That was the only reason he was sending her away. A damning little voice inside his head wanted to argue that point. The same voice that had pestered him all night as he’d lain awake, thinking of the woman in his arms and how suddenly and unexpectedly she’d become so important to him. The same voice that was telling him he was merely being a coward.
Maybe the voice was right. None of it mattered. He’d never get over it or forgive himself if anything else happened to damage Sonya any further.
He could only hope he hadn’t just done something to damage Jess.
* * *
Back to reality. Manhattan seems a lifetime ago rather than the week that had passed. Jess rummaged through the paperwork on her metal teacher’s desk and tried to focus on the budgetary numbers Clara wanted her to take some time this weekend to look over. But focus eluded her. It was hard not to think for the hundredth time this morning about the two days she’d spent in the city with Jordan. A true fantasy. None of it had been real. Not for Jordan anyway, as evidenced by the fact that he hadn’t so much as called or tried to contact her. She’d been to the mansion to visit Sonya twice already as they’d agreed. Jordan had been nowhere to be found. Maybe he was avoiding her. Maybe he’d even stayed in New York all this time, leaving Sonya in Elise’s good hands.
That possibility stung at her eyes and she had to sniffle back unwanted tears.
So she thought she’d imagined it when his voice sounded from the doorway. There was no reason for Jordan to be here on a Saturday.
“Can I come in?”
She blinked up at him in surprise. Of all the ways she’d expected to run into him again, having him stop by her classroom on a rare Saturday morning that she was there hadn’t been one of the possibilities that occurred to her.
Jess waved him in with her hand. To her further surprise, he shut the door behind him.
“Jordan?”
“Hey, do you have a minute? What are you doing here on a Saturday morning anyway?”
She gestured to the binders of figures in front of her. “Clara asked me to look at some of the center’s numbers. We have to make some budget cuts, unfortunately.”
He stepped farther into the room. “I’m sorry to hear that. That’s right, you mentioned you had a finance degree.”
She grunted a small laugh. “I do, indeed.” A degree she had pursued simply to prove she was different than her mother. Only to find that her artistic side was just as strong and needed to be nurtured. And that she didn’t have to become like her mother to do so.
“Yet, here you are. Teaching art to first-graders and working on a community center’s budget.”
“Yes, well. Life is full of surprises, as they say. But I’m sure you’re not here to discuss my college major or my uncertainty regarding career choices,” she said, pushing the binder away. “How did you find me anyway?”
“You weren’t answering your phone. So I called Clara and asked if she knew where you were.”
“You—you were asking about me?”
He didn’t answer her question. Rather, he asked one of his own. One that didn’t really make any sense. “Have you been online yet this morning?”
She shook her head. “No, I came straight here after grabbing a cup of coffee at Marilou’s. Why?”
Jordan blew out a deep breath, looked away out the window. “That’s why I’m here.”
Okay. “You’re here because of something you saw online?”
“That’s right.”
Her confusion started to turn into mild annoyance. For him to seek her out and come to find her in the classroom on a Saturday morning after end of session, without so much as acknowledging her for days, made absolutely no sense. “Jordan, what’s this all about?”
He walked over to her side of the desk to stand next to her, then pulled her laptop closer and tapped a few keys. Jess wanted to hold her breath to keep from breathing in the distinctive scent of aftershave that had haunted her since that night in New York. Turned out she didn’t need to, for what he showed her onscreen knocked the breath out of her.
She was trending!
Or rather, she’d inspired the trending term: Same dress.