Impossible to Resist. Janice Maynard
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But you’re leaving tomorrow, right?”
She nodded. “I have lots to do at home to get ready for the trip. I’m guessing that you will, as well.”
“Indeed. Starting with an edited but truthful explanation for my family as to why I’m jetting off to the Caribbean on a whim.”
“Why does it have to be edited? Couldn’t you just call it a vacation?”
“I want to protect your privacy. And I don’t take vacations.”
She flushed. “You’ll think of something.” While Jacob leaned a hip against the back of the sofa, she stood up to prowl, her nervous energy palpable. A Barbie doll peeking from beneath a chair caught her attention. She picked it up. “Is this for research purposes?”
“I have a brand-new niece … not an infant,” he hastened to explain. “But Kieran recently found out he has a daughter. Cammie. She must have left it when they were here last.”
Ariel’s expression was wistful. “How old is she?”
“Five. Starting kindergarten. We’ve all fallen in love with her.” He paused, struck by the naked longing he saw on her face. “Do you want to have children one day?”
She set the doll on the coffee table and shoved her hands in her back pockets. “It’s tough to give kids a normal life in Hollywood.”
“Some people manage.”
“I don’t think I’d be good at it. Motherhood, I mean. I have too many bad habits, too many faults. What kind of example would I be?”
He cocked his head, trying to decipher the words between the lines. “The idea of a perfect mother is a myth.”
“You haven’t met my mom.”
“Perhaps I’ll get to one day.”
She shrugged. “Doubtful.” With an almost visible effort, she slipped back into movie star mode. “I’m hungry,” she said with a winsome smile. “Do you cook?”
“Only the basics. We can always go up to the main house and have dinner with the extended family. I can make up some excuse for why you’re here.”
Unease skittered across her face. “Let’s not. I’m sure they are charming people, but they’ll want to ask questions and talk movies, and I’m—” She stopped abruptly.
“You’re …?”
“I don’t know. Tired, I guess. I like your house. It’s peaceful. Do you have a pantry?”
There she went again, dragging the conversation off on a tangent. “I do,” he conceded. “But I’m not sure how well it’s stocked.”
She paused beside him during one circuit of the living room, her breast almost brushing his shoulder. “Let’s go check it out. It will be fun.”
Bemused, he stood up and directed her toward his large kitchen. His cousin, Annalise, had contributed to the design here. Top-of-the-line appliances and countertops in black granite speckled with gray adorned this room where he seldom spent time. It was easier to hop up the hill when he wanted more than a peanut butter sandwich.
Ariel paused, hands on hips, and scanned the area. “Nice,” she said. “Nothing a few red dishcloths couldn’t spruce up. Why do you have such a fancy kitchen if all of you eat together in the castle?”
“We don’t always. I suppose it seems odd to outsiders, but my father and Uncle Vincent hold court every evening. Now that my two brothers are married, they’re often tucked away in their own houses. But my cousins and I may or may not show up at the Wolff dinner table depending on our schedules. And Gareth and Kieran are welcome with their new brides. It’s sort of an open door policy.”
“I feel sorry for the chef. Meal planning must be a nightmare.”
Jacob had never really thought about it. “The kitchen staff is compensated well,” he said, ruefully noting the defensiveness in his voice. Again, Ariel had put him at a disadvantage. Certainly she was surrounded by a host of people to do her bidding on any given day. And yet somehow she seemed more clued in than most about other perspectives than her own.
The copper-bottomed pots hanging overhead caught her attention. “Here’s some color,” she teased.
“I could probably dig up a blue pot holder if it would make you feel better.”
She ignored him, flinging open the door to the roomy pantry. “Heads up, Doc.” He nearly dropped the bag of flour she tossed in his direction. It was a good thing he was ready for the cans of peaches and blueberries. The fusillade continued until he was hard-pressed to juggle the assortment of groceries.
Finally she was satisfied.
Leaving him to carefully deposit the pile of supplies on the counter, she began flinging open cabinets willy-nilly. Watching Ariel bend over was not the smartest thing Jacob had ever done. Her heart-shaped ass was delineated beautifully in soft, faded denim. His hands itched to palm her butt.
Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest. “May I ask what you have in mind?”
She straightened, a shallow pan in her hand. “Fruit crepes à la Ariel. And bacon if you have any.”
His mouth watered while his stomach, for an instant, took precedence over his baser instincts.
“You don’t have to cook for me. We have thirty or forty employees on staff.”
She twirled the pan, placed it on the stove, and reached in the fridge for butter and bacon. “I like being waited on as much as the next girl,” she said, her voice muffled. “But it’s kinda nice to be alone, don’t you think?”
As her seemingly innocuous words sank into his brain, she straightened. “Sit on a stool and talk to me.”
“This is my house,” he muttered, the statement a complaint and a reminder to himself. Her loose ponytail exposed a swanlike neck.
“Well, so what. Get over it, Doc. How do you like your bacon?”
“Crisp,” he sighed. They chatted while Ariel prepared the meal. On the surface, their conversation was completely ordinary. But something about Ariel’s husky voice made the most banal comments sound like an invitation into her bed.
And at the moment, her bed was in Jacob’s house.
“Do you have relationships with a lot of your leading men?” he asked bluntly.
Her hand stilled, spatula suspended over the thin egg mixture. “Define relationship.” Her head was bent, only her profile visible.
“You know what I mean.”
She flipped the second crepe onto a plate warming on the side of the stove and shot him a cool glance. “Are we going to share notes on our sex lives? I’m all agog. I hear that doctors are a hot ticket item in the dating pool. You must have plenty of notches in the old bedpost. Orange juice?”
The juxtaposition of her prosaic question with the flammable topic silenced him as he followed her to the small table in the breakfast nook. As she shook out her napkin and took a seat, he realized she wasn’t going to answer him. He should be ashamed of his probing question, but he wasn’t. He told himself the information might have implications about her general health, but the truth was, he was jealous as hell.
And angry, if he were honest. Ariel was hardly the first talented young actress to fall victim to immaturity. She wasn’t exactly Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears, but she had scored her own share of the tabloid pages.
She said she didn’t drink, and Jacob had seen no evidence of drug use. But there had been plenty of men. Lots of men. One who was even old enough to be her father. Had her mother been unable to protect her from the predators who were lured by Ariel’s fresh-faced innocence and joie de vivre?
Okay, so