Page 15
Author: Bella Andre
Ethan Sullivan opened the door to his tricked-out bachelor pad with a grin. He shook Jack’s hand, and Mary loved the easy way it automatically turned into a hug.
“Ethan, I’d like you to meet Mary. ”
Just like Jack, Ethan was an extremely good-looking man. Tall, dark, and handsome obviously ran strong in the Sullivan gene pool. But where she was sure most women’s hearts probably beat a little faster for the wealthy man in the sharp, tailored suit, Mary felt nothing more than healthy female appreciation.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Ethan. ”
“Same here. Come on in. Max and Claudia will be here soon with their little guy. They would have been here earlier, but they called and said something about a diaper emergency. ”
“How long are you home this time?” Jack asked his brother while he poured drinks for them at the bar in the corner of the living room.
“Depends on how the deal I’m working on shakes out over the next couple of days. ” Ethan handed Mary a glass of white wine. “You must do a lot of traveling. ”
“I do. Or rather,” she amended, “I have in the past. ”
He raised an eyebrow in question, his gaze moving between Mary and his brother. “Have you made a change of plans recently?”
“I’ve been planning to move away from being in front of the camera for a while now,” she explained. “San Francisco seems like the perfect place to set down some roots and explore a few new directions. ”
She didn’t say that when she’d been looking at her options, she’d never for a moment thought that a man might factor into them. Because in the space of one short week, Jack Sullivan—and his incredible kisses—had started to change everything….
The sound of a laughing child came from outside Ethan’s front door. “I’ll get it,” Jack offered.
Jack and his brother from Seattle hugged and when they came into the living room, Jack was holding an adorable toddler. “Mary, this is Ian the Incredible. ”
Her heart melted as she looked at the gorgeous, dark-haired toddler. No question about it, Ian Sullivan was going to be a heartbreaker when he grew up.
“Hi, Mr. Incredible. It’s nice to meet you. ”
He looked at her with his big brown eyes and reached out to touch her hair. “You’re pretty. ”
Mary was blushing at his very sweet comment, when Jack said, “You got that right, little guy. ”
“I’m Claudia. ” The petite blonde who held out her hand was pregnant and glowing. “And this is my husband, Max. ”
Taking in the third specimen of Sullivan male perfection, Mary couldn’t help but think how her agent, Randy, would have salivated if he could see the brothers all together. As she shook everyone’s hand, Ian wriggled down out of Jack’s arms.
“We’re so glad you could be here with Jack tonight,” Claudia told her. “All this testosterone in one room can be a little overwhelming sometimes—even if,” she added in a lower voice, “it is nice to look at. ”
Mary couldn’t hold back her laughter. This was all so normal, and she loved that Claudia wasn’t gushing over her fame as a model. Instead, she was treating her just as she would any other woman her brother-in-law might bring with him to a family gathering.
Relaxing, Mary said, “When are you due?”
Claudia put her hand over her stomach. “Four mon—” Before she could finish answering, she was shooting off across the room to pick Ian up again before he could knock over a vase. Seeing this near miss, Max told Ethan, “I’m going to put a few things away before they end up in pieces on the floor. ”
“Sorry about running off in the middle of a sentence,” Claudia said to Mary when she came back, holding her son. “Look,” she told Ian as she put a soft blue bag down on the carpet, “Daddy brought in your toys. ”
He gave Mary a blindingly cute smile. “Play?”
Clearly, thought Mary as she grinned back at him, the straightforward Sullivan gene had passed through to the next generation, along with the good looks.
“I thought you’d never ask, Mr. Incredible. ”
Glad that she was wearing pants instead of a dress tonight, she sat down cross-legged on the floor with the toddler. He grabbed a puffy plastic book that she guessed did double duty for teething and baths, and climbed onto her lap.
“Read this. ”
He smelled so good she wanted to bury her face in his soft hair. Instead, she read the title, “The Sunshine Princess and the Stinky Dog. ”
The little boy in her lap held his nose and made a face. “He’s smelly. ”
Mary’s heart turned over inside her chest. She’d never wanted to be one of those girls in her village who married in their teens and were pregnant nine months later. And yet, for all her amazing experiences traveling the world, she’d never had this.
She opened the book up and began to read. “One day the Sunshine Princess was sitting in her bedroom looking out the window at the gray and gloomy day. ” For the next few minutes, while adult conversation went on around them, she and Ian got lost in the adventures of the stinky dog hiding from the princess who needed to give him a bath. On every page, Ian would point to something that made him laugh, and she was amazed by how much he noticed about the illustrations and the story.
The moment the story ended, he scrambled out of her lap, grabbed a cracker off the table and shoved it into his mouth in one bite. Mary was just starting to get up when Claudia gave her a hand.
“Thanks for reading to him. He really likes you. ”
“It was my pleasure. And I really like him, too. ”
“Ian is easy to like,” Claudia agreed. “Even being pregnant with him was easy. This pregnancy is, too, actually. I guess I’m one of those lucky ones, between Max, Ian and baby-on-the-way. ” She flushed. “I have a tendency to gush. ”
“If I were you, I’d be gushing, too. ”
They watched Ian repeatedly jump up to try to reach a signed baseball Ethan had on display on a shelf, his face a picture of concentration. “He really takes after his father,” Claudia said with a laugh. “Easygoing until he decides he wants something. And then there’s no changing his mind. ”
“That sounds familiar,” Mary murmured.
