She didn’t really have true red hair, and she was tired of people saying she did. Hers was auburn, heading toward regular old mud brown.
Finn didn’t have red hair either. He was the black-hair, blue-eye variety of Irishman, and really attractive. He was also a bit scruffy, like Caroline had described. He was wearing a suit, but it looked a little wrinkled, like he couldn’t be bothered to press it, and there was no tie in sight. He needed a haircut, but he didn’t seem to be the pig Caroline had suggested he was.
“Oh, I’ve got Irish somewhere in my blood. I think it was my great-grandmother. She was from Cork. But I’ve got so many different nationalities in me, I’m just a mutt.” Jamie took a peek toward the front of the church. Mandy and Steve were still standing there, waiting for the signal.
“Well, the village churches in Ireland aren’t on nearly so grand a scale as this, but they do serve to show that sometimes the most startling beauty can be found in the simplest of things.” He reached his hand out and moved it in a half circle back and forth in front of her face. “Like the way the light is playing over your striking cheekbones right now.”
Jamie was a little startled, but still felt a bit like sighing. That was awfully flattering. Jack stiffened next to her.
“Have you ever had your portrait painted, Jamie?”
Allison snorted and gave Finn a smack on the arm. “Jamie’s with Jonathon, if you know what I mean, so give it up.”
Finn just shook his head. “My interest is purely professional, as an artist. I’d love to paint Jamie, capture that shadow as it passes over her face. The Madonna and Child, that’s the face you have.”
Jamie felt that very face split into a beaming smile. She didn’t think anyone had ever compared her to the Mother of God before. “Well, that’s awfully sweet of you, Finn.”
“What kind of face do I have?” Allison asked.
“Aphrodite,” he told her without hesitation. “Helen of Troy. Cleopatra. The kind of woman men would kill to possess.”
“Wow.” Allison grinned. “I’ll buy that for a dollar. How about Mandy?”
“She’s Alice in Wonderland—whimsical, dreamy, smart, tender.”
That sounded just like Mandy.
“What about Caroline?” Jamie asked, interested despite the fact that Jack made an impolite noise.
Finn turned and glanced back at Caroline, who was standing with her father, fussing with his tie. Her blond hair was pulled back, her ivory dress classic and stunning. Jamie thought Caroline was a beautiful bride, striking in a way she could never hope to achieve.
Hands in his pockets, Finn’s head went back and forth slightly. “Caroline? Caroline is Sleeping Beauty, locked in her ivory tower.”
Jack placed her hand on his elbow. “It’s our turn.”
Jamie cast a glance back at Caroline, wondering what Finn had meant. She would have never thought of Caroline that way. But Allison gave her a push, and she focused forward, staring down that church aisle.
“You don’t remind me of the Madonna,” Jack murmured in a low voice, his lips tickling her ear.
“No?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear his answer.
“To me you’re Venus, a gorgeous, awe-inspiring goddess. And I’m going to love you, Jamie. I’m going to talk to you, make love to you, be there with a ride when you get caught in a thunderstorm. Do you understand me?”
And before she could blink, he was leading her up the aisle, gripping her hand tightly over his elbow.
Chapter 17
Jamie loved weddings. She had been looking forward to Caroline’s wedding since the engagement ring had been stuck on her finger nine months before.
Unfortunately, Jamie had gotten zero sleep the night before, worrying about Jack. Wondering how he would react to her today, and what he might pull in the name of loving her.
Regretting that her strategy to resist Jack had failed so miserably at the church the night before. He’d spent the whole night whispering phenomenally inappropriate things in her ear. How was it she’d told him she didn’t want a relationship and he’d morphed into Don Juan de Wall Street? Throw in a Spanish accent and he’d have the whole thing down pat.
Yet she was determined to enjoy the wedding day, despite Jack and his roving fingers. If Jamie ignored the fact that Jack was constantly undressing her with his eyes, and the encroaching hands, she could make it through this day without making a fool of herself. Not that she was expecting a repeat of the night before.
Nope. She was expecting much worse. He was going to be coming on to her left and right, and she was going to have to be strong. Which she could do.
Now, if only her bridesmaid’s dress would cooperate.
“Allison!” she howled to her roommate as she stood in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, newly hers and hers alone, now that both Mandy and Caroline had moved out. The rent was going to kill her, but Mandy and Caro had both paid for several more months, until the lease was up. Then she and Allison were probably going to have to take on new roommates, which wasn’t at all appealing, or find a cheaper place.
As she surveyed herself in the mirror with dismay, she yanked on the dress hard. She honestly did not remember the dress looking the way it currently did when she had gone to her last fitting.
It was ice blue, which complemented her auburn coloring, but sleeveless, which Jamie was always a little leery of given her healthy chest. Yet if sleeveless was paired with a high neck, it wasn’t usually a problem.
This wasn’t a high neck. It was straight across the top of her chest, forming a band over her breasts. Strapless. In theory it was an attractive dress, with a straight full-length skirt.
On Jamie the bodice appeared to be suspended in midair a foot from her body due to the thrust of her D cup breasts. Which meant anyone looking over her shoulder could see all the way to the promised land. And it wasn’t manna they were going to find.
She yanked harder, trying to move it up. The force of gravity contained within her fifteen-pound chest dragged it back down again.
“What’s the matter?” Allison called down the hall from the bathroom.
“Something’s wrong with my dress!”
“Hold on, I’m putting mascara on.”
Mandy appeared in the doorway, having come to the apartment to get ready with them. “What’s wrong with it?”
Jamie looked at her friend. On Mandy, the dress looked stunning, complementing her fair skin and light brown hair swept up on top of her head. Since she was neither short nor tall, the straight cut of the dress served to visually lengthen Mandy’s legs. It attractively hugged the small bump of her belly.