His Style of Seduction

  “You don’t?”

  “I do,” she said. “I do. And that’s what hurts so much. Loving you can only mean heartache. You can’t stay with one woman indefinitely.”

  “We’ll make it work,” he insisted. “We can do anything together. Look what we’ve done this week. You take days, I’ll take nights. We’ll have—”

  She put her hand over his mouth. “We’ll have sex and fun and laughs and joyrides through the cranberry bogs and sacrifices to your gods. We’ll have a blast. But we won’t have what I want, even if you did manage to settle down with one woman. If I don’t experience that heartbreak, then there’s the little issue of your no-boundaries, no-walls, no-limits lifestyle. I can’t live like that. I can’t. You know that.”

  A car rumbled by and shot a spray of rainwater at them, punctuating her statement and leaving him speechless.

  “What we’ll have,” she continued, “is a good time. That’s what you are all about, Jack. From the beginning I’ve known it, and still, still…” She fought a break in her voice, and the water in her eyes wasn’t rain. “I fell for you. Knowing all along that eventually you’ll have to escape the restrictions of a relationship. Fully aware that you crave autonomy and freedom and a life without walls. I fell in love with you anyway.”

  He wanted to throw his arms into the air and howl with happiness. “Lily, honey, that’s all we need. We can make this work.”

  “No, Jack. You know what I want, and you know why I want it. I want walls that never come down. I want so many boundaries that I am wrapped in a lifelong security blanket. I want a home that lasts for generations, a yard full of children and rooms full of stuff that I never have to part with.”

  What compromises could he make? He’d do anything, anything to stay with Lily. “I could live any way you want as long as I’m with you.”

  “No, you can’t.” It was more of a sob than a word. “You say that now, Jack. You believe that because you think you’re in love. But I know you. You’ll thrash about like a fish on a hook and I will know that I was the one who reeled you in. I stole you from your life of freedom. I could never be happy knowing that you’re unhappy. I knew that up there in the office.” She took a deep breath and reached up, wiping rain from his freshly shaved cheeks. “I love you too much to force you into something you don’t want.”

  He drew her in to him, trying to swallow the boulder in his throat. He couldn’t. He just choked and leaned down to kiss her. To stop the words that hurt…because they were true.

  “Fundamentally, you know I’m right, don’t you?” she asked.

  Was she? Was he just fooling himself to think that one woman—one rain-washed, heart-wrenching, beautiful woman—could really change Jack Locke?

  There had to be something he could say to her. To himself.

  Searching her face, he considered, and then discarded, every possible response. There was no tagline that would fix this. No joke, no funny comeback, no single line of defense. Because she was right. He’d never change.

  And that was going to cost him the best woman in the world.

  She lifted herself on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Bye.” A cab rolled up next to them, and a woman climbed out of the back, flicking an umbrella open.

  Lily waved at the driver. Jack grasped her outstretched fingertips as though he could hold on to her, but she slipped away, darted into the backseat and looked up at him just as she was about to close the door.

  She put her fingers on her lips and blew him a quick kiss. “I’ll never forget you.”

  The cab sped away with a vicious spurt that drenched his suit. But Jack didn’t move. He stood in the rain, watching the spot of yellow blend into the New York City traffic until it disappeared around the next corner.

  Jackson Locke was a completely free man. No boundaries, no rules, no job he didn’t want, no woman to tie him down, no piece of paper that tied him to anyone legally or otherwise.

  The gods, as always, had given him exactly what he wanted.

  And it hurt like hell.

  Eleven

  W hen Lily unlocked her office door the phone was already ringing, sending a glimmer of hope through her. God, she could use some new business. The winter had been brisk, but things slowed down in March and she’d barely made her rent on the five-hundred-square-foot storefront in Waltham.

  Dreams of moving into space in downtown Boston, or even a closer-in suburb, were getting more distant. And she’d just made herself more frustrated by going to see that little house in Framingham on Saturday. Sure, she could make the down payment, but the mortgage? The thought of the bank wolf howling at her door made her stomach churn.

