by Joanne Rock
She’d spent the past ten years telling herself she didn’t need anyone’s approval. This afternoon, she’d remind Simone of that fact and recover her professional balance. As for her private life and her night with Josh…she couldn’t imagine recovering her balance there anytime soon.
Thankfully, she didn’t have to see him again for a couple of weeks. She and Josh would simply stay out of one another’s way until Duke and Amanda returned to New York. And even then, who was to say they’d cross paths in the future?
Lexi checked her wallet to be sure she had enough cash for cab fare, then blew kisses at her babies on the way out the door. Muffin and Snowball barked their goodbyes, but Harry—the terrier—contented himself with a more dignified canine nod.
Josh had wanted a dignified goodbye, a voice whispered in the back of her mind as she took the elevator to the first floor and paused to check her mailbox.
Why did the man have to sneak continually into her thoughts? Broadcast himself across her thoughts, was more like it. Josh couldn’t have made more of a mental impression if he’d announced his presence with a blasted megaphone.
As she spied the handwriting on the lone small envelope in her box, the swirl of her thoughts ceased. Fear niggled the back of her neck, caused her stomach to churn. She didn’t need to open the letter to know it would contain another anonymous note, another threat.
Lexi grabbed it out of her box and stuffed it in her purse, too rattled to read it just yet. She could open it in the cab during the considerable drive to Simone’s house in Long Island. Then she could panic in private.
After hailing a taxi, Lexi slid into the seat and gave the driver Simone’s address. But even after she read the short note—two lines threatening her babies if she didn’t quit “running her mouth” in her weekly column—Lexi didn’t truly panic.
All she kept thinking was that Josh would be able to kick her note writer’s butt from the Hudson to the East River if the guy ever tried anything. That line of thinking did make her panic.
Because if there was one thing Lexi had learned in life so far, it was that she had to fight her own battles.
And no sexy interlude with a dangerous cop was going to change that fact.
JOSH PRESSED the redial button on his cell phone to try calling Lexi one more time before he rang Simone Bertrand’s doorbell. He stood on the brick walkway outside the behemoth mansion in a ritzy section of Long Island, willing Lexi to pick up her phone this time.
No such luck. The woman didn’t even know his phone number, so it’s not like she could be ducking her caller I.D. She was genuinely out for the day.
He hated it that he didn’t have the slightest notion where she might be. She’d been ever-present in his mind all damn day, yet evidently she wasn’t giving him a second blasted thought.
Didn’t she remember the heightened sensuality of last night’s utter darkness? The complete awareness they’d had of one another? Josh had been with enough women to know nights like that weren’t the norm. Why wasn’t Lexi walking around her apartment with her pack of dogs at her heels, slowly replaying every nuance of the previous night in her mind?
Besides, he was supposed to check on her, make sure she was safe. How could he do that if she never answered her phone?
Once her answering machine clicked on, Josh folded up his phone and stuffed it in his pocket. He rang the bell at the Bertrand woman’s palatial colonial home and waited.
He might not be able to get his update on Lexi, but at least he’d take care of scratching the Long Island designer off his list of smuggling suspects.
Five minutes later he found himself waiting in a prissy sitting room, surrounded by pink silk armchairs and an army of silver animal statuettes. Idly, he ran his finger over two whales and a coiled snake, a pointer dog ready to hunt and an elephant standing on its hind legs.
Josh peered at his reflection in the elephant’s back and straightened the lapels of his jacket. Not only did he look more like a thug than a police officer, but also he was out of his depth here.
Duke might know how to talk to these upper crust folks, but Josh didn’t have a clue. Give him a few street crooks to tangle with and he could hold his own. Give him a computer and he could tap his way down a paper trail of clues faster than Duke could polish off a burger. But put him in a situation where he had to talk to the owner of enough silver animals to provide flatware for all of Brooklyn and Josh didn’t have a clue.
“Detective?” A throaty feminine voice assailed his ears, made him stand up straighter.
Josh turned to find an overblown blonde with a face perfectly sculpted to match a body only a plastic surgeon could have created. The woman had more lift than a hydraulic jack—on the front end, on the back end, around eyebrows that seemed arched in permanent surprise.
“Josh Winger.” He nodded. “Ms. Bertrand?”
She didn’t bother to confirm or deny it. A wicked grin split her full lips. “If only I had known my local police station was harboring such gorgeous men as you, Detective, I wouldn’t have wasted all those nights salivating over the Law and Order guys.”
“Nice to meet you.” He stuck out his hand, unsure how to respond as she squeezed his palm and didn’t let go.
“The pleasure is all mine, I assure you.” She batted her eyelashes. “I noticed you admiring my statues. I have a collection of much more interesting pieces upstairs if you’d like to come see them.”
Sure. Right after he looked at her etchings.
“Actually, Ms. Bertrand—”
“Call me Simone.” She squeezed his arm as if to impress the wish upon him.
