Summer Kisses (321 page)

“What do you want, Lou?”

“It isn’t always about what we want.”

“It’s
never
about what you want,” he said, a little more sharply than he’d intended. “You always put others above yourself. But maybe it should be about what you want for a change.”

He wanted Lou, but he didn’t want her kissing him because she felt like she should because it would be best for the kids. He wanted her to want him, completely independent of the children, but nothing they did was independent of the children. She was right to remind him of that. When Emma had a bad dream, she went to Lou, not to him. If he and Lou
did have a relationship and she left what would it do to Emma? Hell, what would it do to
him
?

But she would never leave. That wasn’t Lou’s style. She would stay with him forever whether she wanted to or not. If she thought that was what was right. But he didn’t want the woman who thought she
should
be with him. He wanted one who couldn’t live without him. As he was beginning to think he couldn’t live without her.

Jack reached across the table, capturing her hand and lacing their fingers together. “What do you want, Lou?”

She pulled her fingers free. “I want you to find what you’re looking for on the show.”

Jack barely stopped himself from cursing aloud.

He’d been wrong. He’d read her wrong in the Jacuzzi. She hadn’t been coming onto him. She didn’t want him. He’d taken advantage and now she regretted it. She wanted him to find someone else so she could be free of him.

Jack scraped back his chair. “I’m sorry about the other night. Too much champagne.” He cleared his throat roughly. “I should get back to the hotel. We have a long week ahead. My parents will be here tomorrow for the first of the In-Law sessions.”

“I feel like I should clean something. I know how the Doctors Doyle love a sterile environment,” Lou said, trying for levity, but the joke fell flat.

Neither of them felt much like laughing.

He wanted to say something more, but he had no idea what he would have said even without the show’s rules hanging over him. The air between them was saturated with unspoken words.

But in the end he just said good night and walked out, uncertain what he was supposed to do now. Falling in love with someone other than Lou in the next two weeks was utterly inconceivable, but he’d told her originally that he would do this for her, so she could walk away and have her own life.

