“Well,” he said, “if I’ve come at a bad time, I can always—”
“That’s okay.” She stepped back from the door. “I’m touched that you went shopping for a cup so soon. It really wasn’t necessary.” As she closed the door behind him, her glance took in the red bag in his other hand. “Something smells good.”
“Yeah, I saw this and thought of you.” He handed her the bag. “And here’s the cup.”
“Thank you, Dev.” She stood clutching both against her furry robe. “That’s very thoughtful of you. I—”
“It smells different in here.” An exotic fragrance totally unlike the cinnamon and cloves he remembered filled the apartment. While the cinnamon had made him feel cozy and had aroused him in a slow, sensuous way, this stuff attacked him at a gut level. One whiff and he imagined a sex orgy—naked bodies, silk sheets, complicated positions and lots of warm massage oil.
“It’s the patchouli blend I was talking about.”
“So that’s patchouli.”
“I’m trying it out before we introduce it as the background fragrance for Heaven Scent this month. What do you think?”
It was sending him into sexual fantasyland. “It’s okay.”
“Maybe I need to try ylang-ylang, then. I want something very arousing, not just okay.”
If she used anything more arousing than this, she was liable to have people getting horizontal right there in the store, but he wasn’t about to say that. He also wasn’t sure if it was strictly the patchouli or seeing her in that furry bathrobe and bare feet. He wanted to know what was under the robe. He really, really wanted to know.
“Well, thank you for the cup and the—” she peered into the bag “—the candle. Mmm, cinnamon, my favorite.”
“You’re welcome.” He stood there with his jacket still on, getting warmer by the minute as he waited for her to invite him to stay. The longer he waited, the more he suspected she had a guy stashed in the bedroom.
“Well, I suppose you have things to do,” she said.
“Not much.” His suspicions deepened. The patchouli, the makeup, the bare feet and the bathrobe all added up to funny business. He should just leave, because she obviously wanted him to. But, dammit, he was stuck with that funny feeling in his stomach and the feeling wouldn’t let him just abandon the field without a struggle.
Besides, he wanted to see the damn cup to find out what Edna had come up with. “So,” he said, “aren’t you going to open the box?”
“Sure. Sure I am. Would you…like to take off your jacket?”
“Why not?” As he hung it on the moose head coat tree, he noticed what he’d been too preoccupied to figure out before. No other man’s jacket hung there. People didn’t run around in shirtsleeves on a February night in Chicago. So maybe there wasn’t anybody hiding in Jamie’s bedroom, after all. The knot in his stomach loosened.
She walked into her tiny living room and set the red bag on her coffee table. Then she looked at the square package more closely. “Wedding bells?”
He should have known a smart woman like Jamie wouldn’t miss that, even though he had. “It was…the only paper they had on hand.” Telling her the gift wrapping was free for wedding gifts would make him look really cheap. And no way was he confessing the murmurings of his soul on the subject of matrimony. Not until he’d had a chance to get used to the concept.
“It’s pretty.” She pried off the white ribbon and unfastened the tape carefully. “I should save it in case I need to wrap a wedding gift. It seems like one pops up every other week these days.”
“I know what you mean. It’s like this contagious disease.”
She glanced at him, a smile on her wine-red lips. “You really are phobic, aren’t you?”
“I might not be if my family would back off, but I hate being manipulated.” The minute he spoke, he realized that he’d been resisting marriage because his family had been pushing it. How infantile was that? Besides, he’d manipulated the situation tonight to his advantage, so he was no better than his scheming relatives.
He massaged the bridge of his nose. “Okay, I have a confession to make. There’s no guy with a broken computer who plans to call you about his questionnaire.” He glanced at her, to see how she was taking the news. “And though I just told you I hate to be manipulated, I’ve been guilty of doing exactly that. I’d planned all along to come by with the cup, but I wanted to surprise you.”
Holding the half-open package, she stared at him, her cheeks even pinker than the blush had made them. “You did? How come?”
“I, um…” He searched through his vocabulary and found it lacking. “I wasn’t quite telling the truth last night.”
She swallowed. “About what?”
“About not being attracted to you. I said that because I didn’t think that you were attracted to—”
“I am.”
His heart started galloping furiously. “You are?”
She nodded.
“That’s…that’s great.” As he gazed at her standing there with the wedding bell paper in her hands, he had a feeling of inevitability. But that didn’t mean he had to rush into anything.
She took a deep breath. “Well, would you like…coffee?”
“That would be good.”
“Or…or wine? It’s jug wine, though, and I’ll bet you don’t drink—”
“Sure I do. But coffee’s good.” He gestured toward the package in her hand. “Why don’t you finish unwrapping that first?”
“All right.” Her hands trembled as she took off the wrapping.
“Need some help?” He took a step toward her.
“That’s okay. I have it.” But she didn’t. The cup tumbled out of the box.
Before it hit the floor and broke, Dev had a chance to see that it was a perfect match for the other one. Edna had done an outstanding job.
“Oh, no!” Jamie glanced down at the cup, then back at Dev. “Stay there,” she said, holding up her hand, then pointing to her head. “We have history when it comes to picking up broken cups.”
He crossed to her anyway. “I’ll get you another one tomorrow.”
“Oh, no, you won’t.” She dropped to her knees and began gathering broken pieces and putting them in the box. “I was half to blame before, and this was totally my fault.”
“No, it wasn’t.” He crouched next to her, more careful this time so they wouldn’t pull another Laurel and Hardy routine. “If I hadn’t admitted I was attracted to you, you wouldn’t have gotten nervous and dropped it.”
She looked over at him. “I was hoping you couldn’t tell.”
“It’s no crime,” he said gently. “I’m nervous, too.”
She broke eye contact and went back to picking up pieces of pottery from the floor. “I can’t believe you’re nervous, a guy like you, who’s dated the cream of society.”
“None of them could rattle off the first one hundred prime numbers. Faith told me you used to do that as a party trick, and you can even do it when you’re toasted.”
“Faith told me you dated one of the Wrigley heirs.” She kept her attention focused on picking up the pottery shards. There were more this time than last.
“I have an idea.” He took the box of broken pottery out of her hands.
Her gaze flew to his. “You do?”
“Yeah. Let’s forget whatever Faith has told either of us about the other one.” He set the box on the coffee table and sank to his knees in front of her. Then he reached out and cupped her cheek. Her skin was so soft. “What do you say?” he asked in a voice that had become thick with anticipation.
“I think…it’s an outstanding idea.”
“I was hoping you would.” Leaning forward, he kissed those incredible wine-red lips.
IT WAS THE PATCHOULI OIL. And maybe the extra makeup she’d put on because it seemed to go with her outfit. Jamie couldn’t come up with any other explanation for why the man who had hightailed it out of her apartment last night was on his knees kissing her as if he meant to keep it up all night.
But that was the message. A man who kissed this deeply and generously planned to have more than a cup of coffee before he left. Jamie decided, somewhere around the time that she started feeling dizzy, that she’d be a fool not to give it to him. She’d already grabbed the front of his sweater to pull him closer, so there was no point in trying to be coy now.
She might as well do as he’d suggested and put aside all that she knew about his past with glamorous society types. Instead she’d concentrate on his present, which included a nerdy, unsophisticated woman who by sheer good luck was wearing red leather under her bathrobe. And speaking of that bathrobe, he had his hands on the furry lapels, as if he wouldn’t mind pulling them apart.
He lifted his mouth a whisper away from hers. “You drive me crazy,” he murmured.
She’d never expected to hear that from him. She couldn’t stop the shocked “I do?” from escaping.