His gaze zeroed in on my lips. I couldn’t help it—my tongue snuck out to moisten my lip and all I could think about was the taste of his kiss. He tugged on a piece of my hair lying over my shoulder.
“This resolution, it has something to do with your ex, right?”
“Exes.”
I narrowed my eyes with the emphasis. “That’s right.
“Including Jeremy?”
“Yeah.”
“Jeremy doesn’t have muscles.”
“Yeah, he does,” I insisted, just to be obstinate. Just because he annoyed me.
Jeremy had been built for long hours at a desk reading legal briefs and journals. His idea of recreation was boozing on the golf course with his rich buddies and smoking expensive cigars. Leo made Jeremy look like mincemeat. Maybe I’d been attracted to Jeremy because was so different from the first guy I fell in love with. Even without all the muscle, Leo as a teenager had always been strong and athletic, charismatic with a mischievous glint in his eyes. Jeremy was refined and polished, country club and caviar, cigars and scotch on the rocks. Complete opposites.
How strange.
I’d never thought about it before.
“No, he doesn’t.” He took my hand and placed it on his arm.
Holy wow.
“This is muscle.”
“
Ugh.
You and your muscles are out of control.” I yanked my hand away. “And—and you need to leave this store. Right now.”
He glanced down to the pile of dresses at my feet, then back up to me. The playful hitch to his lips made me draw in a shaky breath. “I think I know what you need.”
The insinuation hung heavy in the air. I crossed my arms to put something between us, and to give my arms something to do besides throw themselves around his neck. “You have no idea what I need.”
“I think I do.”
“No. You don’t.”
Leo’s lips twitched. “So, are you saying that you don’t want me to make love to you?”
Oh God
. He’d said it. Out loud. Now all I could think about was him, naked.
What the hell is wrong with you?
I shook my head quickly. “No.”
“I don’t believe that.” The intensity of his stare made my heart race, and naughty thoughts bumped around inside my head like ping pong balls. He brushed his thumb over my cheekbone, the whisper soft caress sparked awareness through me. “I think you need a distraction, Princess.”
I shivered even though the blood rushing through my veins heated up by the second. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against his chest. I almost sighed.
If he thought I needed a distraction, who was I to argue? I was just the crazy girl. I wouldn’t have been able to argue anyway, because I was speechless. His gaze did that to me. The tension in the air crackled between us. I eased onto my toes to make it easier for him, even when I knew crossing this line would be bad after I’d already put an end to the sex therapy. But maybe sex therapy was what I needed? Those final days in the Caribbean I’d been happy. Our first day back, after waking up to Leo’s mouth pressing hot kisses against my thighs, I’d spent the rest of the day walking on air.
Dear Lord, he smells so good…
The front door rattled and creaked as it opened, and the bell above the door jangled. Leo dropped his arms. I jumped away from him and his electrifying touch.
“
Holy crap
, Lexie. You have really lost it.” Roxanna stopped in her tracks just inside the door, and Gen ran into her back.
“
Sheesh,
Rox,
move it
.” Gen nudged her out of the way. When she caught site of the dresses piled on the floor, she froze. “Lexie, what the hell are you
doing?
”
I shrugged. “I was thinking about burning them.”
“Burning them?” Gen hurried over and picked up a teal dress with silver beading. She held it up. “Are you kidding? These cost a fortune! You can’t afford to burn your dresses!”
“No one’s buying them.” I gazed sideways at Leo, who had his hands in his jeans pockets.
“There’s still time to sell them.” Roxanna picked up the bottle of wine and waved it at Leo. “You were supposed to diffuse the situation, not talk her into a pow-wow around a burning fire of designer dresses.”
He yanked his hands from his pockets and held them up, stepping away from me and backing toward the door. “Don’t look at me. It was like this when I got here.
She
was like this when I got here.”
“Go away, already.” Except, I didn’t want him to go away. I wanted Gen and Roxanna to go away so Leo could kiss me. The idea was planted, and I was too mentally exhausted to shoo it away.