“Does it?” Claudia looked extremely pleased by that piece of information, but before she could say anything more, she was dashing across the room again to stop Ian from trying to climb up Ethan’s bookshelf as though it were a ladder.
Mary turned to pick up her glass of wine from the coffee table and found Jack looking at her. She’d seen desire on his face. She’d seen admiration and respect in his eyes. But until this moment, she’d never seen such warmth.
So much warmth that, if she didn’t know better, she would have said it looked like love.
Chapter Ten
“I never thought I’d see one of the world’s most beautiful fashion models sitting on the floor letting a kid drool all over her. ” Ethan shot Jack an incredulous look. “How’d you meet her again?”
“Pure luck. ” Jack still marveled over it. “Somewhere along the line, I must have done something right. ”
“That’s just how I felt the day I met Claudia,” Max said, looking across the room at his wife with love in his eyes. “And I’ve felt that every day since. ”
Jack had never tried to fight what he felt for Mary, not when it had been so strong and clear from that first moment they’d met in Union Square. But when he realized she was becoming more important to him than the work that had held his focus for over a decade, he thought he should at least try to apply to the two of them the same arguments and calculations that he had always lived by.
But it had taken him less than ten seconds of watching her read to his little nephew to realize that all the brilliant analysis in the world didn’t mean a damn thing when it came to love.
People had often called Jack Sullivan a genius. Now he?
??d finally prove they were right by being smart enough to listen to what was in his heart.
Jack wanted Mary as more than another business colleague. He wanted her as more than a stunningly beautiful woman who made his blood simmer.
He wanted her.
He wanted the woman who laughed so easily with a toddler. He wanted the woman whose skin was so soft, whose arms were so strong even as he tried to turn them to rubber with a kiss. He wanted the woman who possessed so much intelligence behind her shockingly beautiful face. He wanted the woman who took care of three young models so that their mothers would know they were safe.
Claudia put Ian into his arms. “It’s your turn to keep him out of trouble while I make good on my promise to put together something for us all to eat tonight. ”
Mary ran a hand over Ian’s soft, dark hair, then followed Claudia into the kitchen.
Mary drew Jack like a magnet, so he turned to Ian and asked, “Want to follow the pretty ladies to see what they have for us to munch on before dinner?”
Ian grinned at him, four sparkling white teeth in a mouthful of gums. “Want candy. ”
Jack laughed and gave the little boy a kiss on his forehead. “Let’s see what goodies we can find hiding in Uncle Ethan’s kitchen. ”
Maybe he should have been surprised to find Mary with her hands in flour and eggs at the kitchen counter while Claudia sat with her feet up on a chair, but he wasn’t. Yes, she was a gorgeous, successful model. But first and foremost, she was a woman who clearly enjoyed children and food.
“Mary offered to make fresh pasta,” Claudia told him as she sipped a club soda and relaxed deeper into her seat. “I assumed it would be too difficult to make at home, so I’ve always bought pasta at the store. Where did you learn to make it, Mary?”
Mary deftly brought the flour and eggs into a ball, then began to knead it on the kitchen counter. “I was barely older than Ian when my grandmother showed me how. Homemade pasta is a tradition in Italy. ”
“Is that where you’re from? I thought I heard the slightest hint of an accent. ”
“You should have seen how hard I worked to get rid of it when I moved to New York City. ” She laughed at herself. “I was so desperate to look and sound like everyone else back then. ”
“Are you kidding? I would have loved to have had an exotic accent like yours. I’m sure if I had,” Claudia joked, “the men would have been lining up around the block for me. ”
“You’re beautiful,” Mary said in her unaffected manner. “I’m sure the men were already lining up. ”
“Have I mentioned how much I like you yet?” Claudia shot a meaningful glance at Jack, one that he could see clearly asked, Have you convinced her to be yours yet?
He shot his sister-in-law back his own clear message: Trust me, I’m working on it.
“I’d love to know how you and Max met, Claudia. ”
“I was dating Max’s best friend, actually. It was all very scandalous, and we both tried to fight what we felt for each other for a long time, because we didn’t want to hurt anyone. But eventually, neither of us could fight what was meant to be. Even if it meant hurting someone we both cared about. ”
As Max and Ethan came into the kitchen, Claudia told them, “I was just telling Mary how we met. ”
“Have you gotten to the stolen kisses part yet?” Max asked as he leaned down to give her one.
“I love hearing tales of true love,” Mary said with a small smile. “My mother and father are like that. There’s nothing they wouldn’t do for each other. Nothing they wouldn’t support each other in. ”
The longing on her face had Jack nearly moving to pull her into his arms and kiss her, too, in front of everyone. And he might have if Ian hadn’t poked at his cheek and said, “Thirsty. ” Knowing that kissing Jack in public—especially in front of his family—was the last thing Mary would want to do, Jack knew it was something he had to resist…for now.