But something told her that if she did, her whole world would fall apart. And right now, for the first time since she’d come to New York, her world actually felt together.
“Come on,” he said, guiding her toward the door. “You can leave if you prefer, but I’m not going to hide you like some back-door quickie. I’m too proud of you.”
Buoyed by the words, Jessie squared her shoulders and stood next to Cade as he opened his front door.
Fin’s green eyes widened as she stared at Jessie. “Oh,” she said with a soft gasp. “Hello, Jessie.”
“Hello, Fin,” she said, offering her warmest smile. “I was just on my way out when you rang.”
Cade opened the door wider. “Come on in, Fin. Jessie, feel free to stay. Fin’s just dropping off some papers.”
She pulled her bag higher on her shoulder and inched toward the door. “Thanks, but I really have to go. See you tomorrow, Fin.”
Fin was processing the whole scene, Jessie could tell. But she was too much of a lady to say anything but goodbye as Jessie walked out.
“I’ll be right back, Fin.” Cade walked with Jessie to the elevator, slipping his hand into hers. “I really would prefer to take you home in a cab.”
“Maybe next time.” She tapped the down button. Twice.
“No maybe about it,” he countered. “And there will be a next time.”
“Of course there will be. I left my toothbrush.” She reached up and gave him a quick hug as the elevator doors opened, and whispered, “And thanks for making me so comfortable.”
She heard him chuckle as the doors closed and it wasn’t until that moment that she realized he still had her glasses in the pocket of his suit coat.
When Cade returned to his apartment, Fin still waited in the entry, amusement dancing in her expression.
“Well, color me astonished, Mr. McMann.”
“Glad I can still surprise you, Fin.” He didn’t close the door behind him, fighting an undercurrent of irritation that she’d interrupted his last few hours with Jessie. “Do you have the files?”
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “If I had known you were, uh, preoccupied, I wouldn’t have stopped by.”
He crossed his arms and gave her a warning look. Everything in him wanted to protect Jessie and her reputation. “It’s not casual.”
Fin met his gaze. “That’s fine. Except that she’s…”
“She’s what?”
“Whoa.” Fin held up the file folder in mock defense. “No need to get all testy about. But, honestly, she’s an intern at Charisma. And quite a bit younger than you are.”
He tamped down more irritation. “I’m familiar with the EPH employee handbook, Fin, and there are no rules against employees dating each other. And she’s twenty-three, which makes her seven years younger than I am. Hardly a generation gap.”
“And she’s your choice for the shadow intern.”
He latched the door behind him and strode past Fin into the living room. “Not yet.”
She stayed on his heels. “When this gets out, and she’s been chosen as my shadow, there’ll be talk of favoritism.”
“Then she shouldn’t be your shadow.” He walked to the galley kitchen and yanked open the refrigerator. Beer or water? “I’ll pick a different intern.”
“But she’s the best candidate.”
He grabbed a beer. “You want something to drink?”
When Fin didn’t say anything, he flipped the twist-off cap into the trash and returned to the living room. Fin stood in front of the picture window, the file discarded on a table, her attention riveted on the expanse of Central Park and the New York skyline that filled the view.
“There’s something very…special about her,” Fin finally said.
He snorted. “No kidding.”
As he took a long pull on the bottle, Fin turned, an expression of determination on her face. An expression he knew well. He never fought that determination; it was a waste of time.
“I want her to shadow me,” Fin declared. “We can fend off claims of favoritism with the truth: I’m making this decision, not you.”
His chest tightened. He didn’t know why, but Jessie really didn’t want that assignment. Would he be betraying her by agreeing to this?
“Fin, this isn’t about suspecting her of spying on the magazine, is it? Because she’s not. I’m sure of that.”
“Are you?” She lifted a dubious brow. “I mean, she got in pretty tight with you in a hurry.”
He slammed the bottle on an end table. “I’ve known her since April.”
Fin held up both hands. “Stop it, Cade. I am not accusing her of anything. And who you sleep with is your business, as long as it doesn’t impact the magazine.”
“Oh, of course.” A healthy dose of bitterness colored his tone. “That’s the only thing that matters to you.”
“Cade!” Her eyes darkened in disappointment, the color and shape suddenly reminding him of the woman he’d just spent the weekend making love to. Everything was going to remind him of Jessie; he might as well face that right now.
He blew out a disgusted breath, angry with himself for making the snide remark to Fin.
“It’s true,” Fin admitted softly. “The magazine may be the only thing that matters to me, but I want you to be happy. You know, you’re like a brother to me.”
Her declaration only deepened the guilt that nipped at him for the comment. “Sorry, Fin. I’m just not thinking straight.”
She smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve heard love can do that to you.”
“Love?” He choked at the word. “This was our first date.”
Her eyes sparkled. “The one that started on Friday night and ended on Sunday afternoon?”
He grinned. “Yep. That’d be the one.”
“Mmmm. Okay. Then let me put it this way, I’ve heard lust can mess with your mind, too.”
He picked up the beer bottle and rubbed the label, thinking about how to respond. “I don’t think it’s lust, either.” Although there was plenty of that, too.
