LITMIR.BIZ

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turned quickly and reached for the first outfit, a body-glove dress made out of blue iridescent fabric. “My sister designs most of these pieces—” She stopped when the filmy pink bra when flying past her to land near the sweater.

      Busying herself with removing the gown from its hanger, Meg turned her back and kept her eyes averted. But Taylor snatched the dress from her, and Meg couldn’t help but get an eyeful of what had every man in America drooling.

      Meg was no prude…she grew up with a sister, for heaven’s sake. She’d seen other women naked. Sort of. At the shower room in college, in the steam room at the YMCA, in National Geographic. But there was a difference in nudity for the sake of practicality and nudity for the sake of, well…being seen.

      The woman was well-endowed, all right. And perky. Incredibly perky.

      Taylor bent over to step into the dress, and Meg was exposed to yet another angle of the woman’s incredible body.

      “I, um, think I hear another customer,” Meg said, gesturing toward the curtain.

      Taylor pulled the form-fitting dress over her breasts and snapped the straps into place. She frowned toward Meg. “Well, go if you must. But come back quickly.” She reached into the neckline of the dress, grabbed her left breast and hefted it higher. The binding fabric of the dress held it in place. When she reached in to adjust her right breast, Meg fled.

      

      JARETT TRIED NOT TO STARE at the young woman who emerged from the dressing room, but he had to satisfy his curiosity—was his imagination playing tricks on him, or did this bespectacled shopgirl bear a striking resemblance to Taylor?

      It wasn’t just the large eyes or the high cheekbones or the chiseled nose that had struck him when he first walked in and saw her without her glasses. But throw in the full-blown mouth, the height, and the slender build, and she could be Taylor’s cousin. And if the loose jeans and baggy sweater concealed what he suspected they concealed, she could be her sister.

      At the moment, though, she was looking a little shell-shocked from her brief encounter with Taylor, and he could guess what had transpired in the dressing room. Taylor simply didn’t understand the concept of modesty, while this poor girl looked as if she might have been valedictorian of her private Catholic school. Indeed, she was tugging at the neckline of her T-shirt, as if she could stretch it into becoming a turtleneck.

      “I, um, thought I heard another customer,” she said, scanning the vacant shop. She stabbed at her glasses in what he had observed, in the short time he’d been here, to be a nervous habit.

      “It’s okay,” he said. “Taylor can be a little…overwhelming.”

      She tugged on her neckline again. “I’m still trying to adjust to the fact that she’s even here. I mean, I thought celebrities had people to shop for them. And this isn’t exactly Rodeo Drive.”

      “Taylor does what she pleases. Your display windows caught her eye. She won’t mind if you say she was here if it will help your business, but I have to ask that you not say anything until she’s gone. The press has been relentless lately.”

      She nodded, wide-eyed, as if the idea of revealing Taylor’s whereabouts hadn’t even occurred to her. Her naïveté was refreshing.

      “I’m Jarett Miller,” he said, for no other reason than he wanted to banish that deer-in-the-headlights look from her face.

      “M-Meg Valentine,” she said. “I assume you’re Miss Gee’s bodyguard.”

      He smiled at her formality. “And longtime friend.”

      A genuine smile curved her mouth. “I’m sure Miss Gee is glad to have someone close to her who she can trust. Would you like a cup of coffee, Mr. Miller?”

      He’d been up most of the night with Taylor on one of her crying jags. “That would be nice, thanks.”

      The intriguing sway of her retreat convinced him that, curve to curve, she could hold her own against Taylor. Funny how one woman with spectacular looks wound up on television, while another woman with spectacular looks wound up tucked away in a little retail shop.

      Meg returned with one cup of black coffee.

      “None for you?” he asked with a nod of thanks.

      Her smile lit her beautiful green eyes, veiled behind the black-rim glasses. “Not on an empty stomach.”

      He checked his watch. “We’re keeping you from your lunch.”

      “No, that’s fine,” she said with a musical laugh. “I’m grateful for the business. And flattered. My friends and I are big fans—we never miss Many Moons.”

      He couldn’t explain the effect her quiet voice had on him. Everything about her was simple and elegant—her hairstyle, her clothing, the way she moved her hands, the carriage of her shoulders. Her precise enunciation told him she was scholarly. In fact, nothing about her demeanor lent itself to the kind of woman who would own a costume shop, but neither did she seem like the kind of woman who would settle for being a clerk in a costume shop.

      Her hands were bare except for a ring on her right hand, a single pearl mounted in a simple gold setting. The type of ring a girl might receive as a graduation present from her parents. She wore an inexpensive, practical watch. It was hard to guess her age—maybe twenty-four or twenty-five? The fussy braid in her light brown hair added to her ethereal appearance. At first glance, Meg Valentine was almost…mousy, and the fact that he knew better made him feel as if he were in on a wicked secret. Explicably, he wanted to know everything about her, and for once, he wished his time was his own so he could ask her to dinner.

      From inside the dressing room came an impatient sigh. “Is that girl out there finished with whatever she left to do? I could use some help.”

      At times he wanted to wring Taylor’s neck for her rudeness, but she was like a tall, difficult child with no respect for anyone else’s feelings. And a reprimand from him would send her into a downward spiral that he’d spent hours trying to cajole her out of. So, much like a weary father, he made excuses for her.

      “She’s tense about an appearance tonight for a children’s benefit,” he said in an apologetic voice. It wasn’t far from the truth—as promised, Taylor hadn’t taken any pills over the last twenty-four hours so she could be in top form tonight. But the lack of a mood-booster had left her irritable—more so than usual.

      Meg nodded, her face soft with understanding. “I can’t imagine how stressful it must be to be in her shoes for even one day.”

      “Am I talking to myself in here?” Taylor shouted.

      Jarett gritted his teeth while Meg dashed back inside the dressing room. From the murmur of their voices, Meg’s soft, pleasing one and Taylor’s high-pitched grating one, it appeared that Taylor was delighting in bossing Meg around. In between customers, the poor girl left and returned to the dressing room a half-dozen times, her arms full of glittering clothing. Every time the curtain opened, a cloud of cigarette smoke billowed out.

      An hour later, Meg left the dressing room for what he hoped was the last time. Taylor stuck her head out and gave him a sly grin. “Want to see?”

      He opened his mouth to decline, but she grabbed his arm and yanked him inside. To prevent a scene, he set his jaw and humored her as she posed in a long red dress with a neckline that plunged to her navel, and a front slit that hit mid-thigh. “What do you think?”

      “It’s…nice,” he agreed, coughing mildly into his hand. The cigarette smoke was as thick as fog.

      She narrowed her eyes and with a wrenching twist, ripped the slit higher, high enough to reveal that she wasn’t wearing panties. “What about now?”

      He summoned all his patience. “I hope you have something more demure in mind to wear to the children’s benefit tonight.”

      She frowned. “My publicist committed me to wearing

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