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  “Of course,” Jay replied, nodding as seriously as he could manage through his playful smirk. “A lady can’t appear too eager.”

  “No, she can’t,” Layla agreed, playing along. “And a gentleman should be left to wonder the nature of the lady’s affections.”

  “It’s only proper,” Jay added, nodding his approval.

  Layla smiled with relief to see the familiar, sweet and attentive Jay back.

  Julie showed up at that moment and sat down next to Jay. “Hey, guys, what’s up?” she asked.

  “It looks like I’m going to the Thanksgiving dance,” Layla informed her.

  “You are?” Jay questioned like it was news to him. “With whom?”

  Layla picked up the cap of her water bottle and flicked it at him, causing him to laugh.

  “Well, since you’re taking her,” Julie said, turning to face Jay, “I think I should inform you that it happens to be her birthday that day.”

  “Julie!” Layla screeched. “How could you?”

  “What’s the big deal?” Julie answered. “It’s not like you’re turning fifty.”

  “Eighteen?” Jay questioned, looking expectantly at Layla.

  “Yes,” Julie answered for her, then ducked another water bottle cap.

  “So I’ll be taking a woman to the dance,” Jay said with amusement flashing across his face. “That adds an interesting new dimension to the night.”

  “You have a really big mouth,” Layla scolded, glaring at Julie.

  Layla was quiet during most of the lunch break, watching Jay and Julie banter like old friends. She laughed inwardly at the idea that she thought he was having doubts about their budding relationship. Now he seemed overly eager to win the approval of her friend.

  Sure enough, when the bell rang, Jay leaned over and placed a quick kiss on her lips. “I just got a call from Ben, and he doesn’t need me tonight after all, so if you want to work on the project…” he trailed off, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Is that like a code-word for something else?” Julie butted in. “Because I’ve had it from a reliable source that there hasn’t been any project being worked on between the two of you.”

  “You really are a big-mouth,” Layla scolded.

  Jay laughed at Layla’s petulance. “No, Julie, we really just haven’t gotten around to it yet, but I’m confident we can make a big dent in it this evening.”

  The rest of the day went much more pleasantly for Layla.

  After last class, she threw on her backpack and went to meet Julie by her car, but when she got there, Jay was already standing with Julie, both engrossed in a casual conversation.

  “Hey,” Layla said, smiling up at him.

  “How about six-thirty?” Jay asked, his typical warm smile back in place.

  Just then, a loud whistle caused all three of them to turn. Joey was running toward them, smiling broadly. “Jay, there you are,” he called out.

  “I thought you were going back up north?” Jay said when Joey came to a stop in front of them.

  Joey ignored Jay’s statement and looked Julie over. “And who is this?” he said, staring at her appreciatively.

  “Joey, this is my friend, Julie,” Layla said by way of introduction.

  “Julie…” Joey sighed. “As in Juliet?”

  “Actually, that’s my real name,” Julie replied, smiling.

  “Juliet…” Joey said with a smirk. “I would be your Romeo anytime.”

  Julie let out a girlish giggle.

  “So why are you here?” Jay said loudly, causing Joey to turn on his heels.

  “Issy and I need you to drive us to the airport,” he replied.

  “Where’s Ben?” Jay asked.

  “He had something he needed to do. We were going to call a car service, but Ben suggested that he drop us of here instead. He knew you wouldn’t mind taking us,” Joey said, smirking in Jay’s direction.

  “So thoughtful,” Jay answered sarcastically.

  Layla wondered what Ben needed to do that was so important, considering the fact that he was only in the area to spend time with Jay, but just then, the sound of someone calling her name caused her to turn and expel the thought from her head entirely.

  Issy was jogging over, smiling. “Layla,” she called out.

  “Hi, Issy,” Layla replied, happy to see her new friend again. “What time’s your flight?”

  “In a little over an hour,” Issy replied. She smiled in Julie’s direction.

  “This is my really good friend, Julie,” Layla explained.

