Naughty or Nice? Read online

  “So is Kat, isn’t she?” Jack asked. She was Caucasian, she had an English surname, and St. Bart’s was an Episcopal church, making her pretty much the quintessential white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

  “Kat’s a recovering WASP,” Chantal explained. “With Preston it’s like a religion. The country clubs, the stuffy law practice . . . He even lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, which is, like, the old-money capital of the universe.”

  In fact, Preston Worth hadn’t lived in Greenwich since he went away to college, and his older brother had inherited the family manse. He and Celeste lived in a penthouse coop in the San Remo on Central Park West. Jack assumed he’d given Kat a false—and distant—address, probably his brother’s, so that she wouldn’t take it into her head to just drop by someday.

  “My God,” he whispered, gazing through the doorway at Kat, who’d donned a ridiculous fuzzy Santa hat. She noticed him looking at her, and adopted a vampish, hipshot pose so out of character with the hat—and her true personality, he now knew—that Jack couldn’t help laughing. She laughed, too, her gaze linked with his across two crowded rooms, until somebody tapped her on the shoulder and she turned away.

  She really doesn’t know, he thought dazedly. Preston was duping her, playing her along. The reason she seemed so guileless, so sincere, was because she really was.

  From his years of dealing with cuckolded wives, Jack knew that the pure of heart were sometimes the easiest to deceive, because they projected their virtue onto those around them. To a woman like that, the notion of the man she loved lying to her face was inconceivable . . . and ultimately devastating.

  The weeping of the Wronged Wives, that was the worst.

  But she deserves to know, Jack thought as he watched Katherine Peale laughing with her guests. She needed to know, even if it broke her heart, even if she ended up loathing Jack for telling her.

  She would loathe him if he just blurted it all out: The guy you’re seeing is married, and the reason I know is I was hired by his wife to steal you away from him. She would dump Preston, of that he had little doubt at this point. Jack would get his money.

  But she would despise him for deceiving her. He imagined the look on her face, the hurt . . . fifty grand wouldn’t make up for it.

  How to go about it, then, without tipping his hand?

  “What Kat needs,” Chantal said, “is some nice, normal, regular guy who fell for her before he even knew about her family’s money.” She caught his eye and smiled meaningfully.

  “And he should be young,” Pia added. “Or at least not old enough to be her father. And cute. Oh, and tall.”

  “And ripped.” Chantal eyed Jack appraisingly. “How are you in the pecs and abs department?”

  Pia prodded his stomach through his shirt. “Omigod, Chantal, I think he’s hiding a six-pack under there.”

  “You should go for it,” Chantal said.

  Pia nodded soberly. “You should steal her from Preston.”

  Jack sighed and reached for his drink.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “You guys rocked,” Kat praised as she high-fived the two dozen adolescent members of the Augusta House Choralists at the conclusion of their mini-concert that evening. Led by Pia, they had opened with a mellifluous “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” that had brought tears to Kat’s eyes—and, she noted with interest, to Kirsten Livermore’s, as well. “Jingle Bell Rock” came next, and it was a rousing change of pace, but the real showstopper came at the end—a delicately harmonized Renaissance piece in Latin, which segued into an exhilarating “Feliz Navidad” that had everyone, chorus and guests alike, dancing and singing along.

  Except for Jack, who sat halfway up the stairs the whole time, nursing a drink—he’d switched to club soda and lime, she noticed—and watching the revelry with mystified detachment, as if it were the arcane ritual of some long-lost tribe. In fact, it wasn’t until the party started breaking up about forty-five minutes later that he came back downstairs, joining Kat, Chantal, and Pia as they emptied wrapped presents from a giant laundry basket onto the rosewood console table by the front door.

  “Yo, Jack.” Chantal shook her head as he approached. “Kat wasn’t kidding when she called you a Grinch, was she?”

  He smiled a little sheepishly. “Let’s just say my festivity threshold is a little on the low side.” Nodding toward the presents, he asked, “Who are those for?”

  “The kids in the chorus,” Kat said as she sorted them into three distinct piles. “To thank them for coming out and doing this tonight. Each kid is getting a book, a portable CD player, and half a dozen Christmas cookies.”

