LITMIR.BIZ

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      Until yesterday.

      Yesterday would cause all kinds of trouble if word of his after-lunch activities got out.

      “I want to hang it in the bedroom.” His mother’s statement interrupted his thoughts.

      “Just show me where,” his father answered in an indulgent I’ll-give-you-anything-you-want voice. “Could you help me, son?”

      “Sure.”

      Carrying the painting, Liam followed his parents into their bedroom. His father helped his mother settle on the bench at the end of the bed. She glanced around the room and then pointed. “I want to hang it there, so it’ll be the first thing I see each morning and the last thing before I turn out the light.”

      TMI. Too much information. Aubrey’s description echoed in Liam’s head and his skin shrank three sizes. Don’t want to go there. His parents’ intimate life was none of his business and Liam liked it that way.

      His father removed the landscape already hanging on the wall and replaced it with the morning glory.

      “Perfect,” his mother announced.

      His father hooked an arm around Liam’s shoulders and nodded toward the painting. “This was a great idea.”

      Liam glanced at his mother. She studied the art with her hands clasped under her chin and a smile on her face. And then he turned back to his father. “So do you know what it means?”

      His father shifted uncomfortably and lowered his arm. “Only because your mother fell in love with one of the paintings by this artist hanging in the hospital physical therapy room. I asked what was so great about a picture of a flower and Renee explained it to me.”

      Renee was the social worker engaged to Tag, Liam’s younger brother. They’d met when Renee was assigned to keep Tag from terrorizing the hospital staff caring for their mother after her double mastectomy.

      Liam shared a sympathetic look with his father and then confessed, “I had to have somebody explain it to me, too.”

      His father crossed to the dresser and returned with a pair of gilt-edged tickets in his hand. “While I have you here I need a favor. There’s a charity thing this weekend. Your mother and I have decided to skip it, but we need an Elliott to make an appearance. Saturday night. Black tie. You’ll need a date. Can you swing it?”

      Aubrey’s violet eyes flashed in Liam’s mind. No. Definitely not Aubrey. He’d come up with someone who had Saturday night free and a spare formal hanging in her closet. “Sure.”

      “Good.”

      “So, how about you put the champagne on ice and I dash down the street and pick up dinner at Mom’s favorite restaurant?” Liam suggested.

      How in the hell he’d find a date on such short notice he didn’t know. He’d been out of the dating circuit since his grandfather’s announcement in January. But that wasn’t his father’s problem. If his parents wanted an Elliott at the gala, then Liam would be there, doing his duty the way he’d always done.

      Aubrey looked at the man beside her and longed for a bed, a thick pillow, a silk-covered down comforter and solitude. Not sex. Which made her immediately think of Liam Elliott.

      She huffed an exasperated breath and checked her diamond-faced watch. How long had she lasted this time? Less than an hour since she’d last vowed to never again think about Liam or their afternoon of amazing, curl-her-toes sex. God, she was weak. Blame it on exhaustion. She’d had precious little sleep during the past five nights, and when she had fallen into bed, Liam Elliott had joined her, invading her dreams and tangling her sheets.

      Damn him.

      As if thinking about Liam incarnated remnants of that afternoon, Aubrey spotted Trisha Evans across the ballroom. The gallery employee hadn’t known that Aubrey and Liam weren’t a couple, but that hadn’t stopped her from brazenly passing Liam her phone number along with a come-and-get-me smile and his receipt.

       Witch.

      The crowd shifted and Aubrey choked on her champagne when she recognized Trisha’s escort. Liam. Well, he hadn’t waited long to accept the brunette’s invitation. Emotion churned in Aubrey’s stomach. Anger? Jealousy? Whatever it was, it didn’t belong. How could she be angry or jealous? She and Liam weren’t—and never could be—a couple.

      “Who’s the chick?”

      “Pardon?” Aubrey turned to look at the hulking football player who’d escorted her to the arts fund-raiser this evening. One of her father’s magazines was doing a series of articles on Buck Parks and his recent retirement from the NFL. Her father had “suggested” Aubrey and Buck create a little buzz about the feature by appearing together at the gala.

      “The brunette in the barely there red dress. You’re glaring at her like you want to mash her face into the turf.”

      An apt description. “No one. She’s no one important.”

      But at that moment Liam turned his head. His gaze lasered in on Aubrey from across the room and her breath jammed in her chest. He looked amazing in a tux. Suave. Sexy. GQ-gorgeous.

      “Ah, now I get it.”

      Aubrey blinked and broke the connection with Liam. Looking away wasn’t as easy as it should have been. She found sympathy in Buck’s eyes. “Get what?”

      “It’s not her. It’s him.”

      Was she completely transparent? “You’re mistaken. He’s the financial operating officer of Holt Enterprises’ chief competitor. I can’t be interested in him.”

      Buck grinned and dipped his head. “Who’re you trying to fool, Aubrey?”

      Buck was tall and built, smart and funny. He smelled good and filled out his custom-tailored tux to perfection. Why couldn’t she get hot and bothered over him? But she didn’t. She experienced no blip of her pulse when he said her name, no sweaty palms when he looked at her, no burning twist of her stomach when he touched her. The feeling—or lack there-of—was mutual.

      Mischief danced in his eyes. “Wanna give him something to think about? Because he’s on his way over here.”

      Aubrey’s heart stopped and then slammed in a rapid jackhammer beat. “He is?”

      “Yep. I can plant one on you. Long, slow, and I’ll make it look deep and hot. He’ll get the message.”

      If she weren’t panicking, she’d appreciate the handsome ball player’s offer, but at the moment she was on the verge of hyperventilating. If he covered her mouth with his, she’d suffocate.

      Buck’s big hand curled around her waist and he tugged her closer. “Last chance,” he whispered against her jaw.

      “Aubrey.” Liam’s hard voice sent a flash-fire of heat over her skin.

      Gulping, she took a second to gather her scattered nerves, pasted what she hoped passed as a disinterested smile on her face and turned. “Good evening, Liam. Trisha. Are you enjoying the ball?”

      Aubrey avoided Liam by focusing on Trisha’s triumphant smirk. Buck’s hands tightened on Aubrey’s waist. She made a mental note to thank him later. He reached past her and offered his hand first to Trisha and then to Liam. “Buck Parks.”

      Trisha, evidently not satisfied with one big fish on the hook, fluttered her mascara-laden lashes at Buck and gushed her name and something inane about football. Aubrey’s deafening pulse drowned most of it out.

      “Liam Elliott.” Testosterone crackled in the air as the men shook hands and then Buck’s arm settled around her waist and hauled her close to his hard body. Her pulse didn’t even hiccup.

      Aubrey risked looking at Liam again.

      “Mom loved the painting,” was all

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