  “Hi, Julie,” Issy said. “Any friend of Layla’s is cool by me.”

  “Thank you,” Julie answered.

  “Juliet,” Joey amended.

  Issy rolled her eyes. “I hope my brother hasn’t been bothering you,” she said. “You look like his type.”

  “Not at all,” Julie replied, seeming flattered by the compliment.

  “We’d better get going,” Jay piped in. “I’ll pick you up at six-thirty,” he added, smiling at Layla.

  Issy turned on him quickly as though that statement surprised her. She gave him an ‘oh, really’ look then smiled broadly.

  “No me mires así,” Jay said quietly, putting his hand on the small of Issy’s back and leading her toward the Range Rover.

  “They seem really nice,” Julie said, staring after them.

  “Yes, they are,” Layla agreed.

  When they were seated in the car, Julie turned to Layla with a quizzical look. “Why was Jay speaking Spanish to Issy?” she asked.

  “It’s just something they do,” Layla replied.

  “Don’t you find that odd, though?” Julie pushed. “I mean, Jay looks Spanish, but his last name would suggest otherwise.”

  “Maybe his mom is Spanish,” Layla replied, shrugging her shoulders. “I never thought to ask him. It seems none of my business what he and Issy do. Jay, Issy and Joey have been friends since they were tiny kids, along with their other friend, Ben.”

  “Still…don’t look at me like that. What did that mean?” Julie questioned.

  “What do you mean?” Layla asked.

  “Honestly, Layla, I’ll never understand why you decided to take another science class instead of Spanish. That’s what he said to her. After he told you that he’d pick you up at six-thirty, she gave him a look like that surprised her, and then he said ‘don’t look at me like that’. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it just seemed odd.”

  “I think you’re reading too much into it,” Layla responded. “And I love science and figured I’d never do the Spanish language justice anyway.”

  “I don’t know,” Julie said, shaking her head and ignoring Layla’s last comment. “It was as if Issy was shocked that he’d be seeing you again.”

  Layla shrugged her shoulders and looked out the side window, feeling irritated at her friend for assuming the worst. But then she remembered Jay’s strange mood from earlier in the day and fought back a moment of doubt. No, Julie was wrong, she quickly concluded. Jay had asked her to the dance, and everything was fine…wasn’t it?

  Jay

  Chapter 8

  Jay grabbed his leather jacket from the coat rack by the front door and headed out to the driveway.

  He turned the keys in the ignition of his SUV, feeling strange, familiar anxiety. It wasn’t exactly a bad feeling, more like a nervous excitement, and one that he felt all too often when he was going to see Layla. He scolded himself inwardly, ‘Calm down; she’s just a girl.’ But his inner arguing was to no avail; he knew deep inside that wasn’t true. She wasn’t just any girl. She was the brightest, funniest and prettiest girl he’d ever met. Nah, who was he kidding, she wasn’t pretty, she was beautiful…gorgeous in fact. Her pale skin was like peaches and cream. ‘A little cliché,’ he admitted, but it was the truth. There just wasn’t any other way to describe her perfect complexion. Her eyes, those hazel-green eyes that glistened with warmth and intelligence, all but took his breath away when h
e looked into them. But despite her air of wisdom, she had a delicate innocence about her, a profound goodness that was almost child-like.

  Jay’s mind drifted back to the last kiss, and the softness of her red lips. As much as he knew he should never have kissed her, not even once, the thought of it still caused his heart to flutter. The fact that she never pushed him away made the memories sweeter.

  Still, he knew it was wrong to involve her in his life. The realization that she was the only girl he’d been attracted to in a very long time did not negate the fact that what he was doing was almost criminal. He could tell that she liked him a lot, and while that feeling was more than mutual, he knew that he was leading her on to a certain degree. Ben was right; this was nothing short of crazy.

  His mind replayed the scene from the previous night.

  He pulled into his driveway after dropping Layla off and killed the ignition.

