“I didn’t ask you to.”
Now she smiled sadly. “Yeah, you did. In everything but words.”
“Now you’re a mind reader?”
“I don’t have to be,” Jenny told him and took a breath, hoping to ease the gnawing inside her. “I just know what happens when the two of us are alone together.”
Seconds ticked past and the silence was heavy with a kind of tension that nearly vibrated in the air. Jenny held on to the ragged edges of the control that was rapidly slipping out of her grasp. If he pushed back, if he kissed her, then she’d be lost and she knew it.
“Damn it,” he finally said in a gruff whisper. “You’re not wrong.” His gaze dropped from her eyes to her lips and back again. “I saw you with the carpenter and... Never mind. Like you said, none of my business.”
Jenny nodded and said, “Let’s just forget today, okay? We’ll get the job finished tomorrow, then go home and things will get back to normal.”
His blue eyes flashed with emotions that came and went so quickly, she couldn’t identify them all, and maybe that was for the best.
“Normal.” He nodded sharply. “Fine. We can finish up at the new hotel by noon, probably. Then we’ll head home and forget the whole damn trip.”
Her heart gave a tug that unsettled her, but Jenny only forced a smile, keeping that small sliver of pain to herself. He wanted to forget the whole trip. Forget being with her, even that way-too-short moment they’d shared on the dock, where they’d talked like friends—or maybe more.
Forgetting wouldn’t be easy, Jenny told herself, but it was the one sure path to sanity. Holding on to what she felt for Mike—feelings she didn’t want to examine too closely—was only going to add to the misery later on. She had to find a way to let go of what-might-have-beens and focus instead on the cold, hard facts.
The man she wanted didn’t want her beyond the nearest bed.
And that just wasn’t good enough.
“So,” Mike said, interrupting her thoughts, “I’ll see you in the morning, then. Nine o’clock. Be ready to go to work.”
“I will be.” Once he was gone, Jenny dropped to the edge of the bed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
This would be so much easier if only she didn’t care.
Mike spent the evening working in his suite. He figured if he kept his mind busy with figures, budgets, plans for the future of their company, he’d have no time to think about Jenny. Or how she’d looked when he heard her describing the painting she wanted to do. He wouldn’t hear the magic in her voice or see the interest in that carpenter’s eyes when he watched her.
And he wouldn’t keep seeing the look on her face when he had acted like some kind of demented comic-strip moron by accusing her of flirting with the guy. Hell, even if she had been, like she said, it was none of his damn business. But it sure as hell felt like it was. He’d hated watching that other man so focused, laser-like, on Jenny’s face. Hated that he’d blamed her for whatever he was feeling.
“I don’t know what’s going on here,” he muttered darkly, “but I don’t like it.” He’d always been in control. Of his feelings, his emotions—until Jenny. And what that meant, he didn’t have a clue.
Mike scrubbed one hand across his face, pushed out of the desk chair and walked to the terrace. When his cell phone rang, he dragged it out of his pocket as he opened the sliding door and stepped into the teeth of a cold desert wind.
He glanced at the screen, then answered. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hi. How’s Vegas?”
“Laughlin.”
“Same diff,” she said and he could almost see her shrugging. “Sean told me you’re out there inspecting the new hotel. What’s it like?”
He dropped one hand on the iron railing, squinted into the wind and looked down to watch the river below froth beneath the hulls of flat-bottom boats taking tourists on a short ride. Neon fought against the stars for supremacy and won. On the Riverwalk, golden lamplight sifted onto the people strolling in and out of the shadows beside the river.
“It’s run-down and sad right now, but I think it’ll come together.”
“Of course it will,” his mother assured him. “My sons always do what they set out to do.”
Mike smiled to himself.
“Sean says Jenny Marshall has some great ideas for the artwork, too.” She paused for a moment. “He says you and Jenny are there. Together.”
“Does he?” Shaking his head, Mike ignored the blip of interest in Peggy Ryan’s voice. He had to wonder if all mothers were as determined as his own to see her children married, with kids.