Slow Hands

how could she stay angry when he’d made her happier in the past two weeks than she’d ever been in her life?
    Seeing her sister reach the elevator and impatiently punch the up button, Maddy put a hand on Jake’s sleeve, stopping him, and turned to look up at him. He watched her with tender eyes, a loving expression. Loving .
    He hadn’t said it. He hadn’t claimed that’s what had driven him to pose as—oh, God, she still couldn’t believe the whole nightmarish mix-up had happened—a gigolo. This wonderful, funny, thoughtful, laid-back all-American family guy. What in the hell had she been smoking to believe his supposed vocation for one minute once she’d gotten to know him?
    Once she’d started to love him.
    “Thank you for telling me the truth. For not waiting until the end of the thirty days.”
    “I’m sorry I waited thirteen,” he admitted. Jake lifted a hand to her face. He touched her cheek, brushed his fingers through her hair, even rubbed the side of his thumb along her eyebrow, as if wanting to memorize it. “Thank you for not kicking me out of your life. I…”
    “Are you two going to stand there and make out or are you coming?”
    Maddy sighed heavily, saw her impatient sister peering at them from inside the elevator, holding the door open with one slim hand, and forced a smile. “Tonight,” she told him as they resumed walking. “Tonight, everything comes out. No more secrets. Then we see what we’re going to do about it.”
    For the first time since he’d started talking in the car, Jake appeared relaxed. Maybe even hopeful. “That’s a date.”
    Then they walked into the elevator. Tabby’s frown said she was still furious. Suspecting Tabby was hurt that Bradley hadn’t backed her up, on this, of all nights, Maddy acknowledged exactly what they were facing upstairs.
    Her sneaky, cheating, lying ex wasn’t such a big deal, at least not for her. But there were also a few women who thought the man holding her arm was a hot body for sale.
    “What a night,” she said as the elevator rose.
    “Yeah,” he agreed.
    “I don’t suppose you’d forgive me if I bailed, huh?” she asked Tabby.
    To her surprise, her sister’s expression wasn’t immediately indignant. Instead, Tabitha said, “I want you there. But I will understand if you’re not able to handle the drama. I’d bolt, in your shoes.”
    “Oh, she can handle it. We can both handle it,” Jake said. He dropped an arm across Maddy’s shoulders and tugged her close, asserting his claim and announcing his protection. He smiled down at her. “We’d just rather not expend the energy dealing with people who mean absolutely nothing to us.”
    “I like him,” Tabby said, smiling what looked like her first real smile all evening.
    Considering her sister had been her partner in crime, Maddy figured she should know the truth, too. “By the way…Jake is not who we—the world, the women at that auction—thought he was.”
    Her sister smirked, not believing it.
    “Doesn’t matter, babe,” Jake said.
    “Yes, it does.” Maddy continued, her no-nonsense tone finally getting her sister’s attention. “There was a printing error in the programs. I think the ‘international playboy’ was the man who came last. Jake’s a paramedic. A completely not-for-sale-at-any-price rescue worker.” She smiled up at him, shocked at how wonderful it felt to say the words out loud. To acknowledge the truth, and indulge in the feelings it engendered.
    “Oh, my God,” Tabby said, “you’re serious.” Her blue eyes grew wide as saucers. “You mean…you offered…he’s not a…”
    “No,” Jake said. “Definitely not.”
    “I am so sorry.” Then she gave him a once-over. “You could be, though. You have to admit that.”
    Laughing, he brushed off the assessment. “Forget it, no apology necessary. I suspect being mistaken for some male hooker might have been the best thing that ever happened to me.”
    And to her.
    She’d fallen in love with him when she’d thought he had a string of rich women following him around. Knowing he was a good-natured hero, well, just about every doubt she’d had about him had disappeared from her mind.
    Just about . There was, of course, still that tiny whisper in the back of her brain, reminding her that she knew better than to believe in true love or happily ever after. Despite the fact that, right now at least, she felt surrounded by it.
    Tabby loved her fiancé and he loved her. Dad