A spike of heat clawed across Jaye’s skin like long manicured nails. The room spun back and forth, throwing her off balance. Recognizing the symptoms of an oncoming panic attack, she propped her backside against the foyer wall and stripped off her coat. She hadn’t felt such nauseated anxiety since she discovered the naked brunette in David’s living room.
She wasn’t good enough for her father or for David. Was it only a matter of time before she failed to live up to Mitch’s standards and found a naked redhead lounging in his living room?
Bracing both hands on her knees, Jaye stared at the polished hardwood floor and took slow, even breaths. A pair of scuffed work boots came into view. Jaye prayed she wouldn’t barf. Gathering her frayed nerves, she murmured, “I’m fine.”
“You keep saying those words, but I don’t believe you.” He touched her back. “You’re teaching me a valuable lesson. Until now, I had no idea how frustrating it is when someone won’t tell you how they feel. A number of women will thank you for giving me a taste of my own medicine.”
Jaye snorted. “This isn’t a good time to bring them up your girlfriends, since one of them just shoved me to the ground.”
“Tara isn’t my girlfriend.”
“She kissed you, didn’t she?” Jaye squinted at him. “We city girls call that a girlfriend. What do you country boys call it?”
His lips parted. “Are you…jealous?”
“Yes.” She wanted to slap a pair of blinders over his steely blue eyes so he couldn’t look at any other woman but her. She wanted to claim his smile for her own and be the only one who could make the corners of his eyes crinkle with happiness. She wanted to keep his big, skilled hands on her and no one else. He was the only man who wanted her—not for her money or connections—but for who she was. She needed that. She needed him.
Afraid she’d say that and more, she straightened with a hard jerk. The floor tilted and she stumbled.
“Whoa.” Mitch grabbed her around the waist and picked her up.
The abrupt swing into his arms worsened Jaye’s dizziness. She clamped both hands over her stomach. “I’m tired of being slung around like a sack of groceries.”
“Hell, you’re pale as a ghost. I’m putting you to bed.” His long legs gobbled up the length of the hallway in three purposeful strides and he shouldered his way into her dark bedroom.
They were headed for disaster. She clutched the front of his shirt. “Stop.”
“I’m taking care of you whether you want it or not.” He bumped into the bed and fell backward onto the mattress.
Jaye landed on top of him with a sick moan. Her nausea flared, fueled by out-of-control emotions threatening to turn her insides out.
“What the hell?” He hoisted himself up on one elbow to look around. The milky light from the front porch threw a yellow square on the empty floorboards. “Why is the bed in the middle of the room?”
The darned man wouldn’t stop moving. She straddled him, lost her balance, and kneed him right between the legs.
“Not again,” he groaned in agony, latching his hands around her thigh.
“Stop moving.” Terrified she’d empty her stomach, she dug her fingernails into the soft cotton T-shirt stretched across his torso, tempted to tie him to the bedposts so he’d stop moving…and never leave.
“Ouch. You’re ripping the skin off my chest.”
Her grip loosened, numbed by memories of her first panic attack. She was just twelve years old and her father insisted she attend a summer computer camp a hundred miles away. Halfway there, she begged him to pull over to the side of the road. Panicked about leaving home, she got sick all over the back seat of his new car. Her father yelled at her for losing it.
Ever since then, she’d done everything in her power to control the needy impulses he despised. She never begged him to attend her lacrosse games. She stuffed her fascination with photography aside and studied computer science, just like he wanted. She ignored the instinct to break up with David just to win her father’s hearty approval.
A bead of sweat trickled down her nape, disappearing between her shoulder blades. She was so tired of shaping her life for men who didn’t love her.
“Move your knee, Jaye.” Mitch nudged her leg, nearly tipping her over.
She shoved his chest, hard. “Stop moving, damn it!”
He lay flat on his back and opened his hands in the universal sign of surrender. “I won’t budge.”
His willingness to give in—with no explanation required—tightened her throat with gratitude. Jaye concentrated on taking slow, deep breaths to regain her composure. Slowly, she moved her knee a few inches away from his crotch. Staring down at the Blake Glassware logo on his T-shirt, she waited for the nausea to pass.
When she felt better, she sat in the middle of the bed, wrapped her arms around her knees, and muffled a soft whimper of despair. Letting Mitch witness her massive panic attack made her feel vulnerable. Weak. Worthless. She’d been trained to be stronger than this.
Jaye looked up and swept the bangs out of her eyes. “Tell me about you and Tara.”
“Fair enough.” He tilted his head toward her. “Mind if I sit up?”
“Go ahead.”
Moving with slow, deliberate care, he removed his work boots, set them on the floor, and leaned against the headboard. He stretched his legs along the edge of the mattress. “Tara and I grew up together. Right before I went to college, I ran into her at a party. She was a little drunk and pulled me down for a kiss. Like any eighteen year-old boy, I was happy to oblige. I stopped before things went too far. The attraction was hormonal, nothing more. By the time I finished my degree, I heard she got married.” Mitch pressed the heel of his hand against his temple and winced. “Every time a husband leaves, she sniffs around
