Next Song I Sing (NEXT TIME AROUND) (18 page)

“Which I assure you would not be the case if you hadn’t made me answer the damn door,” Jasper said testily.

To his mortification, both women laughed at his heated comment. After that, Jasper had no idea what to say next.

Then to his further consternation, the service elevator chose that moment to open and out rolled their actual dinner. Jasper glared at the silver cart, irritated beyond reason that his evening alone with Chloe had been ruined by his ex-wife. There was barely enough fury left over to blame Lea personally for arriving nearly nude at his door.

“Is everything okay, Mr. Wade? Did I come at the wrong time?” the server asked, seeing his employer’s frown.

“No. Your timing is perfect,” Jasper said quietly, sighing and putting his hands in his pockets. “Bring it inside. Chloe, let the man pass by.”

Chloe stepped out into the hallway with the nearly nude model while Jasper and dinner disappeared into his room.

“This is like a scene from a movie,” Lea said in a quiet conspiratorial whisper, the giggle escaping after Jasper went inside. “My name is Lea. Sorry we’re meeting under these circumstances. Paris show or not, I’m just going to apologize profusely for this farce and wish you a good evening. Rayonna is a friend, but not
that
good of one. I thought Jasper was going to take my head off when he saw me.”

“I thought the same thing when I made him answer the door,” Chloe said, joking to cover the urge she had to sigh over how beautiful and alluring the woman was the closer she got to her. They were of similar heights in their shoes, but Chloe still felt like a bull moose standing next to a gazelle.

To her shock, Lea reached out and took hold of her arm. “Your name is Chloe, right? I want share something with you, Chloe. My sister looks like you and is ten times happier in her life because she doesn’t eat, dress, and spend every waking moment looking in a mirror and checking the illusion she works so hard at creating. I envy you more than you could ever possibly envy me because you have a man to look at you like Jasper is tonight. And that dress looks great, in case you were wondering. Please consider forgiving me,” Lea said, turning to walk away.

Then she stopped and turned back as the server exited the room.

“By the way, your voice is absolutely amazing. You should think about singing professionally. I hope I get to hear you sing again sometime,” Lea said with smile, her voice bright and cheerful.

Chloe automatically lifted a hand to wave, chalking up her unbelievable gesture to still being in shock. She had no angry words to yell at the model’s elegant back as Lea glided over the carpet to the elevators, smiling and causing the server to stumble as he held the door for her.

Had the woman actually complimented her? The situation was too surreal for Chloe to even believe it had happened, but it had.

Sighing, she stepped back inside Jasper’s room.

Chapter 15

When she walked back to the sitting area, she saw Jasper opening a bottle of champagne.

“You said no alcohol, but I had them send a bottle up in case of a romantic emergency,” he said dryly. “I think having Lea show up all but nude at my door while I’m trying to seduce you qualifies. Don’t you? Drink?”

He held out a full to the brim champagne flute. Chloe took the glass and sat on the couch, moving her discarded purse to an end table.

“I don’t get it,” Chloe said, her voice and tone serious. “I don’t understand your ex-wife’s motivation for sending a friend to seduce you, or that woman’s motivation for showing up. It seems counter-intuitive to try and keep you by loaning you out. Maybe I’ve led a very sheltered life up to now. I can’t see willingly sharing a man I wanted with another woman. I hated when my husband came back to me from other women. I never got over how awful that made me feel. It’s emotionally devastating.”

Jasper walked to the couch and sank down beside Chloe. He drank half his champagne before speaking.

“Not to excuse her, but given my history in the last ten or fifteen years, I can see why Rayonna thought I might be interested in someone like Lea. My ex-wife is not caring enough about my real needs to be able to see how wrong she is. Sam and Max are the only ones who know that you’re much more my type than a woman like that will ever be—I mean, physically.”

When Chloe looked at him kindly, but also in total disbelief, Jasper felt all the actions of his life culminate in his stark inability to convince such an incredibly sexy woman of the truth of what he was saying.

Chloe Zanders was the only woman he’d been sincerely attracted to in years, but Jasper knew that most of the world—hell, most men—would not have passed up Lea either. She was beautiful in the way art was beautiful. For him, dating Rayonna and the clones before her had been simply a matter of making do with what was most available. This was especially the case because he had spent years and years denying himself what he wanted most, which was a real woman with the kind of beauty that warmed you with a look.

Jasper got up and paced to windows that overlooked the pool and grounds, complete with a nine-hole golf course and two spa buildings with a private walkway down to a secluded beach near the cliffs. Building the hotel had been relatively easy, and seeing to its care seemed second nature to him.

It was the rest of his life that he had never really been good at fixing.

He figured what Chloe thought about him now was true to some degree, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Until he’d met her, he hadn’t really known it either.

“It’s true that I’ve dated models, business women, professional athletes, and even a princess. They all looked just like Lea—just like Rayonna for that matter,” Jasper said carefully. “My parents taught me the importance of seeing and being seen, and I bought into it when I started my first hotel and needed to make sure it took off. Being seen with famous, beautiful women can be quite a reputation maker. Rayonna was the first one I ever married though.”

When she had first come back into the room from the hall, Chloe had hoped to maybe laugh off what had happened, despite her shock over it. One look at Jasper’s tortured expression as he confessed was all it took for Chloe to realize his reaction to Lea’s appearance was something far more complicated.

The thin, beautiful woman at the door was a normal part of life for Jasper Wade, and the situation might happen again if she was with Jasper for any length of time. Chloe couldn’t see herself handling the pressure of women like Lea constantly putting the moves on Jasper at every turn. She simply wasn’t equipped to deal with that level of female competition.

