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“I finished your book last night,” he said.
“Good morning to you, too.” Okay, she was dying to know what he thought of it, but she wasn’t about to let him see how interested she was in his comment.
Jane stepped aside, and Luke filled the doorway, a big black toolbox in one hand. He entered the hallway and set the box down.
“Don’t you want to know what I think of it?”
“You’ve already made that clear.”
“Maybe I changed my mind. I’d only read half the book yesterday.”
Right. A guy like Luke admitting that he’d changed his mind was about as likely as Jane admitting she was wrong.
“You read the most controversial chapter last night. I’m betting it didn’t exactly sit well with you.”
“Which one is that? The one about sexual control through deprivation, or how men want what they haven’t conquered?”
“It’s not deprivation, it’s restraint.”
“Control Your Sexuality, Control Your Life” was the central chapter of The Sex Factor, the one that defined in the most specific terms Jane’s relationship philosophy, and the one that pissed off most men.
“Yeah, you were all about restraint last night,” he said as he bent and opened his toolbox.
“I did put the brakes on.” Jane felt her cheeks burn. She hadn’t been nearly as restrained as she urged other women to be.
“I thought the ‘men want what they haven’t conquered’ chapter was the most ridiculous one.”
“Ridiculous? It’s a scientifically proven fact.”
Luke withdrew a drill from the box and gave Jane a wry look. “I hate to tell you this, babe, but you’re wrong.”
“You can believe that if it makes you feel better,” Jane said as she picked a spot on the wall and hammered the nail into it with a little too much enthusiasm.
“You know, you should find a stud for that.”
Jane resisted making any smart-ass comments about how there wasn’t a stud to be found. When she glanced over at Luke, he wore a vague smile.
“I can hang a picture without your expertise, thanks.”
He tucked the drill into a holder on his tool belt and stood up, then walked to the front door again. “I’m going to install your new security system.”
“Okay, I’ll be here if you have any questions.”
“I’m not wrong, by the way. You assume all men are sex-obsessed asses who do their decision-making with their dicks.”
Jane feigned a look of wide-eyed innocence. “I stand corrected, then. I’ll title my next book, Men Are Really Nice Guys. I’m sure it’ll be a bestseller.”
His eyes narrowed. “That’s what all your male-bashing is about, isn’t it? You’re ruining people’s sex lives just so you can cash in.”
The picture of Jane’s parents slipped from her hands and landed on the hardwood floor. A crack formed a path across the glass in the frame. Jane believed absolutely in her relationship theories, but she had been a bit bothered by the way her editor had encouraged her to strengthen certain assertions—especially the ones that made men look like jerks. Jane had known in her gut that the editor was operating on the wisdom that the more extreme the opinions, the more books would sell, and she’d tried to remain true to her own vision while still pleasing the editor.
Had she gone too far? The thought that even one relationship might have been unnecessarily damaged by her book made Jane sick to her stomach.
No. Luke was just trying to rile her up. He was angry, like most men, for having his sex life dampened by the truth.
Jane looked up from the broken photo and glared at him. “Now you’re accusing me of being unethical, too? You sure know the way to a woman’s heart. Oh, and by the way, you certainly weren’t proving me wrong about the sex-obsessed part last night.”
Luke approached her, his gaze steady and penetrating. When he was mere inches away, he bent and picked up the broken picture.
“Point taken. I don’t know anything about your ethics, so I’ll take back that last comment for now.” He studied the photo. “You don’t look much like your parents.”
Considering the number of nips and tucks both her father and mother had had, they were lucky to even look like themselves. “I take after my paternal grandmother—dark-haired, fair-skinned, black Irish.”
“You’re lucky.”
Jane blinked, waiting for the punch line. That was the first time anyone had ever called her lucky for not inheriting her parents’ blond good looks, the way her sisters had. “You haven’t seen my grandmother in her old age.”
