“By your own words, that agreement was to be null and void once I got my own love life in order,” Pru reminded him.

Caya’s eyes shone brilliantly at her. “And your love life is most definitely in order.”

The affection that shimmered back and forth between the two of them was so powerful it was overwhelming, and Jacob felt his throat tighten. He was really losing it here.

He’d had someone looking at him like that, and he’d walked. What did that make him?

A smart man, he reminded himself.

“Tell us about her,” Pru said softly.

“Oh, I’ll tell you,” Maddie said as she came up to refill their cups. She smiled into Jacob’s frowning face, utterly unimpressed by his silent imploring. “She’s beautiful, of course. That’s what attracted him.”

“That is not what attracted me,” he said in his defense. “I’m not that shallow.”

“You’re a man, aren’t ya?” Maddie patted him on the head. “She’s also sweet and smart, but the most important thing…” She leaned in as if departing a state secret. “She makes him yearn for things he didn’t know were missing in his life.”

“Maddie-”

She smiled warmly at Jacob’s warning, then kissed him sweetly on the cheek. “Oh, luv. Just accept it. She’s yours. And you’re hers.”

Pru and Caya were staring at him in shock as Maddie walked away.

“She is different from your other lovers,” Pru said thoughtfully.

“Really?” Jacob asked, annoyed. “And how do you know that?”

“Because she lasted more than one night,” Caya said.

Ouch. Was he really that quick to move around?

Yeah. He was.

“Tell us more,” Pru said.

“Look, there’s nothing to tell. She’s leaving, so what does it matter?” Was that his voice, sounding shaken at the thought of Em going back to Los Angeles? Maybe he was just tired after the past few nights of incredible, wild sex.

Okay, not just sex. Sex he’d have been able to get past. Whatever the hell they’d done had been more, enough to grab him by the throat and hold on good.

And then there had been those three shocking words he’d never heard directed at him before.

I love you.

“She loves me,” he heard himself say.

Pru and Caya stared at him, then burst out laughing.

“What the hell is so funny about that?” he demanded.

“Because every woman falls in love with you,” Caya said. “Hell, I’m half in love with you and I’m taken-” She broke off at the look on his face. “Oh. Oh,” she breathed, and put her hand to her chest. Her eyes misted. “This one is different,” she said softly. “She’s different because you feel it back. Oh, Jacob.”

“My God,” Pru murmured in wonder. “It’s happened. And I didn’t even have to do a damn thing.”

Jacob shoved his fingers through his short hair. “Not helping.”

“Oh, honey.” Pru grabbed his hand. “Why can’t you just admit it?”

“Admit what? That you’re a helpless romantic?”

“That you love her back.”

“Maybe some of us don’t like to wear our hearts on our sleeves,” he said. “Maybe some of us have healthy caution inside and don’t feel the need to rush into anything.”

“Maybe some of us are terrified of feeling it at all,” Caya said very softly, and leaning in, hugged him tight. “Is that it?”

“Damn it.” He gently pushed her off him and went back to staring into his coffee and brooding.

“You aren’t going to be stupid about this, right?” Pru asked. “You’re going to go after her, this one-and-only woman who’s ever turned your head.”

She’d turned him upside down was what she’d done. “I’m not doing anything.”

Caya and Pru looked at each other in dismay.

“Look, this little coffee get-together has been sweet, but…” He shoved to his feet and tossed down some money to cover everything.

“Jacob,” Pru chided gently. “You can’t just ignore it.”

Sure he could. Especially when the alternative was something he couldn’t even contemplate.

“You can’t just walk away,” Caya called after him. “You’ve always gotten away with that, I know, but one of these days it’s going to catch up to you.”

Maybe. But not this time.

ERIC AND LIZA flew home on an earlier flight than Em. With a few hours left before she had to leave for the airport, she sat in the lobby with her clipboard, trying to put some cohesive notes together for Nathan. Her cell phone rang. One glance at the caller ID had her wincing. The boss himself. “How’s it going?” she asked him in the most chipper voice she could muster.

“That’s my question for you.”

“Oh, everything’s fabulous,” she said. Which was sort of the truth. Parts of this trip had been fabulous.

Mostly the parts when she’d had Jacob buried deep inside her, but that was definitely too much information.

“Have you got him yet?” Nathan wanted to know.