“Listen,” she said. “While you figure out exactly what it is, I’d like to get to know that girl better.”
“Woman.” Cade glanced up from the label of his bottle.
“She’s not a girl.”
Fin smiled. “Young lady. I have no problems with you dating Jessie, but I still want to know what she’s all about. Even more so, if you’re dating her. Think of me as the older sister you never had.”
He rolled his eyes. “I have enough sisters, thank you.”
“Too bad. I have plenty of brothers, too. You can always use more. And listen, Cade, she’s the sharpest and most qualified of the interns for the job, so not picking her would be a disservice to the magazine.”
He took a sip of his beer, eyeing her. She was right, damn it. “Well that’s a typical strategy-driven Fin Elliott decision if I ever heard one.”
“Good. Then you agree. She starts tomorrow morning as my shadow intern from 8:00 a.m. to noon, every day.”
He tried to swallow the beer, but it got stuck in his throat. Jessie wouldn’t like it, and he still didn’t know why.
But come tomorrow morning, he was sure he’d find out.
Six
Jessie hadn’t even tried to hide the truth from Lainie, confiding enough about her new romance to satisfy her roommate’s curiosity, but not so much that Jessie felt she’d betrayed the intimacy she shared with Cade.
This was too new, too special, too wonderful to be chatted about like a mild flirtation. And it was too all-consuming for Jessie to concentrate on anything at work on Monday.
Cade had stopped by her cube early in the morning with a cup of coffee mixed exactly the way she liked it with extra milk. His gaze was just as warm as it had been over the weekend, and he looked even more breathtaking in a suit…now that she knew what he looked like out of one.
Before he went to his office, he’d quietly set her glasses on her desk, wi
thout a word, and she donned them the minute he disappeared. An hour passed where Jessie managed to get through e-mails, but mostly she gave in to the full-body tingles every time she relived the sensation of taking Cade inside her, of watching him lose control, of his sincere expression when he asked her to leave her toothbrush.
“It must be love.”
Jessie jerked around from her computer screen to see Scarlet perched on the only chair in the cube, her long legs crossed lazily, her hands behind her head.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve been sitting here for five minutes,” Scarlet said with a sly smile. “And you not only didn’t hear me, but, for the entire time I’ve been here, you’ve been reading the same four-sentence e-mail about a new mail-room procedure.”
“I have?” Jessie felt the blood rush to her face. “I mean, I have. Because, you may not know this, Scarlet, but an intern has a very close relationship with the mail room. I make it my business to know every piece of mail that comes in and out of the editorial department. Their procedures down there are critical to our success up here.”
Scarlet grinned and flipped one of her springy curls over her shoulder. “Cut the kiss-up, Miss Clayton. You got the job.”
“The what?”
“The brass ring of internships. As a matter of fact, you’re late for your meeting with…” Scarlet consulted a page of the notebook she carried. “The ad sales manager.”
“Why would I be in a meeting with the ad sales manager?”
“I believe a review of the January spreads is on the agenda, but Fin wasn’t specific.”
At the mention of Fin, Jessie’s stomach contracted. It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t do this to her. “What are you talking about, Scarlet?”
Scarlet’s teasing expression morphed into one of pure joy as she reached over and gave Jessie a hug. “Congratulations, you are Finola Elliott’s shadow intern and, sweetie, you have earned the honors.”
All the blood that had warmed her face drained down to a puddle in her toes. “Her shadow intern?” She’d asked him not to. She’d asked him. Did she need to tell him why?
“Are you sure?” she managed to ask Scarlet. “Because there are a few other really great—”
“Here’s the memo.” Scarlet held a piece of paper and all Jessie could see was From: Cade McMann on the second line. So he’d made the decision, drafted a memo and released it without even coming over to tell her.
The creamy coffee she’d been sipping suddenly turned metallic in her mouth.
“Don’t worry,” Scarlet said reassuringly. “Cade told me you didn’t want to lose the Spring Fling layout, and you won’t have to. You only shadow Fin from eight to noon every day. In the afternoons, you can still work on our projects.” Scarlet’s face lit with excitement. “It’s perfect. And almost guaranteed to end in a job offer. A paying job.”
Jessie couldn’t process this. He’d talked about her schedule to Scarlet? And not to her?
“Jessie? What’s the matter?” Scarlet asked. “You don’t want pay?”
Jessie couldn’t even laugh at the joke. “I don’t feel good.”
Scarlet’s green eyes filled with concern and she touched her fingertips to Jessie’s forehead. “Do you have a fever?”
Oh, yeah. That was one way to describe it. “I just…I think I have to go home.”
Scarlet’s expression registered a mix of worry and shock. “Are you sure?”
Jessie nodded. She had to get out of there. If she didn’t, she’d march into Cade McMann’s office and demand to know why he said all sorts of things about this being real and how he’d handle Fin and complications and… Oh!
“That’s why I’ve been so spacey, I guess,” Jessie said quickly, opening her bottom drawer to grab her handbag.
“I’m just sick. I’m taking a sick day, Scarlet.”
“Do you want me to get you a cab? Maybe Fin’s driver is still downstairs.”
