The Millionaire's Club: Jacob, Logan and Marc. Brenda Jackson
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makes you think that I—the hypothetical outlaw—didn’t come back and dig up the gold later?”
“Because there are absolutely no accounts of Jess Golden ever being spotted in or around Royal again. Ever. And the gold was in the form of numbered bars. If they’d been converted to cash, there would be a record. There’s not. I checked.”
She was thorough. He’d give her that. And he’d give her something else. She hid it well, but there was a treasure trove of pent-up passion buried beneath the layers that comprised Chrissie Travers. At least she had passion about this issue. He suspected there might be something else that would fire her up and toyed with the idea of being the man to discover exactly what that something was.
The prospect of peeling those layers and discovering, little by little, the woman hiding behind the steel facade suddenly fascinated him. For years he’d found a certain sophomoric satisfaction in simply pulling her chain, then leaving her stewing in her own juices.
He didn’t feel so much like leaving now. Instead he felt as if maybe he owed it to her to help her come out of her cocoon. Yeah, he thought, warming to the idea. And maybe he owed it to himself to see whether a butterfly or a bug wiggled its way out.
“Tell you what,” he said, putting his money on the butterfly. “Since you’ve made such a compelling argument—” he reached for the ketchup bottle and dumped a generous glob on top of her uneaten French fries “—I think you deserve to have the box.”
“But?”
He smiled at her insight and helped himself to some of her fries. “But there are still conditions.”
He was getting a little addicted to that icy glare. He didn’t know anyone who did it so well. He swiped a few more fries. “Condition number one—you eat at least half of your burger and some of the fries.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Pretty minor, really.”
She leaned back in the booth, her head tilted with both impatience and irritation. “What do you want from me? Why do you take such pleasure in baiting me?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, I didn’t have a clear answer to that question myself until a few minutes ago.”
“And what happened to clear things up?”
“I think it’s the freckles,” he said happily and watched her eyes shift from irritation to confusion to flat-out exasperation. “They’re cute. And so are you. Now eat your lunch and then we’ll lay out the rest of the terms.”
“And one of the conditions is a dinner date?” Alison asked later that evening. She sounded just a little too cheery to suit Christine.
Actually Jacob never did get around to talking about terms. He’d said they would discuss them over dinner. Which was not a date.
“A dinner meeting,” Christine clarified. “Saturday night.”
She still couldn’t believe she’d agreed to it. Not only that, she didn’t want to believe it. The man was devious and manipulative and…and he thought she was cute. Right. As if she believed that.
“What do you suppose he’s really after?” she asked Alison as they sat side by side on Christine’s sofa, wearing their sweats, a popcorn bowl between them, their stocking feet propped on the coffee table as the opening credits to the movie Alison had chosen for their traditional “Wednesday night at the movies” rolled by.
“What’s he after? Sweetie, I’ve been trying to tell you. He’s after you,” Alison said, grabbing a pillow and hugging it to her chest. “This is a tearjerker,” she added offhandedly as if she hadn’t just made the most ridiculous statement of the year.
“He is not after me,” Christine insisted and dug into the popcorn.
“So why did he fabricate yet another excuse to see you in the guise of leveling conditions on giving you Jess Golden’s things? No man goes to those lengths to tease a woman unless it’s because he’s interested in her.”
There was no convincing Alison otherwise, so Christine let it drop. She watched the movie. And told herself Alison was all wet. Jacob Thorne was not interested in her. It didn’t make any sense that he would be. A man like him. A woman like her. Talk about oil and water.
“So. Where are you two going on your second date?”
“It’s not a date,” Christine insisted. “And where do you get second?”
“Who paid for lunch?”
“Well, he did but—”
“Then it’s a second date. Now, where are you going?”
“Claire’s,” she finally confessed.
“Oh là là! Big-time date.”
Christine only grunted. She’d never been to Royal’s swanky French restaurant. Claire’s wasn’t exactly in her everyday budget. Or even in her special-occasion budget, for that matter. And while she wasn’t looking forward to spending an evening—that was not a date—in Thorne’s company, she couldn’t help but be excited about getting a little taste of how the upper crust lived.
“What are you going to wear?”
Christine shrugged and feigned interest in the movie. “I hadn’t really thought about it.” Okay. That was a lie. It’s all she’d thought about. “Probably my black pantsuit.”
Alison sat up straight. “Eeewwww. You can’t go to Claire’s in that boxy old thing.”
“What do you mean, old thing? It’s only—” She stopped and thought. Hmm. It had been a long time since she’d bought the suit.
“Tomorrow we’re going shopping during our lunch hour,” Alison said. “And you’re going to buy something sexy.”
“I am not.”
“Are, too.”
“I. Am. Not.”
“We’ll see,” Alison said. “Now let’s watch the movie. I’m due for a good cry.”
The dress was black. And short. And low cut.
The heels were silver. And spiked. And strappy. And they showed off siren-red toenail polish that Alison had insisted was perfect for the total look.
She had a look, all right, Christine thought, hovering just one notch to the left of panicked on Saturday night. A look she’d never in a million years thought she could pull off. Yet as she took it all in—experiencing a mixture of disbelief and shock and a pleasurable womanly confidence—in her full-length bedroom mirror, Christine had to admit Alison was right.
She looked hot.
“Okay. That settles it. I’m changing.”
Alison laughed. “Don’t even think about it,” she said, standing behind her like a drill sergeant.
Right. She’d forgotten about Alison for a minute there. Her friend had insisted she help Christine get ready for her dinner meeting and then informed her she was going to stick around until Jacob arrived just to make sure she didn’t chicken out and ditch the new duds for the black pantsuit.
“Alison, I look ridiculous.”
“You look fabulous.”
“I look obvious.”
“I really like the hair, too,” Alison added, ignoring Christine’s discomfort.
Yeah. Christine had to admit Alison was right about that, too. Her hair did look great. Alison had scooped it up to the crown of her head and wrestled it into a spiky little puff that looked chic and hip and—yeah, she admitted, still amazed—sexy.
It was a word that had