Jane was added to the mix last. I tried to get her alone first. Not that I could give her a pep talk or anything, but just in case she wanted to vent or rage or whatever so she wouldn’t lose it on camera.
But I shouldn’t have worried about her. She was dynamic, with her father’s natural charm, and the savvy she’d picked up along the road that had been honed by Caro over the past few months.
She was witty and sincere and talked about family coming in different shapes and sizes, and that everybody needed to look out for each other, and that was what Joe Stratton stood for.
She was magnificent.
But she wasn’t Jane. Not my Jane. Not the Jane I held in my arms, or verbally tussled with. Or, hell, physically tussled with when it got real interesting.
We hadn’t been together since the night of her birthday, when we’d spent the whole night in the guesthouse. And even though that had only been a few days ago, I missed it. Missed her.
Waking up with Jane, feeling her intense energy around me first thing in the morning, was more exhilarating than a triple espresso.
And certainly more arousing.
We took our time that morning, a slow, drawn-out session that almost had me saying words to her that I’d never said to any girl.
I’d wanted to that night, too, as I looked down at her, buried deep in her soft body. I’d almost told her that I loved her, but I didn’t.
I could tell myself it was because I wasn’t sure of my feelings, but that wasn’t completely it, or at least notonlyit.
The truth was, I had no way of knowing how Jane would respond if I told her I loved her. Ithoughtshe felt the same way, but that didn’t mean she would ever admit it. Jane would never show any signs of weakness, and I think she had some fucked-up logic that to tell me she loved me would be a weakness.
She wouldn’t be wrong—she sure as hell had made me weak in some ways.
But stronger in others. And I was grateful enough to her for that to keep my mouth shut and not put her in a fight-or-flight moment.
“God, get me out of here,” she said after she’d finished with the interview and come over to my side of the room.
I wanted to take her in my arms, hold her close, kiss the top of her head and tell her how well she’d done. But the crew was packing up while Amanda Teller spoke with Elliot and Grayson. Joe and Caro were still in their seats, their heads bent together. Probably planning how to take over Russia or something.
But, much as I wanted to, I didn’t take Jane in my arms in front of everybody. She would have hated that. Instead, I said, “You were really great.”
There was doubt in her striking green eyes, and just a tiny movement of the shield when she looked at me and said, “Really?”
Aw, fuck everybody else.I pulled her to me, and she only tried to pull away a little bit. I ran my hands up and down her back and whispered in her ear, “You were…fierce.”
I felt her smile against my chest, and for just a second she relaxed into my embrace and her hand came up and rested at the small of my back.
But this was Jane, and in the next second, she took that hand and tugged at my belt loop at my back, pulling me away from her as she stepped back.
“Fierce? Like gay-designer fierce?” She said it with a finger snap and hand movement that looked, okay, yeah, just like a gay designer. Or maybe a diva.
I laughed. “No. Like you-are-not-one-to-be-fucked-with fierce.”
She smiled. “Yeah, okay. I like that.”
“You should. It’s you.”
I noticed Amanda Teller watching us with interest the same time Jane did. She took another step away from me. “I’m going to take off. I’ve got a class this afternoon that I wasn’t sure if I was going to make or not. Looks like I’ll be able to.”
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
She went over and said her goodbyes to Caro and her father—hugging them both. I wasn’t sure if that was for Amanda’s benefit or not. Maybe not. Jane and Caro had grown pretty close over the past months, and she had even seemed to make strides with her father.
Jane was no dummy, and she knew she’d be spending a lot of time with him in public over the next few months. And if he won, and was truly back in the political world, it would be years. It was in everyone’s best interest to bury resentment hatchets now.
At Yvette, Jane let me really take her in my arms and kiss her silly. In fact, she seemed to cling to me more than she ever had before.
