LITMIR.BIZ

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      She swiped a finger across her forehead, grimacing. “It’s hot as Hades in here. Someone got the dates wrong and turned off my power two days early.”

      “Bummer.” He stepped inside, not surprised to see the reception area reduced to a large pile of boxes. “Do you live on the second floor?”

      “Good Lord, no. That would be a terrible idea for a workaholic.”

      He followed her up the stairs, his gaze level with her curvy butt. “Most people who are workaholics don’t admit it.” It was a good thing he was about to do some literal heavy lifting, because he needed something to distract him from carnal thoughts about a woman he barely knew.

      The room upstairs was just that, a fairly large open space with a tiny bathroom walled off in one corner. Clearly Nicola had used this level as a storage area, though in one corner there was a sofa and a table and lamp that indicated she might occasionally spend the night or at least catnap in the middle of a busy day.

      She bent and picked up a medium-sized box, her gaze wry. “Self-deception is rarely productive. I know myself pretty well. Let’s get moving. So far I’ve got fifty-three boxes ready.”

      His lips twitched. “Fifty-three? Not fifty-four or fifty-two?”

      “Are you making fun of me?” She frowned, a tiny wrinkle appearing above the bridge of her perfectly classic nose.

      He took the box out of her hands. “You finish packing and taping. I’ll load the boxes, Ms. Parrish. I outweigh you by at least eighty pounds, and since I doubt you’d trust me enough to actually fill a box, this makes more sense.”

      She folded her arms across her waist. “You may as well call me Nikki. I think we’ve already damaged the lawyer/client relationship.”

      Adding a second box to his load, he tested the weight and decided he might even manage a third. “You call it damage, I call it progress. I’d just as soon not have a desk between us.” Unless you’re sprawled on it and I’m leaning over you, licking your—

      He brought himself up short, grinding his teeth. Attraction in this situation was not going to help matters. “Nikki it is. And you can call me Pierce.”

      * * *

      Nikki felt guilty. Not guilty enough to refuse Pierce Avery’s help, though. She had fully intended to hire movers, at least a couple of college guys who needed cash. But when Pierce had called her office repeatedly for three days, she’d been frazzled and testy and had finally told him if he wanted a second appointment so damn badly, he could help her move her office.

      She hadn’t really expected him to agree. The ultimatum had been a toss-away comment, a reaction to his dogged insistence. Still, here they were. The guy with the big muscles handling her boxes with ease and the lady lawyer with the big brain reduced to panting over rippling biceps and the faint hint of aftershave that lingered in the stairwell.

      Muttering beneath her breath, she finished up the last big pile of junk upstairs by stuffing it all into a trash bag and tossing the bulging plastic blob out the back window into a Dumpster in the alley.

      With one last quick glance around the room to make sure she hadn’t missed anything of value, she descended the stairs, checking first to make sure Pierce was still out at the street. She didn’t want to have to squeeze past him on the narrow stairs. Never had a man made such an impression on her. He was impossible to ignore, both by virtue of his forceful personality and his ruggedly masculine looks.

      She’d dated wealthy guys in law school a time or two. But when all was said and done, each relationship ended by her choice. The gulf between her past experience and theirs was too great to sustain a long-term commitment. It occurred to her on reflection that it had been almost two years since her last date here in Charlottesville, and even longer than that since she had been intimate with a man.

      Her wide circle of friends kept her social calendar filled, and on the rare occasions when she had free time, she used the extra hours to power through the backlog of work that always dogged her.

      She loved her job. The diplomas on the wall were more than mere window dressing. They were a testament to how far she had come. Those same diplomas now rested back-to-back in a sturdy cardboard carton that would go straight into her car when she and Pierce were finished. The only real challenge remaining was her desk. She snagged two packing boxes, pulled up the appropriate spreadsheet on her computer to label them and started opening drawers.

      * * *

      Pierce stood in the doorway, unnoticed, and studied the woman who was going to help him make sense of the unbelievable. She worked quickly and methodically, using Ziploc bags to corral paper clips, pens, rubber bands and a host of other office necessities. He knew what she was doing. He’d carried out enough boxes to realize that she had color-coded and cross-referenced each one. He had to admire such single-minded organization, but he didn’t possess any of those genes. If it had been left up to him, he would have managed to box up the whole place in half a day.

      But Nikki Parrish was too meticulous to cut corners. Which was why she would never be searching for a washcloth and towel at one in the morning, as Pierce had been the night he’d moved into his new house.

      While he watched in silence, he saw her reach into the back of the flat center drawer and extract something small that looked, from this distance, like a metal animal.

      “Gift from an old boyfriend?” he asked, entering the room and sprawling onto her settee with a groan of relief. The window beside the fireplace was open, letting in a much-needed breeze.

      Nikki clutched the figurine to her chest, her eyes wary. “I’m not sentimental, Mr. Avery.”

      “I told you to call me Pierce. And if you’re not sentimental, then why do you have that whatever-it-is hidden away in the bowels of your desk?”

      It was a fair question, and a simple one. But Nikki seemed taken aback by his query. She shrugged, turning the object in her fingers, her expression pensive. “It’s a pewter collie. Someone gave it to me when I was a child.”

      “So if you’re not sentimental, why keep it?”

      A shadow of something dark danced across her face. “It reminds me of a particularly bad day.”

      “I’d think you’d want to toss it, in that case.”

      She looked up at him, her gaze bleak. “Sometimes we have to remember the past, even when it hurts. Acknowledging our mistakes can help us make sure we never repeat them.”

      The note in her voice disturbed him. What did Nicola Parrish have to regret? Surely nothing too terrible at her age. He thought about pressing for details, but decided it was not a smart idea. He couldn’t take a chance of pissing her off. Not when he needed her help so badly.

      He rolled his shoulders, feeling the pleasant strain of exertion. Despite the physical nature of his job, two hours of lifting heavy boxes tapped into a whole extra set of muscles. “The upstairs is clear,” he said. “And the outer office minus the furniture. All we have left is whatever is in here.”

      “You’re fast.”

      “No point in wasting time.”

      “I appreciate your help,” she said, her manner a trifle stiff.

      He shrugged. “It’s a quid pro quo, remember? I’ll take you to dinner tonight and you can tell me what you’ve uncovered so far.”

      She leaned forward to drop the dog into a box...hesitated...and at the last moment, tucked it into the pocket of her shorts. “Dinner isn’t necessary.”

      “You’ve had a long day, longer still by the time we’re done. It’s the least I can do.”

      “I’m not dressed for dinner.”

      “Doesn’t matter. I’ll go home and get cleaned up while you do the same. There’s a new place over on East Market I’ve been wanting to try.”

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