Kissing Under The Mistletoe: The Sullivans (Contemporary Romance) by Bella Andre Page B

Eight
     
    Over the course of the next few days, Mary
not only gave dozens of radio, print and TV interviews about the
Pocket Planner, but she and Gerry traveled all through San
Francisco taking pictures of her using it in different parts of the
city. After the handful of kisses Jack had stolen from her—and
especially given how quickly her resistance had fallen both
times—Mary knew she should be glad for this break from seeing him
to regain her sanity. Before Jack Sullivan had walked into her
life, she’d been perfectly fine. Content. Comfortable.
    Mary frowned. Was that what her supposedly
glamorous, jet-setting life had turned into? Fine,
content, comfortable? If that was all she had to show for
her adventurous life, had it really been worth turning her back on
her old life? After all, she could have stayed in Italy and gotten
married to the first boy who proposed and ended up with fine, content and comfortable .
    She was so lost in her turbulent thoughts
that she walked right into Gerry’s studio and opened the door to
his darkroom without paying attention to the red light above the
door.
    “Shut the door!”
    Some photographers were yellers, but not
Gerry. In fact, she couldn’t ever remember him raising his
voice…until now. Mary slammed the door shut behind her, but Gerry
was already swearing over the print he’d lost because of her stupid
mistake.
    “I’m so sorry,” she said, even though her
apology couldn’t fix a thing. “I don’t know what I was
thinking.”
    But she knew perfectly well what she’d been
thinking. She’d been trying to convince herself that not being
tempted by Jack was a good thing. Yet she had as little restraint
when it came to thinking about him as she did to kissing him.
    The harder she tried to push him from her
mind, the deeper he stuck.
    Dropping the ruined photo into the trash,
Gerry turned to face her. “I take it Jack hasn’t called?”
    The room was dark, but not dark enough that
her friend couldn’t see the truth in her eyes. “He’s just doing
what I asked him to do.”
    “I’ve known you for more than a decade, and
I’ve never seen you like this.” Gerry cocked his head and pinned
her with his deep photographer’s gaze. “That’s why you agreed to
take on this campaign, isn’t it, and why you’re working so hard on
it? You’ve fallen for the brilliant—and gorgeous—engineer.”
    Allen had commented before one of her
interviews that she was going to be very glad she’d given up her
fee in favor of a portion of the profits. Of course, she didn’t
tell the chairman that it was all for Jack, that on their first
night together in the diner she’d fallen head over heels for him
before realizing he wanted more from her than pie and conversation.
Gerry, on the other hand, had seen right through her.
    “I’ve tried so hard to keep my head on my
shoulders around Jack, but…”
    She found it extremely difficult to put into
words what she was feeling. If it were simply attraction, it would
be easy. But the emotion rolling through her was something much
deeper than that.
    She knew better than to want this much or
feel so strongly when every time she’d given her heart to someone,
they’d tossed it aside without a care. And yet, she hadn’t been
able to stop herself where Jack was concerned.
    “I’ve never known anyone so driven by a
dream, or so passionate about making it become reality.”
    “I have,” Gerry said. “You.”
    Mary couldn’t contain her surprise. “Me?”
    “I’ll never forget that first day you walked
into my studio. You were as green and inexperienced as they came,
but Randy had promised me there was something special about you,
something that went beyond your outward beauty. You stepped in
front of my camera and even though you weren’t polished, or had any
clue whatsoever about what you were doing, I saw exactly what Randy
had been talking about. Your passion for life, and all those dreams
you wanted to make real, were right