  “Those awesome ones with the almond extract?” Pia asked.

  Kat nodded. “I baked them this afternoon.”

  Chantal was stacking the books into an elaborate pyramid. “They’re gonna sing again on Tuesday, right?”

  “Absolutely,” Pia said. “Eight songs. They’ve been practicing like demons.”

  “What’s happening on Tuesday?” Jack asked.

  “It’s this holiday celebrated by Christians around the world,” Pia explained as if addressing a toddler, “where people—not you, maybe, but normal people—exchange gifts and—”

  “Oh, cut the poor guy some slack,” Kat chuckled. “There’s going to be a big party at Augusta House on Tuesday. It’s to celebrate all the winter holidays, not just Christmas, and it’s also to recognize our first full year of operation.”

  Chantal said, “Kat’s cooking a turkey dinner for three hundred.”

  “I’m supervising the cooking of a turkey dinner for three hundred,” Kat corrected.

  “And we’re gonna have games with prizes,” Chantal continued, “and Kwanzaa and Hanukkah activities. Oh, and my brother Calvin’s gonna play Santa and hand out presents. It’ll be great.”

  “Assuming we can get the communal room ready in time,” Pia said. “It’s a disaster. It used to be a sort of combination cafeteria and auditorium, and it’s never really been fixed up, ’cause our priority was turning classrooms into apartments. In fact, during the remodeling it got filled up with old desks, blackboards, gym equipment—if the workmen didn’t know what to do with something, it went there. But Tuesday’s just four days from now, so we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

  Kat said, “It’s going to take the whole weekend to get that room ready. Tomorrow we’ll concentrate on getting all the furniture and debris cleared out, then Sunday we clean and decorate. Us and the Augusta House families.”

  “Hey, Jack,” Chantal said a little too casually as she placed the last book atop her pyramid. “You doing anything tomorrow? There won’t be many guys there to help out, and there’s gonna be a ton of stuff to pick up and haul away.”

  He grinned. “Is that all us men are good for?”

  “You give me a minute, I’ll come up with one or two other things,” she answered with an impish grin.

  “You’ve talked me into it,” he chuckled.

  It didn’t take much, Kat thought, her stomach tightening with a sensation that she recognized, to her chagrin, as jealousy. Pia and Chantal had monopolized Jack almost the entire evening. On those rare occasions when the two women broke out of their cozy little huddle, it was to issue breathless reports to Kat about how sweet and funny Jack was, and how tall and buff and completely babe-alicious.

  Kat wondered which one he’d gravitate to, Pia or Chantal. They were both young—well, youngish—and pretty and ultra-personable. And currently unattached.

  Layered over Kat’s jealousy was a fair measure of guilt. She was attached. She had Preston. As far as he was concerned, they were as much an item as ever. Until she worked through her reservations about the relationship and either committed to him or ended it, she shouldn’t be thinking about Jack. Much less wondering, as she’d found herself doing this past week, what it would be like to make love to a man who looked at her the way he did.

  And, oh God, last night she’d dreamed about him. She’d awakened gasping an
d sheened with sweat, his name a tremulous whisper in her ears. As she lay there in the dark, images from the dream began scrolling across her mental movie screen . . . their mouths meeting hungrily . . . his hands everywhere on her, shaping, stroking . . . him rearing over her, pressing into her . . .

  She’d slapped a hand over her eyes, pulled a pillow over her head. Still, the images wouldn’t stop coming . . .

  “Since you’re feeling so agreeable,” Pia told Jack, “maybe you’d like to help us hand out these gifts to the kids as they leave.”

  “Um . . .” Jack looked from Pia to the gift-laden table to the kids bundling into their coats and gloves. “I guess . . .”

  “Great. Just put on one of these.” Reaching into the laundry basket, Pia withdrew several red and white Santa hats like the one Kat had on earlier.

  “Whoa.” Jack took a step back, hands up. “No way. Sorry, but . . .”

  “Not your scene?” Chantal cocked an eyebrow at him.