  “Crap!” he said out loud to no one. He tapped the steering wheel repeatedly, reluctant to get out of the car. He was well aware of what he was walking into, and it was going to resemble something very close to a firing squad.

  He sighed deeply, feeling a knot form in his stomach. He ran his fingers through his hair and got out of the car, knowing that he had to face this scene sooner or later. What was the point in prolonging the inevitable?

  When he entered his living room, Ben was well and truly fired up, as Jay knew he would be. “James Morganson’s stepdaughter! Are you freaking kidding me?” he screeched.

  “Ben, give it a rest,” Jay huffed.

  “Give it a rest?” Ben echoed, fuming. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “First off, she isn’t his stepdaughter. Her mom is only going out with Morganson—”

  “She lives with him!” Ben yelled. “That’s practically the same thing in my book. God, Jay, when I told you last night that she didn’t belong in our world, I had no idea the depth of that statement. And you knew that, yet you actually had me regretting hurting the girl’s feelings.”

  “Are her parents divorced?” Issy questioned innocently, as though she wasn’t aware of the reason for Ben’s outburst.

  “Her father was in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan a few years back,” Jay said quietly, wincing against the outburst he knew would come.

  Ben’s jaw dropped. He looked at Jay with astonished disbelief. “Oh, let me guess,” he said, having found his voice, “William Sparks’ kid. I considered that when she said that her dad and Morganson owned a company together, but decided to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  Jay sighed deeply. “It would appear so, given that her last name is Sparks,” he admitted with a guilty expression.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Ben screeched.

  “What’s the big deal?” Jay yelled back, feeling his temper flare. “She’s not responsible for their actions. It’s just an uncanny coincidence.”

  “Morganson hooked up with Sparks’ wife?” Issy said disbelievingly. “How weird.”

  “I didn’t know they owned a company together, did you?” Joey butted in.

  “No,” Jay replied. “But when Layla told me that her father owned a small pharmaceutical company with her mother’s boyfriend whose name just happened to be James, it took less than a split second to put two and two together.”

  “Jay, this is insanity!” Ben said, shaking his head.

  “I know…” Jay replied quietly.

  “Go easy,” Issy said to Ben in a pleading voice.

  “You knew about Sparks?” Jay asked, looking over at Ben.

  “I heard through the grapevine that he was in a helicopter crash on the northern border of Afghanistan and Pakistan…yeah,” Ben replied.

  Jay nodded.

  “And it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that he was probably rooting around the Hindu Kush,” Ben added.

  “Most likely,” Jay agreed, then sighed again. Ben was right; he really needed to move on and leave Layla alone.

  “I’m sorry,” Issy piped in.

  “For…?”

  “You really like her, I can tell,” she replied.

  Jay shrugged his shoulders.

  “But why wouldn’t you,” Issy added pensively. “She’s lovely in so many ways.”

  “No hacer esta peor, mi amor,” Ben warned.

  “I wasn’t trying to make it worse, only stating the obvious,” she snapped. “Why don’t you give Jay some credit or at the very least, some sympathy?”

  A guilty look spread over Ben’s face. “Jay, I apologize but—”

  “No, you’re right,” Jay said, shaking his head. “This is stupid. I knew it was but…”

  Issy put her hand on his shoulder supportively.

  “Listen, guys, I’m going up to my room. I’ll see you in the morning,” Jay announced and left without another word.

  And then there was his unforgivable and weak behavior from earlier that day.

  He had every intention of finding Layla and making some excuse as to why he needed to back off from her. But when he heard Hartley ask her to the dance, the green-eyed monster decided to pay him a visit at that moment and inform Jay that it saw things differently, and of course, Jay was no match for the demon.

  He ran the conversation that he would have to have with Ben over and over in his mind. Telling Ben that he really needed to work on the project with Layla would be partially the truth, that was, of course, unless he just gave up the facade and went home, which was, more than likely, the smarter option. He’d just have to stand his ground. That, or come up with a clever lie.

