AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Heknewit. She was a Christmas nutso.
“I came to give you the contracts,” he said.
“Why not send them with a courier? Or fax them to my office? Or send them via email?”
He didn’t have a good response. “I told you. I had a meeting this way and thought I’d save time.”
“You mean spy on me,” she said, dropping the remote on the table and kicking off her shoes. Her skirt still inched up her thighs, but he didn’t see the girdle thing peeking out. For some reason he wanted to see it. Maybe he had a girdle fetish he didn’t know about. Or maybe he hadn’t had enough water today. Didn’t dehydration make a guy do dumb stuff like drive across town to see a clumsy blonde with a too-big bottom?
Or maybe it was something more than that? Not something he wanted to contemplate.
“I’m not spying on you. That’s ridiculous.” He shifted his weight and averted his gaze. Mostly because she was right. He’d been curious. “Though I have to say seeing you in your world makes things clearer.”
Her pretty eyes narrowed. “‘Clearer’?”
“Suffice it to say, I understand you better.”
“‘Suffice’?”
“Am I not being articulate enough for you?”
“You haven’t convinced me you aren’t here to snoop around. So did you see what you needed?” She swept her hand around dramatically. “It’s not much, but it’s clean…or it will be as soon as I clear out all traces of Simon.”
“It wasn’t a bad idea for me to stop by. I helped you with Simon, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t nominate myself for Prince Charming just yet if I were you. I’ve seen you in your world, too, you know.” She walked toward the kitchen. “Would you like a cup of tea or a glass of wine?”
Drinking wine with her sounded intriguing, but he shouldn’t. This wasn’t a social visit. “Wine would be good.”
“All I have is pink Zinfandel,” she called from the kitchen.
Ugh. Disgusting. “Fine.”
She returned moments later with a plastic wineglass full of pink liquid and gestured to her couch. “All I have are plastic—the cat kept knocking the glass ones off the table and breaking them. I got tired of picking slivers out of my toes.”
A vision of Mary Paige’s naked toes flashed in his mind. Good God, he really was in trouble. “Cat?”
“Well, there are a lot in this neighborhood that run wild. I’m not irresponsible, and I’ve called animal control many times, but it’s a losing battle for them. I kept one little cat. She’s blind, thus the broken dishes.”
“Where is she?” He sat but not before checking for cat hair. He didn’t much care for dogs, cats, or any other absurd pets like ferrets, parrots, or gerbils. Animals in general.
“Under my bed, most likely. She hates Simon.”
“Good judge of character.”
Mary Paige smiled and something inside him warmed. Her face had a sort of glow…or maybe it was that absurd tinsel Christmas tree beyond her shoulder. “My relationship with Simon was as much my fault as his. I enable people because I’m too soft. My greatest weakness.”
“A weakness that brought you fortune.”
“Fortune isn’t everything.” Her eyes appeared as deep as any lake he’d ever dived into during all those years of summer camp. She believed what she said.
Huh.
Maybe that was the reason for his fascination with her—she didn’t seem to care about money, unfathomable as it seemed. Anyone else faced with a dangling carrot of two million dollars would tap-dance, stand on their head, or eat worms, but this woman didn’t give a rat’s ass. Money truly meant little to her.
Maybe she was soft…in the head.
But he knew that wasn’t true. Oh, she was soft all right—from the lovely curve of her bottom to the goose-down heart beneath that ill-fitting, bright pink sweater. And that had to be the other part of his attraction to her—the softness that was so opposite of most of the women in his life, with their sharp cheekbones, shark-like intellect, and sophisticated looks. “Not your fault for being decent, but I wouldn’t have let him in the door in the first place.”
