Diddled, for God's sake.
Candy reached out, put her warm little hand on his cheek, and stroked with her thumb. "I'd do it again too."
His anger vanished along with the last of his futile resistance. "Good," he said gruffly.
Candy was starting to figure out that Jared was a whole lot of masculine bluster. Beneath the cool stare and the cutting words he sometimes tossed off, he had feelings.
Twenty minutes later when she walked into his condo, she realized those feelings included being really doggone romantic.
He had recreated her idea of a perfect evening, right down to his own addition of a fire popping warmly in the fireplace.
Oh, Lord. If she hadn't been on the edge before, taking in the table set for two, the chilling wine, and the scented candles burning did her in for sure. It felt almost like she was falling in love with Jared.
Which was insane, since she was supposed to be using him just for the purpose of having some romping good sex. But the stupid man had gone and actually listened to what she had said when she'd been talking. She wasn't sure any man besides her stepfather had ever actually heard a single word she'd said outside of work-related topics.
Dean, her ex-husband, sure in the heck never had.
"Oh, Jared, you didn't have to go to so much trouble." But she was sure glad he had.
"It wasn't any trouble."
For a man who claimed not to get embarrassed, he was doing a pretty good imitation of just that.
It just made him all the more gorgeous.
Jared was wearing casual black pants and a sky blue shirt, which made his blue eyes even lighter against his dark hair. He had a smooth, understated style, always looking good but never veering into the female world of primping.
He picked up a remote control and turned the stereo on. Jazz music started playing softly. Her legs threatened to give way. He'd even remembered the jazz.
When he held her chair out for her, she looked at the pasta sitting in a covered bowl ready to be served. If he had cooked food that was edible, she might just never want to leave. "Did you cook this?"
He snorted. "Hell, no. I don't cook. I ordered it from an Italian restaurant around the corner."
Then he sat down across from her. He sounded oddly eager when he said, "Do you cook?"
"Not unless you call PB and J sandwiches cooking."
"I can make omelets," he said.
She was impressed. Scrambled was the most she could manage. "I can boil hot dogs and heat up canned corn."
They both laughed while he poured the wine and served them pasta and bread. She took a steaming bite and silently thanked the unknown chef. Having spent a good portion of her lunch hour holed up in the ladies' room, she was now starving.
After a few bites, Candy said, "We're not going to get to any work on Chunk o' Chocolate, are we?"
Jared looked up from his plate. "We'll get to it." He grinned. "Sometime before it's due on Harold's desk."
She was afraid he would say that. Or really damn pleased was probably the more honest answer.
"Jared, we should at least try and work on it." Candy tried to sound firm, but she knew she was failing miserably.
He kept smiling. Geez, she loved his smile. He didn't ever look so relaxed at work, and she felt a giddy pleasure that she could bring that grin to his face.
"Alright, let's think up some slogans while we eat." Jared took a sip of his wine. "What rhymes with chunk?"
"Monk. Punk. Funk." She leaned back in her chair and nibbled on her bread. "So, how about a monk at a disco eating chocolate?"
He shot her a withering look.
She giggled. "Hunk rhymes too."
"We're talking about the ad, Candy, not me."
His deadpan expression made her laugh out loud. "Hunky and modest, huh?"
"I'm a pretty good catch, aren't I?" His serious expression cracked a little, his lip twitching up in a smile.
"I know you are. Didn't I ask why no one's caught you yet?"
"Maybe I've been waiting for the right woman to figure out how to catch me."
A fishing net? Handcuffs? With fantastic sex?
Candy wished she knew, because she was starting to think she'd like to snag Jared for herself.
"So say a woman wanted to catch you. What would be the best way to do that?" She tried to keep her voice light, but a quiver crept into it.
Jared put his fork down and gave her a searching look that made her want to squirm. He said, "I think by just being herself, and letting me be myself."
Then he shrugged. "It sounds like an after-school special, but it's true. I don't want games, I want a partner, a friend."
He raised his wineglass in mock salute, and his voice lightened. "Sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it?"
"No." Candy shook her head rapidly. "No, it doesn't. I… I was married once."
Jared's eyes bulged. "You were?"
"Yeah." She tried to smile, but couldn't quite force it. "Dean was my boyfriend in high school. It was never a good relationship, not even then. We broke up when I went to college, but when I came back home, he came on strong, said all the right things."
Yet to this day she couldn't imagine what she had been thinking when she had married him. "As soon as we were married, I knew it was a mistake, but I didn't want to admit that."
Jared was gripping his glass tightly. "What did he do to you?"
Startled, she said, "Nothing. I mean, he didn't abuse me or anything horrible like that. We just had nothing in common; we didn't talk. He was violently jealous of guys looking at me, and it just got worse. He had to control everything with our money, where I was going, what I was doing. He didn't want me wearing makeup or nice clothes."
No, Dean had never hit her, but he had made her life miserable, and had stripped her of her dignity. He had humiliated her in front of people she cared about. "He said it was my fault men looked at me, that I was a flirt, a tease."
"Jesus, Candy. How long were you with him?"
It wasn't pity in Jared's voice, just honest concern. It made her feel better about blurting out her past business to him.
"Three years." Years that she had accepted were gone and she couldn't get back.
"That's a long time to live like that."
"It is. But I got away as soon as I was ready, and thank goodness we never had any children together."
"Are you divorced then?"
His hand had snaked across the table and was holding hers, stroking with a light touch.
"Oh, heck yeah. He tried to fight it, but the judge was friends with my stepdad and he wasn't having any of Dean's crap. Judge Anderson pushed it through nice and fast, and I moved to Knoxville. But it still felt too close to Dean, so I picked up and came to Chicago. My roommate from college lives here."
She waited for the apology that was sure to come. The pity or even the recrimination. If Jared thought there was an ounce of truth to Dean's accusations of her being a dick-tease, she would either die from mortification or impale him with a salad fork.
He didn't do what she expected at all.
Instead, he squeezed her hand hard and said matter-of-factly, "Your ex sounds like a big pussy."
"Jared!" Good gravy, she couldn't believe he'd said that. She'd never heard him sound so brutal and angry before.
But then Dean inspired those feelings in her too.
"Well, he is." Jared was unrepentant. "Any real man would be proud to have you as his wife. He'd want you to dress up and look all sexy, so he could stroll into a room and let every guy there know that he had managed to marry a hot woman like you."
Candy flushed with pleasure.
"So I think your ex had issues about his manhood. That's the only explanation for treating you like that."
Candy had issues with Dean's manhood now too, since Jared had managed to make her moan squished up against a mahogany office desk. Dean had never inspired anything more than a pleasant sigh from her, and that was on his best days.
"He wanted to own you, didn't he?" Jared had pushed his chair back, but hadn't let go of her hand.
Candy's arm was stretched clear across the table, but she never even noticed the awkward position. Jared's words sliced something deep inside, touching a raw spot she hadn't known even existed anymore.