LITMIR.BIZ

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it for himself. To keep her from meddling in his love life.

      The woman was relentless. She kept insisting that he needed to be dating someone. Every time they’d been on one of their trips, she’d tried to set him up, so he’d made up a girlfriend. He never thought he’d have to produce her. But now she wanted to meet her. He was screwed.

      “Oh, I don’t know, Grandma, she usually spends the holidays with her family.”

      And then his grandmother pulled her trump card. Not only did she give him the big, sad brown eyes, but she sniffed. “You heard the doctor, Justin, I’m an old lady. I don’t need the stress. Now I want to meet her. I want to make sure she’s good enough for you.”

      Damn it. “Okay, I’ll bring her with me over the holiday.” Now all he had to do was find someone who fit the bill. Because Grandma was too important for him to not make this happen.

      * * *

      Alexandra Winters was pretty sure this was not how osso buco was supposed to look. This wasn’t her fault. She didn’t cook. She did excellent takeout. Copious amounts of takeout. Cooking wasn’t her thing.

      You have your first gallery opening to prepare for. You don’t need to be creating a dish for this man. Or rather, if she cared about him at all, she wouldn’t be attempting to make a meal.

      His grandmother was in the hospital. And, since Justin was the closest thing to family that she had, she had to at least try to look out for him. Cooking was what you did, right? She’d learned about this ritual from movies. Not from her parents.

      Her mother was always gallivanting around the world for her photographs, leaving Alex in the care of nannies when she was a child. And her father, he’d preferred his string of girlfriends to parenting, so she rarely saw him. She stared into the pot. Damn it. She’d screwed this up. But hey, it was the thought that counted, right? Besides, it wasn’t like Justin didn’t know that she couldn’t cook. They had no secrets. Except for the one she’d been holding on to for years.

      From the moment they’d met, when he and his stupid frat brothers were trying to steal the fine-arts department’s founder’s statue, he’d known her through and through. And he’s been dragging you into his antics ever since.

      Justin was good for her. She might be an artist, but most people told her she was far too serious. She never let go. Except in her art. Never had any fun. Yeah, fun was reserved for people who knew what the hell was going to happen the next day. Since she never knew growing up, she liked to have control over her destiny. Justin was the risk taker. He could go into any scenario without a plan and still come out smelling like roses.

      The door to Justin’s condo swung open and immediately Justin started to cough. “Oh my God, did someone break in here and try to smoke me out of my own apartment?” He dropped his bag by the door and came running into the kitchen. “Alex, what the hell are you doing?”

      She stopped stirring and turned to him. “I’m cooking?”

      “Is that what we’re calling it?”

      Alex wiped her hands on the apron, which had an attractive nearly naked guy on the front. “I was trying to make dinner so you didn’t feel too much pressure with everything happening.”

      Justin stared at the stove for a long moment. Then his eyes darted to her, then back to the stove again. And finally, he just came over and wrapped his arms around her.

      Alex automatically hugged him back. She didn’t normally do emotional displays. She wasn’t much of a hugger. The one exception was Justin. If he was giving out hugs, she was first in line to get one. Because you’re pathetic.

      No, she wasn’t pathetic. They were friends. Best friends. Which is why you’ll never, ever be with him. She shook off the thought. She didn’t want to be with Justin. Liar. Okay, so there was a part of her that at one point had thought she could be with Justin. That part had died a long, slow, lonely death. It was never going to happen. Justin was not hers. He was her best friend, and she’d seen what happened to a woman who got too close to the flame. She was never getting burned like that. And the more honest she was with herself about that, the less getting embraces from Justin hurt on an emotional level.

      “I’m so sorry about your grandmother.”

      He shook his head, moving his chin back and forth over her hair. Her wild mane of curls was already a mess. She was dreading wash day, but she didn’t complain that his actions were inducing more tangles. “What do you need me to do?”

      “You’re already doing it. Just being here. And even though your culinary skills need major help, the thought is really what counts. How do you feel about takeout?”

      “Now, that I can do. Sorry I tried to poison you.”

      He chuckled. “It’s not the first time. I don’t know why you insist on trying to cook me anything ever.” Then he added, “Not to worry—bag’s by the door. I had a feeling you’d be here.”

      And just like that, Justin had reversed the roles. The man was all things to all people. “You weren’t supposed to do that. I was supposed to be looking after you. Not the other way around.”

      He shrugged. “For the record, we’re best friends. So we take care of each other. When I moved out here after grad school, who actually had a place to stay and let me crash on their couch for six months?”

      Yeah, the early days. She’d been apprenticing to a painter, Peter Maine, at his gallery here in San Diego. She’d sold a piece early and those proceeds covered school. She’d saved all her money and was able to afford a decent place to stay. It had been like summer camp.

      “How is she?”

      Justin let her go, then leaned back against the fridge, one leg propped back against it. “She’s actually not terrible. She’ll stay there a few more days for observation. But the doctor thinks there might be a problem with her medication, so they’re trying to figure out the right dosage. Until they do that, they said no stress, no running around, she’s to take it easy.”

      Alex snorted. She might not know Grandma Lucy personally, but from everything Justin had told her, the old lady was never slowing down. “How’d she take that?”

      Justin shook his head. “About as well as can be expected for her. She was in no kind of mood for that noise.”

      Alex cocked her head and studied his face intently before hopping up onto the counter. “Okay, spill, Justin. You always have that look when you aren’t sure how to get out of a problem.”

      He rubbed the end of his nose, and Alex wondered just what kind of trouble he’d gotten himself into.

      “So you know how Grandma has been trying to get me to settle down?”

      She nodded. And every time Justin brought home some blonde with big boobs and an attitude, she often had to bite her own tongue. But that was neither here nor there. “Yeah, what’s that have to do with anything?”

      “Well, I might have told her I had a girlfriend to get her off my back.”

      Alex rolled her eyes. “Of course you did. Why would you do that? Because at some point, she’s going to request to see this girl.”

      The look on his face told her that something just like that had happened. “Justin. Spill it.”

      “I know it probably wasn’t a good idea, but I was desperate. She was constantly trying to set me up with girls. They would show up at the hotel. At my gym. I had to get her off my back. So I made up the perfect girl that would never have to be seen. One that was so busy with her career. Problem is, now Grandma Lucy wants me home for the holidays. And she wants me to bring said girl.”

      Alex stared at him for a long moment. Blinked several times, tried to open her mouth to say something, anything. But nothing came out. Finally, she managed, “Justin. She’s sick. What are you going to do now? You clearly can’t tell her that you made up a girlfriend. That will

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