“You’re one of a kind, Alexis,” Grady observed slowly. He cupped the side of her face with the palm of his hand.
Her breath hitched, even as she tilted her head up to his. This couldn’t be happening. Could it? He couldn’t be putting the moves on her. “What are you doing?” she murmured.
He gave her a look of determination that was as unexpected as it was compelling. His eyes shuttered to half-mast. “What I’ve wanted to do all day. Hell—” his head lowered and his mouth dropped even lower “—why not be honest here? From practically the first second we met…”
Alexis splayed both hands across his chest. His muscles were warm and hard beneath her palms, and she could feel his heart pounding. “That’s…this…” Oh, hell, he was going to kiss her! “It’s impossible….”
“No,” he murmured. “It’s not.”
And then all was lost in the feel of his body pressed up against hers and the wonder of his lips moving over hers.
Chapter Four
The rational, practical part of Grady knew he shouldn’t be kissing Alexis. Shouldn’t be trying to ease the loneliness and isolation that had dominated his life for the last five years with the incredibly warm and tender woman in his arms. He should be walking away from the softness of her lips, and the femininity of her body pressed against his. Ignoring the sweet taste of her mouth, and the passionate way she kissed him back.
A physical relationship with her could only get in the way of what they were trying to do—find a mommy for Savannah…and a wife for him who would accept the limitations he set. A woman he could be honest with. A woman who understood. A woman Savannah could love, and who would love her in return.
Grady wanted a kind of wife Alexis didn’t seem to think could be found. Unless…He broke off the kiss as the next idea hit.
Hands on her shoulders, he shifted her away. Working to keep himself from surrendering to temptation once again, he noticed the surprising vulnerability in her eyes. Her lip was trembling slightly, and she seemed as taken aback by the flare of desire between them as he was.
“Are you available?” Grady asked bluntly.
Alexis blinked and stepped away. “You mean single?”
For the first time in a long time, he felt fully, physically alive once again. With effort, Grady curtailed his spiraling emotions. “As a potential match.”
“For you?” Alexis’s brow lifted as the meaning of his words apparently sank in. She stepped back again and lifted both hands, as if to ward him off. “No. I’m not.”
Grady hadn’t gotten where he was in life by accepting no for an answer, especially when he wanted something as much as he suddenly wanted this. Eyes trained on hers, he asked, “Sure about that?”
Resentment laced her voice as she answered, “Matchmakers at my company are not allowed to date clients, Grady.”
Most of the important decisions in his life were based on instinct. And right now it was telling him he’d already found the mother his daughter wanted and needed. A woman his daughter could love—and who would love Savannah back. “We’re not talking about a date.” Or anything near that insignificant. “We’re talking about a match.”
“Same thing,” Alexis replied. “And it’s out of the question, Grady.”
Frustration tightened his muscles. “Why?”
She packed up her laptop, picked up her handbag and began searching for her cell phone. “Because you’re in too much of a hurry to find someone and get this done.” She pushed the words through gritted teeth.
He shrugged, not about to back down, now that he’d put the idea out there. “So I value efficiency.”
She lifted her chin. “Efficiency is fine when it comes to business. But this isn’t business, Grady, or at least it shouldn’t be. It’s your personal life.”
He’d heard as much from the few friends and family who knew what he had planned. He shrugged. “So?”
She shook her head in mute exasperation. Finally looked him in the eye. “Ever heard the expression, ‘Pick a spouse in haste and repent in leisure?’”
He exhaled. “More or less.”
Alexis stepped closer, clearly not afraid to stand up to him. “When clients are in as much of a hurry as you are to get matched up,” she explained, as if to someone in need of a great deal of counseling, “it’s usually because they don’t want to stop and think about what it is they are doing. Because—” she inched even closer “—they know if they do stop and think, they’ll realize what a giant mistake they’re making, and they won’t go through with it.”
Grady gazed down at her. “I won’t back out,” he stated confidently.
“You say that now. But when it comes time to commit to a lifetime without love, you may feel differently.”
“I probably would if I thought I could love again,” Grady said honestly. The sad thing was…“I don’t.”
“You really loved your wife that much?” Alexis whispered, backing away once more.
It was almost as if he could see an invisible force field go up around her heart. “Yes,” he said.
A mixture of sadness and commiseration shone in Alexis’s eyes. “And you still miss Tabitha.”
Grady found himself wanting to talk about something he never discussed. “I don’t know. Sometimes—” he shook his head, gulping around the sudden knot of emotion in his throat “—I can barely remember her. Other times, the void in my life…” He paused, searching for words. “Let’s just say I really feel it.”
More gently now, Alexis asked, “How did you meet?”
Grady lounged against the kitchen counter again. He took a deep breath, let it out. “Tabitha was an interior designer who specialized in commercial buildings. I was right out of college and had just purchased my first run-down commercial space. The location was good. The interior of the building was not. I wanted to redo it and then lease it out.” He smiled reminiscently. “She helped me achieve my dream. After that, we were inseparable. Worked on one project after another and got married three years after we met.”
Alexis went back to the table and took a notepad and pen out of her briefcase. She sat down in the chair and began to write. “Was she close to your family?”