  He gazed out the window as he headed up the road toward Layla’s house. A low haze of sun bounced off the fall foliage. North Carolina in autumn was really a sight to behold. The epitome of fall colors bathed the scenery beyond his windshield. He lowered the sun visor to block the blinding rays.

  A heaviness settled over him, the irony of the situation apparent: part of him was so tired of being alone all the time, yet he hadn’t realized that until he met Layla, the one girl he could never justify being with. All he’d thought about in days was how much he wanted to spend time with her, not letting more logical thoughts take root. Doing so would have forced him to face the fact that his infatuation was already spiraling out of control, threatening to consume every circumstance in its path until things ended in a pile of smoldering ash. Still, he drove toward her house, eager to spend the evening with her, trying to block out all other thoughts for the time being.

  He pulled up in front of Layla’s home and thanked heaven that she was already outside, standing by the mailbox along with her mother. She looked breathtaking in a salmon colored hoodie and plain blue jeans.

  Jay did what he did best: pushed out all negativity and put on his most charming smile for Cheryl. He jumped out of the car and walked over to Layla’s mother, holding out his hand to her.

  “So Layla has informed me that you’ve asked her to the Thanksgiving dance,” Cheryl stated.

  “Yes, ma’am, I hope that’s okay with you,” he replied.

  “I suppose, but I was kind of hoping she’d join me in New York. I’ve never spent Thanksgiving without my daughter before,” Cheryl explained. “And James is going to be taking a flight up north on the Wednesday. I don’t like the idea of her alone for the holidays.”

  “Mom, I’ll be eighteen at that point, a full-fledged adult. I’ll be fine,” Layla butted in, rolling her eyes.

  “She would be more than welcome to spend the day with my family and me,” Jay responded.

  “Your parents wouldn’t mind?” Cheryl pushed.

  Jay breathed out through his nose in a quiet chuckle. “Not in the slightest,” he replied, shaking his head.

  “Okay…I suppose,” Cheryl reluctantly replied.

  “Don’t worry, mom, I’m a big girl,” Layla insisted.

  “Alright, then,” Cheryl muttered. “Have fun, you two,” she added as Jay held open the car door for Layla.

  He climbed into the driver’s
side and stuck his head out the window. “It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Sparks,” he said politely before backing out of the driveway.

  When they entered his house, Jay went to the kitchen immediately and brought Layla back a can of diet coke without her asking. “I stocked up the fridge for you,” he said, pulling up the tab and pouring the contents into an iced glass before handing it to her.

  “How many do you think I could drink in one night?” she asked sarcastically. She sat at the edge of the couch and took a sip then placed the glass on the side table next to her.

  Jay sat beside her with his arm flung over the back of the couch and his left knee up on the cushion, facing her, his mood still reflective. “So about this project…” he said, but then, as he looked at her, his expression changed. He stopped talking and was regarding her as though he’d never seen her before. He was aware, by the change in her demeanor, that he was making her slightly uncomfortable with the way he was gazing at her, but just couldn’t seem to peel his eyes away.

  “So, about this project,” she echoed, obviously trying to bring the subject back around to her reason for being there.

  “You’re really beautiful,” he said, cutting her off, seemingly unaware that she’d said something.

  Her face flushed scarlet, no doubt from the intensity of his white-hot glare.

  He put his knuckle under her chin and lifted her face so that he could look into her eyes. A smile spread across his face. “You’re blushing,” he said, beaming. “I would have thought that a girl that looks as good as you would be thoroughly sick of hearing how beautiful you are at this point.”

  She shook her head slightly but said nothing.

  Jay narrowed his eyes and regarded her for a long moment. “God, Layla,” he breathed, his look turning somber. He swallowed. The way she sat before him, delicate and bashful, her cheeks burning in the most adorable manner he’d ever seen, utterly affected by being told that she was beautiful, he wanted to grab hold of her, to fold her into his arms more than he’d wanted anything in a long time. She looked up at him, the depths of her eyes taking his breath away. Without even realizing what he was doing, he ran his finger over her pink cheek, wallowing in the softness of her skin.