  She reached for the phone and automatically slipped into her faux assistant voice. “Good morning, The Change Agency. This is Nan. Can I help you?”

  Nan. For Nantucket, of course. Some dreams, it seemed, died harder than others.

  “May I speak to Lily Harper, please?”

  She wasn’t at all surprised the caller asked for her—she was the only employee. But the heavy British accent threw her.

  “Of course, sir. May I tell Miss Harper who is calling?”

  “Bryce Noble. From London.”

  Lily dropped into her seat, gripping the receiver. Bryce Noble? Of Anderson, Sturgeon and Ignoble?

  “May I tell her what this is regarding?”

  “This is about new business. Is she taking any at the moment?”

  She sure wasn’t turning any away. “Just a moment, Mr. Noble. I’ll get Ms. Harper for you.”

  She pressed the hold button and let the receiver fall onto the desk. New business? She’d never returned Reggie’s calls after she’d left New York six months earlier. Once he’d had Samantha try; that was when Lily hired “Nan” to screen calls. Not that she would have screened them all. But to no one’s real surprise, Jack had never even called once.

  With a quick clearing of her throat, Lily became Lily again.

  “This is Lily Harper.”

  “Ms. Harper, my name is Bryce Noble and I’m the worldwide creative director of Anderson, Sturgeon and Noble.” Yep, it was Ignoble himself.

  “How can I help you, Mr. Noble?”

  “I understand you are an extraordinary performance coach with some notable successes to your credit. Several of your clients have highly recommended your work.”

  Several meaning Sam and Reggie Wilding, no doubt, who still probably wallowed in guilt for causing her heartbreak and promising her business that she’d been too proud to accept.

  “Why are you calling me?” The question sounded abrupt, but protocol be damned. Even this distant connection with Jack Locke was causing heart palpitations she didn’t want.

  “I’m calling to offer you a substantial assignment.”

  She inhaled deeply, trying to dig for the resolve that had gotten her through the first few wretched months after she said goodbye to Jack on a rainy afternoon in New York.

  She’d sworn she would never do any work for that agency—maybe any ad agency—because the risk of seeing him was too great. It would take one moment, one kiss, one finger comb through hair that had undoubtedly grown back by now for her to melt and give in. Then she was facing either eventual heartbreak or the footloose life that went against everything she’d ever dreamed of.

  Jack wouldn’t change…and neither would she.

  “This is a very busy time for my business,” she said, her gaze falling on a totally empty calendar page. She picked up a pen to write something on it. Anything.

  She scrawled “clean coffeemaker” on today’s date.

  “I’m sorry,” she continued. “The Change Agency is completely booked right now. I doubt I’ll be able to help you on a large assignment.”

  “It would entail performance coaching of executives,” he continued, undaunted by her rejection. “In every one of our twenty-seven offices.”

  “Twenty-six,” she corrected without thinking, her pen taking on a life of its own as she wrote a four
-figure number and multiplied it by twenty-six.

  “Actually, we have twenty-seven since our acquisition in New York City.”

  She scratched the math. “Yes, Wild Marketing.” Her heart inched up her chest to park itself in her throat. She could never consider this job. Not if Jack was still in any way, shape or form connected to the company. But if he wasn’t…

  “So how is that merger coming along, Mr. Noble?”

  “Excellent, thank you. We’ve assimilated the Wild group nicely into ours and have brought on a number of new clients.”

  “And in New York, the president…” Her voice trailed off and she squeezed her eyes shut. Why was she doing this to herself? If she wanted to know what had happened, all she had to do was search the company name on the Internet. And she’d avoided that temptation. Daily.

  “We brought in a new management team and one of our British executives is running that office now.”

  Had Jack really quit? “And has the creative team changed?”

