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“If you do find yourself with time to spare, I’m sure Callie would enjoy talking with you.” Eleanor rose and started toward the door, snapping open the lock.
“Mrs. Pres…Eleanor.”
She was a fan. She’d want to help him out. Right?
Jake forced out his best movie-star smile. “I have a favor to ask you.”
“Of course.” She turned back to him, the door half open.
“I need you not to tell anyone about me.” He narrowed his eyes to emphasize the seriousness of the request. “I meant it when I said I need to lie low. No one can know who I am or that I’m here.”
He half-expected her to return his smile and assure him thatof courseshe wouldn’t divulge his identity. Instead her eyes sharpened, and she pursed her lips as if in thought. Or speculation.
“How long do you need to stay in town?”
“About a month. Just until the bad press dies down or we can shift the story.”
She closed the door again and turned to face him. “No oneknows you’re here?”
“Just my agent.” He cleared his throat. “And my mom.”
“What if someone else recognizes you?”
An image flashed in his head of Callie’s dawning look of recognition. “I’m counting on that not happening. You can’t tellanyone. Not even your daughters.”
“Jake, I won’t lie to them.” She straightened her shoulders, disapproval creasing her forehead.
“No, of course not. Just don’t tell them at all. There’s no lying involved.”
She studied him again, her blue eyes gleaming. “Callie is coming over tonight…as usual. She always asks about my day. I’ll have to tell her that I broke a teapot because of you.”
Unease tightened Jake’s chest. “Why do you have to tell her that?”
“Oh, Callie and I tell each other everything.” She smiled and shrugged. “Mother-daughter bond, you know.”
Mother-daughter bond, my ass.He knew when a woman was out for something.
The air tensed. An edge of calculation rose. Jake had been in enough negotiations to sense the moment before everyone was about to dig in their heels to get what they wanted.
“Eleanor.” He gave her his high-wattage smile again, though he suspected it would have about as much impact as a cotton ball on a wall of steel. She might have been a fan, but she was no fawning groupie. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
“I’ll keep your secret, Jake.” She narrowed her gaze. “Ifyou spend time with Callie while you’re here.”
Boom.This woman could have been a Hollywood shark.
But he wasn’t without his own bargaining powers.
He folded his arms and stiffened his spine. “Definespend time with.”
“Take her out for coffee and dinner.” She waved a hand as if that should be obvious, though her face crinkled with concern. “Maybe a movie. In all honesty, Jake, I want her to havefun. She’s a lovely, intelligent, thirty-two-year-old woman living the life of a Victorian spinster. She needs to look up and realize there’s a world out there.”
Jake frowned, disliking the picture of Callie as a “spinster” hiding in a shell. “Have you tried to set her up before?”
“No.” A hint of guilt darkened her eyes. “I’m not trying to set her up, and I’m afraid I’m partly to blame for why she has no social life. I’ve relied on her far too much recently. We both need to move forward. I just want her to…well, let’s just say that I’ve learned how swiftly life can pass you by if you’re not paying attention. I don’t want any of my daughters to make that same discovery.”
Jake smothered another wave of unease. “So I entertain your daughter, and you won’t tell anyone I’m back in town?”
“I won’t tell a soul.”