He owed her that. So he would try.

~~~

Lou stayed seated at the kitchen table until she heard the front door close behind Jack. At the distant click, she let out a shuddering breath and sagged down over the table, letting her head rest against the wood as tears came out of nowhere to fill her eyes.

She’d done the right thing. She was sure of it. So why did she feel like she’d just made the biggest mistake of her life? Why was her entire body shaking with emotion?

He was glad they’d kissed. It felt like such a short step from there to happily ever after. But it was a step through a minefield.

They needed to tread carefully and keep the children’s happiness always in mind. He’d said he wanted to kiss her again, but he’d never said he wanted anything more from her. He’d said that the kids wanted them to get married, not that he wanted that—though it was too soon to be thinking along those lines anyway, wasn’t it? Unless she counted the last four years. And it was hard for her heart not to count the last four years.

Lou sniffed back her tears and shoved herself to her feet, moving around the kitchen, looking for something to do with her hands, something to clean, but the crew had left everything spotless. Inconsiderate bastards. Didn’t they know she was having an emotional crisis and needed to scrub something?

It felt like she’d lost him. Not that she’d ever had him, but this time the missed opportunity was her own stupid fault.

See where it goes
. It sure as hell wasn’t moonlight and roses, but she could have said yes. She could have taken his hand, gazed into his eyes, confessed that she’d like that.

She’d said no.

And tomorrow beautiful Katya arrived. The swimsuit model who never, ever told Jack no.

Lou groaned and buried her face in her hands. Crap. What had she done?

If Jackson Doyle married Katya No-Last-Name the Swimsuit Model, Lou was going to kill him. Slowly. With red hot pincers and boiling oil and whatever other medieval methods she could dig up. Where was an iron maiden when you needed one?

The first thing Lou noticed when Katya walked through the door were the gravity-defying orbs of silicon attached to her chest. Her shirt was thin, clingy, and the neckline dropped down nearly to her belly-button to display more cleavage than Lou had ever seen outside an NC-17 movie. Her legs were approximately three miles long and crammed into designer jeans so tight she could barely walk—or maybe that deficiency was caused by the four-and-a-half inch crimson stilettos she’d crammed onto her dainty feet.

Platinum blonde hair hung in thick, glorious waves all the way to her hips. They had to be extensions, but the artificial hair still gave Lou’s wispy dishwater blonde ponytail an inferiority complex—new highlights and layers notwithstanding.

Katya clutched her designer handbag with long, elegant fingers, tipped with claw-like acrylic nails painted such a dark, bloody red Lou imagined she may have just come from ripping the throats out of her enemies.

Her features were vaguely Slavic, with wide ice-blue eyes and delicate bones, but the piece de resistance were the lips. Giant, poofy, Angelina Jolie, why-yes-I-will-take-an-extra-injection-of-collagen Lips, with a capital “L”. Sure, men thought lips like those were the sexiest thing on earth, but Lou couldn’t help but think Jack kissing those babies would be like making out with a grouper.

Okay, Lou was jealous. Neon green sparks of envy flying off in every direction
jealous
. The woman was disgustingly gorgeous. Did she have to be so damn
perfect
?

Katya stepped into the foyer and paused, angling her head and posing for the cameras as she pretended to search for Jack—who was standing right beside Lou in plain view of Katya and everyone else. When the Russian supermodel finally
saw
him, she squealed and clapped her hands. “Jackie-boy!”

Lou wondered if the producers would edit it out if she vomited all over Katya.

Then Katya, the gravitationally improbable, caught sight of the kids standing next to Jack and her squeals reached a new decibel normally reserved for canines and torture devices. “Oh, are these them? Aren’t they just the cutest you’ve ever seen?”

Lou wasn’t sure who Katya was asking, but no one answered as she teetered forward with a determined smile on those insanely huge lips. Emma tucked herself behind her father’s leg, her eyes wide.

Katya bent down, her gravitationally-resistant orbs swaying precariously close to not-safe-for-primetime exposure. “Aren’t you just precious?” she cooed at Emma, who shrank back a little more. She then turned her silicone cannons in TJ’s direction. “You must be JT! Aren’t you a handsome little man? You’re gonna be a heartbreaker just like your daddy, aren’t you?”

TJ just looked at his father uncertainly, as if silently asking what planet Katya was from. Lou could have told him. Planet Hollywood. Or perhaps Planet Miami Beach.

Jack smiled, for all the world as if he had no problem with Katya’s attire or the way she was scaring the bejeezus out of the children, and stepped forward to peck Katya on the cheek. “Welcome to Casa Doyle. I’ve got a great day planned. You’re gonna love it.”

Katya batted her eyelashes at warp speed. “Oh, I know I’ll love it,” she simpered. “As long as we’re together.”

Lou stomach turned. Jack could
not
have been taken in by this. Sure, it was like being hit on by Angelina Jolie’s tall, blonde, slightly-more-sexy sister, but still! How could he not see how
fake
she was?

Then Katya leaned forward to return Jack’s peck, giving him a bird’s eye view straight down to her navel.
Oh, yeah, that’s how
.

Jack gave a dazed smile. Lou somehow managed not to thump him upside the head on national television. She should get an Emmy for that alone.

“Shall we get started?” he asked.

Katya’s gaze flicked sideways to where Lou was standing, just slightly off to the side—the only family member she hadn’t greeted. “Are we
all
going?”

Lou smiled, knowing the baring of teeth looked a little feral, but not nearly as good as Katya at manufacturing her expressions. “Oh, I thought I’d just tag along,” she said sweetly. “In case the kids get tired early.”

Katya instantly brightened, megawatt radiance pouring off her. “Excellent!” She wrapped her talons around Jack’s biceps. “I can’t wait.” Then she seemed to realize she’d just said she hoped the children tired out so she quickly amended. “To see where we’re going! I just love surprises!”

As they all headed out to pile into the cars along with multiple camera crews, Lou trailed behind, watching sweet Katya coo and paw at Jack. She kept angling herself and cocking her head and flicking her hair—constantly aware of which direction she was being shot from. Katya may love surprises, but Lou was willing to bet there was nothing she loved more than the limelight. Including Jack.

After they popped the kids into the car, Jack turned to help Katya in, she tugged him back from the door. As Lou approached, she heard Katya purr, loud enough for the cameras—and half the block—to hear her, “I’ve missed you so, darling.”

She speared her talons into Jack’s hair and yanked his head down for a grouper lip-lock.

Lou’s mouth went dry, her insides turned to stone and her eyes burned.

When Katya released him, Jack’s face was flushed. He cleared his throat roughly as he disentangled Katya’s hands from his person. “Let’s go.”

Lou turned quickly away, ducking into one of the other cars before Jack turned and caught her gaping. She clenched her hands into fists in her lap, managing not to scream her frustration. An entire day watching the most gorgeous woman on the planet paw the man she loved and had stupidly
told
to date the bimbo.
Oh, joy
.

