No Strings Attached. Millie Criswell
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do not!” But Samantha knew that was a lie. She tended to speak before thinking, to share her opinion about every little thing, and most of the men she dated hated that, especially if her opinions were of the negative variety, which they usually were.
Was it her fault she was picky and sought perfection? If she settled, she’d end up with someone like…well, Chuck. And she had no intention of settling.
Honesty, Samantha had found out the hard way, was not an admirable trait in a woman, since men’s egos tended to be bigger than their…
Brains!
Well, except for Jack’s. She’d seen his brain by accident once when he was coming out of the bathroom and she was going in. They had collided, causing him to drop his towel, and she’d gotten a good glimpse of a very impressive—
No wonder he was so smart.
“If you didn’t have to have everything so perfect, you’d be a lot happier. And by the way, I didn’t appreciate your lining my underwear drawer with lilac-scented paper,” he said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “I smell like a hooker!”
“You’re just ungrateful. A man secure in his masculinity wouldn’t be bothered by a womanly fragrance. And besides, I thought the scent was nice. I’m sure Bunny loved it.”
Jack sighed and shook his head. “You make things too complicated. Just go with the flow, like I do.”
Samantha rolled her eyes, her mouth dropping open in disbelief. “Now who’s lying? You hate your job, even though you make gobs of money, and you date women who are dumber than rocks. What’s that say about you?”
She waved him off with a flick of her wrist. “Go away and leave me alone. I have work to do.”
“Aha! So you finally admit it.”
Samantha’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure why we’re friends, Jack Turner. We have nothing in common. And you are extremely annoying.”
Grinning widely, Jack tweaked her nose. “If I thought you meant that I’d pack up and leave. Oh wait! I own this apartment, so I guess I can’t. Now then, your nasty mood means you’re either PMSing or your book got rejected again. Which one is it?”
It was very disconcerting living with someone who knew you better than you knew yourself, Samantha thought. She hated to admit to Jack that she had failed again in her attempt to get published.
She wanted to pull her weight financially and contribute more to their living arrangement. Although she did most of the cooking, cleaning and errand running, Jack paid the majority of the bills. It was the way he wanted it, and she couldn’t afford to change things too drastically, at the moment. But some day she’d be making lots of money—at least, that was the goal.
“Why do all those stupid publishing people hate my book? It’s better than a lot of stuff out there. You liked it. Why don’t they?” Dropping onto the sofa, she heaved a dispirited sigh.
Samantha had aspirations of becoming the next Nora Roberts or Nora Ephron. But instead she was Nora Nobody, unpublished novelist at large. Maybe she needed a new pen name.
“Maybe I’m just not good enough. I should have stayed in Rhinebeck and worked on the family farm like my dad wanted me to.” Her parents would have loved nothing better than to keep her close at hand. Though Sam had appreciated their well-meaning advice, it had eventually become smothering and she’d needed to escape to live life on her own terms.
Taking a seat beside Samantha, Jack took her hand. “You know you are. Hell, you were always the smartest kid in class, acing all the tests, showing up the rest of us.”
Like that mattered, when my boobs were smaller than Suzy’s!
“I liked what I read, but the book’s not finished,” he continued. “You might have a better shot at selling it if you’d finish the damn thing. You’ve been working on it for years. You could have written the friggin’ history of the world by now.”
Samantha finally smiled. “The World According to Samantha. I like that.”
He patted her knee. “Don’t give up. There are still plenty of publishers out there you haven’t tried yet.”
“I’m on a first-name basis with many of their assistants. How pathetic is that?”
“Very, but only because you’ve been hounding them.”
“So I’m anal. Sue me. There are worse things to be. At least I follow up on things.”
He rose to his feet. “Great! Now just apply that tenacity to finishing your book. But in the meantime, I suggest you complete the magazine article you’re supposed to be sending off.”
“For someone who hates his boss, you’re very bossy, do you know that?”
“Yeah. But at least I’m not a prick like O’Leary. The selfish bastard is greedy and self-serving.”
Samantha knew Jack was unhappy with his job. She’d heard the frustration in his voice many times over when he talked about his new boss. “You should be working for yourself, Jack. You’re very talented. There are very few real estate agents in the business as good as you are. Must be your facility for bull-shit.” She smiled, and so did he.
“Thanks. But that’s the problem. O’Leary feels threatened. He’s been forcing me to work shitty hours on the floor. And on those rare occasions when he does give up a lead, either it’s lousy or he hands it off to someone else.”
“So quit! There’s nothing keeping you there. You’ve got your broker’s license.”
“That’s easier said than done when you have financial obligations.”
“Jack, you own several apartment buildings, including this one. You could probably support yourself on what you earn from those.”
“It’s not enough. I need more money in the bank before I can go out on my own. New York is an expensive city. Just the office space alone will cost me a fortune, not to mention the licenses, office furniture and personnel. Shall I go on?”
“You encouraged me when I was unsure about moving here and wanting to write. So now I’m saying the same to you—if you don’t try, you’ll never know if you can do it.”
“But what if I fail? I can’t allow myself to do that.”
“Why? Because of your father?” She shook her head. “How long are you going to let him run, or should I say ruin, your life?
“You’re nothing like Martin Turner. Your dad’s an alcoholic who never kept a steady job in his life. You’re already a much better man than he could ever hope to be.”
His eyes filled with pain despite her assurances. “Tell that to my mother. She never says a bad word about my dad. You’d think he was a saint instead of a lush.”
“Your mother is clinging to the memories of your father the way he was before he started drinking. But he wasn’t always that way, was he?”
“No,” he replied, bitterness edging his words. “He started after I was born. What does that tell you?”
Jack’s relationship with his family, especially his father, was a painful one. As a child, he’d been neglected and shoved aside, while his dad devoted his time to the bottle and Charlotte Turner devoted hers to an alcoholic husband who didn’t love her, and to trying to keep her miserable marriage intact.
He’d spent much of his childhood at the Brady home. Samantha’s parents had tried to provide Jack with a stable environment and the normalcy that was missing from his. And though Samantha understood and sympathized with his bitterness, she still wanted him to reconcile with his parents so he could put the past behind him and get on with his life. Until that happened he’d always be second-guessing everything he did.
“Have you called your mom lately?