  “One of the art directors was promoted to creative director to fill the void when Jackson Locke left the company.”

  She actually exhaled with relief. He was gone. He’d moved on, maybe opened his own shop, or found another agency that let him be himself. Wherever he was, he was free, unencumbered and, she deeply hoped, happy.

  She wrote that four-figure number again. Multiplied by twenty-seven. Pictured the house in Framingham.

  “So what exactly did you have in mind for the performance coaching, Mr. Noble? Perhaps I can clear a little bit of time for you.”

  “You’d have to clear a year.”

  “A year? That does sound like a major undertaking.”

  “It’s a massive project, Ms. Harper, and I’d like to have you fly to London to meet with my team and discuss our needs. All expenses paid, of course. Once we agree on a fee and schedule, then you would be spending two weeks at every office for the next year. I’m afraid it would mean living out of hotels for a year, but I assure you we will make it worth your while.”

  A year on the road. No home. No office. No other business. But in the end, enough for a down payment so sizable, her mortgage payments would be far less than her rent.

  “When would you like to meet, Mr. Noble?”

  “Does that mean you can clear your calendar?”

  She fluttered the pages of her desk calendar. “I’ll have Nan start making the necessary calls right away.”

  “Excellent. Can you be here this Wednesday afternoon, at the office in London? We’ll arrange for your travel and accommodations.”

  “I think I can do that. And thank you, Mr. Noble.”

  “It’s Bryce,” he said, a quick laugh softening the British accent. “We’re pretty casual in the creative department.”

  “Yes.” She closed her eyes. “I remember that.”

  She remembered everything, she thought as she hung up.

  Although she’d gotten the time lost on memory lane down to less than an hour a day. Would working in advertising set her back to the old three-or four-hour bouts of self-imposed misery and Jack wallowing?

  No matter. In one year she’d easily have enough to buy a house. If not the one she’d seen this weekend, then some other house. She’d put a fence around the yard, get a dog, maybe a kitten or two and a garden and window treatments, and she’d paint every blessed wall a beautiful color.

  And then she’d bounce off them.

  No, she chided herself, standing up to start the process of her new life. Once she had her home, her yard, her security, all her loneliness would disappear. Wouldn’t it?

  She pondered that question endlessly for the next two days. As she made the arrangements to go to London, packed her bags, took a cab to Logan Airport, settled comfortably in first class and flew across the Atlantic Ocean, she wondered when the loneliness would go away.

  With each mile she traveled closer to the offices that at one time she’d thought Jack might frequent, she let herself think about him. When the pain got too great, she remembered that at least he wouldn’t be there. She’d known that for certain when, in preparation for this meeting, she’d run a search on the agency and had seen no employee by the name of Jackson Locke.

  When she checked in to an upscale, elegant hotel not far from the agency headquarters and stared out at the streets of London, she couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like if she hadn’t gotten into that cab and ridden away from the one and only man she’d ever loved.

  She’d either be the happiest woman on earth right now, or even more dejected. Knowing Jack Locke? Her money was on dejected. Six months would have pushed his statute of limitations on a relationship, and their love affair would have died as fast and furiously as it had started. Or she would be aching for permanence and security and walls…and he’d be having none of it.

  No, there was no future—at least no chance of the one she wanted—with Jack.

  When the limo pulled up in front of the main entrance of the hotel, Lily tamped down the last of her second thoughts and regrets. This was the start of an entire new life. This was the six-figure assignment she’d dreamed of when she first opened the door to Reggie’s Nantucket estate and nearly melted at the sight of “the pool boy.”

  Smoothing her skirt, offering her best smile, she entered the grandiose offices of Anderson, Sturgeon and Noble, announced herself and waited for Bryce Noble.

  When the door was flung open, she fought a smile of surprise. She’d expected fifty, gray and businesslike. But she got thirty-five, shaved head and a bright red T-shirt over jeans. He looked, ironically enough, as if he’d just stepped out of the creative department at Wild Marketing.