“No!” At the sharp retort and Scarlet’s surprised reaction, Jessie cleared her throat. “No, thanks. I just want to— I’ll go home and take something. I’ll be fine. I just need to take the rest of the day off.”
She was halfway out of the cube when, way down the hall near Lainie’s desk, she saw the door to Cade’s office open.
She could face him down or leave him cold.
Feeling completely chicken and desperate to be alone, she made her choice.
“Bye, Scarlet. I’ll call you.”
Cade fought the urge to shove the director of subscriptions out the door, instead of using every people skill he had to close the meeting diplomatically and quickly.
How long could that guy blow hot air about demographics and distribution? Couldn’t he read the edge in Cade’s body language? He didn’t want to sit and listen to a presentation on tip-in cards, for God’s sake. He wanted—no, he needed—to get to Jessie before the memo he’d signed was printed, distributed and discussed. But his assistant had scheduled the meeting in his only open block for the morning and he’d been yanked into the conference room before he could get to Jessie.
Hustling down the hallway, he prayed she kept lunch open. He had to explain, had to—
Was that Jessie’s auburn braid flying out the lobby?
As he turned the corner to her cube, all he could see was Scarlet standing there, hands on her hips and a look of utter dismay on her face.
He jerked to a halt and glanced at the empty chair at Jessie’s desk.
“Where is she?”
Scarlet’s eyes widened a bit at his demand. “She just went home sick.”
Oh, man. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Well, I would have chalked it up to lovesickness based on the fact that she got flowers on Friday and still looked loopy on Monday, but I don’t know.”
“Did she say what was wrong?”
Scarlet shook her head. “It was the weirdest thing, Cade. I told her about the shadow internship and she—”
“You told her?”
“Well, duh. She works for me. What is the problem with telling her?”
There would be no problem if he weren’t sleeping with her and making promises he hadn’t kept.
“Nothing,” he said absently, noticing she’d left her computer on and her desk in a state of disarray. He swallowed an angry curse at the director of subscriptions. If he hadn’t been delayed…
No, that wouldn’t have made any difference. He’d screwed up all by himself.
“She wasn’t that excited about the shadowing job,” Scarlet said.
No surprise there. “Would you do me a favor, Scarlet? Would you tell my assistant to cancel the rest of my appointments today?”
She frowned at him. “Yeah. But why?”
“I’m going home sick.”
He turned and headed for the lobby, but still heard Scarlet’s parting shot. “Does someone want to tell me what the heck is going on around here?”
There was only one person who would understand. One person Jessie could talk to. She prayed he wasn’t out riding or roping or ranching.
She needed her daddy. Mom would have been better, but she buried the ache that accompanied that thought and managed to get home on the subway without shedding a single tear.
She waited to call until she’d let herself into the cluttered studio apartment she and Lainie shared. It was only nine o’clock in Colorado, but Travis Clayton could be anywhere on the Silver Moon at that hour.
To Jessie’s relief, her father answered his cell phone on the first ring and admitted that he was still at the kitchen table drinking his coffee. With the time difference, that wasn’t so unusual. Except he was an early riser, a hard worker. Since her mother had died, however, Dad spent a lot of time in the kitchen, thinking. Travis wasn’t even fifty years old; he should start to think about a life. A new life.
But that wasn’t the purpose of her call.
In ten minutes, she’d explained the situation, leaving out the fact that she’d spent the weekend with
Cade. Some things a father didn’t need to know.
“You shouldn’t have run off, Jess,” Travis said immediately. She knew that already. She’d decided that on the subway ride home. She should have confronted Cade. But what was done, was done, and now she needed to figure out a plan.
“I know, Dad. But it’s complicated.” Complications. Didn’t Cade say they could avoid them? Then, wham. One big, fat, nasty complication called deceit.
“In this man’s defense, honey, he doesn’t know the situation. He doesn’t understand why you wouldn’t want a job that is—what did that woman call it—the brass ring of internships? And the ticket to a paying job?”
“Daddy,” Jessie sighed and curled deeper into the secondhand sofa she and Lainie had recently recovered in shiny polished cotton. “I told you why I came here. It’s not about the money.”
“You shouldn’t have gone there without telling me why.” She heard the note of gruffness in the reprimand. The note that usually meant his heart felt something different than what he was saying.
“You would have tried to stop me.”
“For good reason.” In the background, porcelain clinked and she imagined her father drinking from his favorite white mug, surrounded by a country kitchen that overlooked the most beautiful valley and mountains in the world. “There’s nothing to be gained by dredging up that lady’s history, Jessie. She was a fifteen-year-old girl when she had you. I’ve no doubt the last thing a woman running a big New York City magazine wants is a twenty-three-year-old reminder of her past.”
“All the more reason for that past not to shadow her around for half the day.”
“Honey, listen to me. She has no reason to suspect you are her daughter.”
“Daddy, listen to me.” She stood as though it would help her make the point to him. “I am the daughter of Travis and Lauren Clayton and no amount of irrefutable DNA can change that.”
“Aw, angel, I know that.”
“But, Daddy, it’s just that…” Mom’s gone. “If there’s any chance Fin and I could have a relationship…well, I’d really, really like that.”