The Fidelity Files (Jennifer Hunter #1)(90)

An entirely new and unfamiliar feeling.

I noticed a smile appear across his lips as he studied the photograph of me and my mom taken on a cruise a few years back, and then the picture of me, Sophie, Zo?, and John, taken at Jayes Martini Lounge. And that's when I realized:

Jamie was the first man to enter this house (besides John). I had obviously never brought any clients back here. And since I hadn't been on a real date in years, there had been no other man to bring back here.

Jamie was the first.

And suddenly, watching him inside my home, observing my life, it somehow no longer felt nerve-racking.

It felt... right.

It was a feeling I'd never quite experienced before. A pang of some sort. Warm and peaceful yet completely terrifying all at the same time.

And it didn't disappear the moment we stepped out the front door.

It didn't even disappear after we drove away in Jamie's car and turned onto Wilshire Boulevard.

In fact, that pang inside me, that small twinge of something unknown, it kept growing. Stronger and stronger. On the way to dinner, while sitting in the gourmet French restaurant he insisted on taking me to in order to prove that he doesn't only eat hot dogs and Coke for dinner, and by the time our dessert was delivered I wasn't sure what the hell was going on inside me. It felt like someone had unleashed a flock of hummingbirds inside my stomach and they wouldn't stop buzzing around.



THIRTY MINUTES later Jamie and I lay on the front hood of his car outside of the Santa Monica Airport and watched small jets and propeller planes land on the runway in front of us.

His hand was firmly wrapped around mine and his leg was resting so close to mine that every time one of us moved, even the slightest bit, our legs would touch. There was a faint chill in the air, but I could hardly feel it. I felt warmer than ever.

"So, airplanes, huh?" I asked him with amusement.

"I figured it could be kind of like a theme for us," Jamie replied, squeezing my hand.

I smiled at the sky. "Makes sense."

"Tell me about your job," he said, turning to face me.

I continued to stare straight up into the sky. I couldn't look at him. Not when answering a question like this. Not when I was about to lie to someone I suddenly felt the strongest desire to never lie to.

I wanted desperately to tell him the truth. To be as honest with him as I just knew he had been with me from the moment we met. I wanted to tell him about everything. Raymond Jacobs and his atrocious blackmail, Andrew Thompson and his weakness for beer-guzzling flight attendants, Parker Colman and his attempted "intervention" in the elevator, Sarah Miller and her robot facade, even Sophie – my best friend and her unthinkable request – all the way back to Miranda Keyton, my first, accidental, inspection.

Something about him, something about lying next to him, holding his hand, and watching private jets zoom over our heads, made it impossible to lie to him.

Well, nearly impossible.

"What do you want to know?" I asked casually.

"Well, you told me you're an investment banker. What kind of deals do you work on?"

I shrugged. "All kinds."

"Too much detail. Stop! I've heard enough."

I laughed. "You know, mergers and acquisitions, hostile takeovers, private equity, risk management."

"Wow, you're quite the Jill of all trades."

"Uh-huh," I said, eager to change the subject. "What about you? Tell me more about your job."

I wanted nothing more than to just be myself, and I felt an unbearable frustration in knowing that I couldn't.

Jamie gave me a puzzled look, most likely sensing my uneasiness, and I'm sure it confused the hell out of him. Why doesn't this girl like to talk about her job? What's her problem? But fortunately he didn't press the issue.

"Companies hire us to help them develop marketing strategies, redesign logos, research new ways of reaching out to customers. That kind of stuff."

I turned and smiled at him. "That sounds interesting."

He nodded. "It is... most of the time."

We sat in silence for a moment as a loud plane passed overhead. "Think they sat here on a Palm Springs runway for four hours before landing?" I asked, looking at the sky.

He nodded. "No way. That runway's reserved for us."

I smiled. "Have you ever heard of an airplane bag?"

"You mean like the one they give you onboard to throw up in?"

I laughed and playfully slapped his leg with the back of my hand. "No! Like a bag with lots of stuff in it. You know, stuff for airplanes."

Jamie turned his head. "Airplane stuff?" he asked with a puzzled look on his face.

"Yeah, like food and Mad Libs and playing cards, Silly Putty. Stuff like that. I used to make them for me and my parents before we'd go on trips. I always had the best time picking out the contents. As soon as my parents announced a vacation, I would start planning each person's airplane bag."

"Oh, so they were personalized?"

I nodded proudly. "Of course. I was no amateur bag maker. I was like the master airplane bag maker."

"Is it weird that I've been thinking about you?" he asked after a beat.

I couldn't help but smile. "Well, that depends on how you've been thinking about me. If it was like, me riding an elephant through the desert with a clown and a cheerleader... then yeah, maybe that'd be weird."