  “You worried about looking silly?” Pia pulled on one of the hats and handed one each to Kat and Chantal. “Or is it just the whole Christmas thing?”

  “A little bit of both, I guess.”

  Jack looked almost sad, or at least thoughtful, as he watched Kat and her friends hand out the gifts to the departing chorus members. It was as she was saying goodbye to the last few guests that he suggested that he linger for a while to look the apartment over with an eye toward giving her a quote on a security system; that had, of course, been why she’d invited him here in the first place.

  While the caterer and his staff packed up and cleaned, Kat gave Jack the ten-cent tour, starting with the living room—the floor-to-ceiling windows being the reason she couldn’t make do with bars—and ending upstairs. Kat felt a little awkward as she guided him into her bedroom, with its cabbage-rose wallpaper and Victorian furnishings. He seemed a little self-conscious himself, if curious, although he did smile when he noticed the stuffed koala bear propped up on her high, four-poster bed.

  Parting the ivory damask drapes, he checked out the windows. “Again,” he said, “these can be replaced and rigged up with security mechanisms without sacrificing the period look.”

  “Great.”

  Turning, he spied the framed photograph on her dresser. He crossed to it and picked it up, studying the enlarged snapshot of Preston in tennis whites, a fluorescent yellow ball in one hand and a racket in the other. It was a flattering picture; he looked tanned and vigorous and even handsomer than he was. And younger. Jack started to say something, then hesitated and looked up at her, a cryptic glint in his eye. “Who’s this? Your dad?”

  Her cheeks stung. “No, that’s, uh . . . that’s Preston. My, uh . . .” She hated calling a man of Preston’s age her “boyfriend.”

  “Oh.” He winced. “Sorry.” Obviously groping for some neutral comment, he said, “Nice frame.”

  “It’s Tiffany. Preston gave it to me with the picture.” She regretted the statement as soon as it left her mouth, knowing that Jack would size Preston up as an egotist for having given her that picture.

  “You’d never know he’s sixty-two,” Jack said as he set the photo back down.

  “Sixty-two?” Kat exclaimed. “He’s fifty-two.”

  “Oh. Uh . . .”

  “I told you he was twenty years older than me. Do I really look like I’m in my forties?”

  “No! God, you look . . .” He shook his head helplessly, his gaze lighting on her hair, her mouth, her legs. “Incredible. You’re . . . wow.”

  The heat in her cheeks spread to consume her entire face.

  “I mean, not that forty-something can’t look like wow, but . . .” He rubbed his neck. “I . . . don’t know what I was thinking when I said sixty-two. Slip of the tongue, I guess.”

  “That’s all right. I guess I’m a little sensitive about his being so much older, or I wouldn’t have reacted like that.”

  “No, it’s my fault. I’m . . . real good at saying the wrong things sometimes.”

  “Miss Peale.” Kat turned to find Marco, the caterer, in the doorway, glancing uncomfortably between her and Jack, as if loath to interrupt what looked like a lovers’ tête-à-tête. “We’re about done, so . . .”

  “Thanks, Marco. I’ll be right down.”

  Jack produced a tape measure and proceeded to measure the first-floor windows while Kat was settling up with Marco. Once he and his staff were gone, Jack said, “I can do the last couple of windows and go over some security ideas right now, if you’d like. Unless you’re tired.”

  “No, just a little stressed out. It was kind of a long night, what with all that pressure about the Livermores.” Not to mention the anxiety of watching Pia and Chantal flirting nonstop with Jack. Tension always went to her stomach; she hadn’t had the appetite for a single drink or hors d’oeuvre all night. “Tell you what. Why don’t I open that bottle of wine you brought while you finish your measuring, and then we can sit down and go over your ideas?”

  The lamps in the den had been turned off during the cleanup, producing a deliciously tranquil semidarkness relieved only by the low flames in the fireplace and the dozen or so pillar candles scattered around the room. Kat had to hold every bottle of wine on the bar up to her face to find the Fox Run pinot noir that Jack had brought, but she left the lights off because, for the first time all evening, she felt her nerves starting to unknit.

