Page 21 of And I Love Her

“Yes, but I had to do an extra-credit presentation on—”

“The influence of Greco-Roman ideas on the US government!” The truth struck her like one of Zeus’s lightning bolts. She sat up, a combination of shock and excitement spiraling through her. “You’re Jake Ryan.”

His eyes widened for an instant before a grin spread over his face, bringing out a set of dimples that infused him with boyish charm. “You remember me because of my history presentation?”

“Of course.” Her pulse accelerated, as if she was inching up the hill of a roller coaster with the anticipation of an exhilarating swoop downward.Jake Ryan.“I remember how engaging it was, and that you brought in all these audio-visuals and the Greek honey puffs, and the color-coded chart about the constitution of the Roman Republic. Mrs. Swanson even said in front of the class how impressed she was, and that was a huge deal for her.”

“Idon’t even remember all that.” A laugh rumbled from him again. “I just had to get my grade back up or the coach was going to cut me from the football team. So I recruited my sister to help me and pulled out all the stops.”

“It worked.” She sat back, twin currents of pleasure and bafflement running through her. “Wow. Jake Ryan. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you sooner. I mean, youreyesare so…anyway. What in the world are you doing here? Both here in my office and in Bliss Cove?”

A sudden cloud seemed to descend over him. He looked past her shoulder to the poster of the Acropolis on the opposite wall.

“What I’m doing in Bliss Cove is a long story for another time.” He took hold of his black-framed glasses and pulled them off. “What I’m doing in your office has a much simpler answer. To be honest, I couldn’t place you yesterday either. It wasn’t until I stopped by your mom’s bakery and saw the resemblance to your sister that it clicked.”

“You went to Sugar Joy?”

For some reason, the idea of him interacting with her mother and sister was…disconcerting. Especially since Aria and Eleanor had been on her case about dating right after her breathless encounter with Jake in the elevator.

Except she hadn’t know he was Jake Ryan then.

Now she did. And her intensepulltoward him was taking on the magnitude of the earth’s gravity.

“I used to stop at Sugar Joy all the time.” He folded the glasses and tucked them into his hoodie pocket. “Your mom’s Chaos Cookies were hard to pass up. Still are, as a matter of fact. I looked you up on the department website when I was at the bakery. Not many people from our graduating class are still in town, so I decided to come find you.”

“I’m glad you did.”

She looked him over without self-consciousness this time, like anyone would study a person they hadn’t seen in fifteen years. Though in high school she’d been intensely focused on her grades and college admissions, she hadn’t been immune to boys—especially ones with killer smiles and floppy dark hair.

Wait a minute.

She squinted at his uniform yellow hair. It was the color of corn and lacked the natural highlights that had once made his hair gleam in the sun. At lunch, he’d sit with his friends in the grassy quad, and the sunlight had justpouredonto his gorgeous chocolate-brown hair, intensifying the darker undertones of warm caramel, cinnamon, toffee…

Oh, yes. When she’d looked up from her books, she’d noticed Jake Ryan all right. But he hadn’t noticed her.

Her stomach rumbled again. Callie winced, battling back a flush. “Sorry.”

“No, I am.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s probably your lunch hour, and it was rude of me to show up without calling first.”

“It’s okay.” She couldn’t stop looking at his hair. “So you…uh, changed your hair.”

His expression twisted into a grimace. “Sort of.”

“More thansort of. You used to have such great hair.”

He grabbed the edge of his hair at his nape. Before Callie could figure out what the heck he was doing, he tugged the heavy mat of yellow hair over his head and dropped it onto his lap.

Callie stared at the thing like it was road kill. “A wig?”

“Yeah.” He lifted his arm, drawing her attention upward again. Then he dragged his hand through hisdarkhair, which was exactly as gorgeous and tempting as she remembered—thick, multiple shades of brown, and so shiny that even now she clenched her hand against the urge to touch it.

She forced her gaze back to his. Jake Ryan, in all his chiseled, masculine beauty. Her heart constricted with both pleasure and a longing she didn’t want to acknowledge.

“What…” She swallowed to ease her dry throat. “Why were you in disguise…oh.”

Good god. He was amovie star. She’d been so caught up in “Jake Ryan from Bliss Cove High” that she’d totally forgotten he was “JAKE RYAN, international mega-star of a bunch of action movies that had made a gazillion dollars at the box office.”

“Are you filming a movie?” She twisted her hands together. “Was that your costume?”

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