“Maybe another time,” she said cryptically.
Cameron knew without a doubt there would be another time. When he’d sent Jasmine the text he’d hoped she would agree to meet him. Now, not only were they sharing dinner but she had also invited him to accompany her to Long Island, and had agreed to become his plus-one for a yacht party.
He’d found Jasmine different from the other women he’d dated when it came to poise and confidence. Some women, despite their age, retained their adolescent tendencies when they were overly flirtatious, seductive, and concocted schemes to make him jealous—all which he found offensive and a turn-off.
A wry smile twisted Cameron’s mouth when he realized he’d had to wait until he was nearly fifty to find a woman with whom he hoped he could have an ongoing relationship lasting more than a year. The only drawback was the distance between them. More than thirteen hundred miles separated them, and he knew he couldn’t relocate. Despite her unemployed status, he had no idea whether Jasmine would be willing to move to New Orleans. Jasmine had accused him of coming on too aggressively, so he decided not to broach the possibility of her moving to his hometown.
The waiter returned to the table and refilled both flutes. This time Jasmine did not cover the glass with her hand. Cameron took a long swallow, while silently complimenting himself on securing not one, but two more dates with Jasmine during his stay. He ate slowly because he did not want the evening to end. There was so much he wanted to know about her but decided to hold off making further inquiries as to why she had given up her career as an interior decorator. He wanted her to feel comfortable enough with him to divulge it on her own.
All too soon for Cameron, dinner ended with he and Jasmine both declining dessert and coffee. “Is there any place you’d like to go before I take you home?” he asked Jasmine.
“No, thank you.”
He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and retrieved his cell phone. He spoke quietly into the speaker, before signaling the waiter for the check. Cameron settled the bill and escorted her out of the restaurant where a shiny black town car sat idling at the curb. Nightfall had descended on the island of Manhattan and there was hardly any pedestrian traffic in the Financial District.
* * *
The driver got out and came around to open the rear door and Jasmine managed to slide gracefully onto the rear seat without exposing too much leg. Cameron got in next to her, his left arm resting over the back of the seat. She went still when his fingers caressed the nape of her neck, and then relaxed as he moved closer. It had been a long time since a man had touched her in a display of affection. And she had to admit that it felt good.
Jasmine closed her eyes. Her initial uneasiness as to whether she would share dinner with Cameron vanished when he proved to be a wonderful conversationalist, and she wanted to tell him he truly was a son of New Orleans because he and Harry Connick, Jr. shared the same speech pattern.
“Where do you want me to drop you off?” Cameron asked her.
She opened her eyes gave him her address and he in turn told the driver. She found it impossible to ignore the warmth from Cameron’s body, which was a blatant reminder that it had been much too long since she’d been this physically close to a man she was attracted to. There had been a time when Jasmine realized her ex’s duplicity had so turned her off to the opposite sex that she found the notion of sleeping with a man abhorrent. However, something about Cameron was different. Everything about him was a turn-on from his fastidious grooming to his undivided attentiveness. He was well past forty which made her wonder why he hadn’t married. Was he a confirmed bachelor because he’d loved and lost or did he prefer living his life without having to be responsible for another person?
Jasmine forced herself not to think of becoming involved with Cameron beyond the coming weekend. After Sunday morning she would not see him again until she returned to New Orleans for her friend’s wedding. And she didn’t know why she’d invited him to accompany her to visit her aunt and uncle except that she wanted to offer him a little New York hospitality. She hadn’t told him where they were going because she wanted it to be a surprise. It was a place where as a child she’d always spent the last two weeks of her summer vacation.
The ride from the Financial District to the Upper Eastside was accomplished in record time and Cameron leaned forward as the driver maneuvered along the curb in front her apartment building. “Please wait here for me.”
The doorman approached the car and opened the rear door as Cameron got out, and then he turned to assist Jasmine. She smiled up at him. “Thank you for a wonderful evening.”
He leaned in and dipped his head. “I’ll see you to your door.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Cameron reached for her hand, threading their fingers together. “I was raised whenever I date a lady to make certain she gets home safely.”
“I am home, and the building’s safe because there’s a doorman and anyone who doesn’t live here has to be announced.”
He gave her fingers a barely perceptible squeeze. “Just because I’m walking in peaceably with you doesn’t show anything. What if I had ordered you not to scream or I’d carry you away on my pirate ship.”
Jasmine smothered a giggle. “Why are you being so melodramatic? It’s apparent you’ve watched too many movies featuring kidnappings.”
Cameron chuckled softly. “How did you know?”
She sobered quickly. “You do?”
He nodded. “Yes. My television is always tuned to the Investigation Discovery Channel.”
“What about the Bloomberg Channel?”
“That, too,” he confirmed. “Do you watch much television?” Cameron asked as they walked in the direction of the building’s elevators and entered an empty car.
Jasmine, easing her hand from Cameron’s loose grip, put some distance between them as she moved against the opposite wall of the elevator car, and punched the button for the eighteenth floor. “There are times when I watch too much,” she admitted as the car rose quietly and quickly upward. “I’ve OD’d on programs featuring home renovations, decorating, and flipping properties and countless DYI projects.”
Cameron smiled and attractive lines fanned out around his luminous eyes. “What’s the expression? You can take the girl out of the business but you can’t get the decorating business out of the girl.”
She lowered her eyes. It was obvious Cameron wanted to know why she’d switched careers, and although she’d revealed the details behind her failed marriage to her former coworkers, Jasmine was reluctant to talk about it to anyone else. And especially not to a man she was certain she would see again once she returned to New Orleans for Tonya’s wedding. Whenever she thought about her relationship with her ex-husband she still could not believe she had been that gullible and trusting, and had allowed her obsession with being a wife keep her from seeing what was so obvious. She’d even lied to herself when she’d suspected Raymond of cheating on her. It was only when she saw the emails and text messages on his phone that she was forced to face reality: her husband had fathered a child with another woman.
