“No! Not as far as I know.”
“What I want to know is what is your part in all of this?”
“Look, I admit, at first I thought the old gal was off her rocker, recommending you for a job.”
Off her rocker.
“Was there a job? Or did she create one?”
His look of discomfort was all the answer she needed. “What was your part in it?” she asked again. Jessica could hear something dangerous in her voice. And so could he.
He hemmed uncomfortably.
“Be honest with me,” she said, of the man that just last night she had thought was one of the most honest she had ever met. “If you are capable of it.”
He flinched from that. “Okay. I wasn’t sure why she picked me to meet you. I admit I thought it was a punishment.”
“Meeting me was a punishment?” she asked. Her voice was shrill enough that a few heads turned toward them.
“That came out wrong.”
“Did it, now?”
“I crossed swords with her. I didn’t like her name for the music festival in Copenhagen. I don’t even remember it now.”
“Carlene to Celine and Everything In Between.”
“That’s it,” he said with a wince. “Really, it was so trivial I thought she’d forgotten it. But then when I got the order I was supposed to personally meet your plane and look after you when you got here, I thought it was payback time.”
“So, Miss Ascot got me here on a false pretense, and I was some kind of revenge to you against some slight against her?”
“That’s what I thought. But I was wrong, Jessica. Really wrong. When I saw you meet our clients, I realized she knew what she was doing. You have something. You—”
“Oh, spare me. How would I know you were telling the truth?”
He looked like she had slapped him, and she was glad!
“Everything we did was about looking after me, wasn’t it? From the Russian Tea Room to The Phantom of the Opera—”
“No, it wasn’t,” he told her tightly.
She barely heard him. “Your grand obligation, your need to win back Viv after a fall from favor. You should be very pleased with yourself. I actually thought you were enjoying spending time with me. Last night? I thought I could trust you to tell me how it really is. Isn’t that a laugh?”
“Jessica—”
But she was beyond listening to him. “Even the clothes were part of the grand lie, weren’t they? Those clothes from Hennessey’s. How much were they really worth?”
He was silent.
“They were worth a fortune, weren’t they? You had Meredith make up a bill that coincided with what the insurance company said they would give me.”
“It was just making you so happy. I wanted—”
“Lies do not make people happy!” she said. “I’m an adult. Do you get that? I don’t need you, or anyone else, to look after me, to decide the course of my life for me.”
His mouth opened to protest and then closed again.
“When you get back to your apartment,” she told him, “you can box all those clothes up and take them back. Some things still have the tags on. Anything I wore can go to Goodwill. But I’ll pay for it all. I’ll send you the e-transfer as soon as I get home. I don’t want it anymore.”
“Look, we’re both going back to the apartment, and we’re talking this thing through.”
“Again, you’re going to make all the decisions, as if I’m a child who needs your guidance? What exactly is the point of talking it through?” She cocked her head at him. “You think I’m gullible, don’t you?”
“That’s not how I would put it.”
“And that’s not a no. I bet you’ve found this all quite hilarious—small-town girl’s infatuation with super suave you!”
He cocked his head at her. He frowned. “Infatuation?” he asked softly.
And then she realized she had said way too much, and revealed way too much. Unable to bear one more moment, afraid her anger was going to turn to tears, she turned and ducked into the crowd.
“Jessica!”
But she spotted the rarest thing you could ever see in New York City—an empty cab—idling at the curb, waiting for a customer.
She jumped in and closed the door.
“Where to?”
She could see Jamie racing toward them. Where to? “Take me to the Canadian Consulate office,” she said, and the cab pulled away, leaving Jamie standing there. She was pleased to see the faint look of panic on his face.
His charge had escaped him.
She hoped he would have fun explaining that to Vivian Ascot!
As the cab squeezed out into traffic, she turned and looked at Jamie one more time. And an awful truth nudged her.
Was this really about Vivian Ascot?
Or was this a convenient excuse to run? To not face her deepest fear.
Which is? she asked herself. No answer came.
Jamie watched helplessly as the cab pulled away. He felt afraid for her. It was a big city and she had few skills for navigating it.
He saw another cab coming, lifted his arm to flag it, and then, slowly put it down and turned away.
It was more of the same, it was more of the very same thing she was accusing him of: not treating her like an adult, taking charge, protecting her. As much as it bugged him, he had to trust her to find her own way.
He went to work and tried to clear Jessica from his mind. It was not that easy. Her parting words about infatuation clawed at his insides. She cared about him. She had trusted him. And he had blown it. He had blown it, even though he cared about her, too.
Which was just proof he was unsuited for the whole serious relationship thing. He didn’t have a clue how to navigate any situation that required any depth. Jessica required depth.
Why was he even thinking about her in terms of a serious relationship?
He cared about her, yes, but he barely knew her. They barely knew each other. And yet, even as Jamie tried to convince himself of
