Can't Get Enough (31 page)

He forced himself to be brutal as he examined what he knew of
relationships. And he remembered a handful of women who'd been
demonstrably head over heels with him with very little encouragement at
all. Women who'd declared their love at the drop of a hat, while he'd
felt only a vague fondness or attraction for them.

He felt sick. Somewhere, deep inside, he recognized that this was the ultimate irony: the guy who always 
runs from commitment falling in love at last, but with a woman who
doesn't love him back. He laughed, but it came out as more of a groan.

He loved Claire Marsden and she didn't want a bit of him.

CLAIRE SCURRIEDto her office and shut the door and drew the venetian
blinds down and sat in the semidark staring at nothing. Her heart was
pounding, and she felt there was definite potential to lose her lunch.

One sentence kept circling round and around in her head.
I love you.
Jack Brook had said he loved her. And for a glorious moment she'd seen
this vision of the future, a golden, hazy, perfect vision filled with
love and happiness and togetherness. And then reality had snapped back
into focus.

Jack Brook did not love her. He felt sorry for her, at best. Maybe she
had
talked in her sleep. Maybe he had figured out how much this had all
meant to her. Maybe he even realized that the reason she was looking
all puffy and just plain wrong today was because she'd been tortured by
visions of him every time she tried to get some sleep over the weekend.
So, being a nice, kind guy, he'd decided to do the right thing. It was
the only explanation she could come up with.

She sat frozen in her chair, alternating between the desire to charge
down to Jack's office and make him prove what he'd just said, and the
powerful need to hide beneath her desk and pretend none of it had
happened.

A rap at the door started her out of her reverie, and she turned wary
eyes to the door, dreading to see Jack as it opened. How could she
resist the invitation implicit in his declaration again? She wanted so
much to believe him, but she was too scared of what would happen if her
love proved to be stronger than his. She couldn't survive being the one
who was left caring again. Not after a lifetime of it.

"You
are
in! Tom wasn't sure if you were here or not." It was Katherine. The
other woman hesitated on the threshold, obviously sensing something was
wrong.

"I was just…" Claire made a helpless
gesture, not sure what to say. Katherine gave her a searching look,
then strode into the room and shut the door behind her. She flicked the
light switch on and Claire blinked in the sudden glare.

"This is about Jack, isn't it?" Katherine asked boldly. Claire could only nod, miserable.

"I did warn you. I know he's damned irresistible, but there's just something holding him back—"

"He said he loved me."

Katherine looked stunned. "He did?"

Katherine's face began to transform, a smile creeping across it as she digested Claire's news. "But that's terrific. Amazing!"

Claire stared at her friend. "Are you mad? Jack Brook doesn't really
love me. It's not possible." Katherine looked confused. "But you just
said that he told you he did."

"Yes. But he doesn't know what he's saying. He feels sorry for me. Or
he's confused." Katherine was staring at her strangely. "Claire, Jack
wouldn't say something if he didn't mean it. And he certainly wouldn't
say something like that because he felt sorry for someone. Trust me,
I've been there, done that. Not once did Jack ever say anything just to
make me feel good."

"You don't understand. It's because Jack knows how I feel. We—He—Well,
we shared a pretty intense time on Friday night and I had a bit of a
crisis and I'm sure he just feels sort of…responsible for me. That's
all."

"Right. He said all this to you, did he?" Katherine demanded, skeptical.

"Not as such. But I know that's what it is."

Katherine just stood there for a moment studying her, and Claire fought the urge to twitch.

"So, how do you know he thinks all this stuff, then, if he didn't say
it? You psychic or something?" Claire stared at Katherine, startled.
"Of course not." Katherine made a harrumphing noise as though she'd
just decided something. "You know what I think?

You're afraid."

Claire stared at her, affronted.

"I hardly think—" she began to say, but Katherine was nodding knowingly, her expression grim.

