LITMIR.BIZ

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at her soft, teasing tone. “Worse. He’ll give me a guilt trip.”

      Lexie wrinkled her nose at him. “You look like you can handle a little remorse, provided it’s balanced by a good time.”

      No kidding. It was all he could do to keep himself from dragging her down onto his lap and kissing her the way he had wanted to kiss her the night before, with no time limits and attempts at gentlemanly behavior. He didn’t want to be gallant. He wanted to give in to temptation. But he knew pushing her too hard, too fast, would be a huge mistake on his part, so he held back.

      “Is that what you’re planning to give me?” He regarded her flirtatiously. “A good time?”

      Flushing self-consciously, Lexie pushed away from his desk and bounded onto the floor. “Maybe we should just get down to business.” Her gaze drifted over him, his body heating with each lingering visual caress.

      Lewis tensed, aware his feelings were anything but transactional. Maybe his brothers and sister-in-law were right. Now was the time to level with Lexie, while boundaries were still being set. “About that style makeover…” he started carefully.

      Lexie stripped off her jacket and regarded him purposefully. “I want to get started tonight,” she stated, already pushing up the sleeves on her knit shirt. “Got a problem with that?”

      “No sirree, I do not,” he quipped, deciding to see where this makeover stuff took him, after all. He’d tell her about the misunderstanding later. “What about your mom? Are you just going to leave the Countess alone, during her first evening in Laramie?”

      “She’s sleeping. The jet lag and seven-hour time difference finally caught up with her.”

      “So for her it’s midnight,” Lewis guessed, glad Lexie had sought refuge with him, even if it was for work-related reasons.

      “Right.” Lexie lounged with her back to a metal file cabinet.

      He strolled closer. “Does that mean she’ll be awake when you get home at midnight?”

      She made a face that would have been comical if not for the sudden vulnerability in her pretty turquoise eyes. “Doubtful. The Contessa usually sleeps until noon at home. She reserves her afternoons for shopping or hair appointments, her evenings for social events.”

      “Ah.” Lewis watched Lexie walk over to inspect the half-dozen umbrellas. He could always remember to bring an umbrella. He could just never remember to take it home. What that meant, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

      Lexie picked up one emblazoned with the Stanford University logo. She inspected it, end to end. “The Contessa leads an exceptionally busy life, you know. She’s a very important and socially well-connected person.”

      Lewis followed her over to the stand. He sensed she needed to vent, and he was only too happy to listen. “You don’t have much respect for your mother, do you?” he asked in a low voice.

      Lexie dropped the umbrella into the large, galvanized metal milk can. She picked up another he had picked up on one of his business trips. It was an unfortunate color of purple, but had been the only one available during the unexpected deluge he’d found himself in.

      “No,” she said, “I don’t.”

      The lack of apology in her expressive turquoise eyes was interesting to say the least. As was the career path she had chosen. Why had Lexie chosen a profession that had her constantly catering to the whims of people much like her snobbish, self-involved mother? “Ever thought of having that kind of life yourself?” he asked, playing devil’s advocate. She could have easily gone the pampered dilettante route, instead of working herself half to death.

      She dropped the purple umbrella back into the can with a clang. “No, of course not. I’d be bored silly if all I did was go to parties.”

      The lusciousness of her full lips had his gaze returning to her face again. “Is that why you can’t seem to slow down?”

      Lexie mocked him with a look. “I am slowing down,” she declared emphatically. “I spent the whole day in bed, pretending to sleep.”

      “Or avoiding your mother?”

      She wrinkled her pretty nose at him, even as she inspected a small, rainbow-striped umbrella he’d also picked up on the run. “You are psychic,” she said playfully.

      He shook his head, watching Lexie close the child-sized umbrella and put it back in the can, quietly this time. Lewis would give anything if he could spend time with his own mother again. But it wasn’t going to happen. They’d lost her to cancer when he was ten. “You ought to spend time with your mom while you have the chance,” he advised soberly.

      Silence fell as Lexie stuck her hands in her pockets and said nothing, which made Lewis wonder if Jake Remington weren’t the only parent Lexie was fighting with. “How is your mom doing, by the way?” he asked gently, deciding to try a different tact.

      She rocked forward and studied the scuffed toes of her red leather boots. “You saw the Contessa this morning.”

      Wishing he knew Lexie well enough to haul her into his arms and hold her there until the hurting stopped, Lewis edged close enough to inhale the fragrant softness of her skin and hair. “Physically, your mom looked great. But she just lost her husband. That can’t be easy.”

      “Yeah.” Tension tightened the delicate features of her face. “She’d never admit it, but I think she’s finding widowhood a little tougher to navigate than she imagined.”

      Lewis heard the sympathy beneath the defiance in Lexie’s low tone. “Which is maybe why she came over to visit you,” he theorized.

      The troubled look was back in Lexie’s pretty eyes. “Maybe, but my mother never does anything without an agenda.”

      Lewis walked back over to his desk and shut down the e-mail and instant messaging system on his computer. “What agenda could she have here?” he asked. “Except to be close to you?”

      “That’s just it. I don’t know.” Lexie’s teeth worried her lower lip as she inspected the mismatched furniture and state-of-the-art electronics in his office. “Financially, she’s fine.” She dropped down onto the black leather sofa in the corner. “Count Riccardo’s lawyers read the will when I was over there. He had no other family left so Mother got everything—all the family jewelry, tons of money, the villa in Naples, the country house in Florence.”

      Lewis closed the distance between them and sat down next to her. “Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”

      “You’d think so.” She stretched her slender legs out in front of her. “But…”

      “What?” he prodded.

      “She seems so edgy. Restless.”

      Giving in to the need to comfort her, Lewis reached over and took her hand in his. “Isn’t that to be expected?” he asked gently. “She just lost her companion of the last twenty years.”

      Lexie shook her head and left her hand clasped warmly in his. She ran the fingers of her free hand over the back of his. “They didn’t really have that kind of marriage.”

      Trying not to get distracted by the heat of her caress, Lewis shifted his weight toward her. “What kind did they have?”

      “Passionate, volatile.” She swallowed hard. “They were both very old-world European in their outlook.”

      Lewis studied the veiled pain in her eyes. He tightened his hand protectively over hers. “I don’t get what you’re trying to say.”

      Lexie’s voice took on an unhappy tone. “They both had lovers, lots of them, and they were okay with that.”

      Lewis could only envision how hard that must have been for Lexie, who would have been exposed to that from the tender age of six. Bad enough to have your parents divorced and remarried, living on different

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