it a bit. “What do you mean, never?”
“I don’t…throw myself at men.”
Okay, that he believed, though in his thoroughly male opinion it was a shame.
The world should be full of women who threw themselves at men. Of course, it was, he’d found, but not many of those women were like Jane.
“I’m sorry. For everything. And I just. I have to go,” she said.
“You really don’t,” he claimed.
“I do.” She turned and fled.
Wyatt swore softly and succinctly, his body humming with desire, still feeling her pressed against him, her soft hands on his face.
He was an idiot. A complete idiot where women like her were concerned.
Chapter Five
Jane Carlton did not come on to men.
At least, she didn’t think she did.
She didn’t mean to.
Her face burned when she remembered being on the couch with Wyatt the day before. He’d thought she was making a pass at him? And he’d been trying to say…he’d welcome that?
Surely not.
“You’re frowning again,” Lainie said, standing in the doorway with a batch of message slips with Jane’s calls on them. “What in the world happened to you yesterday?”
Jane, if puzzling over anyone’s behavior except Wyatt’s, would have normally turned to Gram and Gladdy for advice on men. Between the two of them, she doubted there was any situation Jane might find herself in that they hadn’t already been in themselves. But she couldn’t talk to them about Wyatt. Not when she was trying to keep his uncle away from both of them.
She figured Lainie was her best shot for help here.
“Can I ask you something about men?” Jane blurted out before she lost her nerve.
Lainie giggled.
“Why is that so funny?” Jane asked, finding Lainie’s reaction slightly offensive, maybe more than slightly.
“It’s not funny. I’m just so happy, Jane!” she said, like Jane had announced she was eloping or something.
“It’s just a question.”
“Okay. Go ahead. Please.” Lainie sounded so eager. “Anything I can do to help.”
“You think I need help with men?”
“Oh, definitely.”
No hesitation there. Jane pictured herself as a virtual wrecking yard of relationships, like there might be a sign that said, Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
“It’s about…coming on to men,” she said, wishing she’d never started this whole thing.
“Oh!” Lainie clapped her hands together like a kid who’d just received a terrific present. “This is sooooo good! Jane, I’m so proud of you. You actually want to make the first move with a man!”
“No, I didn’t say that. I’m just…trying to find out if I already did.”
“Well, that’s even better! Tell me! Tell me everything,” she begged.
Jane thought about how she might explain, then decided it would probably be better to just show Lainie. There was a love seat in Jane’s office, after all.
“Shut the door,” she instructed, then got up and walked over to the love seat. “I just…sit down and let me show you.”
“Okay.” Lainie sat.
Jane knelt on the love seat, conscious now of how hard it was to keep her balance. “Lean your head back.”
Lainie did, and Jane eased closer.
“Now, you’ve hurt your eye, and I’m…I’m trying to fix it. That’s it. Just trying to fix it. Like this, except you’re a lot taller than me, so I had to reach up higher. If I did that, would you think I was coming on to you?”
She reached up to a point past Lainie’s eye and then looked down and realized her breasts were practically in Lainie’s face when she made that move.
“Oh, no!” Jane cried.
Lainie lifted her head before Jane could move away, and then…sure enough, breasts in her face.
While Lainie giggled, Jane went to brace herself against Lainie’s body to get out of the way, but before she could do that, she heard a voice.
A man’s voice, Wyatt’s, clearing his throat and then saying, “Ladies, I’m so sorry. There was no one at the desk out front, and I…seem to have caught you at a bad time.”
Jane froze, her mouth dropping open.
This could not be happening.
Lainie looked over Jane’s shoulder. She could see Lainie taking the whole thing in. Mulling it over. Wyatt, how gorgeous he was. His eye, no doubt at least a bit bruised. Jane’s worry about coming on to a man. Jane shoving her breasts practically in his face while she tried to fix his eye and needing to reenact the whole scene to figure that out.
She was a complete idiot.
She looked to Lainie, mouthing, Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me alone with him. Please!
“Sorry.” Lainie laughed and got up from the couch. “I’m sure I have…something to do at my desk.”
Jane hung her head down and stayed there, sat back on her heels on the love seat, thinking if she never had to turn around and look at him, she might live through this day with just a shred of her dignity intact.
She heard Lainie introduce herself and Wyatt’s gloriously deep, beautiful voice saying, “Wyatt Gray. So nice to meet you.”
And then Lainie disappeared, closing the door behind her.
Jane stayed where she was and said, “If I paid you…like a million dollars, would you turn around and go away? So that we never had to talk about this?”
He laughed. Beautifully. The sound like a current zinging through her body.
And then he walked over and sat down beside her. She still perched there on her knees, not wanting to shove any part of herself into his face, either accidentally or on purpose.
He looked like a man who couldn’t be more pleased with himself or his life at this moment. Wearing a gorgeously expensive suit that wrapped faithfully around his altogether impressive body, he sat there, slightly blackened eye and all, looking completely at ease and holding a huge bouquet of exotic-looking flowers in his hand.
“Jane, I’m seldom wrong about these things, but with you. Well, I suppose it’s a possibility. I just haven’t had a lot of dealings with women like you. You don’t…like women, do you?”
“What? Of course, I like women. Women are great, women are—”
“Sexually,” he clarified.
“Oh. You mean. me and Lainie? Me and. women? That way?”
He nodded.
“No! I. No! Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But, I like men.” She got all flustered then, and kept talking, which she tended to do when flustered. Fill the silence and try to move on. “Granted, not a lot of men. But I do…like…men. I mean, I have to admit I like them more in theory than reality, but. Well. Oh, my God!”
She buried her head in her hands and gave up.
Too much information, Jane.
Way too much information.
“Well,