A Love Worth Waiting For and Heaven Knows by Jillian Hart Page A

but made the rest myself.” He took the recliner. “That doesn’t make me ruthless. Maybe I made my fortune by accident.”
    â€œBy accident? How do you do that, I’d like to know. I love teaching—don’t get me wrong—but I wouldn’t mind being accidentally wealthy.” She sat on the edge of the wide coffee table, chin up, all challenge.
    She didn’t believe him when he’d said his success was an accident. Fine. She would.
    â€œThis is something you won’t read in any magazine. I never admit this to anyone else. Probably because then I’d look like an incompetent who shouldn’t be in charge of a company.”
    â€œOoh, now I’m curious.” She leaned forward, and he felt as if he could tell her anything.
    â€œI was fresh out of business school with my MBA in hand. The last thing I wanted to do was work with my father. He has a consulting firm and he was pressuring me to join him. But I’d come into my money that summer, so I rented office space in the basement of this old building in Queens. I set up shop and wrote code with a buddy of mine. ByChristmas, we had a financial software package on the market, for trading stocks electronically. By spring, I quadrupled my inheritance.”
    â€œI thought you ran this huge electronics conglomerate.”
    â€œIt started out as a small software venture. I was just doing what I loved to do. It snowballed. No, it exploded like a ton of dynamite and buried my life.” He felt a sense of loss he couldn’t explain and didn’t know where it came from. “So I made billions and built a huge company, and I never intended to do it.”
    He took a sip of hot chocolate, and the sweetness soothed that unsettled feeling in his stomach. “Julie, promise me something. Don’t tell the stockholders I admitted that.”
    â€œCross my heart.” She said it like a promise she would keep for the rest of her days.
    She was too good to be true, and he was thankful she was his friend.
    She took a sip of hot chocolate. Marshmallow clung to her upper lip. The tip of her tongue swiped the sweetness away.
    Before he knew what he was doing, he reached across the distance between them. Her lips felt like warmed satin against his fingertip. “You missed a spot.”
    â€œI bet the women you spend time with don’t spill marshmallow fluff all over themselves.”
    â€œNo, they don’t.” His fingers stroked the corner of her mouth. His touch felt tender and amazing.
    She sparkled all the way down to her toes. No man had ever made her feel like this.
    He withdrew, but he didn’t ease back into the chair. He placed his elbows on his knees, remaining close. So close she could see the black flecks in his dark eyes. It would take nothing at all for him to lean forward and kiss her. She almost wanted him to.
    Romantic doom, remember? It was hard, but she managed to slide away from him without spilling her hot chocolate or letting her feelings show.
    The microwave dinged, saving her. Instead of running away from being so close to him, it looked as if she were leaving for completely valid reasons.
    Noah seemed unaware as he straightened, stood up and paced to the far window. The sunlight was waning, the world outside somber and brooding.
    Friends, he had said wisely, and she wholeheartedly agreed. A man like Noah Ashton was wrong for her.
    The chili was steaming, and she gave it a good stir.
    â€œSmells good.” Noah wandered into the kitchen, stretching. “Homemade?”
    â€œThe only kind.” She slipped a plate piled with cornbread slices into the microwave and hit the start button. “What do you want to drink? I have vanilla soda or root beer.”
    â€œYou pick.” He sidled past her to the sink and turned on the faucet. The scent of berries filled the air as he pumped out a few dollops of soft soap.
    There was a jingling sound, but it wasn’t the