  As she was twisting the corkscrew, its handle bit into the ball of her hand, and she let out a little mew of pain.

  “What’s the matter?” Jack asked as he came up behind her, retracting his tape measure into its case.

  “Just my hand. It’s still a little tender.”

  “From last week? The mugging?” He took the bottle and set it on the bar, then turned her hand palm up and rubbed his thumbs over it, generating a friction that sent a ticklish warmth up her arm and down into her chest. “It still hurts?”

  “No, it’s . . .” She cleared her throat to dispel its sudden hoarseness. “It’s not pain, really, just . . . you know . . .”

  Jack brought her hand close to his face to see it in the dark. He lowered his head, and then she felt his lips, hot and soft and shocking on her palm, and she closed her eyes and sighed.

  Another kiss, a lingering one on her sensitive inner wrist. With her free hand she gripped the edge of the bar to keep from slumping to the ground, because her legs had gone liquid; her heart thrummed like a bird’s.

  Kat opened her eyes, finding his face mere inches from hers, his gaze on her mouth. She’d never felt more ready, more desperate to be kissed than in that hushed and breathless moment, as his head bent to hers.

  Nor had she ever felt more torn. It wasn’t like her, to let a man kiss her when she was involved with someone else. She wasn’t that kind of woman, couldn’t be that kind of woman.

  “Jack.” She said it softly, gently, but it was enough. He shut his eyes for a moment, as if gathering himself. When he opened them and met her gaze, there was a resignation in his expression that told her he got the message. He didn’t like it, but he got it.

  He released her, let out a long, unsteady breath.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I . . .”

  He touched a fingertip to her mouth, lightly stroking her bottom lip before withdrawing his hand. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I should know better than to . . . muddy the waters.”

  “What do you mean? What waters?”

  He looked away, dragged a hand through his hair. “Just an expression. Look, why don’t you let me finish opening that bottle for you? Unless . . . I mean, do you want me to leave, or . . . ?”

  “No, you can stay. As long as . . .”

  “Yeah, I know. Don’t worry. I’ll keep it friendly.”

  He was as good as his word. They sat together on the leather sofa in the candlelit den—albeit at opposite ends—drinking wine and hashing out her security needs for the better part of an hour. Jack filled up a legal pad with notes and
diagrams. She slid out of her high heels and tucked her legs under her. He doffed his suit coat and loosened his tie.

  “So, how do you want to work this?” he asked after she’d green-lighted his ideas. “Should I submit a bid?”

  “I’m not taking bids. The job’s yours if you want it.”

  “Ah.” He laid his pad and pencil on the coffee table and lifted his wine glass, which he’d hardly touched—whereas Kat had emptied almost half the bottle so far. She didn’t usually drink this much, this fast, but that was okay. Sometimes you needed a little help unwinding.

  “So, do you want it?” she asked. “The job?”

  He took a pensive sip of wine, and then another, almost as if he were stalling for some reason. “I couldn’t start right away.”

  “No problem. When do you think you can schedule it in?”

  He set his glass down without looking at her. “A few weeks from now, maybe?”

  “Sure, that’d be—”

  “Are you in love with him?” He looked at her. God, she wished he’d stop looking at her like that.

  She swallowed. “Jack.”

  Quietly he said, “It’s just a question. I’m not gonna . . .” His gaze swept over her, then he looked away, his jaw rigid. “I’m just curious. Are you?”

  “I . . . haven’t known him that long.”

  He sat back, nodded, returned his gaze to her. “How’d you two meet?”

  She hesitated.

  Jack smiled. “Hey, I’m just trying to prolong the pleasure of your company by making conversation about your boyfriend. Not an entirely innocent motive, maybe, but not exactly nefarious.”

  She drank some more wine. “I met him at the end of October, when his firm agreed to do some pro bono legal work for Augusta House. He suggested we discuss it over lunch.” She shrugged. “He was . . . different from other men I’d known. I was intrigued.”

  “So you’ve been seeing him for what, almost two months? I’m surprised he didn’t ask you to go to Aspen with him. Or did he?”

  She looked at him over the rim of her glass. “How’d you know he’s in Aspen?”