LITMIR.BIZ

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for glare. “Are you planning to use it anytime soon?”

      “If you don’t mind.”

      His exaggerated politeness scraped across her nerves like tree bark. Still glowering, she stepped aside, gave him a be-my-guest flick of her hand and watched to see if he had any dog skills.

      He didn’t. Inching closer with a wariness that was an open invitation to the dog to cull this weak member from the pack, he reached out with the leash, ready to clip it on the dog’s collar.

      The dog’s head came up. One side of his black-lipped mouth pulled back just far enough to reveal a white incisor that looked sharp enough to mince walrus hide, and the beast emitted a rumbling growl. The man froze, arm outstretched. Livia froze, too, and the dog wasn’t even looking at her; she’d heard less fearsome growls coming from the lionesses on Animal Planet shows as they ripped hapless wildebeests to shreds.

      The man, his cheeks coloring with either blind terror or embarrassment, shot a glance at Livia and took a minute to regroup. Then he cleared his throat, licked his lips and tried another tactic.

      “Nice doggy,” he began. “I’ve got a cookie for you, you big monster, if you let me—”

      Another growl, this one punctuated by the flattening of the hound’s ears and the revelation of several more teeth.

      Oh, for God’s sake. Hadn’t this guy ever seen The Dog Wrangler? He was doing it all wrong and she didn’t have the inclination to watch the dog toy with him any longer.

      “Here,” she snapped, snatching the leash from his hand.

      “Wait—”

      The dog tilted his head in her direction and tried that growling nonsense again, but she’d had enough. Snapping her fingers at him, she held her index finger down in his face.

      “Hey,” she warned, keeping her voice low and calm.

      The dog immediately dropped his head back on his paws and stared up at her with dewy eyes, as though he’d been waiting all his life for someone to appear, seize power and become the undisputed leader of his pack. Taking advantage of this peaceful moment, she clipped the leash onto his collar and handed it off to the man.

      “That’s how it’s done.” Since the man didn’t know she’d never leashed a growling dog before in her life, she didn’t bother keeping the smugness out of her voice. “No need to thank me.”

      The man clenched his jaw in the back, and she waited to hear the snap of his teeth breaking. “Like I said—what did you do to my dog? He doesn’t behave for anyone.”

      Sooo…wait. He hadn’t been accusing her of abusing the animal?

      “I just, ah, tried to be assertive with him. Let him know who’s in charge. You know.”

      “I don’t know, actually.” His jaw loosened but he still seemed grudging with his words. “Thanks.”

      “You should watch The Dog Wrangler.”

      “Right,” he said sourly.

      Wow. This guy and his dog both needed attitude adjustments. Big-time. Raising her brows—was there something bitter here in the water in Napa or what?—she turned back to her open trunk and suitcase.

      “I’ll just take my bag and check in—”

      “Let me.” Before she could object, and she planned to object because she hated it when overzealous bellhops or doormen snatched the bags out of your hand in their relentless quest for a big tip, even when you could clearly handle the bags yourself, he reached for her bag. “I’m happy to help.”

      She studied his grim face. “I can see that. But really, I’ve got it.”

      Ignoring her, he set the bag on the ground and walked around to peer inside the car’s window for who knew what. Seeing nothing but empty car, he looked back up the drive, as though he expected the imminent arrival of someone or something.

      “Where’s the rest?” he asked.

      “Of what?”

      “Your luggage? Your entourage?”

      Oh. Oh, okay. She got it. He, like other idiots worldwide, assumed that because she was a famous model, she was a diva-licious bitch. Or maybe he’d read some of her press coverage from back in the day, when she was young and stupid, and thought she was still as big an airhead as she’d ever been. Whatever. Clearly he needed a little schooling in both manners and customer service relations, and she was just the woman to do it.

      “I take it you know who I am.”

      Nothing at all changed in his expression, but the quick skim of that light brown gaze down her body and back up again all but ignited sparks across her skin.

      “Every man who’s ever bought the Swimsuit Issue knows who you are.”

      Livia froze, her pulse galloping away like a bee-stung horse, because she realized, with sudden excruciating clarity, that this man was trouble. Men checked her out all the time, which was no big deal. She was used to and impervious to it.

      This was different.

      This was the subtle peeling away of her cute little capri pants and fluttery top. There was banked heat in those eyes, as if he could look at her now and see her as she’d appeared on that Sports Illustrated cover when she was nineteen: sun-kissed and dewy, wearing a white triangle scrap of a bikini bottom with the strings undone and dangling on one side, and a loopy crocheted top that displayed every inch of her upper body—except for her nipples—in vivid detail. She’d had her windblown hair in her face, her hips cocked to one side, her lips and thighs parted, and sand dusted across one side of her body while the blue waters off Fiji lapped in the distance.

      She’d been a young dingbat then, but as beautiful as she’d ever been—or probably ever would be—in her life. This man, whoever he was, remembered all that. He’d looked at that cover shot and now thought he knew her, but he knew nothing about the girl inside that shell.

      Men never did, and she was used to their snap judgments.

      What she wasn’t used to was the responsive curl of heat in her belly and the tug she felt toward this jerk, as though she’d been secretly magnetized and he was the North Pole.

       Shake it off, girl.

      “You might know who I am,” she said, painfully aware that her Georgia accent was thickening the way it always did when she was upset, so that might became maht and I became Ah, “but you don’t know me. I don’t travel with an entourage when my job doesn’t require it, and I only brought one suitcase.” She snatched it up from the ground before he could touch it again. “And I will carry it myself.”

      Propelled by her wounded dignity, she stalked off toward the house, well aware of the surprised widening of his eyes. She’d put several feet between him and his mangy dog when he spoke again.

      “Whatever you want.”

      The subtle mockery made something snap in her brain, covering her vision with red. Halfway to a graceful exit, she discovered that she couldn’t let this jackass have the last word. It just wasn’t in her.

      So she marched back up to stand in his face, suitcase in tow, and pointed her free index finger right at his perfectly straight nose. “You’re very rude,” she informed him. “You better believe I’m going to complain to the owners about you.”

      To her further annoyance, this pronouncement only amused him, if the slow smile creeping across his face was any indication. “You do that,” he said. “They’ve had problems with me before. Make sure you tell them my name’s J.R.”

      It would have been so nice to smack that wicked smirk right off his face and teach him a thing or two about the right way to treat a) women and b) paying guests, but that would have required moving and she found she couldn’t do that. There

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