Plain Jane and the Playboy / Valentine's Fortune. Marie Ferrarella

need to feel like a loser.

      Again.

      Jane glanced at her watch. Less than ten minutes left before midnight. That didn’t give her much time to make her escape.

      As if anyone would notice her leaving, she thought mockingly. She’d come here with Isabella, but there had to be a taxicab out there somewhere, didn’t there? This was a big night for inebriated people. Cab drivers made their money on nights like New Year’s Eve.

      “Freshen that up for you?” asked a deep, melodic voice directly above her.

      Jane realized that the voice—and the question—belonged to one of the waiters. He was obviously asking about the drink she’d been pretending to nurse for the last two hours. She’d already set the glass aside. The colorful little umbrella was drooping badly, mirroring the way she felt inside.

      “No,” she replied politely, “I was just…”

      The rest of her thought vanished, as did, just for a moment, her entire thinking process. All because she’d made the mistake of looking up at the owner of the low, rumbling, sexy voice.

      The man who had asked the question was, in a word, beautiful. Not just handsome—although he was quite possibly the handsomest man, up close or on the movie screen, that she had ever seen in her life—but actually teeth-jarringly heart-stoppingly beautiful.

      He had soulful brown eyes that she could have gotten lost in for at least the next ten years, and straight black hair that was just a little on the long side. Tall, lean, muscular, with jeans that emphasized his slender hips—and every move he made—whoever this man was, he made her think of a young lion.

      On the other hand, his smile made her think of nothing at all, because just seeing it effectively turned her very intelligent and active brain to the consistency of last week’s mush.

      Struggling to collect herself and retrieve whatever might still be left of her composure, Jane did her best not to sound as if she was currently understudying the part of the head idiot of a very large village.

      “Excuse me?”

      “Your drink,” Jorge prodded, nodding at the glass next to her elbow on the table. “May I freshen it up for you?” Lifting it to his nose, he took a sniff. “Piña colada, right?” he guessed. And then, when she said nothing at all, he smiled again, completing the transformation of the organ that was in her chest from a functioning heart to a puddle of red liquid. “My parents have me tending the bar,” he explained, “and making sure that lovely ladies like you don’t have to wait too long to have their requests granted.”

      Lovely ladies. How could someone so beautiful be so blind? she wondered. She wasn’t lovely, she was plain and she knew it.

      The ball on the TV panel on the back wall looked as if it was going to begin its descent at any moment.

      Get out of here, her survival streak ordered urgently.

      Coming to, Jane shook her head. “No, that’s all right,” she told him as he reached for her glass. “I was just about to leave anyway.”

      He looked at her in surprise. “Leave? Before midnight?” He made it sound as if she were doing something revolutionary.

      Jane lifted her shoulders in a vague shrug. The left strap of her dress slipped off, sliding down her upper arm.

      Jorge, his eyes on hers, reached out and very slowly slid the strap back into place.

      Jane felt as if her skin had just caught on fire. She was rather surprised that she didn’t actually spontaneously combust. The puddle in the middle of her chest became a heart again and instantly went into triple time, hammering so hard she was having trouble just catching her breath.

      “Doesn’t seem to be much point in staying,” she heard herself saying, although she wasn’t conscious of forming the words.

      “And why is that?” he asked gently.

      Just the sound of his voice made her feel warm all over. It took her a moment to realize that he’d asked her a question and another moment to focus on the words, making sense out of them.

      “People always kiss someone at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve…”

      Not sure how to end this sentence without sounding like a loser, Jane just let her voice trail off, hoping he’d silently fill in the rest of it himself. And have the decency to leave.

      “And you have no one to kiss?” Jorge asked incredulously. His eyes swept over her. She could almost feel them. “A pretty lady like you?”

      Jane could feel heat traveling up her cheeks and down her throat until all of her felt as if it were glowing pink.

      “I just broke up with someone,” she finally told him.

      Breaking up sounded a great deal better than saying she’d just been dumped, Jane thought. But even so, the lie weighed heavily on her tongue. She didn’t like lies, no matter what the reason, and here she was, hiding behind one so that she didn’t come across like the ultimate loser to a man she didn’t even know.

      “His loss.”

      The man said it with such sincerity she found herself believing him, even though there was no way he could have meant that. After all, they were strangers to one another. For all he knew, she was a shrew.

      Jane picked up her purse, holding it to her chest. “Well, I doubt if he thinks so. He’s already found someone else.”

      What made her say that? a little voice in her head demanded. Why was she always so hell-bent on the truth, on making herself seem like she wasn’t worthy of a committed relationship? The kids she worked with at the foundation loved her. Their parents were all grateful to her, praising her for making such a difference in the children’s lives. And she got along rather well with the people she worked with at ReadingWorks, as long as the parameters remained in place—she was a colleague. A professional. Her personal life—such as it was—stayed private.

      “Then he’s a fool,” Jorge told her quietly. “And you’re better off without him.”

      As he spoke, Jorge studied the woman before him. It was one of his favorite pastimes. Every woman, he’d come to discover at a very early age, had something that was attractive about her. Something special, no matter how small.

      This one, he thought, was actually pretty, in a plain sort of way. And by that, he meant that she was pretty without having to resort to artfully applied makeup, like so many of the other women who were here tonight. She was slender, petite—he doubted if she could have been more than about five two—and she had beautiful hair held in place with two ornamental hairclips. They allowed her golden brown curls to cascade down her back like a waterfall.

      But what really captivated him was her innocence. There was a certain sweetness to her, a vulnerability that he now detected in her eyes. He sincerely doubted that she was aware of it.

      But he was.

      Jane stood up. It was almost midnight and she really didn’t want to feel like the odd woman out, not tonight. It would hurt too much.

      But as she rose to her feet, the tall, beautiful young man with the sexy, velvet voice didn’t retreat, didn’t even take a step back. He remained exactly where he was, leaving less than a ribbon’s worth of space between them.

      So little space that she could actually feel the heat of his body radiating out to hers. Or was that just her body getting ready to burst into flame?

      She swallowed. Why was he standing in her way? Was he laughing at her?

      But he didn’t seem as if he was laughing. His smile was too gentle, too kind.

      Jane took a breath. “I really need to leave,” she told him.

      He slowly ran the back of his hand along her bare arm. “Would you stay if there was someone to kiss