“You got it, Princess.” He turned around and strolled out the door.
Immediately, I missed his warmth, which annoyed the hell out of me.
What the hell was that?
“Drinking makes me neurotic,” I breathed.
“No kidding,” Roxanna said. “Celebrating something?”
“Maybe. I’m plotting against the Buchanans.”
“
Ooohhh
, sounds fun.” Roxanna pouted. “Why’d you start without me?”
Gen scooped up an armful of dresses and said, “Don’t encourage her.”
“Apparently, I don’t need to.” Roxanna bent to pick up a black knee length dress.
“No, you don’t,” I agreed. “Because that stupid wedding has ruined my life, and the Buchanans are all
just fine.
Even Jeremy is fine. He’s dating a
debutant.
I read it in the newspaper. Her dad’s a California
Senator.
So while Deborah’s busy grooming Jeremy for politics, and he’s strolling around like
nothing happened,
I’m here wading around in a vat of
crap.
”
“He’s already seeing someone? He’s a rat.” Roxanna crossed her arms. “A slimy, worthless rat.”
“I could have married the jerk and gotten rich from it, but it would have been
wrong.
And what do I get for doing
the right thing?
For
not
taking their bribe? I’ll tell you what. I get blackballed from the bridal fashion business while they live their fancy lives eating caviar in their mansion.” I whirled and kicked my wedding gown. “And
look at my boutique!
Do you
SEE
any customers? No. Because I don’t have any. Not one. At all.”
Gen patted my back and then rubbed her palm in small circles over my blouse. It’s how our mom soothed us. “That’s what I was going to talk to you about.”
“What?” I asked.
Gen looked to Roxanna, who was busy shooing Mitzy off the dresses. Mitzy nipped at her, then tucked her tail and scurried behind the glass counter in the middle of the boutique.
Roxanna looked up and said, “We have a plan. Sort of.”
“Not
sort of,
” Gen said. “We
do
have a plan. You don’t need to plot revenge because we are going to be proactive about this. We’re going to make flyers for the boutique. I have some really cute ideas.”
“Flyers?” Flyers didn’t sound as satisfying as revenge.
“Yes. I’ll design them, and Roxanna has a friend who can print them. We’ll hand them out, mail them, leave them at restaurants when we pay the check, drop them off at some of the more upscale clubs and bars in town. What do you think?”
I supposed flyers would be easier, especially since I had zero ideas in the revenge department. I followed my puppy behind the counter. She was in her little doggy bed near my high heels. “I guess every business should have flyers.”
“Yes, flyers,” Roxanna said. “Screw Deborah. We’re going to fight this.”
Deborah was an unscrupulous bitch who played dirty. I wasn’t even on the same playing field as her. I shook my head. “There’s no fighting Deborah.”
Roxanna scrunched up her nose. “Every time I see that face of yours, I get depressed. Knock it off. You’ll have wrinkles before you turn twenty-four.”
“I am so sorry my face bothers you.” I took a pen off the counter and threw it at her. She batted it away with her black and white plaid clutch.
“God, you are so hard to get along with when you’re having a nervous breakdown,” Roxanna said.
“Knock it off, you two.” Gen turned from the rack where she’d hung another dress up. “This is serious.”
I sat down on the stool behind the counter. “I love the flyers idea. It might help. But I need a lot more than flyers.” I turned my financial binder around to face Gen and pointed to the bottom figure. “I barely broke even last month. I had to dip into my savings to pay the bills. At this rate, my boutique isn’t going to survive.”
Gen skimmed over the budget I’d refigured, each time ending with the same disappointing figures as the first time. She frowned. “Oh wow. I’m so sorry, Lex. I had no idea it was this bad. You should have told me.”
“I was hoping things would turn around.” Saying it out loud, I sounded stupid and irresponsible.
Roxanna let out an expletive then placed her hands on the counter to stare at me from across the black granite counter. “I’ve also been brainstorming some ideas.”
