Slow Hands

romantic, huh?” The image didn’t quite fit with the “ruthless mogul” the papers made him out to be.
    “Don’t go there.”
    “Touchy subject?”
    “His romantic track record’s not exactly one for the books. Yet he still wants everything to be roses and fairy tales, true love all around, as impossible as that may be.”
    They crossed the street with the rest of the streaming flow of humanity. On a sunny summer afternoon, everyone stepped outside to bask in the sunlight. And many of them did it at Millennium Park. That was where he intended to take Madeline after they grabbed a take-out lunch. He sensed she wasn’t the picnicking type, especially in the middle of a workday, but he intended to try to convince her, anyway.
    “Why is it impossible?” he asked as they stepped onto the opposite sidewalk.
    “What?” she asked, glancing up at him in confusion, obviously having forgotten what she’d just said.
    That said a lot. Mainly that she didn’t think about love very often. He tucked the realization away, knowing he’d have to get to know this woman bit by bit, piece by piece, because that was all she was going to allow until she let her guard down.
    “Why is falling in love impossible?”
    She sighed as they continued walking. “ Falling in love isn’t the problem,” she murmured. “It’s the staying in love part that I don’t have much faith in.”
    “I have two parents, four grandparents, and about fifty aunts, uncles, cousins and friends who’d say you’re wrong about that.”
    She finally turned to really look at him, a hard, skeptical glint appearing in those big brown eyes. That was when he knew—the woman had been burned. Badly. The realization made something twist inside him, deep down, to the nice-guy core who detested the jerks who hurt women.
    “And I have a father, a sister, a couple of former stepmothers, several cousins, aunts, uncles and friends who say I’m right.”
    He gaped. “Not a single successful marriage in the bunch?”
    Her gaze shifted, her lashes lowering over suddenly sad eyes. “My parents were supposedly happy.”
    Confused, he waited for her to continue.
    “My mother died when I was very young. My father once said the years he spent with her were the most blissful of his life.”
    “So it is possible.”
    “They were only married for five years before she got sick.”
    “God, you’re a pessimist.”
    “And you’re an optimist?”
    “Hell, yes. My glass may only hold beer instead of champagne, but it’s almost always half full.”
    Jake had seen too much sadness and tragedy in his work to let himself feel anything but intensely grateful for all the good things in his life. His family, the great childhood, his job, his friends.
    And now…well, now, maybe Madeline Turner. If only she’d let him get close enough to find out.
    “So, what do you want to grab for lunch?” he asked, still not telling her he intended to get her to the park so she could unwind, unbend, maybe let her guard down a little.
    He wanted to see the breeze off the lake blowing in her hair. Wanted to see another genuine smile, maybe even a flash of unguarded interest, as he’d seen in her eyes earlier in her office. Just like the flash that she had obviously seen the other night when they’d met.
    Women hated being objectified, he knew that. And Jake had never—ever—treated any woman like a sexy body with a head stuck on it. But pausing to appreciate the soft, mouthwatering curves on this particular one had been as instinctive to him as drawing in his next breath of fresh June air.
    She’d noticed. He’d noticed her noticing. Even now his hands tightened and his mouth hungered at the thought of watching her shimmy out of that glittering blue cocktail dress she’d had on.
    He’d wager she’d been wearing something very black, very silky and very sinful underneath it. The thought of exactly what that might have looked like against the unbelievably lush curves of her body had been enough to keep his imagination racing and his libido roaring throughout the long, sleepless night after she’d left.
    He sensed tonight wouldn’t be much better, though she couldn’t look more different than she had then. Today, dressed in her businesswoman’s armor—a tailored light blue suit, silky blouse, skirt short enough to show a stunning pair of legs, but not so short that she’d send a man into cardiac arrest—she looked entirely in control. Every hint of the sexy,