Mara wrapped her arms around his neck. “You don’t look so bad yourself, handsome.” She paused before looking up at him, meeting his gaze. “You know you will interfere if Evan is miserable. He deserves to be happy.”
Jared’s expression changed to one of regret as he answered, “I owe Evan my life and my happiness now. But I don’t think anyone knows what to do. None of us really knows how Randi feels, and Evan holds everything in a place where no one can see that he’s suffering. I’m hoping they’ll resolve this on their own.”
“She loves him,” Mara said confidently. “She wouldn’t be sleeping with him if she didn’t. She hasn’t been with anyone since college. I tried to pry some information out of her during our lunch today, but she wasn’t talking.”
Randi had arrived to their women-only lunch late that day, after the others had finished talking about how concerned they were for Evan.
Mara was just as concerned about Randi. If she loved Evan, which Mara was pretty sure she did, his departure was going to break her heart. Randi had been through so much in her life. She deserved to be loved by a good man.
“She’s sleeping with him?” Jared asked with a false tone of shock.
Mara rolled her eyes. Her husband knew damn well that Randi and Evan had been hot and heavy with each other. “I don’t know what to do, either. Randi lost Joan so recently; I don’t think she’s quite recovered from that. Her relationship with Evan could hurt her badly.”
Jared stroked her cheek and said softly, “Hey, sweetheart, don’t worry so much. We don’t know that they won’t work everything out for themselves.”
“I don’t have a good feeling about it,” Mara replied sadly. “Evan hasn’t been here long enough to completely lose his guard, and he went through such a lot. I guess I’m worried he’ll leave before he realizes how he really feels.”
“He’s learning fast.” Jared wrapped his arms around her waist again and stroked her back. “Dante pressed him just a little about whether or not he was interested. He told Evan if it wasn’t serious, he wanted to introduce Randi to some friends of his at the station. I thought Evan was going to have a heart attack or a stroke.”
Mara raised an eyebrow. “So Dante was baiting him just like Evan did to you?”
“That was different. Evan did it personally,” Jared grumbled.
Mara laughed. “Why do I have a feeling you enjoyed it just a little?” she asked as she recovered.
“I did,” Jared admitted unabashedly. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see him happy. Hell, I feel guilty about not knowing about his problems. I feel like a selfish bastard. I know Hope, Grady, and Dante do, too.”
Mara lifted her palm to Jared’s cheek gently. He’d suffered enough guilt in his past, and she didn’t want him taking on blame that he didn’t need to carry. “You didn’t know. Nobody did. Evan wanted it that way. You know he’s protective of all of you in his own way.” The eldest Sinclair was hyperprotective, but he’d probably never admit it.
“I wish I would have known, but I know it isn’t my fault. Because of you, Mara, I’m done carrying baggage,” he told her fiercely. “If I need to, I’ll do what I have to do to make my stubborn brother face his own ghosts from the past and learn how much better it is to be happy.”
She smiled at him, proud of how far Jared had come at being brutally honest about everything in his life. “I know you will.”
“I wonder how Randi took the news that Evan was her secret email buddy. Did she say?” Jared was curious.
“She didn’t mention it,” Mara answered thoughtfully, wondering herself how Randi had felt when she found out that she’d been talking to Evan all this time. “I’m sure she was shocked. Hope mentioned that they’d been anonymous friends for over a year, but Randi thought it was an employee of the Sinclair Fund.”
“Would it matter to her?” Jared queried, his expression concerned. “Do you think she’d be pissed?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know exactly how they related to each other, but she won’t be happy that he lied all this time.”
“He said he didn’t exactly lie. He just didn’t correct her whenever she mentioned him being an employee of our fund.” He hesitated before adding, “And he might have acknowledged it as the truth once or twice.”
Mara gave Jared an admonishing look. “He lied.”
“They agreed not to share identities,” Jared argued.
“He’s Evan Sinclair. He could have told her the truth once they got to know each other. I doubt that Randi blatantly lied to him.”
“It’s over. She knows now, and she’s obviously forgiven him,” Jared said confidently. “Hope told him to come clean and see what happened from that point on.”
Mara nodded. “I hope everything goes okay tonight. I hope I’m dressed okay. The party didn’t start out to be formal, but once Hope started calling it a ball, everyone seemed to think they needed to dress for a fancy do.” Her sister-in-law was still calling it a come-as-you-are event, but she knew the attendees were excited to put on their best dress and have a good time. “The ballroom looks beautiful. We all stopped to do a last-minute check before we came home.”
Jared pulled her closer. “You look beautiful, Mara. Can’t you tell?”
She shuddered as his rock-hard erection connected with her body. “You always think I look beautiful,” she told him in a teasing voice.
“That’s because you always do,” he answered immediately, his hands moving down to caress her ass through the silky fabric of the blue cocktail dress.
Mara sighed as he moved closer, getting drunk off his scent and the deep timbre of his voice. Jared invariably affected her that way. Just that quickly, he could set her body on fire with a desire so strong that it was unstoppable.
“I love you,” she told him softly, looking into his adoring eyes.
“I love you, too, sweetheart,” he rasped, lowering his mouth to hers as he threaded his hands through her hair, undoing her hard work in trying to tame it into an upswept, more sophisticated style.
Any regret she had about her spoiled hair dissolved as she melted into Jared’s embrace.
They were going to be late for the ball, but even that thought was erased from her mind.
A few seconds later, all she could think about was Jared.
CHAPTER 17
I can never fall in love with a man like him.
Evan could still picture those words from Randi, written in her email, over and over again. Of course, she hadn’t been talking about some unknown male. If so, Evan would have been pretty damn happy knowing she was blowing off another guy. However, knowing it had been him she was referring to made him almost certifiable.
Evan rarely got angry, and he still couldn’t figure out why he was so pissed off. After all, did he really think a woman like Randi was going to fall in love with a defective man like him? He was an unromantic, anal type of fucked-up man, focused more on business than anything else in his life.
I’m still trying to prove myself worthy of her friendship, much less her love.