"Afraid. Scared rigid, if I have any guess. Aren't you two just the
pair, then?" There was judgment in Katherine's tone, and Claire sat up
a little straighter.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she said icily.

"Really? Seeing as I know you and Jack pretty well, I think I'm informed enough to have an opinion on the subject."

"Well, you don't know how I feel. Or how Jack feels, for that matter,"
Claire said stubbornly. Katherine sighed heavily. "Claire, if Jack had
told me he loved me, I would have jumped at the offer and hung on for
dear life. What more do you want from the guy?"

"You know what, I think you're the one who's in love with Jack. You're always asking me about him, giving advice."

"I was trying to be your friend, Claire. Sometimes outsiders can see things more clearly."

"I know exactly what you mean," Claire said pointedly. Katherine stared
at her. "I hope you don't regret what you're doing. Guys like Jack come
along once in a lifetime."

And with that she left, and Claire sank lower in her seat and hung her
head in her hands. Why had she been so awful to Katherine?

Because her friend had challenged her, that was why.

You're afraid.

It was ridiculous, of course. Katherine didn't understand. The phone
rang, and she leaped on it like it was a lifeline. She didn't have time
to sit around contemplating her navel. She had a magazine to launch.
She tried very hard to push Katherine's words and the hurt look on her
face out of her mind for the rest of the afternoon, but for the first
time in Claire's life, work failed her. She kept remembering the
expression on Jack's face when he'd said he loved her, and hope would
spring to life in her chest and she'd think
maybe.
Then reality would intrude and she'd stomp all over her stupid, forlorn
hope with hobnailed boots of pragmatism. Of course Jack didn't really
love her. He couldn't. Finally her circling thoughts and the churning
in her belly got too much for her and she grabbed her bag and headed
home early. What she needed was a run—a really hard, punishing run that
would wipe all other thought from her mind.

She entered her apartment, slapped on her running gear and was out the
door, hitting the pavement as though the hounds of hell were following
her.

With each footfall, she pushed Katherine's words away.

"I am not afraid, I am not afraid," she whispered under her breath as
she climbed a hill. But with each mile it became more and more obvious
that there was no denying the hard lump of emotion that had been
sitting rock-heavy in her stomach from the moment she realized she
loved Jack Brook.

Fear. Pure and simple.

Katherine was right—she
was
afraid.

The moment Claire admitted her cowardice, she started justifying it to
herself with an avalanche of logic and rationalization. Even if Jack
Brook really did love her—and it was a big if—she couldn't risk
exposing herself to him. He was tall and perfect and handsome and
clever, and she was just Claire. He could have his pick of
women—exciting, dynamic, sexy women.

It was such a revolutionary thought that it stopped her in her tracks.
Out of all the women he'd dated over the years—including peerless,
bombshell Katherine—
he'd picked Claire.
Hope took advantage of the lull in her defenses to leap to the fore.
What if he really did love her? What if he loved her the way she loved
him and she'd just pushed him away because she was too scared to even
try? What kind of a person did that make her?

She couldn't help remembering the image she'd had of herself when she'd
been stuck in the elevator with Jack—a work-aholicwho buried her lack
of life under a training schedule. A dry, humorless shrew who didn't
know how to have fun.

It wasn't true. The past few weeks had proven that to her, if nothing
else. But if she walked away from Jack's declaration, wasn't she going
to become that woman, that beige-suited, hospital-cornered woman who
never took risks?

"No!"

She said it so loudly that the man walking his dog nearby turned and
stared. She stared back, for the first time registering where her
desperate run had led her. She was standing outside the car dealership
near her apartment, right in front of the shiny red Mustang convertible
that she'd convinced herself she didn't want.

She didn't allow herself to think. Thinking was what stopped her from
doing so many things, she realized. This was about taking action, doing
what felt right.

"Hey, you," she called out to the car salesman who was buffing a bumper near the back of the lot. "How much for the Mustang?"

