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He got a funny look, kind of like he was worried. “Not much.”

“You couldn’t go for a run on Saturday because you were busy,” I reminded him. “Then I went too far in one direction when I was by myself so I was too sore to go yesterday.” And this morning, my mom had insisted on doing an extra-long yoga session with me, while Maël had worked on walking on his hands. “We could go tomorrow.”

He nodded slightly but still didn’t say anything else about his activities. That made me extremely curious. “Were you doing something illegal?” I smiled because I had been joking, but he just looked more serious.

“No. No, I…oh.”

His eyes had gone past me, over my head, and I turned to see what he was looking at. Through the glass door, I spotted the woman walking toward this office. More like…what would you have called it? Slinking? The way she moved reminded me of a cat, sinuous and graceful, not the way that I walked and not the way my mom danced a path for herself. My brief glance had shown me that she was beautiful, with platinum hair and full lips, full everything—hips, breasts, and probably butt, although I couldn’t see her back view.

And I knew who she was.

“Is that Lexi?” I asked Oliver.

He had stood up and his eyes were directly on her. “Yes,” he told me. “That’s my wife.”

No, she was his ex-wife, but you couldn’t have guessed it from the way that she greeted him. “Hi, baby,” she said. Was I hallucinating or had she actually purred those words? She stood up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, but she didn’t have to reach very far. She was tall like his sister Frances, but they were so different. Frances had reminded me of a Viking shield maiden, beautiful but tough, aloof, and regal. This woman was entirely, one hundred percent sexy.

At the last moment, Oliver moved his head back and she missed his cheek. She stumbled forward a quarter-step, though, so he caught her under her elbows and it was like they were hugging. Which they were entirely welcome to do. You could be friendly with an ex, which was not something I knew from personal experience since I’d never had one. But I’d done plenty of reading.

You could also get back together with your ex, if you wanted. Judging by how Lexi was smiling at him, she did want that.

He let go of her and took more than a quarter-step away, walking behind his desk so that there was a piece of furniture between them. “I didn’t know you were coming here,” he said.

“You gave me the address!” She shook her head like he was hilarious.

“Because you asked for it. I thought you had to work in Toledo today,” he answered.

He knew her schedule? Oh, I realized why he did. This was what he’d been doing on Saturday, the activity he hadn’t wanted to tell me about. He’d been with her.

“This is Kat,” he was saying.

Yes, but I was so un-feline! I had none of her sensual moves and voluptuousness. My name was a lie just like “Hekate” had been. My mom had thought I would be witchy in the best way, strong and powerful…but here I was, cowering in the blue chair before this goddess of beauty, afraid to open my mouth.

“Hello,” she told me. “Are you Oliver’s assistant?”

“No,” I managed to answer and at the same time, a thought ran through my mind. He hadn’t told her about me.

“Why are you here?” she asked

“He’s letting me share his office because mine is, um, out of service.”

“Oh,” she said, nodding although she looked confused. “Out of service.”

“Lexi, did you need something?” he asked. “Why did you come over?”

“I thought that we could go to lunch,” she said, smiling at him again.

“Kat and I just ate and I have a lot to do. Maybe another time.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” she answered. She waggled her fingers. “See you soon.” Then she turned to me and gave me a long look that moved up my body and ended with a little wince as she studied my face and hair. “Nice to meet you, Claire.”

I didn’t answer that, but she didn’t wait for me to. She strolled out of the office and her butt was just as curvy as her front. I hunched forward my shoulders like I had done when I’d gone to boarding school, because my name hadn’t been the only thing that the other girls had mocked back then. They had called me “Training-Bra Turner,” because I’d needed one but my mom had never bothered about undergarments.

“That was Lexi,” Oliver announced, totally superfluously.

“I got that.” I swept all the lunch stuff off my desk into the trash can and opened my laptop.

“I saw her on Saturday.”