“Actually, I’ve got several candidates but I’ve decided to hold auditions in Los Angeles, as well.”

“What happened to Hill?”

“He isn’t interested.”

“I thought you slept with him.”

Em closed her eyes and winced. “I am never going to sleep with someone for my job.”

Nathan sighed. “If you’re going to be so damn empathetic, at least use it to your advantage. Have it help you instead of hurt you.”

Though he couldn’t see her, she lifted her chin. Being empathetic might have caused her more than a few embarrassing or uncomfortable moments, but it had helped her. It had helped her become the person she was. If he couldn’t see that, then she couldn’t make him. “I’ll find someone just as good. Trust me.”

There was a long silence. “You still have three weeks. Work on him.”

Her stomach sank. “I’m not going to ‘work’ on anyone, Nathan.” She couldn’t. Wouldn’t. But sometimes there were other ways, better ways. This was one of those times, she was sure of it. “But if you’d just trust me, I can do this.”

“Your way, right?” he asked dryly.

Determination blazed. “That’s right.”

“I suppose you have ideas.”

“You know it.” Her mind whirled. “In fact…I wanted to talk to you about a few changes.”

“I don’t like changes.”

“Just listen. I was thinking about a traveling cooking show.”

“Traveling?”

“We’d still need a chef, but this person would be almost more like a host, coming to us from a different restaurant across the country each week.” Her thoughts raced. “He wouldn’t need to be a big celebrity chef. In fact if he’s unknown, it’ll be better for the ego of the chef at the restaurant we’re visiting.”

“Hmm.”

Not exactly encouraging, but he hadn’t said no yet so she went on. “With the spotlight on the variety of settings, people will want to tune in each week to see and learn about a new place,” she said earnestly, getting more and more excited. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? “No stagnant studio. The restaurant will get promo, the sous or executive chef at that restaurant will get promo, and we’ll get-”

“Drama.” Nathan’s voice became excited. “Love it. Do it. Stay another day and keep thinking. New York is good for you. Oh, and while you’re there, find some New York hot spots. You’ve got a gold ticket here.”

She thought of Eric and Liza already cozy on a plane heading west. She was on her own. But that was okay, because she could do this. She would do this. She slipped the phone back in her purse and dropped her head, needing air. She’d been given another night here…

“Em?”

Her entire body reacted. Lifting her head, she faced the man she couldn’t stop thinking about, even with her career on the line. He wore those battered black Levi’s she loved so much because they contoured his body to mouthwatering perfection. Old and clearly beloved, they were soft and faded in all the stress spots, of which there were many. His long-sleeved shirt was black with a caramel-brown stripe that matched his solemn gaze. He stood before her, hands shoved into his pockets, a frown marring that wonderful face.

“What’s the matter?” she asked him.

“I was going to ask you that same thing.”

“Oh.” She forced a smile, trying not to remember that the last thing he’d done with that handsome face had been to bury it in her hair, inhaling her as he squeezed her tight, so tight that she thought maybe he never wanted to let her go.

But he had.

And she had. “Nothing’s wrong,” she said, adding another smile when he only cocked his head and studied her for a long heartbeat. “Really. In fact, things are great.”

He hunkered down before her to take her hands, his gaze holding hers. “Great, huh?”

Oh, God. Physical affection. If she knew nothing else about him, she knew this much-for Jacob it was the same thing as waving a fifty-foot sign saying that he cared about her.

Her pathetic heart rolled over and exposed its underside and she fought an overwhelming desire to throw herself at him. “I’m fine,” she repeated weakly.

“But-”

“Jacob. Do you really want me to tell you what’s wrong? Really?”

He stared at her, and she could see that running through his head was the moment when she’d blurted out, “I love you,” and he’d gone white as a sheet and said, “Thank you.”

Thank you.

Yeah, that was what every girl dreamed of hearing from her prince after a lifetime of toads.

“Look,” she said, pulling her hands free and standing. “I’ve got to get to work, which is finally going somewhere.”

“You find a chef?”

“I sort of worked around the issue for now.”

He nodded, slipping his hands back into his pockets rather than touch her again.

Good, she thought, even as her body missed the contact with every fiber of its being. She might as well get used to it.

“I thought you were leaving today,” he said.

Which would make things easy for you, wouldn’t it? “I thought so, too.”

“But…?”