Impossible to Resist

And at the moment, her bed was in Jacob’s house.

“Do you have relationships with a lot of your leading men?” he asked bluntly.

Her hand stilled, spatula suspended over the thin egg mixture. “Define relationship.” Her head was bent, only her profile visible.

“You know what I mean.”

She flipped the second crepe onto a plate warming on the side of the stove and shot him a cool glance. “Are we going to share notes on our sex lives? I’m all agog. I hear that doctors are a hot ticket item in the dating pool. You must have plenty of notches in the old bedpost. Orange juice?”

The juxtaposition of her prosaic question with the flammable topic silenced him as he followed her to the small table in the breakfast nook. As she shook out her napkin and took a seat, he realized she wasn’t going to answer him. He should be ashamed of his probing question, but he wasn’t. He told himself the information might have implications about her general health, but the truth was, he was jealous as hell.

And angry, if he were honest. Ariel was hardly the first talented young actress to fall victim to immaturity. She wasn’t exactly Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears, but she had scored her own share of the tabloid pages.

She said she didn’t drink, and Jacob had seen no evidence of drug use. But there had been plenty of men. Lots of men. One who was even old enough to be her father. Had her mother been unable to protect her from the predators who were lured by Ariel’s fresh-faced innocence and joie de vivre?

Okay, so maybe predator was a harsh word. Thinking of the ways she might have been taken advantage of made his stomach hurt. But more than that, he was uncomfortably aware that he wanted her in the exact same fashion.

His only saving grace would be to resist temptation and to take care of her in every way possible. As he dug into his food, he watched her. Someone had been working overtime when she was conceived. Like an impressionist painting, if you examined every facet of her face and body, she was simply a woman. But put it all together, and Ariel Dane was a masterpiece.

The eyes alone would have made her attractive, but with her luminous skin, perfect bone structure and lithe body, she was the epitome of feminine grace and beauty. The only flaw he could spot anywhere—if you wanted to call it that—was that her ears were a tiny bit big for her head.

As if she had read his mind, she covered the side of her face and frowned. “Quit staring at me. I shouldn’t have put my hair up this morning.”

“What are you talking about? It’s hard not to look. You’re a stunning woman.”

“On the set, when I was younger, every time I put my hair into a bun or a ponytail, some of the other kids would call me Dumbo.”

Jacob frowned. The vulnerability and hurt in that one sentence staggered him. Ariel Dane was regarded as one of the most beautiful women in America. But she had no clue. Incredible.

He finished his last few bites and sat back. “That was fantastic. Thank you, Ariel.”

She beamed. “Thank my mom. She started teaching me how to cook when I was ten.”

When he saw that she had cleared her plate, he stood up. “If I’m going to be your pseudo boyfriend, let’s get one thing straight.”

Apprehension widened her eyes. “What?”

He bent down and first kissed the shell of one ear and then the other. “Your pretty little ears are perfect. And if anyone thinks differently, you send them to me and I’ll straighten them out.”

Ariel scooted away from him and stood to gather the plates. “I didn’t know I was hiring Sir Galahad.” The words were flip, but he saw her blink away tears, though she tried to hide her emotion.

Concern and empathy mingled in his heart. He knew what it was like to be the cynosure of all eyes, to be judged by a different standard. In his final year in med school, it had come out that he was one of the Wolffs. His classmates, many of whom had worked alongside him for years, suddenly regarded him with suspicion and, in a few cases, envy. One angry intern demanded to know why he was taking up a coveted spot in the program when Jacob had more than enough money for a lifetime.

In the blink of an eye, Jacob was standing on the outside looking in. The profession that had welcomed him into its ranks and made him feel as if he belonged was no longer an oasis of normalcy.

Everyone knew that Wolffs were a breed all their own. Some sympathized with him for surviving the long-ago tragedy. But for most, Jacob’s connection to the clan meant he was now an alien presence in the world of the hospital.