewed her as that teenage girl infatuated with his younger brother. If ever there was a time that Evan needed a woman to idolize him, it was now. She’d been hired, not for her legal skills, but to help his brother forget the woman he’d loved and lost. Damian was looking to her to heal Evan’s pain.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING around ten, Evan, his smile bright enough to rival the sun, breezed into the office and presented Jessica with a bouquet of a dozen bloodred roses. Their perfume filled the room.

Jessica was speechless. “For me?” The flowers took her completely by surprise. Mrs. Sterling, too, from the look the secretary cast her.

“I need a favor,” Evan said, leaning against the edge of her desk, his face scant inches from her own.

“Of course.” She was holding the flowers against her like a beauty queen, inhaling their heavenly scent.

Evan reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a folded sheet of yellow paper. “I need you to do some last-minute research for me.”

“Certainly.”

“There’re some statutes I need you to look up and report back to me on as soon as possible. This stuff is as dry as old bones—I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Jessica looked at the items Evan wanted her to research and her heart sank at the number. “How soon do you need this?”

“Yesterday,” was his frank reply.

Mrs. Sterling made a small tsk-tsk sound in the background, which made Jessica smile. Evan’s eyes twinkled and he whispered, “There’s nothing worse than a woman who can’t let ‘I told you so’ pass. Remember that, Jessica.”

“I will,” she said with a small laugh. “I’d best get started. I’ll have the information for you before I leave tonight.”

“Good girl.”

Mrs. Sterling produced a vase for the roses, and after setting them on the edge of her desk Jessica got down to work. She ensconced herself in the library and kept at her research straight through the lunch hour. She didn’t notice the time until it was after three, when her stomach rumbled in protest. Even then she didn’t take the time to sit down to eat, but grabbed an apple and munched on it while she continued to search for the required data.

The next time she looked up, the clock on the wall said seven forty-five. She’d heard the others leave, but that seemed like only minutes ago. She stood up and, placing her hand at the base of her spine, arched her stiff back and breathed in deeply.

Her eyes felt tired and her back sore as she carried her paperwork into the office. She stopped, surprised to find the room dark. She flicked on the lights and looked around, certain Evan had left a note for her.

He hadn’t.

Picking up one of the roses, she held it to her nose and closed her eyes as she tried to battle down the weariness—and the disappointment.

“Jessica, what are you doing here?”

“Damian.” She could ask the same question of him.

“It’s nearly eight o’clock.”

“I know.” She rotated her overworked shoulders. “I guess time got away from me.”

“So I see. I had some reading I was catching up on, but I assumed I was here alone. There was no reason for you to stay this late.”

She glanced toward Evan’s office. “What time did Evan leave?” she asked casually, not wanting him to know how abused she felt.

“A couple of hours ago. Why?”

“He said he needed this information right away.” She’d been in a frenzy attempting to finish the task as quickly as possible. She’d assumed he would wait until she’d collected the data he seemed to need so desperately.

“I believe he had a dinner engagement,” Damian explained.

“I see,” she muttered. In other words, he’d cheerfully abandoned her.

“You sound angry,” Damian said.

“I am. I worked through my lunch hour getting this stuff for him.” And dinner hour, too, she thought, feeling even angrier. She realized too late that she probably also sounded jealous.

“I’m sorry, Jessica.”

Evan’s thoughtlessness wasn’t Damian’s fault and she said so, then asked bluntly, “Is there anything to eat around here?” She blinked back unexpected tears. Hunger always had a strange effect on her emotions, but it was embarrassing, and she tried not to let Damian see.

“You mean you haven’t eaten since lunch?”

“Not since breakfast, unless you count an apple, and if I don’t eat soon I’m going to cry and you really wouldn’t want to witness that.” The words rushed out and she felt a sniffle coming on. “Never mind,” she muttered, turning away from him. She wiped her nose with her forearm and returned to the library. Several ponderous law volumes were spread open across the tables. She closed them and began lugging them back to the shelves.