Grady watched Alexis’s movements, for the first time realizing she was left-handed. “Yes.”
She looked up, intent. “Is that important to you—that the person you marry be loved by your family?”
He nodded.
“What about prenups?” The questions now were rapid-fire. “Are you going to ask for one?”
“I didn’t before,” he admitted, remembering he’d been called a fool for that, too, by everyone who knew his own earning potential, plus what he one day stood to inherit from the trust his folks had set up for him.
Aware that she was still waiting for an explanation, Grady said, “When I married it was for life. I just didn’t know Tabitha’s would be so short.”
Empathy radiated in Alexis’s eyes.
She took a moment to consider that, then asked, “When you marry again, will it be for life?”
Grady hoped so. But he knew, under these circumstances, which were quite different, he had to take steps to protect himself and Savannah from anyone who might be in it purely for the money. He regarded Alexis steadily. “This time, I will require prenups for both of us, should the union not work out. Although I would hope and expect it would never come to divorce.”
Alexis made a face and kept writing. “If you ever get married again,” she murmured, in a cynical tone he hadn’t heard her use before. She paused, looked up. “I’m not convinced you will. Not without being in love.”
Grady stayed rooted in place. Not sure why, only knowing he was enjoying the sparks of mutual aggravation arcing between them as much as he had enjoyed kissing her a few minutes before. She seemed to be reluctantly attuned to their chemistry, too. “If you expect me to back out,” he countered, “then you don’t know me very well.”
Alexis nodded. “Exactly.”
; A fact, Grady thought, that could easily be remedied. “So back to you and me…”
She drew a deep breath that lifted her breasts. “There is no you and me.”
Grady noted she wasn’t looking at him—a sure sign there could be a “them”, given half a chance. He pushed away from the counter, closed the distance between them, took her wrist and raised her to her feet. “That kiss we shared just now said otherwise.”
Twin spots of color touched her cheeks. “That kiss meant nothing,” she declared. But her breathing was slightly agitated.
“On the contrary.” He made note of the absence of her customary cool as he tucked a hand beneath her chin. “It was a wake-up call to me.”
She jerked back abruptly. “And what did it say?”
Grady lifted both his hands and determinedly held his ground. “That maybe, just maybe, I’ve been selling myself short with the parameters I set for my next spouse.”
ALEXIS HAD THOUGHT, after the kiss—and Grady’s equally inane suggestion that they consider marrying for his daughter’s sake—that he couldn’t surprise her further. She was wrong. Momentarily tabling her decision to call a cab to take her back to her BMW, which was still parked at his construction site, she sat back down for the third time in twenty minutes and picked up her pen, determined to get as much information as possible from him while he was in the mood to talk. “Okay, obviously you’ve refined your notion of what you want in a potential relationship. What are you looking for now?”
“Someone who could enjoy sex without the romance and a child…and a life together as man and wife.”
She tried not to leap to the conclusion that the kiss they had shared had in any way jump-started Grady’s latent physical needs. “But no love,” she ascertained, a great deal more coolly than she felt.
“I’ve already had the love of a lifetime. To think lightning would strike twice…” He paused, his guard going up again. “Let’s just say the odds are very much against it.”
Grady took a seat at the table catty-corner from her, and surveyed her with surprising intimacy. “Oddly enough, you look as if you understand why I can’t love anyone else the way I loved my wife.”
Maybe this was an area where they could in fact relate. Finding she wanted him to know at least a bit about her, she said quietly, “I do. I was married, too.”
He was silent, absorbing that, then dropped his gaze to the unadorned ring finger on her left hand. “And?”
It was her turn to talk about matters she found difficult to discuss. “I got married right after college, too. We were together for seven years. If Scott hadn’t died, two years ago, we would still be together now.”
The loss she felt was reflected in Grady’s eyes. “What happened?”
Alexis swallowed. Her voice took on a raspy note. “Cancer. He’d had it as a kid. Had been in the clear for almost fifteen years. And then the leukemia came back and…” Their lives, their dreams, everything they had hoped for and wanted had been turned upside down. Alexis shook her head. Even now, it seemed like such an impossible, bad dream. She forced herself to go on, “For two years, he had all the latest treatments. Something would start to work, we’d think we were out of the woods, and then…we weren’t. He got sicker and sicker, until finally nothing worked and he just couldn’t fight it anymore.”
Grady reached across the table and took her hand. The feel of his strong fingers around hers was as warm and reassuring as his presence. “I’m so sorry, Alexis.”
She hadn’t felt the need to lean on a man for a long time. She felt it now. Finding comfort in the empathy in his eyes, even as tears blurred her vision, she said, “So am I. I still love Scott. I always will. But I also know that part of my life is over.”
Grady withdrew his hand reluctantly. Sat back. “So you will marry again.”
Alexis nodded, knowing what she had just recently begun to realize herself—that the only way to leave sorrow behind was to move on. Not just partially, but all the way. “If I find love again, you bet I will.” Because marriage was the best thing that had ever happened to her.
“What if you don’t find true love again—at least not on that heart and soul level?” he asked, practical as ever.
