Page 29 of Second Act
“You don’t have to feel sorry for him anymore. He’s blissfully married. In fact, his new wife is the one who convinced him to give Julian a normal, wholesome love interest.” Hugh’s expression held a trace of longing as he spoke of Gavin’s life.
“So she helps him write?” A pang of guilt hit Jessica. Did Hugh envy Gavin having a wife who participated willingly in his working life?
“He calls Allie his muse, so I suppose she does in some way.” He surveyed the array of half-eaten food in front of Jessica and gave herone of his disarming smiles. “I bathed and fed you, so you must repay me with the story of your life.”
“Is that a line from a movie?” she asked with suspicion. He sometimes borrowed from film scripts.
“C’mon, Jess, tell me how you ended up in New York City. It’s not where I imagined you.”
She began to cut the remainder of her pancakes into tiny pieces and wished she’d insisted on changing into her clothes. They would provide some psychological armor. “After we split up, I didn’t want to be in LA anymore. Too many memories.” She gave him a quick upward glance to find him looking unhappy. “So I e-mailed my favorite professor at Iowa State about a difficult case I was treating at the animal hospital and mentioned I was looking to relocate. Another of her students had started a practice in South Harlem, but the vet’s father had gotten very sick, so she needed to go home to Iowa to help him. My prof asked if I’d be interested in taking over.”
She looked at Hugh again. His turquoise eyes were laser focused on her while his dark brows were drawn down in a furrow. “It was about as far away from LA as I could get, so I jumped at it. I also wanted to practice normal veterinary medicine, rather than getting nothing but high-pressure emergencies all the time.”
“It appears that you get your fair share of emergencies here,” he said with a dry note in his voice.
“Life would be boring if I didn’t face the occasional challenge,” she said, arranging the pieces of pancake into a pattern on the plate. She didn’t want to see any of the emotions crossing Hugh’s face.
“Do you enjoy the work?”
“Very much. My patients’ owners are so appreciative of what I do. My staff is awesome. And the community supports the clinic.” She smiled, feeling on safe ground now. “The Carver Center’s K-9 Angelz program is an incredible benefit to the kids there.”
“Actually, I’d like to tour the center.” He hesitated a moment before saying, “I have a foundation that funds programs for disadvantaged kids. Maybe it could help the K-9 Angelz, too.”
“That would be terrific. I’ll let Emily know.” She smiled. “I should have guessed you’d be involved with helping kids. Why have I never heard about it? Your PR people should be all over that.”
“My foundation is not about photo ops. It’s about saving as many kids as I can from what I went through.” His face was tight with annoyance.
“Hey, don’t bite my head off! I just thought other people might donate money if Hugh Baker’s name was associated with it.”
“Sorry.” He raked his fingers through his hair, making her remember the satin feel of it against her own hands. “I’ve had to battle hard to keep that part of my life private. The kids shouldn’t be scrubbed and decked out in their best thirdhand clothes before being paraded in front of a bank of cameras so that I look virtuous to my adoring fans.”
“I get it. You don’t want a cause you care about on a personal level turned into a media circus.”
He fixed his gaze on his empty plate and spoke in a strained voice. “When I was in the group home and prospective foster parents were scheduled to visit, they made us shower, brush our teeth and hair, and put on our least ratty clothes before they lined us up in the living room. We knew we were on display, and we hated it. The reek of desperation in that room...” His voice trailed off and she knew he was lost in the terrible memory.
Reaching out, she laid her hand over his where it rested on the tablecloth, the sharp bumps of his knuckles pressing into her palm. “Look where you are now. You’ve left all that behind you.”
He lifted his head, his features hard with the bleakness of his past. “You never leave it behind.”
Her heart wrenched in her chest. He might have a face that sold millions of movie tickets, but behind it was still Hugh, the man she’dwanted to love for the rest of her life. Feelings she’d thought long gone rioted through her.
She pulled her hand away from his and pushed back her chair. “May I have my clean clothes so I can go home?”
He was out of his chair and around the table before she had finished standing up. He gripped her shoulders as he had upstairs and looked down at her. “Stay. Please. It’s so good to see you. I’ve missed you.”
His voice rumbled, low and persuasive, playing her nerves and emotions like a violin. The strength of his hands on her shoulders sent a thrill of sexual awareness curling through her. The scent of sandalwood and Hugh enveloped her in a sensual cloud.
She felt her body soften and melt, yearning toward the man she’d given her heart and soul to without reservation eight years before. And madness seized her. It had been so long since she’d felt this way, so cared about, so focused on, so worthy of attention. She wanted to feel it again, just once more.
She thrust her fingers into the silky darkness of his hair and rose on her tiptoes, finding his lips with hers, feeling the electricity crackle between them as their bodies pressed together. Her breasts ached with pleasure when the hard wall of his chest crushed them.
“Jess,” he breathed into her mouth before he grasped the back of her head in one hand and wound his other arm around her waist to yank her against him. The kiss exploded into demand and answer, setting her alight with delicious sensation.
No matter what he had become in the last eight years, her body still knew him on the most primitive level as her mate. And it responded with abandon, desire sliding downward to turn hot and liquid within her.
She released his hair and shoved her hands up under his sweater to feel the texture of his skin and the springy hair running down the center of his torso. The muscles of his abdomen tightened, and he moaned into her mouth.
She felt a jerk on her sash and then her robe was pulled open. A brief draft of cooler air drifted across her skin before his hands cupped her buttocks under the sumptuous fabric, his fingers kneading close to her yearning as he held her belly tight against his erection.