Plus, her divorce was hard evidence that she hadn’t been successful in keeping her ex-husband’s interest when he’d gotten bored. There wasn’t a chance in hell she could keep a man who was used to dating models interested for long, even if she believed Jasper Wade was temporarily enamored of her.

“I guess your wife was special then. Most men probably think that at some point about the woman they marry,” Chloe suggested, breaking the long silence and sipping her champagne for something to do because the seduction mood had definitely slipped away for her.

“If you’re asking if I loved my wife when we married, the answer I would give you now is a firm no. The answer I would have given you eight years ago when I married her would have been yes. It’s never that easy to figure out. Two years ago, my wife had an open affair, which became very public. I didn’t even care. There had been other men before that one, even though I had been faithful to her. I continued to sleep with her after we divorced because I didn’t want to move on to another clone of her. Moving on to another woman like her seemed more futile than my failed marriage,” Jasper said.

Chloe sipped, considered, and sipped some more.

“So are you doggedly pursuing me just to be with someone outside your norm? Am I just someone different?” she asked.

Jasper closed his eyes. There were no good words to explain his dishonesty with himself. How could Chloe believe him? Time alone with him might show her how he felt about her, providing he ever got her into bed after tonight.

“You’re the woman I wished for when I was making love to the other women in my life and feeling dissatisfied. I just never found you until last Friday. I swear to God that’s not just a line to get you into bed,” Jasper said, coming over to sit beside her on the couch again. “If you ever let me touch you, I promise you will come to believe me when I say I want you. You are the most alluring woman I’ve ever met.”

Chloe decided that maybe she was more desperate than she realized or maybe she just wanted to believe she could inspire a man to want her more than he wanted some beautiful, thin model. Her sigh was heavy and laden with all kinds of doubts, but as she searched Jasper’s face, the sincerity there was so appealing. Maybe—like Aaron—he wouldn’t always be faithful either, but God help her, she believed Jasper meant what he was telling her tonight.

She held out her empty champagne glass. “Hit me again. Believing you is going to be easier when I’m less sober. You’re not the only one with a bad history.”

Jasper sighed and took her glass. He went to the small table containing the champagne, refilled her glass, and brought it back to her.

Chloe took a few sips for courage. The champagne bubbles made her head fuzzy, which was the perfect condition to loosen her tongue enough to be honest with him.

“You’ve dated a non-stop series of women who fit almost everyone’s ideal image of a perfect woman, who at their largest only ever wear a size eight. Jasper, even if I stay on a diet I will never wear less than a size twelve in anything. If I had children, who knows how much bigger I might get than my current size-fourteen body? I am not small, will never be small, and don’t even think I would like being small. I am never, ever going to look like that woman at your door or any clone of her. It’s just not in the genetic cards for me. And I’ve already done the guy who didn’t think that was good enough. I don’t really want to do another one.”

Jasper started to speak, but Chloe held up a hand.

“Nope. My turn to talk,” she told him, shutting him down firmly.

She watched Jasper press his lipstick smeared lips into a firm line, and went dizzy for a moment remembering how he’d gotten it all over him. Chloe took a few more healthy sips, giving herself a little more time to think while her renewed lust dissipated.

“I’ve endured a lot of teasing from even the good men in my life about my size and weight. And okay, maybe I partially bring it on myself doing the typical comparison thing with other women, like the one who showed up here tonight. Still, I never succumbed to stupid diets or dwelled on my size if I could help it. Instead, I just learned to like myself. The last two serious men in my life screwed with that a bit, and I’m just now starting to get my confidence back. I’m forty and can’t compete with the Leas and Rayonnas of the world. And frankly, I don’t want to.”

“Of course you can’t compete with them, Chloe,” Jasper told her, seeing the shock on her face. “You can’t compete because you’re in class all by yourself. Some men want the Rayonnas of the world. I didn’t, but I didn’t have the guts to look for what I wanted. I’m surprised my libido didn’t shut down on me in my thirties when I figured this out. For the last two years, I’ve had pathetically bad sex once or twice a month. It was only marginally better than no sex at all. I would like to have been a better man about women, but—I just wasn’t. Until I met you, I didn’t have a reason to go after my fantasy instead of what others thought I should like.”

“That doesn’t reassure me that you won’t want a size six or eight woman again before we’re done, but it does make me like you for being human. And there is nothing wrong with your libido. I’ve made its acquaintance, and all your equipment still seems to work just fine. I’ve felt more than just your hands hard on me,” Chloe said, surprising a reluctant laugh out of him. “Sorry to be blunt. Champagne talking.”

“Whether you can believe me or not, you are my ideal woman. Is there
anything
I can do to make up for Lea showing up tonight to ruin our evening?” Jasper asked.

Jasper looked away from Chloe when he couldn’t hold her penetrating gaze. There were all kinds of questions in her eyes, but he was out of explanations.

“No. Lea showed up and there’s nothing you can do to change that,” Chloe said at last, draining her glass and setting it on the side table. “There’s no need really. I thought she seemed like a mostly nice person for someone dumb enough to do what she did for a so-called
friend
.”

The sarcasm in her tone had Jasper nodding in agreement.

Chloe turned her body fully to his then, taking in his lipstick stained face and neck again, as well as his shirt. He’d smoothed his hair some, but it was still ruffled from her hands. The woman at the door had not taken away her desire for Jasper. Whatever was or was not going to happen in the future, she still wanted him enough to take a chance. She decided to take Emma’s advice about living in the moment and stay for dinner at least, but she had never been one to suffer alone.

“Now you can at least see why a relationship with Sam would have been so much easier for me,” Chloe said wisely, drawing a glare from Jasper that had champagne-induced laughter bubbling up inside her. “Well, it’s a truth and you damn well know it. Sam probably dates who the hell he wants without giving his choice of woman a second thought.”