Jack had turned halfway to glance at the newcomer so he couldn’t see me as I reached for a Kleenex and furiously started wiping at my face. The damage was done and he’d already seen the worst, but that didn’t mean he had to keep looking at it.
When I heard Samantha’s voice asking if everything was all right, I quietly groaned, still hiding behind Jack’s big frame.
“Yes. Do you need something?” Jack asked, his tone much more businesslike.
“No, I saw Rose earlier and was concern—”
“Thank you, Samantha, but I’d like to be alone with my wife if there is nothing else you need.”
I paused the wiping as a heavy silence followed his words.
“Of course,” she said tightly, and then the door gently closed.
I hurried and pushed the Kleenex into the pocket of my jeans before Jack could face me again.
“Feeling better?” he asked, eyes moving across my face. I hoped I was at least a normal shade of human.
“Mhmm.”
When he closed the distance between us with an unexpected smile on his face, I was surprised.
“Why did you really come here, Rose?” he asked, pushing my hair away from my ruined face. “Just to tell me you weren’t gonna be able to attend events with me? Just because you knew I wouldn’t let you break down?”
I stood still as he reached up and his thumb started a gentle stroke on my cheekbone, my skin breaking out in goose bumps.
I couldn’t answer a question I didn’t have a real answer to. “Don’t smile at me. Now is not the right time. I don’t want to lose my count,” I said instead, and he chuckled.
He actually chuckled—a low, deep, manly chuckle that caused a slow shiver to run up my spine when coupled with his touch.
“You look awful,” he said in a low voice, eyes boring into mine.
I repeated the same answer I had given him the first time he had paid me that specific compliment. “Thank you for noticing. As you know, I always try my best.”
With his left hand, he brushed my hair back again and pushed it behind my ear. When he lowered his head and pressed a kiss on my forehead over my bangs, I stilled. “Okay, Rose,” he murmured. “Okay.”
As I was still trying to process the aftermath of the low and deep sound of that chuckle and then the kiss, my eyes slowly widened as he leaned down farther and pressed a soft kiss on my tear-wet lips. My eyes closed on their own and my lips parted—partly in shock, partly because the response was automatic. He didn’t kiss me like he had the night before, didn’t leave me feeling hungry for more, but as soon as he had the opportunity, he molded our lips together and kissed me longer, gentle and soft. I tilted my head up, my heart hammering in my chest, and returned his slow kiss. As we kept going and the kiss became more than just gentle, bit by bit, I started to rise up on my toes to deepen it.
My hands found his wrists again because I needed to feel anchored to something—that something being him, specifically. When I felt him pull away, I reluctantly pried my hands off. Biting down on my lips, I swallowed down a protest and, with a little trouble, managed to flutter my eyes open.
“Is someone watching?” The question was nothing more than a whisper falling from my lips.
Eyes intently on mine, he shook his head.
I swallowed, not sure if I wanted to hear the answer to the question I was about to ask. “Then why—”
“Are you free for dinner tonight?”
“What?” I asked, frowning up at him, the fog his kiss had caused slowly dissipating. I was having just a little trouble following, that was all.
“You never answered my text.”
His… Oh.
“We got busy and then I…Jack, I don’t think I’d be good company tonight. Is it an important dinner?”
“It’d be just the two of us.”
“It’s not a…work dinner?”
“No.”
“Then I’d rather get some takeout as usual or actually cook something at your apartment as a thank you for dealing with me.”
“Our apartment. Stop calling it mine. And I’d like to take you out, Rose. We’ve done takeout enough. If you’re not feeling up to it tonight, tomorrow then?”
My brows drew together as I tried to understand what he was saying. “You…uh, you don’t mean as in a date, right?” I laughed nervously, searching pretty hard for an answer in his eyes and maybe hoping he said he did mean it that way.
He gave me his fifth smile and I got distracted.
“It can be called a date. It’s dinner. You can use any words you like.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what to say or what to think. Frozen in place, I just kept staring up at him. “I mean…” I mumbled, taking a step back. “Like a real-life date?”
He looked at me for a long beat, and I realized the smile on his face had disappeared. His expression was back to being unreadable. “If I read things wrong and you’re not interested…”
“No. No. No.” I was. I really, really was. “I just… Do you think that would be a good idea?”
He arched an eyebrow. “Who cares whether it’s a good idea or not?” That was not an answer I expected to hear from a guy like Jack. “It’s dinner, Rose. Say yes. Takeout or a restaurant, nothing much changes. We can just try, and if you think—”
“Okay,” I blurted out before he could say more.
“Okay?”
I gave him a nod. “Yeah. Yes. Okay.”
He opened his mouth, but my nose had had enough of a break. I instantly tilted my head back, eyes on the ceiling, and my hand latched onto his arm. “Jack—Jack! It’s coming again. Kleenex!”
In less than three seconds, I had another one in my hands.
“Thank you.”
“Come on. I’m taking you home.”
“What? No. I need to go back to work and forget about all of this until tomorrow.”
He gave me a sharp look, which I could only see out of the corner of my eye as I kept my head tilted up.
“I mean the leak, not…not everything else.”
His gaze only softened a fraction. “Let me take you home, Rose.”
As sweet as that sounded, I couldn’t just sit at the apartment by myself with nothing to do. “I can’t. I need to work, Jack. I can’t sit around and obsess about what the doctor will say tomorrow.”
He shook his head and sighed. “Then I’m coming with you.”
“You don’t have to drop me off. I’ll take a cab—an Uber. It’ll be fine.”
Ignoring me, he walked over to his desk, closed the lid of his laptop, and picked up his phone. As I watched him, he made his way back to me and, to my surprise and delight, reached for my hand. I had to tighten my fingers around his to keep up with his strides before we stopped in front of Cynthia’s desk.
“I’m heading out. I’ll still take calls, but I won’t be here for the four PM client. Let’s try to reschedule that, or if he can, have him meet me at Around the Corner. You know the address. I’ll be going with Rose to the ENT specialist at eleven tomorrow morning, so try to get in touch with Fred and have him take care of whatever we have going on. Better yet, I’ll call you when I’m at the shop and we’ll reschedule things.”