Under His Spell by Jade Lee, Kathy Lyons Page A

far-fetched to him, but then so did a lot of hypnosis stories he’d read.
    “Like I said, even hypnotized, Nicky, I can’t make you do anything you didn’t want to.”
    “What if it was the alcohol? Maybe I had a bad reaction to it. Maybe there was something in it that made me more susceptible or something.”
    He frowned, stunned by the lengths she would go to preserve her illusion of…of what? Purity? Wholesomeness? Corporate mannequin? “Why is it so hard to believe that you just wanted to have sex with me?”
    She flushed and toyed with her mug. “I’m just trying to make sense of this. I don’t do stuff like that. And then today…” She shook her head. “I couldn’t work. I couldn’t focus. I kept thinking about…stuff.”
    Well, that made two of them. He didn’t get a damn thing done today either. But he didn’t get a chance to say that. The waitress arrived with their food, breaking the flow of the conversation. They ate in silence for a moment. Nicky was delicately efficient with her soup, of course. But he caught a glimpse of the vixen underneath when she took her first sip. Her eyes closed in delight and her mouth curved on a soft smile. It was another moment before she spoke.
    “This is really good soup.”
    He smiled, happy that he had brought her this simple pleasure. Happy, too, that she had relaxed enough to enjoy something so ordinary as good soup.
    “You’re right,” she said. “Broccoli cheddar is my favorite.”
    “You’re hard to forget, Nicky,” he said quietly.
    She looked at him, her body shifting once againbeneath the table. But her eyes remained direct as if she had come to a decision. Then she spoke, her voice almost too quiet to hear, but he caught every word.
    “This afternoon. When I thought you wouldn’t see me…when I planned to never see you again…” She tore off a piece of her bread bowl but didn’t eat it. “I had a…a panic attack.”
    His gaze leaped to her face. She wasn’t looking at him, but he could see the way she bit her lip, then shifted into a self-conscious grimace.
    “I’ve never admitted that before. That I have…episodes, you know.”
    “Panic attacks?”
    She flinched. “I call it industrial-sized heartburn.”
    “But they’re not,” he pressed. “They—”
    “Yeah, I know what they are,” she interrupted before he could name them again. Then her gaze rose to him. “I know why I have them. Pressure at work and all. Reports due, bad economy, yada yada. It’s hard, you know. And sometimes my body, you know, reacts.”
    “Maybe your body, you know, is trying to tell you something,” he said smoothly.
    She sighed. “I know that. And like I said, I know why I have them. Except for this last one. The one because of you.”
    “Because you weren’t going to see me again?” he asked. The very idea hit him broadside. Nicky—this gorgeous, put-together, grown-up Nicky—had had a panic attack at the fear of not seeing him again. His ego just loved that! But that didn’t mean he was unaffected by her obvious distress. “What happened to you, Nicky? How did you go from star athlete and class president to…” How did he say this? “You weren’t wound so tight in high school.”
    She smiled, but the expression was almost tragic. “Nothing happened, Jimmy. I just grew up. I’ve got school debts and a mortgage on my condo. My job is insane, but I can’t afford to quit. Not in this economy, and certainly not without another job lined up.” She pulled off another piece of her bread bowl but didn’t eat it. “I just need to get keep my nose to the grindstone for a little bit longer. Just through this patch and then I can breathe again.”
    He looked at her and saw the dark smudges under her eyes, even covered by make up. Her shoulders were hunched and her breath was short. And she’d stopped eating in favor of toying with her food. She looked haunted or dogged or just plain exhausted.
    “Nicky,” he said softly, “whatever the