All Jacked Up (Rough Riders #8)(83)

“I’m most impressed with you when you’re wearing nothing at all,” Jack mock-whispered.


She half-shoved him. “You are insatiable, Jack Donohue. Behave in public.”


“Always, but never in private. If you’ll excuse us, I need a minute alone with my beautiful bride-to-be.” Jack steered her to an alcove that wasn’t private in the least.


Keely smiled. “Surprised to see me?”


“Very.” He curled his hand around her neck, stroking his thumb along her jawline before smooching her lips with softness and sweetness. “I’m very happy to see you.”


“Yeah? What is on the agenda tonight?”


“Dinner, followed by a long, boring annual meeting. Then I take you up to the room and f*ck you until you scream my name.”


“Feeling confident?”


Jack frowned. “Never when it comes to you, buttercup.”


Whoa. Not a response she’d anticipated.


“Let’s mingle so we can get the hell out of here as soon as possible when it’s over,” Jack said.


During dinner they sat with a couple from Chicago, as well as Jack’s other colleagues who’d ragged on him for his hermetic state in the last few years. Keely enjoyed herself more than she’d expected. Jack was attentive, not overtly obvious, but acting as if he genuinely cared for her.


She and Gina slipped out when the business meeting started, intending to hit a downtown toy store.


Since Gina had forgotten her purse in her room, Keely waited in a quiet reception area around the corner from the main bank of elevators.


The quiet didn’t last long.


“Well, if it isn’t the wannabe queen of the rodeo.”


Keely counted to ten before she deigned to glance up from her cell phone. “Well, if it isn’t Mrs.


Ducheyne.” More like Mrs. Douchebag.


“You think you’re brave and cool showing up dressed like that?” A dismissive gaze flickered over her.


“Wow. You really have nothin’ better to do than to try and harass me? Why do you care what I wear if I’m so inconsequential to you?”


“I couldn’t care less. You’re embarrassing yourself again.”


“Sort of like your little pep talk in the bathroom was supposed to embarrass me? Did you believe your lies had the power to send me packing? Wrong. Wyoming women are made of sterner stuff.”


“Tackier stuff for certain,” she sniffed.


“Ooh, and it was so classy to have your jealous rant about Jack…in the crapper?”


“Jealous? I don’t—”


“I don’t know which we laughed about more, your ridiculous yarn about Jack bringing bimbos to this conference, or your bizarre belief Jack’s still carrying a torch for you. Talk about being embarrassed for you, lady. Jack was over you three years ago.”


“And how do you know that?” Martine snapped.


“Because Jack and I ended up together at my brother’s wedding reception in Wyoming a month before you ‘left’ him for Baxter.”


“You’re lying.”


Yep. But it served Martine right. “I’ve known Jack since I was sixteen, Mrs. Ducheyne. I found it…enlightening at our engagement party last month that his mother and brother knew zilch about you. If Jack couldn’t be bothered to tell his family about your relationship, really, how important could you have been to him?”


Martine glared but she didn’t storm off. Probably trying to formulate a snarky comment about Keely’s hair or clothes, since that was the extent of her insult repertoire.


“The truth is: it bugs the living shit out of you that you made a mistake dumping him. You can’t help but compare sexy as hell Jack Donohue, to the stodgy, pudgy old timer you settled for. Especially when you see Jack is happy and successful without Baxter.”


“Successful?” she sneered. “That’s a stretch.”


“Wrong. I’d bet your matronly purse Jack gets the Milford restoration project because I was there when he pitched it. They love him and they loved his ideas.”


Her eyes turned shrewd. “You were there?”


“Yes. And besides that project, Jack is contracted for my historic building, a courthouse in Montana and two projects in Iowa. That’s just through the end of this year.”


“What do you mean ‘my historic building’?” Martine demanded.


“Jack is supervising the restoration of a historical building which will house the rehabilitation clinic I’m opening in Moorcroft.”


“A freebie for you? How charitable. I doubt he’s spending much time on it since he’s so…busy.” She made quotes in the air with the word busy.


“Since he’s been working out of our apartment in Sundance, it’s not a long commute for him to Moorcroft.”


“You’re living with Jack in Wyoming?”


“Didn’t know that, did you?”


Martine’s face darkened.