He trotted over, welcoming smile in place.

"It's a lovely car, just two owners, both women. Superb leather trim,
with—" She didn't have time for any of this, and she silenced him with
an impatient shake of her head.

"How much? That's all I need to know."

"Ten thousand. But don't you want to hear about the—"

No, she didn't. She didn't want to waste any time, because somewhere in
the back of her mind she knew she was about to behave recklessly, and
that if she paid too much attention to the fact, nothing would happen
and this small window of brave, audacious daring might close over and
never appear again.

"I'll take it. I just have to go home and get my checkbook," she said,
cutting across his sales patter. He looked bewildered. "Don't you want
to haggle?"

"No," she said.

"No. This is what I want."

It felt so refreshing to say those words out loud.
This is what I want.
Not what she thought someone else might want her to want. Not what she
thought might project a certain image. Not what her father, or Morgan,
or even Jack might think was right.

She
insisted that he put a sold sign on it before she left him to jog home
and get her checkbook. Her blood was fizzing with expectation. She had
a sexy car. She wasn't a stick in the mud. She was exciting and
adventurous. The sort of woman that Jack Brook was attracted to. The
sort of woman that Jack Brook…loved?

It was so hard, making that last leap of faith. As she brushed her
teeth and sprayed on perfume and picked out her sexiest, most exciting
summer dress, she skirted around the edges of admitting to herself what
she had to do next. Like buying the car, if she examined it too closely
she was afraid she'd be paralyzed by old fears. So she told herself she
was just sprucing herself up for her new car, so that when she drove it
off the lot she'd feel the part. But she knew where she was going, what
she was going to do. She was going to see Jack, and she was going to
tell him that she loved him. In a state of suspended panic that
occasionally crossed over into exhilaration, she drove her sensible
sedan to the car lot and signed over a large chunk of her savings. The
salesman was effervescent with goodwill, throwing in a set of car mats
and a key ring. Then she drove out of the lot with the radio on, the
top down and her heart in her mouth.

She almost turned around several times on the way to Jack's place. She
was too good at protecting herself for that part of herself to give up
without a fight. She started by making excuses for why Jack wouldn't be
home. Then she told herself that buying the car, becoming a
convertible-type-of-girl, was more than enough for one day. Baby steps,
that's what were required. Perhaps, in a year or two, she could make
her way to Jack's place to serve up her soul on a silver platter. But
the memory of what it had felt like to make love to Jack kept her
going. The excitement, the belonging, the sheer magic of it. It had to
be right. If she didn't take a chance on this, she'd regret it for the
rest of her life.

Perhaps if she hadn't been so preoccupied with taming her own terror,
she would have registered the familiar car parked in front of Jack's
house as she pulled up. But she didn't. She was too busy forcing one
leg after the other up the walk, her courage tightly held in both hands
as she took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.

There was a long silence, and then Jack opened the front door, dressed
in nothing but a towel, his skin still glistening from the shower. She
stared at him, struck once again by how damn perfect and beautiful and
sexy he was. She loved the faint curl in his dark hair. She loved the
little crinkly lines at the corners of his eyes. And the way his mouth
always looked as though he was about to laugh. The depth and breadth of
his chest. The strength of his thighs. The way he—

She realized that she was staring at him, and she cleared her throat.
"Jack, I have something I need to tell you," she said boldly.

He looked wary, and a bit hopeful. Her courage surged. This was going to work out, it really was.

"I just wanted to say, I'm sorry about this afternoon. I'm an idiot.
Actually, I'm more of a coward. Or at least I was," she began, warming
up to things.

Jack was smiling now, and she found herself smiling back. It really was
going to be okay. Then she heard the voice—the very feminine
voice—calling from the back of the house.

"Jack, I thought you said it was going to be a quick shower." And then
she saw Katherine padding up Jack's hallway, barefoot and in shorts, a
half-empty beer glass in her hand.