LITMIR.BIZ

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to make it all clear to him. She tried again. ‘‘I mean…oh, Simon. You and I, well, we never had any real commitment. We just shared a sort of unspoken understanding. And I’ve realized in the last few days that I can’t, um, share that with you anymore.’’

      Simon was crushed.

      He swore, whatever she’d done, it didn’t matter. He didn’t own her—but they were so close. They had so much they shared. They’d both dedicated their lives to working for positive political change. She couldn’t really be thinking about marrying the playboy prince, could she? Wouldn’t she please reconsider? He didn’t want to lose her….

      Liv only kept repeating, ‘‘Oh, Simon. I’m so sorry, Simon. But I can’t see you anymore….’’

      Finally he said goodbye, looking dazed and beaten, leaving her feeling as if she’d just spent forty-five minutes or so torturing a small, defenseless animal.

      The next day, guilt over what she’d done to poor Simon, and a worrisome combination of dread and anticipation at the thought of seeing Finn again that evening, made it hard to concentrate on filing and word processing and on the law books opened in front of her with their endless columns of tiny print. The attorney general himself came by her desk and asked her a question. She jumped and blinked and said, ‘‘Huh?’’ like some idiot with no background, who had no idea at all of how to handle herself.

      Her life was in shambles. She’d broken poor Simon’s honest, steadfast heart. She might or might not be having the baby of a man who’d made love with hundreds of gorgeous, willing, large-breasted women. Her mother and her father and her sister all believed there was a baby coming. And her mother and her father thought she ought to marry the seductive stranger who’d supposedly impregnated her.

      And whenever she wasn’t thinking about the abject awfulness of her situation, she would find herself wandering off into misty, lustful daydreams in which she did with Finn the very things that had gotten her into this predicament in the first place.

      Strangely, her memories of Midsummer’s Eve, the ones she’d thought lost in a haze of too much ale, seemed to be slowly coming back to her. She remembered lying naked in the clearing, both of them on their sides, her leg slung over his lean hip. He was inside her, but they weren’t moving.

      Well, except for their hands and their mouths. They lay there, joined, and kissed and kissed and kissed some more. She combed his silky hair with her fingers, and he stroked her—long, slow caresses, his hand sliding over her shoulder, down her arm, into the curve of her waist, up over the cocked slope of her lifted hip, along her thigh….

      His finger trailed inward, following the shadowed place where her thigh met the cradle of her hips, now and then pausing to pet the dark blond curls there. And then, as she started moaning low in her throat, he’d touched her cleft, his finger trailing in, finding the center of her pleasure within the slick folds and—

      ‘‘Liv, are you sick?’’ one of the clerks asked.

      She blinked and sat up straight and announced, ‘‘Oh, no. Just fine. Just terrific. Really.’’

      ‘‘Just wondered. You look kind of dazed, you know? Staring into space with your mouth hanging open.’’

      At the water cooler, two of the secretaries who’d been whispering gleefully to each other fell instantly silent when she approached. And she found a copy of The World Tattler in the break room.

      It was absolutely awful. She thought that day would never end. She was never in her life so grateful to see five o’clock come around.

      The bell rang right at seven. She marched down the stairs and yanked open the door.

      In a soft short-sleeved gray silk shirt and black slacks, Finn stood there looking ready for anything. Oh, come on now, did any man have a right to be so sexy?

      ‘‘Well,’’ she said sourly, ‘‘if it isn’t the Playboy Prince.’’

      He made a tsking sound. ‘‘Don’t tell me. You’ve been reading The World Tattler. Darling Liv, I know you’ve got better things to do with your time.’’

      ‘‘I had,’’ she announced, ‘‘a very bad day.’’ He stepped forward. She stepped back. He reached behind him, caught the door and pushed it shut. ‘‘Why don’t you come on in?’’ she scoffed.

      ‘‘Thanks, I will.’’ He looked around the old-fashioned foyer with its cabbage-rose wallpaper and mahogany wainscoting. ‘‘Charming little place.’’ And then he looked right at her. ‘‘You’ll get wrinkles, scowling all the time like that.’’

      ‘‘My life is just not turning out the way I planned.’’ She knew she sounded petulant and spoiled, and right at that moment, she didn’t even care.

      She looked down. He’d done it again. Without her even realizing it was happening, his hand was wrapped around hers. It felt very good—warm and strong. Reassuring. Encompassing.

      She glared up at him. ‘‘Did I give you my hand?’’

      His mouth curved lazily. ‘‘I took it.’’

      She knew she should yank it away or demand he give it back. But what good would that do? He’d only capture it again. He’d keep capturing it and capturing it until she finally gave in and let him have it.

      Might as well just cut to the chase and let him have it now.

      He said, ‘‘You need a drink.’’

      ‘‘I’ll never drink again, and besides, what if I am pregnant? It wouldn’t be good for the baby.’’

      ‘‘Ah. You may be right. But do you have whiskey?’’

      ‘‘Yeah. On the sideboard in the dining room.’’

      ‘‘May I have some?’’

      She grumbled her answer. ‘‘Oh, I suppose.’’

      ‘‘Which way?’’

      ‘‘Let go of my hand and I’ll show you.’’

      ‘‘Never. Lead the way.’’

      So she took him through the sitting room into the dining room and showed him the crystal carafe half-full of amber liquid. He poured two finger’s worth into a short glass with his free hand.

      ‘‘Your dexterity amazes me,’’ she remarked as he sipped.

      ‘‘Yes. It’s true I have always been…good with my hands.’’ He tipped his glass at her. ‘‘To my favorite princess.’’ He sipped again, then raised her hand and pressed his lips to the back of it, causing the usual heated thrill to shimmer through her. ‘‘Come. Let’s sit down for a moment.’’ He pulled her to the settee in the sitting room, sat and dragged her down beside him. ‘‘Now.’’ He released her hand and sat back. ‘‘Tell me all.’’

      ‘‘All?’’

      ‘‘Your terrible day. What is it that has you growling and scowling?’’

      ‘‘You don’t want to know.’’

      ‘‘Liv darling, trust me. If I don’t want to know, I won’t ask.’’

      She muttered, ‘‘They’re whispering about me at the water cooler.’’

      ‘‘This water cooler, I take it, is in the Attorney General’s Office where you work?’’

      ‘‘Exactly.’’

      ‘‘Ah. And you’ve never been whispered about before?’’

      ‘‘Oh, of course I have. But only by extension.’’

      He frowned. ‘‘By extension?’’

      ‘‘Well, I mean, because I’m a princess. Because

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