“Annie,” he replies, just as formally, taking his coffee cup and lifting it to his lips. My eyes catch a slight tremble of his hand as I involuntarily follow the cup to his mouth. I think of him drinking that bottle of Budweiser, his neck stretched, begging me to lick the column of his throat. Bending me over the bar, his big hands on my hips.
“Super party!” Colin chirps, snapping me back into the bistro. Jack is watching me watching him.
I shake my way back into my meeting, telling myself to concentrate, to not let him distract me. “It was. Thanks for coming.” I smile, thinking I never want to think about that night ever again.
The waiter approaches and I order a large latte, declining the offer of any pastries. I would never be able to hold anything down; my stomach is somersaulting repeatedly, and I’m getting annoyed that I can’t control it.
Colin looks down at his watch. “I have to be at an auction in thirty minutes, so let’s get this schedule agreed upon.” He motions to my files. “Do you have the revised drawings for Jack?”
“I do.” I pull them out and push them across the table to Jack, avoiding making eye contact, which is hard when I can feel him staring at me. This is so strange. I spent a night in a hotel with this man, the most amazing night of my life, and now I’m acting like I’ve never set eyes on him, let alone his naked body.
All this formality, this distance, isn’t coming naturally to me. Being consumed by Jack felt so right and easy—looking at him, admiring him, talking to him, listening to him. It all felt so natural. “The details of the French roof manufacturer are on there, too.”
“Thank you,” Jack says, unfolding the first drawing and scanning it over. “I’ll take them back to the office and go over them with Richard. He’s my site manager, who’ll be overseeing the build, by the way.”
“Good to know.” I make a mental note of Richard’s name.
“We have various machinery arriving tomorrow so we can start clearing the site.” Jack starts folding up the drawing and places it on the table with the others, finding my eyes and locking stares with me. “We anticipate a few weeks to strip it back to the bare bones.”
Strip. Bare. My skin starts to prickle with heat, and I glance away from him, making notes on my pad. “Okay. So you’ll have the site pegged out as per my drawings by—”
“Week three,” Jack finishes for me, pulling my attention up. He smiles, and I have to take a deep breath and force my attention back down to my notepad.
I power on. “And by week four, you’ll have—”
“The trenches for the foundations dug out.”
My pen falters across the page. “Good,” I say quietly. “And the concrete slab for the floor should be complete by—”
“Week five,” Jack murmurs.
I close my eyes briefly and will him to stop being so on the ball. It’s a perfect scenario for an architect and contractor to be so aligned when it comes to a project, but now, between Jack and me, it isn’t helping me hate him.
“That was what you were thinking, wasn’t it?” he asks, almost pensive.
My smile feels strained. “It was.”
“Good.” Jack gets a diary out of his briefcase and opens it up to a planner, presenting it to me and Colin. Then he takes over, detailing the schedule and phases of the project carefully from week five, running through a timeline for the next few months to completion. I hate that every step, every tiny detail he has written down, is all where I’m at in my head with this project. Every time he hesitates, I’m able to finish his sentence, and we’re already talking about slight modifications to make the plans even stronger. We’re in perfect sync.
Our sweaty bodies flash through my mind, moving in tune, our hearts beating in time. I jerk in my chair and clamp my teeth on the lid of my pen. In perfect sync. In every way. I focus on what Jack’s actually saying as opposed to the sound of his voice saying it, fighting not to allow the deep timbre to get under my skin. Fighting to not allow my mind to morph what he says into other words—words he said to me on that night. I’m not doing very well—too many memories, now potent and vivid, running circles in my head. Keeping my eyes off his hands, too, as he talks with them, is a killer. A total killer. Those hands have explored every part of my body. So has his mouth.
Stop it! “Can I get a copy of that?” I ask him, my voice shaky as I point to the schedule in his diary.
“Sure.” Jack looks at me, cocking his head a little to the side. “I’ll send a scan later today. I just need your e-mail.”
Biting down on my lip, I pull a business card from my bag and slide it across the table, trying not to think about the fact that I’ve just given him every contact detail he could need for me.
“So we’re all on the same page?” Colin asks, rising from his chair.
“We’re on the same page,” Jack confirms. I look across the table at him, reading between the lines. “Aren’t we?” he asks, swallowing hard. “I know where I stand.”
He knows where he stands. I read his code message loud and clear. “Same page,” I confirm on a gulp, feeling relief course through me as I silently thank him for not making this harder than it needs to be.
He nods knowingly, snapping his diary shut.
“Great!” Colin swipes up a huge art folder. “I just know you two are a match made in heaven!” He breezes out of the bistro as I stare at his back in utter shock, and Jack coughs over his coffee.
He looks at me, his face expressionless. “A match made in heaven.”
I don’t allow myself to fall into the depths of his twinkly eyes. “Professionally, maybe,” I say, getting my bag from the back of my chair, resisting the urge to point out that we can’t possibly be a match made in heaven…since he’s married. My stray thought turns my stomach as I unzip my slouchy leather bag to retrieve my purse.
Jack pulls his wallet from his inside pocket. “Put your money away. I’ll get this.” He reaches over and halts my hand from going into my bag, and I jump so much my chair actually shoots back. Jack retracts his hand in shock. “Sorry; I didn’t mean to make you jump.” He sounds sincere, and I feel utterly stupid. But his touch. Oh God, his touch.
“Thank you for the coffee,” I say, getting to my feet but keeping my eyes on the table.
“No problem. Can I give you a lift anywhere?”
I actually laugh. “No, but thanks for the offer.”
“What’s so funny?” He stands, towering over me, and I get another onslaught of flashbacks as a result. He’s naked, looming over me, asking if I’m ready for him.
I squash my thoughts and take a deep breath. “Nothing.” I hand my drawings to him while keeping my gaze far, far away from his. “Don’t forget these.”
Slowly, too slowly, his hand lifts and takes them from my grasp. “I promise to keep this business, Annie,” he tells me candidly.
“Good.” My voice is shaking terribly, adrenaline racing through my bloodstream and making my heart pump crazily. I can feel him staring at me, and as hard as I know it’s going to be, I tell myself I mustn’t ever look at him. At least not in the eye. I brush past him and pace out of the bistro, feeling his stare on my back the entire way. He might have promised to keep it business, but that doesn’t stop my entire being from responding to him like it does. And it doesn’t erase the memories, either.
*