  Maybe Jack had been too hasty.

  “Lily, welcome to London.” Bryce shook her hand warmly and guided her into the hall. “Let’s go into this conference room. Did you have a good trip? Hotel okay?”

  “Wonderful, thank you.” She glanced around the empty corridor. “Is the creative department nearby? I’d love to see it.”

  “I’ll take you on a tour later,” he promised her. “It’s always the most interesting part of any agency.”

  As he reached for the conference-room door, she glanced down, taking in his sockless feet stuffed into scuffed loafers.

  Jack wouldn’t have hated it here, after all.

  The irony of that thought squeezed her heart, but she pushed it away.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve invited another consultant,” Bryce said as he pulled the door open.

  She barely heard him. She had to stop thinking about Jack. Jack was gone. Jack was over. Jack was a crazy, wild, unforgettable joyride through a cranberry bog. Jack was—

  Jack was there.

  “Oh.”

  That one syllable told him everything he needed to know.

  The gods still loved him, and so did Lily Harper.

  “Hey, Lil.”

  She froze in the doorway, her beautiful mouth in the shape of her single word, her eyes just as wide, the color draining, then rushing back to her cheeks.

  And he loved her, too.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  He threw a look at Bryce. “That’s an American expression for ‘it’s great to see you.’”

  Bryce just laughed, as Jack knew he would. If it hadn’t been for Bryce Noble, one man who had an even more sarcastic sense of humor than Jack, he’d have sailed out of the newly formed agency the day Reggie signed his papers and took his check. But Bryce had figured out a way to keep him.

  “I’m a consultant,” Jack explained, fighting the urge to hurdle the table that separated them and pull her so deep into his chest that she could feel his heart leap with happiness at the sight of her. “Just like you.”

  “I’m not committed to that yet,” she said quickly, putting a nervous hand on her professional updo and taking a step backward.

  Jack watched the move with a wry smile. “You know, if my lessons in body language hadn’t been ta
ught by an expert, I might not notice that you’re trying to bolt out the door.” He stood and indicated the chair across from him. “I think you ought to stay and hear us out.”

  “Us?” Thankfully she took another step closer. “So you knew I’d be here today?”

  Bryce eased her into the room. “Of course he did. Jack has been the driving force behind the makeover we’re about to discuss with you and adamant that no one else is qualified to undertake the job. I understand you did a marvelous job with him.”

  She regarded him again, her gaze narrowing as she examined hair that easily covered his ears and grazed his jaw again, then zeroed in on the tuft of hair he’d grown under his chin. He tweaked it with pride. “And wait’ll you see my new tattoo.”

  “Please, have a seat, Lily,” Bryce offered, pulling out the chair directly across from Jack.

  “I thought you hated this,” Lily said, indicating the surroundings with one hand. “Hated everything about this kind of agency.”

  “I thought so, too,” he said, grinning at Bryce. “And, to be honest, Anderson is a stiff and Sturgeon is a bore.”

  “Crashing,” Bryce agreed.

  “But Bryce, here, turned out to be a pretty cool guy.”

  “Thank you, mate.”

  “And, even better,” Jack said, leaning forward just so he had a slim chance of getting a whiff of that sweet perfume she used to wear, “Bryce likes what I have to offer.”

  “What Jack has to offer,” Bryce said as he sat, “includes a highly unorthodox reformation of twenty-seven creative directors and their staffs.”

  Jack gave her a warm smile and got a flicker of response in return. A flicker. He could work with that. “And that’s where you, Lily Harper, agent of change, come in.”

  “Our problem,” Bryce said, “is that we have a very old-school mind-set in our creative departments around the globe. I’d like to change that. As soon as I met Jack and we started to work on some creative together—”

  “I thought you quit,” she interrupted suddenly, obviously still processing a situation she’d never anticipated. “I thought you left the company when it bought Wild.”