Slow Hands

bank any day.”
    She let out her breath in an audible whoosh, which, considering she’d just gone through a whole lot of money, said a lot about how dark her expectations had been. “Okay.” Laughing lightly, she added, “It’s certainly not going to bounce.”
    As if. “Be sure you hold on to the canceled check. You’re going to need it come tax time.”
    “Why?” Her hand moved to his leg. “Do they allow deductions for, uh, this, now?”
    He covered her fingers with his, lifting them to his mouth to press a kiss there. “No. Because I signed it over to the Give A Kid A Christmas people.”
    Her fingers tensed against his mouth, but she didn’t pull away. Oh, sweet Maddy. He knew what she was thinking, what she was wondering. Should she be angry? Should she be hopeful?
    “I told you to do whatever you wanted with it.” She didn’t sound cold, merely alert, knowing, already, that there was more.
    “There’s no way in hell I’d take money to be with you.”
    “Jake…”
    He cut her off. “Let me clarify. There’s no way I’d ever take money to be with any woman. But especially not you.”
    At that, she did pull her hand away. They’d reached a stoplight a few blocks from the hotel, and he chanced a glance at her. Maddy was watching, her brow furrowed in confusion, her body tense. “I’m not following you.”
    So he told her. “I’m not who you think I am. I don’t know how it happened, but somebody messed up at that auction. I’m not bachelor nineteen, I’m number twenty.”
    “What?”
    “I mean, I know I was nineteenth. But it wasn’t my bio that was printed beneath my picture in the program. It wasn’t my life. I’m not the man you went there that night to find.” Ignoring the fact that the light had turned green, he urged her to understand. “It wasn’t me, Maddy.”
    It took her a few seconds. When understanding did wash over her, it did so instantaneously, and she gasped out loud, her jaw falling open. “Oh, my God.”
    “Yeah.”
    “You’re not…”
    “No.”
    “I mistook you for…”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Is your name Jake Wallace?” She still sounded dazed.
    “Of course. I am the man you’ve gotten to know since that night. The only thing you don’t know is that I’m a paramedic for the city of Chicago…not an ‘international playboy and lover of women.’” Or a hooker .
    Behind them, someone honked a horn, and he finally acknowledged that he’d been holding up traffic. He eased forward, spying the tall, high-rise hotel just ahead of them. Maddy remained silent, slumped back in her seat as he pulled into the parking garage rather than heading for the valet stand.
    They weren’t finished. They’d been late to the rehearsal, they could be late to dinner, as well.
    Maddy waited until they were tucked into a small-car spot in the basement garage before she came back at him with the accusation he’d been expecting. “You lied to me.”
    “I know.” He had no defense.
    “You let me believe it. Let me make a fool of myself and assume horrible things about you.”
    He reached for her, but she jerked away. “I know . But not from the very beginning. Call me dense, but it wasn’t until I went to meet you at the boat, and you explained how you ‘knew’ everything about me that I realized what the hell was going on.”
    Finally appearing more anguished than angry, she murmured, “I’m so sorry. God, how horribly offensive. How demanding and spoiled I must have sounded.”
    “Believe me, that first morning, those things you said…I was about as mad as I’ve ever been in my life. Not to mention stunned when you put forth your proposal that day on the boat. Right up until you told me who you assumed I was, and why.”
    “And then? What happened then?” she asked, coming to the most important part. The part where he’d have to make her understand why he’d done it, and make her believe in his genuine feelings now.
    But before he could open his mouth to say a single word, someone tapped on the passenger side window. Surprised, Jake and Maddy both looked out and saw the bride herself, nibbling the corner of her mouth, looking unsure and unhappy and utterly unlike a woman about to marry the man of her dreams.
    “Damn,” he said. “We need to finish this conversation.”
    “I know.”
    “Can you tell her we need a few more minutes?”
    Maddy pushed the button and lowered her window. “Hi, Tabby. Can you give us—”
    “I need to talk to