She knew where this conversation was going. She cut him off at the pass. “I’m not going to settle, Grady. I’m not going to do what you’re contemplating, and enter into a marriage of convenience. I’d rather be alone than be with someone and feel alone.”
Deciding this session had gotten way too intimate for either of their sakes, she stood, began to pack up her belongings one last time. “In the meantime, I need you to look through the potential matches I’ve selected for you. If any of those three women appeal to you, or seem—on paper and on videotape—as if they might be a good match, let me know and I’ll set something else up as quickly as possible.”
“Under the guise of this match being a friend of yours, instead of a potential mommy,” Grady cautioned.
Normally, there was no way Alexis would agree to anything so convoluted. But then, a little girl’s feelings were not usually involved. She nodded. “Savannah may figure it out, if we have to do this too many times. But I’m willing to go with that plan as long as it works.”
THE NEXT MORNING, Alexis’s cell phone rang just as she was heading out the door. Caller ID indicated it was Grady. Wondering if he had found a match who intrigued him, she picked up. “Hello, Grady.”
“Good morning, Alexis.”
It was ridiculous, really, how happy she was to hear his low, gravelly voice. Ridiculous how warm it suddenly felt in the small studio apartment she had lived in since her late husband had first gotten sick.
Frowning, Alexis walked over to the window unit in charge of cooling the place, and turned the dial to maximum. Enjoying the resulting blast of icy air, she sat down on the windowsill in front of the air conditioner. “What can I do for you this morning?” she asked.
“How much do you know about defiant little girls?”
Not the response she was expecting. Alexis promptly switched into problem solving mode. “Enough, I think. Why?” She tensed in concern. “What’s going on?”
Grady exhaled. “It’s Savannah. She’s refusing to go to school. She won’t tell me why.”
Alexis unbuttoned her jacket. Was it her imagination or was the air blowing out behind her warming slightly once again? She turned around and fiddled with the dial. “Is it because of what happened with Lisa Marie Peterson yesterday?”
“I don’t know. She won’t talk to me.”
Alexis heard the mixture of hurt and frustration in his voice. “I’m not sure what to do.” He sighed. “I think she needs a woman’s tender loving care—if that makes any sense.”
It made perfect sense to Alexis. Women were better at handling certain things, men others. “Where are you?” Deciding to give her air conditioner—which had been working overtime lately—something of a rest, she switched the dial back to low.
“Home.”
Alexis retrieved her briefcase and purse. “I’ll be right over and see what I can do.”
“Thanks.” Grady’s relief was palpable. “You’re a life-saver.”
Maybe not that, Alexis thought as she let herself out of her studio apartment and walked outside to her car. But she figured she could be of some help.
Grady was waiting for her when she arrived at his home fifteen minutes later. He was dressed for work, in a suit and tie. Savannah was still in the pink princess pajamas she had put on after her bath the night before. She was seated at the kitchen table, her breakfast of cold cereal and glass of juice in front of her, untouched. She had her right arm stretched out on the table, her head on top of that, face hidden from view.
Grady looked at Alexis, clearly concerned. Now that she was here and could see what he was dealing with, Alexis was concerned, too. She set her purse on the kitchen counter and walked over to the table. “Bad morning?” she asked gently.
Savannah looked up at Alex
is, her blue eyes swimming with tears. She nodded, let out a heartfelt sob, and thrust herself into Alexis’s waiting arms.
IF GRADY HAD HAD ANY doubts before, he had none now as he watched Alexis gather Savannah in her arms and sit down, cradling her in her lap. Alexis had a mother’s loving touch.
And Savannah knew it.
“Oh, honey,” Alexis soothed, stroking one hand through his little girl’s tangled ringlets, another down her back. “It’s all right.”
Stubbornly, Savannah shook her head. “No, it’s not,” she insisted.
Now that, Grady thought, sounded like his headstrong daughter.
Savannah sniffed. Ignoring him completely, she drew back to look into Alexis’s face.
“Are you still upset about the fight you had yesterday with Lisa Marie?” Alexis pressed.
Grady had asked the same question—to no avail—so he was surprised to hear his daughter answer right away.
“I don’t want to say sorry to her!”
Was that what this was about? Grady wondered.
“Because…?” Alexis prodded.
Savannah’s whole body tensed. “She’s mean!”
“Mean how?” Grady asked. He pulled a chair up next to them and sat down.
Savannah cuddled closer to Alexis, but told him, “She makes fun of me and I don’t like it!”
“Be that as it may, that’s no reason to get in a hair-pulling fight with her,” he stated firmly.
Over Savannah’s head, Alexis gave Grady a look that told him very clearly to back off and let her handle this.
“I’m not going to say I’m sorry,” Savannah repeated, even more stubbornly.
Exasperated, Grady pointed out, “Then you are not going to be able to go back to school.” To his chagrin, his daughter clearly didn’t care.
“Hmm. Well…” Alexis grew thoughtful. “I suppose that is one option.”
Savannah looked up in surprise.
Grady gazed at her in shock.
“You could stay home alone, away from all your friends, and never get to play on the school playground again. You’d probably be a little lonely, and maybe bored. But I guess it would be okay.”
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