LITMIR.BIZ

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and you’re gonna get ’em, but what did we talk about?”

      Annabelle huffed. “To wait my turn and not be rude.”

      The old man beamed. “That’s right.”

      Annabelle leaned close to him, batted those big eyes and whispered, “But I want my princess room.”

      “It’s yours. Promise. But the grown-ups have to talk now.”

      “Okay.” Annabelle bent to her smiling sun again.

      Manny spoke to Chloe then. “Quinn’s pretty busy getting the business off the ground.” His gym, Prime Sports and Fitness, was just down the street from Chloe’s showroom, at the intersection of West Central and Marmot Drive. “You know Quinn, don’t you?”

      “Of course. We...went to school together.”

      “Right. So Quinn takes care of the business. I look after Annabelle and run the house. You ever seen the inside of our house?”

      Chloe blinked away a mental image of Quinn, up on his knees between her legs. Quinn, gloriously naked, his beautiful blue-green eyes burning down at her. “Erm, your house? No, I haven’t been inside.”

      “It’s a good house, big rooms, great light, four thousand square feet. But built in the eighties, and looks like it. Too much ceramic tile and ugly carpet.”

      “So it needs a little loving care?” she asked, trying to sound cool and professional and fearing the old man could see right inside her head to the X-rated images of Annabelle’s dad.

      “What it needs is a boatload of cash and a good decorator. Starting on the ground floor and moving on up.”

      “You want to redo every room?” That would be good for her. Very good. Not only for the money, but for Your Way’s reputation. She could put up a whole new website area, if Quinn and Manny agreed, showing the before and after of at least the main rooms. Their housing development was an upscale one. However, like Quinn’s house, most of the homes were more than twenty years old. Doing a full-on interior redesign always got the neighbors’ attention, got them thinking that their houses could stand a little sprucing up, too. She could end up with a lot of new business from the job Manny described. She asked, “What about the bathrooms and the kitchen?”

      “Like I said, all of it. Every room.”

      She couldn’t help wondering if Quinn was behind this? “What will you need from me? I’ll be happy to show you examples of my work—my portfolio? We can take a look at the website so you’ll have a better feel of what I can do. As for references, I—”

      “Naw. I already looked at the website and I liked what I saw.”

      Was she blushing? Manny had a gruff way about him, but he also knew how to turn on the charm. She really liked him. She liked his way with Annabelle, liked that teasing twinkle in his watery eyes. “Well, thank you.”

      “I got a good feeling about you, Chloe. A real good feeling.” The old guy smiled, deepening the network of wrinkles on his craggy face. She really did wonder exactly how much he knew about her and Quinn and what had happened between them eight nights ago. He went on. “I’m thinking you should come over to the house. I’ll show you around, show you what I want done and then you can come up with some drawings and blueprints and all that. We can start right away, as soon as you’re ready to go...”

      “Do you have an architect or any contractors you want to use?”

      “Bravo Construction, if they give you a decent bid on the job—and if you’re okay with them. You’ll be running this, so you gotta be happy with the people you’re working with.”

      Chloe nodded. “I know them, of course.” Quinn’s older brother, Garrett, ran the company, from what Chloe had heard. And his youngest sister, Nell, worked there, too. Garrett had been three years or so ahead of Chloe in school, so she didn’t remember all that much about him. And Nell was four years younger than Chloe. Still, Chloe vaguely remembered her. Gorgeous, and something of a wild child, wasn’t she? Never one to back down from a fight. She told Manny brightly, “They have a great reputation. I’ll ask them for a bid, absolutely.”

      Manny winked at her. “Might as well try and keep it in the family.”

      Chloe got the message. Manny did want her to use the Bravos. “Sounds good to me.” She made a mental note to go with them if at all possible.

      Half an hour later, when Manny and Annabelle left, Chloe had an appointment at Quinn’s house for two in the afternoon the next day.

      She was thrilled.

      But then again, come on. It was too much of a coincidence. She suspected rough-edged old Manny of matchmaking, because it just didn’t seem like something Quinn would engineer. Quinn Bravo was more direct than that. If he wanted to see her again, he would just say so.

      Wouldn’t he?

      She had to admit she couldn’t be sure. Maybe Quinn hesitated to ask her out now, after she’d made such a point of that one night being the only night the two of them would ever share.

      Maybe he knew nothing about Manny’s plans to tear their house apart and redo it, top to bottom.

      Maybe, come to think of it, Quinn had no desire at all to ask her out. What if he ended up hating the idea that his daughter’s caregiver planned to hire the woman up the hill, with whom he’d had a one-night stand? What if he wanted nothing to do with her now? If she took the job, she would be in and out of his house for weeks.

      That would be awful, if it turned out that Quinn really didn’t want her around. Here she was, gloating over this plum job that had magically fallen in her lap, when Quinn might know nothing about it—and not be the least bit happy when he found out.

      By the time Tai arrived at one, Chloe had made up her mind.

      Before she went to Quinn’s house tomorrow and consulted with Manny on the changes he wanted made, she needed to know for sure what Quinn really thought of her being there.

      And the only way to know for sure was to ask the man himself.

       Chapter Three

      Chloe sent Tai to get takeout again. They shared lunch. And then she left Tai in charge and walked the two blocks to Prime Sports and Fitness, her heart hammering at her ribs all the way.

      Quinn’s gym filled a three-story brick building directly across the street from the popular Irish-style pub, McKellan’s. Chloe hesitated outside on the sidewalk, ordering her pulse to slow down a little, noting the good location and the clean, modern lines of the building itself. There were lots of windows and various athletic activities visible from the street. In one room, some kind of martial arts class was in progress. Another room took up most of the second floor and held rows of cardio equipment, with people in exercise gear working out on stationary bikes, treadmills and elliptical trainers.

      She stood there staring up for a couple of minutes at least. Until she finally had to accept that her nervousness hadn’t faded at all. In fact, it was worse. So she smoothed the front of her narrow white pants, tugged on the hem of the light, short blazer she wore over a featherweight black tank, squared her shoulders and went in.

      The gorgeous, hardbody brunette at the front desk said that Quinn was just finishing up leading a boxing conditioning class. Chloe could wait in his office. It shouldn’t be long.

      So Chloe sat in his office, where the walls were lined with pictures of Quinn in his fighting days and more than one big, shiny trophy stood on display. She had become absolutely certain that she’d made a horrible mistake in coming here and was just about to rise and bolt from the building, when the door swung open and there he was, looking sweaty and spectacular in gray boxing shorts and a muscle-hugging T.

      * * *

      “Hello,

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