As Nadia was speaking, Jack picked up on something: a timbre in her voice, a look in her eyes as she spoke about her boss at a job she’d had for only a few weeks. More than just a professional relationship here?

“Just who is this boss you care about so much?”

Nadia hesitated, chewing her upper lip, then shrugged. “Oh, hell. I’ve gone this far, I might as well tell you: his name is Dr. Luc Monnet.”

“Like the painter?”

“Same pronunciation, but with a double n.”

There, Nadia thought. I’ve told him. I hope I’m not going to regret it.

The last thing in the world she wanted to do was cause trouble for Dr. Monnet. In fact, the very reason she’d called this Repairman Jack was to try to protect him.

Relax, she told herself. Alicia had said she could trust this man. And Alicia Clayton’s trust was not easily won.

But after the way she’d talked about him, Nadia had expected Jack to have a commanding presence, be six-two at least and built like a fullback. The man sipping coffee on the other side of her desk was a very average Joe—midthirties, good-looking but hardly dazzling, with brown hair, brown eyes, and an easy way, dressed like men she passed hundreds of time a day on the city streets.

I want the man I can trust with my life to be like Clint Eastwood or Arnold Schwarzenegger, she thought. Not a younger poor man’s Kevin Costner.

But then she remembered Alicia’s warning: Don’t let Jack’s mild Mr. Everyman act fool you; his bite is infinitely worse than his bark.

“I gather he’s more than just a boss to you,” Jack said.

The offhandedness of the remark jolted Nadia. Is it that obvious?

She tried to make her shrug equally offhanded. “We go back a ways. He was one of my professors in medical school.”

“The one who said, ‘The future is steroids’?”

She nodded, glad to note that he’d been paying attention. “He inspired me to go into endocrinology. I owe him for that.”

Jack stared at her, as if saying, Go on… I know there’s more.

Oh, yes, there was. Lots. But Nadia was not about to confess to a stranger about the mad crush she’d had on Luc Monnet back in med school. His black curly hair, as dark as his glistening eyes, his fine features, his trim body, but most of all his manner. With his aristocratic bearing and his delicious, oh-so-faint French accent, he’d simply reeked of the Continent. Nadia had been so enthralled that she’d dreamed of seducing him, even worked out a way to go about it. She remembered the old fantasy…

She’d seen herself entering his office and locking the door behind her. She’d never kidded herself that she had fashion model looks, but she knew she was no bowwow either. And on more than one occasion she’d caught Dr. Monnet looking at her, so the thought that she could do it wasn’t completely off-the-wall. She’d be wearing a tight short top and a miniskirt worn low to expose her navel. She’d ask him for a clarification on hormone levels and sexual response. She’d work her way around the desk till she was standing next to him, rubbing a hip against him as he reviewed molecular structures. If he didn’t take that bait, then she’d simply take his hand and place it on her bare inner thigh. After that, temperatures would rise, clothes would be shed, and he’d take her right there on his desk, demonstrating along the way that he was an expert in the lovemaking art for which the French were famous.