LITMIR.BIZ

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in the mirror. “Get rid of him,” she whispered. Why did he have to be so damnably handsome? And sexy and fascinating. Why did she respond so to him? she wondered, and then remembered the reactions of Jenna and Carlotta. What female didn’t respond to him?

      Squaring her shoulders, Ashley took a deep breath and left the room, switching off the lights and going to lock up.

      He was standing beside the alarm control box. “Do you have a code for this?” he asked.

      She told him, then watched while he punched buttons. “You did it all correctly,” she said as they left. “You’re efficient.”

      “Thank you,” he replied. “I’m glad to hear I have some pluses.”

      “You have too many pluses,” she remarked dryly, and received a curious stare from him.

      “That’s interesting. Too many,” he repeated. “Does this mean you want some uncivilized behavior from me?”

      “Hardly,” she muttered.

      “Don’t I wish!” he replied. He glanced around. “This is a good location for you, isn’t it? Just the right ambience, and probably caters to an upscale group of clients most of the time.”

      She nodded, thinking that she could add observant to his admirable qualities. As she walked beside him to his car, he slowed his stride to hers and continued to talk about businesses around them, noticing several that tied in to her own.

      He held open the door to the black sports car. When he went around to get in, she ran her hand over the elegant leather seat, reminded again of the differences in their worlds. As soon as he was seated beside her, he turned to look at her. “Do you have a favorite restaurant?”

      She shrugged. “I’ll let you pick where we go. What’s your favorite, Ryan?”

      “Do you like steak, lobster or pheasant?”

      “I like most everything if it isn’t too spicy,” she replied.

      “Including tall, black-haired businessmen?”

      “You have to flirt, don’t you?”

      “With you, absolutely. All right, I’ll take you to one of my favorite spots,” he said, smiling at her. He ran his finger along her cheek. “I really missed you,” he said in a thick voice that affected her as much as his light touches.

      “I find that hard to believe,” she replied dryly, glad he couldn’t detect her racing heartbeat at that moment.

      “I’ll admit that I haven’t been sitting home staring at the wall,” he said, giving her another disarming smile, “because I didn’t know whether I’d ever see you again or not.”

      “Actually, Saturday was a surprise.”

      “I hope one you liked. I’m working on changing your standoffish attitude.”

      She couldn’t keep from smiling at him.

      While they talked, he drove swiftly through the traffic. At the restaurant’s canopy-covered entrance, a uniformed valet came to hold open her door.

      The dining area opened onto a large deck built over a pond covered with blooming water lilies. Strings of colored lanterns hung above the tables, and bright yellow and red bougainvillea spilled from hanging pots.

      They were led to a linen-covered table overlooking the pond. Seated facing Ryan, Ashley knew she would remember this place and evening forever. Their waiter handed her a thick black menu, then gave Ryan a wine list and made suggestions.

      “If you like lobster, it’s very good here. The steaks are excellent, too,” Ryan said, offering her the wine list.

      Smiling, she shook her head. “I’ll just have a glass of ice water.”

      Ryan ordered white wine for himself, and when they were alone, he reached across the table to take her hand. His grip was strong and his fingers warm. The slight contact was disturbing and heightened her longing.

      “There has to be a reason you don’t want to see me again. And there has to be more to it than you just lost your head that weekend. I thought we were having a grand time.”

      “Ryan, try to understand. That weekend was so contrary to my nature.”

      “That’s fine, but now we know each other. If you want to back off and take things slowly, we can. If we just met and I asked you out, would you go?”

      “Yes, I probably would, but this is different. We have a history, and you want what we had that weekend, while I don’t.”

      “I just said we can take renewing our relationship slowly,” he said, holding her hand and rubbing her knuckles lightly with his thumb.

      “Ryan!”

      A woman’s voice cut across their conversation and Ryan released Ashley’s hand as he stood. “Hi, Kayla,” he said. “Ashley, this is Kayla Landon. Kayla, meet Ashley Smith.”

      Ashley smiled at a statuesque redhead who should have been able to make Ryan forget all about seeing anyone else. She was dressed in a figure-hugging black dress that had spaghetti straps and ended well above her knees. Ashley recognized the woman as the one who had been talking to Ryan at his condo that Sunday morning.

      “How do you do,” Ashley said, and received a frosty look and a nod before Kayla turned to Ryan.

      “You’ll get my message when you get to your condo,” she told him. “I hope to see you Saturday night at my party. The last one was such fun,” she purred, placing her hand on his arm.

      “I’ll give you a call, Kayla,” he said casually.

      “Make it tomorrow.” She brushed his cheek with a kiss, turning to walk away without saying anything to Ashley.

      “Now, where were we?” Ryan asked, sitting and facing Ashley.

      “She’s the woman who was in your condo that Sunday I was there.”

      “Ah,” he said, studying her. “That’s why you disappeared without a word.”

      “Not altogether. It just reminded me of the differences between us,” she said. “You and I reside in separate worlds. You have your wealth and ritzy lifestyle. I grew up on a farm and have worked in the city less than a year. I practically have hay in my hair.”

      He smiled and reached over to twirl a long blond strand around his thumb. “I’ll comb my fingers through your hair later and see if I can find any hay,” he said in his rich, magnetic voice.

      She drew a deep breath. “You’re making this a trying problem.”

      “I’m not the one being difficult. To me, the situation is simplicity itself. Man wants to go out with woman. Man and woman have fabulous time together. What’s troublesome about that?”

      “You go too fast,” she replied. “I regret that weekend, but I can’t take it back and undo it.”

      “All right, we’ll go slow. The weekend never happened. We just met at the wedding last Saturday, I want to see you and you’re here to eat dinner with me. This is good. Simple.” He reached across the table again and laced his fingers with hers. “And in the interest of having a great evening, let’s put this discussion on hold until later.”

      “That is just your way of ending the argument,” she said and received another disarming smile.

      “And as far as being from different worlds, do you know where and how I grew up?”

      “No, we never got around to talking much that weekend we were together,” she said, and he smiled.

      “You brought up the weekend. I didn’t,” he pointed out. “My dad did whatever he could find to do—dishwasher, served food in cafeterias, ditchdigger. My mom cleaned houses. We had almost nothing. I’d wager that, growing up, you had a more comfortable

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