“Ideas for what?” There was a hint of worry in Gen’s question.
Roxanna’s eyes sparkled. “A solution to Lexie’s problem.”
I perked up. “Really? What did you come up with?”
Roxanna spun on her boots, strolling with an exaggerated hip swagger that would make a street walker jealous, then whirled again to face us with raised hands in a pose that had me biting back a smile.
“Well?” Gen asked with an eye roll.
“You know what we’re going to do?” She was nearly shaking with bottled up excitement.
There was no point in rushing Roxanna when she got like this. It was best just to sit back and let her have her moment. Mitzy nipped at my ankles, so I bent to pick her up. “The curiosity is killing me,” I said, hoping that might urge her along.
“It’s really great,” Roxanna said, enjoying the priming.
“Okay,” I said, hopeful. Whatever she’d come up with had to be golden for her to make such a big deal out of it.
“We are going to march over to the news station and tell them all about the Buchanans.”
My shoulders slumped. “Out them for blackmail?”
“Yes. Exactly.” Roxanna hurried back to the counter. “Don’t you see? It’s the only way to bring them down. To besmirch their name like they did yours.”
It was a good idea in theory, but I shook my head. “We don’t have any proof because I was an idiot and signed something I don’t have a copy of.”
Or maybe…
“Do we have proof?”
It wasn’t possible.
Or was it?
Roxanna worked at LM Security and had access to all kinds of information. Maybe she knew something I didn’t.
“No,” she said, and my heart fell. “But, it doesn’t matter. A rumor is a rumor.”
“A rumor could take forever to grab hold,” Gen said.
Roxanna heaved a heavy sigh. “Yes, I
know
this, but she needs to do
something
. And, that’s all I could come up with on the fly.” She groaned. “
Gah
, quit being so hard to please.”
“Quit being so dramatic,” Gen countered, then turned to me. “We’ll think of something, I promise. And we’ll start with flyers. The bridal expo is coming up, and you need to hit it with a bang.”
She was right; I needed to concentrate on the expo. Last year my runway show had been a smash. By the end of the following week, my calendar was booked almost solid for two months straight with consultations. I wasn’t sure how I would be able to afford the models, or the spring inventory I’d need in order to stand out from the rest of the competition. Maybe I could get a credit line increase at the bank.
Either way, I couldn’t just stand here and let Deborah kick me around. Eventually, she’d tire of ruining my life, and the world would forget about all the lies she’d told.
“You’re right.” I already felt better than I had in months. Closing the binder on my nightmare financials, I said, “Let’s get out of here. You both promised me pasta and wine.”
It was hard not to smile—no matter what mess I was in, these two women in my life would follow me to hell and back. They made everything better, even if “better” was temporary, and “great” was in the faraway future. It didn’t matter, because tonight I would smile and laugh and enjoy being with my twin and our best friend.
Roxanna lived in a gated community in a sprawling Mediterranean style home; it had been her parents’, once upon a time. After her parents’ divorce, her dad moved to Las Vegas to make his mark in the culinary world, and her mother took up traveling, spending money on things she didn’t need in cities all over the world. Every once in awhile she would breeze through the door, talking a hundred miles a minute in her heavily accented English, all smiles and shopping bags. These days, Julia Moss lived on the West Coast in a condo.
“Why the hell does she put glasses all the way up here?” I grumbled, my fingertips just barely grazing the edge of the upside down martini glass.
We’d eaten our dinner with an expensive red wine Julia had left from her last visit, and now we were moving on to vodka martinis. Sometimes the best way to deal with an unexpected, bumpy curve in the road was by taking a mental night off and medicating with liquor. I’d go back to worrying tomorrow. Right now, I had a full belly and a smile on my face after Roxanna’s dramatic reenactment of her mother’s last attempt at setting Roxanna up with a “nice boy” who barely spoke English, but whose family was eager to pay his new bride a pretty penny for the marriage and green card.