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of a stranger.

      “No.”

      “So you are Dame Tanner, Lady Chanel, if you prefer.”

      Her lovely pink lips twisted with clear distaste. “I prefer just Chanel.”

      “Your mother is French?” he asked, continuing the script he’d carefully thought out beforehand.

      Demyan was always fully prepared.

      “No. She loves the Chanel label, though.”

      “She named you after a designer brand?” His investigators had not revealed that fact.

      “It’s no different than a parent naming their child Mercedes, or something,” Chanel replied defensively.

      “Of course.”

      “She named me more aptly than she knew.”

      “Why do you say that?” he asked with genuine surprise and curiosity.

      He would have thought it was the opposite.

      “Mom loves her designers, but what she never realized was that Coco Chanel started her brand because she believed in casual elegance. She wore slacks when women simply did not. She believed beauty should be both effortless and comfortable.”

      “Did she?”

      “Oh, yes. Mom is more of the ‘beauty is pain’ school of thought. She wishes I were, too, but well, you can see I’m not.” Chanel indicated her lab coat over a simple pair of khaki slacks and a blue T-shirt.

      The T-shirt might not be high fashion, but it clung to Chanel’s figure in a way that revealed her unexpectedly generous curves. She wasn’t overweight, but she wasn’t rail thin either, and if her breasts were less than a C cup, he’d be surprised.

      That information had not been in her dossier, either.

      “You’re staring at my breasts.”

      “I apologize.”

      “Okay.” She sighed. “I’m not offended, but I’m not used to it. My lab coat isn’t exactly revealing and the men around here, well, they stare at my data more than me.”

      “Foolish men.”

      “If you say so.”

      “I do.”

      “You’re flirting again.”

      “Are you going to try to ignore me like the delivery man?”

      “Am I going to see you again to ignore you?”

      “Oh, you will definitely see me again.”

      * * *

      As hard as Chanel found it to believe, the gorgeous corporate guy had meant exactly what he said. And not in a business capacity.

      He wanted to see her again. She hadn’t given him her number, but he’d called to invite her to dinner. Which meant he’d gone to the effort to get it. Strange.

      And sort of flattering.

      Then he’d taken her to an independent film she’d mentioned wanting to see.

      Chanel didn’t date. She was too awkward, her filters tuned wrong for normal conversation. Even other scientists found her wearing in a social setting.

      Only, Demyan didn’t seem to care. He never got annoyed with her.

      He didn’t get offended when she said something she shouldn’t have. He didn’t shush her in front of others, or try to cut off her curious questioning of their waiter on his reasoning behind recommending certain meals over others.

      It was so different than being out with her family that Chanel found her own awareness of her personal failings diminishing with each hour she spent in Demyan’s company.

      She’d never laughed so much in the company of another person who wasn’t a scientist. Had never felt so comfortable in a social setting with anyone.

      Tonight they were going to a dinner lecture: Symmetry Relationships and the Theory of Point and Space Groups. She’d been wanting to hear this particular visiting lecturer from MIT for a while, but the outing had not been her idea.

      Demyan had secured hard-to-come-by tickets for the exclusive gathering and invited her.

      She’d been only too happy to accept, and not just because of the lecture. If he’d invited her to one of the charity galas her mother enjoyed so much, Chanel would have said yes, too.

      In Demyan’s company, even she might have a good time at one of those.

      Standing in front of the full-length mirror her mother had insisted Chanel needed as part of her bedroom decor, she surveyed her image critically.

      Chanel didn’t love designer fashion and rarely dressed up, but no way could she have been raised by her mother and not know how to put the glad rags on.

      Tonight, she’d gone to a little more effort than on her previous two dates with Demyan. Chanel had felt the first two outings were flukes, anomalies in her life she refused to allow herself to get too excited over.

      After all, he would get that glazed look at some point during the evening and then not call again. Everyone did. Only, Demyan hadn’t and he had—called, that is.

      And maybe, just maybe, she and the corporate geek had a chance at something more than the connection of two bouncing protons.

      He understood what she was talking about and spoke in a language she got. Not like most people. It was the most amazing thing.

      And she wanted him. Maybe it was being twenty-nine or something, but her body overheated in his presence big-time.

      She’d decided that even if their relationship didn’t have a future, she wanted it to have everything she could get out of it in the present.

      Both her mother and stepfather had made it clear they thought Chanel’s chance of finding a lifelong love were about as good as her department getting better funding than the Huskies football program.

      Nil.

      Deep inside, Chanel was sure they were right. She was too much like her father—and hadn’t Beatrice said she’d married him only because she was pregnant with Chanel?

      Chanel wasn’t trapping anyone into marriage, but she wouldn’t mind tripping Demyan into her too-empty bed.

      With that in mind, she’d pulled out the stops when dressing for their dinner tonight. Her dress was a hand-me-down Vera Wang from her mother.

      It hadn’t looked right on the more petite woman’s figure, but the green silk was surprisingly flattering to Chanel’s five feet seven inches.

      The bodice clung to her somewhat generous breasts, while the draping accentuated her waist and the line of her long legs.

      It wasn’t slutty by any stretch, but it was sexy in a subtle way she trusted Demyan to pick up on. She would usually have worn it with sensible pumps that didn’t add more than an inch to her height.

      But not tonight. Demyan was nearly six-and-a-half feet tall; he could deal more than adequately with a companion in three-inch heels.

      Chanel had practiced wearing them on and off all day in the lab.

      Her colleagues asked if she was doing research for a physics experiment. She’d ignored their teasing and curiosity for the chance to be certain of her ability to walk confidently in the heels.

      And she’d discovered it was like riding a bike. Her body remembered the lessons her mom had insisted on in Chanel’s younger years.

      The doorbell rang and she rushed to answer it.

      Demyan stood on the other side, his suit a step up from his usual attire on their dates, too.

      He adjusted his glasses endearingly and smiled, his mahogany gaze warm

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