LITMIR.BIZ

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dressing up in my mother’s clothes!”

      Jenna smiled, patient as ever. “No offense taken. My designs are for the older set.”

      “Could you help me find something, Lexie? Please?” Sydney clasped her hands in front of her in mute supplication.

      “Lexie’s on vacation,” Jenna interrupted.

      “Alexandra,” the Contessa interrupted, even more preemptively, “is going to Dallas with me.”

      Lexie tensed. “No, I’m not, Mother.”

      “Alexandra,” the Contessa corrected, “I thought we had agreed a few days of shopping and staying in a five-star hotel would do wonders for you.”

      “Shopping isn’t fun to me, Mother. It’s work. And as Jenna said, I’m on vacation.” Lexie glared at Lewis again, letting him know she was sorry she had ever agreed to forget that and help him.

      Sydney looked crestfallen. “I understand,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I put you on the spot by asking. I know you only take the A-list actors now. It’s just the way the business works.”

      “Actually,” Lexie said, pausing to give Lewis another telling glare, “I’d be glad to help you pull together an ensemble for the premiere, Sydney. But first I have to tend to a few things, so if you could…just wait…”

      “I’ll be in the dressing room.” Sydney picked up her skirt and dashed off.

      “That was really nice of you,” Lewis said.

      “Wow,” Lexie replied sweetly, “how nice of you to approve.”

      Ouch.

      The phone rang behind the counter and a saleswoman picked it up. “Just a moment,” she said, putting the caller on hold. “Lexie, Constantine Romeo’s assistant is on the phone. Apparently, Constantine wants you to help him create a look for the European tour of his new movie.”

      The Contessa’s eyes lit with interest. “Isn’t that the young man who…?”

      “Yes, Mother, it is.” Lexie looked at the salesperson, who was still holding the phone. “Tell him thanks but no thanks. And if his assistant calls again, just do us both a favor and don’t tell me about it.”

      “Okay. Sorry, Lexie.”

      “No problem.”

      Looking out the window, Lewis saw a limo pull up at the curb and a uniformed driver get out. “Alexandra,” the Contessa implored, “I really want you to come with me.”

      “I really don’t want to go.”

      The Contessa glanced at her watch. “Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll go alone. But when I get back you and I are going to spend time together.”

      Lexie merely nodded. The tension in the room lessened markedly as the limo pulled away with Melinda inside.

      “I think I’ll go see if Sydney needs anything,” Jenna murmured. She and the saleswoman ducked into the back, leaving Lewis and Lexie to square off with each other.

      “For the record, I think you should forgive me,” Lewis began.

      “For the record, I think you’re an idiot.”

      Lewis shrugged. “No argument there.”

      She snorted in a most unladylike fashion. “Why did you even hire me if you didn’t believe in what I do?”

      He edged closer. “That’s complicated.”

      She glared at him, her breasts rising and falling with every infuriated breath she took. “I’m still listening.”

      Lewis continued. “I’ve been hearing for a long time from everyone in my family just how bad my taste in clothes is.”

      Lexie’s gaze swept over his orange, brown and white-striped bellbottom pants, brown Nehru jacket and scuffed leather boots. “No kidding,” she said curtly.

      “So I know I need help, but I’m also a guy, Lexie.” He waited until she angled her chin up at him before continuing. “And the fact is real men don’t need any help picking out their clothes or deciding how to get their hair cut or whatever. Real men do just fine on their own.”

      Without warning, Lexie began to laugh.

      He scowled. “It’s not that funny.”

      “Yes,” she countered, refusing to let him take himself too seriously, “it is.”

      “All right.” Lewis rubbed his jaw ruefully. “Maybe it is. All I know is that I need help in the wardrobe department. I just don’t want to need help. I want to be as skilled at picking out the right clothes as I am at designing a software game, and I’m just not.”

      “I get that.” She glided nearer, a mixture of interest and compassion filling her turquoise eyes. “I don’t get how you got stuck in the Eighties.” She looked him over again. “Where do you even find those clothes?”

      Somehow, Lewis managed not to look too embarrassed. “Vintage clothing shops, near Stanford University. I’ve got a standing account at a couple of places and they just send me things in my size every three months.”

      “And charge you an arm and a leg to boot, I bet.”

      Once again, she’d hit the nail on the head. “Clothes like this aren’t that easy to find.”

      Lexie sighed. “I can only imagine.”

      “It’s a look that worked well for me for the past ten years. As long as I was wearing vintage, I was a trendsetter. The clothes just enhanced my rep as an eccentric genius.”

      “So why change?”

      “Because despite all my business success, I’m starting to feel like a geek again.”

      “But at the same time you’re afraid to change.”

      “What if the clothes I select make me the kind of joke I was in high school?” His jaw tightened. “Or don’t you remember?” he asked.

      She reached over and gently touched his arm. “Unfortunately, I do. The polyester pants, the bowling shirts with your name on the chest and a lightning bolt on the back.” She withdrew her hand and shook her head.

      “Yeah, well, what can I say?” Lewis shrugged and settled on one of the sofas in the center of the dress salon. “Einstein probably didn’t know how to dress, either.”

      Lexie plopped down beside him. She stretched out her long, black-suede-clad legs. “At least you put yourself in good company.”

      Lewis studied the toes of her black leather boots. “You know what I mean.”

      “Yes,” Lexie said, favoring him with a sexy half smile that made him want to take her in his arms and kiss her again, “I do.”

      Silence fell between them, more companionable this time. “I still want to hire you.”

      Lexie bounded to her feet. “Even though it embarrasses the hell out of you.”

      Lewis stood and moved close enough to drink in the sweet, clean fragrance of her skin and hair. “I’ll get over it,” he vowed.

      To his chagrin, she looked unconvinced.

      “Please, Lexie, you’re the only one I trust to help me.”

      She stared up at him thoughtfully. “If I agree to do this—and it’s still a big if, Lewis McCabe—then you have to promise me you won’t back out on me, that you’ll be honest and forthright with me every step of the way and, most important of all, you’ll let everyone in town know that you have hired me to give you a new look and aren’t the least bit embarrassed about that.”

      Damn, she drove a hard bargain. Lewis rubbed at the tense muscles in the

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