Finding Tessa by Jaime Hendricks (best ereader for comics .TXT) 📗

him through non-swollen eyes. He’s wearing slacks, a button-down shirt, and a tie. He smiles crookedly, which I decide I love about him, and extends a hand to me. I shake it, thankful he didn’t have the gall to come right at me, a virtual stranger, and kiss me on the cheek.

“Hi, Jace,” I say. “Come here often?”

He laughs. “My office is a couple of blocks away, so yeah, I’ve been here once or twice.” He winks at me and doesn’t mention my makeup sliding off my face, so I secretly hope it isn’t.

I want to look pretty.

“Can I get you a drink? Or do you just want to sit and eat?” He looks at his watch, which he wears on his right arm, so I assume he’s left-handed. “I made reservations, but we’re a bit early. If you’re hungry I can see if they’ll seat us now.”

He fumbles over his words and it’s adorable. “Let’s grab a drink first,” I say.

“What’s your poison?”

Assholes. But usually red wine. “I’ll have a Chardonnay.” I decide to make the change everywhere.

“Coming right up.”

He squeezes into the empty space beside me. Gets the bartender’s attention, Donald, who shakes Jace’s hand before taking the order.

Jace certainly knows a lot of bartenders. Thoughts of Damon creep and crawl on me like a spider and I feel like that eight-legged fucker is about to bite and the room starts to spin and I’m about to scream and then—

“Donald, this is my friend Tessa. She’s new in town. An interior designer. Does Michael need any help with the renovations? I’ve seen her stuff. She’s amazing. I’m helping her get started with a business loan, and you should have Michael snatch her up before her prices double.” Jace winks at me again. “She’d like your best chilled Chardonnay. I’ll take the pilsner on tap.”

“Sure thing, Jace,” Donald says, then looks at me. “Do you have a card I can pass along?”

I’m completely taken off guard, but I act confident. I’ve done a lot of acting my feelings in my day. “They’re on order. I’ve only been here a week.” I go for broke. “I have a website if you’d like me to write it down?”

“Absolutely. I’ll let Michael know.”

Donald hands me a pen from behind his ear and a small pad he takes orders on. I write down my brand-new website, so thankful I at least had to chutzpah to start that today, and hand it back to him. He pockets the piece of paper and runs for our drinks.

“Thanks, Jace. You really didn’t have to do that,” I say, even though I’m so, so grateful. Because I’ve pretended to be in this position before, I know only three states require a title act to practice if you want to call yourself an interior designer, and New Jersey isn’t one of them. Fake it till you make it.

He waves his hand in the air around him in nonchalance. “No big deal. I’m glad to help. Even if I had to tell a little white lie. I’m just trying to help a new friend.”

“That was quite a risk. How do you know I don’t paint walls orange and install brown and beige carpets and hang framed Confederate flags on the walls?”

“Oh. Well, do you?”

“Not the orange walls.” I stare at him seriously, but his expression is so horrified that I give up too easily and laugh. “Wow, I can get you to believe anything, huh?”

“Feisty!” he yells, then puts his hand on my shoulder, but quickly removes it. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get in your space.” He tries to take a step back in the crowded bar, bumps into someone and apologizes, then turns back to me. “You look better. But how do you feel?”

“I’m okay.” I’m about to say par for the course but I don’t. This man’s parents did a fantastic job raising him, and suddenly I’m curious. “Where did you come from, Jace Montgomery?”

He shrugs. “Jersey boy my whole life. Grew up not too far from here. Moved to Hoboken for a while with an ex—” He pauses. “But now I’m back here. And clearly looking for a new place to live,” he says with a chuckle. “You’ll have to help me decorate when the time comes.”

“Gladly.”

I smile up at him, completely taken with his face. He’s good-looking for sure, but that’s not it. He’s not Hollywood-hot, and most people probably wouldn’t give him a second glance if they passed him on the street. But I’m lost—when I look at him, I see the man who saved me. I need to know everything about him.

And I’m about to ask. But of course . . .

“Jace, is that you?”

A woman walks up behind him, and she legitimately puts her hands on his waist and turns him around to face her.

“Oh. Hey,” he says awkwardly. That’s it.

“I didn’t know you were coming here today!”

This woman is overly excited. Women know when they’re being ignored on purpose, and that’s exactly what she was doing to me. And then, knight in shining armor to the rescue, yet again.

He shifts his body back to my direction. “Rosita, this is my friend Tessa. She’s new to town.” Jace looks at me with that smile again. “Rosita and I work together at the bank.”

“Nice to meet you Rosita,” I say. Kill them with kindness.

I get a close-lipped, tense smile in return. “Yeah. Hi.” Her lips don’t do all the talking, as most is done with her eyes. The up-and-down scan of my outfit, and I know she’s stifling the laughter about my being in a T-shirt and jeans while she’s in some va-va-voom designer wrap dress with huge emerald earrings that don’t match, but look classy against her medium-toned skin. Her long, brown-to-blond ombré Real Housewife curls overshadow my razor-chopped bob with the box dye, the bangs. She turns to Jace, reverting from Queen Bee back to damsel in distress. “Can I talk to you for a second? Privately?” Her shiny lips