“We’ll get it all sorted out,” Jamie told her, his voice solid and reassuring.
Something in the utter strength of that voice made her look at him. Really look at him. He was gorgeous, yes, but there was an underlying calm there, a man, who despite all the sophisticated trappings, you would want at your side if the bandits were coming at you with knives in their teeth.
Unfortunately, there was something about his composure, his strength, that allowed her to let hers slip, just a little bit.
She felt her throat close.
And then, even though she ordered herself not to, the first tear slipped out of her eye. And then the second one. And then, the floodgates opened. There. She could be grateful that, in her rush to get the plane this morning, she had not bothered with mascara.
It was of little comfort that James Gilbert-Cooper’s colossal self-confidence seemed to evaporate, completely, in the face of her tears.
CHAPTER TWO
“DON’T CRY,” JAMIE ordered Jessica Winton, a little more sharply than he intended. The order seemed to have the exact opposite effect of what he had intended. Her face crumpled a little more.
“Please?” he added, trying for a softer tone. Instead, he could hear desperation in his tone. Jamie’s father had died when he was eighteen. There had been so many tears from his mother and his sister, so much emotion that he had been powerless to stanch. He hated the memories of that period of his life, and couldn’t believe he’d been plunged into them by the vulnerability—as understandable as it was—of a complete stranger.
Despite a terrible start, this was still a business association. One of the things he loved about business was that it was a black-and-white world. Pesky things like emotions—feelings—could be left safely outside the perimeters of the work environment.
His relief that she was the real Jessica Winton—that he didn’t have to spend three days trying to be civil to that obnoxious barge in a dress—was not standing up to the challenge of the stolen luggage. He could handle crass and vulgar over soft and vulnerable any day.
He realized, since the feeling thing had crept in, exactly what he was feeling.
Guilt.
He had failed. That barge in a dress had tricked him into letting his guard down, and the woman who had suffered the consequences of his failure was trying not to cry and failing as completely as he had.
Guilt was also a residue of that period in his life when he had been powerless over the pain of those he loved, where he had also felt the agonies of failure.
This, Jamie told himself firmly, has nothing to do with that. But as he watched, first one little tear slid over that exquisite cheekbone, and then another, and then those slender shoulders heaved, and the storm came.
He had lied to Jessica Winton. He had entertained preconceived notions of what a small-town bookstore owner would look like. Young had not been part of that equation. Neither had completely adorable.
He was not prepared for huge brown eyes the color of melted milk chocolate, the lush fullness of a bottom lip, the little mole on the tiny lobe of her ear.
Of course he was not prepared for any of that! Jessica Winton being offered a job was all part of the joke’s on you.
Jamie had been part of the internationally renowned marketing firm of Jensen, Henry and Ascot for seven years, the last three of them as the Chief Operating Officer. Until two and a half years ago, he’d been unaware that the Ascot part of the corporation name was anything more than a silent partnership. The Ascot name was, after all, in everything, from nuts to bolts to concert production. He’d been a bit surprised there was an actual person attached to that iconic name.
And what a person. Auntie Mame on steroids.
Vivian, herself, had descended on the office, at a meeting concerning the promotion of the annual Ascot-sponsored music festival. Despite being diminutive, she had been larger than life in oversize Gucci sunglasses, a fur hat unapologetically made of some endangered species and with a fat little sausage dog in a jeweled collar stuffed under her arm.
Jamie thought all her ideas were dreadful, and he might have rolled his eyes at the worst of them: something to do with the name she had come up with for that year’s festival to be held in Copenhagen.
She had lifted her sunglasses and cast him a flinty look that could have stripped paint.
“Uh-oh,” Phil Jensen had said in an undertone, “she never forgets.”
At the time, Jamie had thought Phil was ribbing him. It had been the smallest thing, really, and Jamie had dismissed it within minutes of leaving the meeting.
But fast-forward to a few weeks ago, and there he was called into Phil’s office. Vivian Ascot, whom he had never seen or even heard of since that day, had resurfaced, not in person, but in the form of an order.
Apparently, she had discovered some small-town bookstore owner whom she thought would be ideal for representing some of JHA’s publishing, author and bookstore accounts.
Bookstores were a tricky marketing business these days, but apparently an independent owner had caught Vivian’s attention by making her tiny town bookstore extremely viable, by making it, according to the letter Phil had read from, the hub of the community.
No matter that the publishing and bookstore accounts were Jamie’s particular cup of tea, or that one of his genuine delights was working with authors. Miss Winton was being offered a job opportunity, sight unseen, and she wasn’t to know Vivian Ascot was behind it.
And what’s more, Ms. Ascot-Who-Never-Forgot, had specifically requested that Jamie be enlisted in the recruitment of Miss Winton.
“We’re supposed to seduce her,” Phil