~~~

After Jack pried Katya off him, he looked up just in time to see Lou dive into the second car. Crap. Had she seen the kiss? He’d kept his mouth sealed shut and let Katya writhe and moan against him because it was easier than causing a scene by pushing her away, but he hadn’t realized Lou might be watching. How was he going to convince her without words that she was the one he really wanted if he made out with other women in front of her?

He herded Katya into the SUV limo and climbed in after her, snagging the empty seat between the kids so Katya couldn’t maul him in front of them on the drive out to the country.

The producers had loved it when he’d suggested the destination for today’s outing. Miranda’s eyes had lit with visions of sweeps week. One of the things
Marrying Mr. Perfect
did best was jarring people out of their comfort zone. Today’s destination was a test for Katya—one he was reasonably certain she would fail.

He’d kept Katya around for so long for two reasons. One, she was distinctly easy on the eyes. And two, he was one hundred percent certain her emotions were not engaged in the slightest. Oh, sure, she would work up some crocodile tears when she was eliminated, but as long as he gave her plenty of camera time, she was happy. So he didn’t have to feel guilty about leading her on.

Marcy and Katya were a lot easier to deal with than some of the other girls. The ones who wanted so badly for him to love them. They just made him feel like an ass.

He hated being responsible for everyone’s happiness. The girls, the producers… hell, it even felt like the American public was counting on him for a good show. He couldn’t wait until the show was over and the only happiness he was responsible for was his own, his kids, and Lou. If she would have him.

Their conversation in the kitchen last night replayed in his mind. He’d gone over it a dozen times, from a dozen angles, and he still didn’t know what to do. She was right about the kids. But he wasn’t convinced that she wasn’t doing the martyr thing by pushing him on the other women. If only there was a way to woo her without the children hanging around. And without the camera crews. Just the two of them. No show. No kids. No pressure. Just a chance to see if he what he thought was between them was really there.

But would Lou want to even if they had the chance?

He’d overheard her being interviewed this morning, gushing enthusiastically about how happy she is that he’s found all these extraordinary women and how she can’t wait to meet them and welcome them to the family.

Part of him feared that she really wanted him to fall in love with someone else, but this was Lou and she sure as hell wasn’t going to come right out and tell him. Good Midwestern girls didn’t inflict their desires on others.

But he wanted her desires. He wanted her. He still didn’t know when it had happened—maybe it had been there all along, lurking beneath everything he thought he wanted—but he loved Lou. And now that he’d finally figured it out, he wasn’t going to be stupid enough to let her slip through his fingers.

Not if he could help it.

And provided he could keep her from hating him forever after seeing him kissing Katya. He’d definitely have some damage control to do today. But maybe their destination would help.

Jack felt a small, wicked smile curve his lips as he glanced over at Katya, who was powdering her nose and checking her make-up with her compact mirror.

Today was certainly going to be interesting.

~~~

“Well,” Katya huffed, plucking a stalk of hay out of her hair. “That was… unique. I can honestly say I’ve never been on a hayride before.”

Jack grinned to himself, feeling inexplicably smug. The day had gone
exactly
as he’d intended. And the expression on Katya’s face when they first arrived at the corn maze was priceless.