“Actually, Simone, I was hoping you could talk to me about how your design firm handles its imports.”
The flirtatious light in her eyes dimmed a bit. “Imports?”
“Fabrics or any other material you order from abroad.”
She assumed a theatrical pout. Josh noticed her lower lip seemed to have the same buoyant lift as the rest of her.
“If I indulge you now, Detective, will you indulge me later?”
Josh realized he wasn’t even a little tempted. Not that he would have hit the sheets with a potential suspect in a million years. But usually the purely male side of his brain felt the pull of such an offer.
Not today, when Lexi Mansfield’s lithe little body clung to his memories with tenacious blue fingernails.
“Sorry, Ms. Bertrand.” He plucked the woman’s fingers off his jacket. “I’m afraid I can’t return the favor.”
The snappy click of high heels across the marble corridor floor alerted him to a new arrival. A feminine new arrival.
He’d scarcely had time to turn around before Lexi’s voice echoed through the large room.
“Josh?”
The look of betrayal on Lexi’s face couldn’t have been any more apparent. A beleaguered butler stood at her side as she stopped short in the entryway.
“Ms. Alexandra Mansfield is here, Ms. Bertrand,” the butler announced with a mixture of stiff formality and impatience.
“It’s Lexi,” she snapped, obviously recovering from her moment of undisguised emotion.
Had Josh really seen a flash of jealousy, or was it wishful thinking on his part?
“Not according to your mother, miss,” the butler returned, bowing in deferential response to Lexi’s mild snarl.
“Honestly, your staff is as ill-mannered as you, Simone. Jeeves should have told me you were busy.” Lexi adjusted the shoulder strap of her purse and tossed her long, dark hair over her shoulder.
She looked phenomenal. Her dress clung to her curves without cinching them, the fabric molding around her body like a lover’s hand.
“It’s James, Ms. Mansfield,” the butler called from some distance down the hallway.
Josh hid a laugh, and thought he noticed a smile playing about Lexi’s lips, too.
“Yes, I am very busy,” Simone responded to Lexi’s earlier comment. “You’ll have to come back later.”
> All traces of Lexi’s smile disappeared. “You can count on it, Simone. I’ll keep Jeeves entertained until you’re finished with your—” Lexi’s eyes skated over Josh “—business.”
Josh became acutely aware that Simone still seemed attached to his arm despite his earlier efforts to free himself. Lexi sure as hell hadn’t missed his incriminating position.
Still, she pivoted on her skyscraper heels with the precision of a drill sergeant. Josh couldn’t take his eyes off her, as a loose-limbed walk carried her and all that in-your-face attitude out of view.
He gladly would have chased after her if he didn’t have to interrogate the vine clinging to his arm.
But at least he could cross one task off his list today. He’d checked on Lexi, as Duke had requested.
And from what he could see, she was fantastic.
Any way he looked at it, Lexi Mansfield was one hell of a woman.
JOSH WINGER was a first-class bastard.
Lexi repeated the sentiment in every language she knew. Thanks to Lexi’s frequent trips around the world for her magazine, the exercise took her all the way from Simone’s hideous pink parlor to her free-form swimming pool and fussy gardens in the backyard.
Unfortunately, it didn’t ease the sting of seeing the man she was struggling to forget, in the clutches of her socially mortal enemy. How did Josh know Simone?
Worse yet, why was Lexi sticking around to find out?
Even as she asked herself the question, Lexi knew the answer. She liked Josh. And in spite of her best efforts not to complicate her life with relationships that could only hurt her, Lexi found herself wanting to do just that.
She took a seat in a cast-iron garden chair next to a small table, determined to talk to Simone sometime today. She just hoped it wasn’t tomorrow morning before the woman finished her business.
The thought make Lexi’s stomach churn.
But maybe it was just as well she’d discovered Josh had other women in his life. Maybe this would be the immunization shot she needed to resist him.
She released a long-suffering sigh, not realizing she wasn’t alone until she heard the slam of a silver tray on the table beside her.
“Rough day, miss?” James Preston, the Bertrand’s longtime butler, asked politely.
Lexi glared at him for good measure, but she’d always secretly liked the uptight gentleman her father had once hired as her elocution tutor when she was in high school.
She’d grown up two blocks from here, a social misfit with her academic parents. The Mansfields had been well-off by most of the world’s standards, but peasants by this neighborhood’s standards.
Simone had thrived on teasing Lexi since their shared days at a posh boarding school in the city, but she’d gone too far with her letter to Lexi’s editor.
“Gawd-awful,” Lexi responded in her best New Jersey accent, just to torment him. “I see Her Majesty is holding court today?”
James sat down beside her and poured them both a cup of tea from his silver tray. He might be the butler, but he was the Bertrand household’s only claim to refinement, and he ruled the roost in a way Simone never could.
“The gentleman is a New York police detective,” James confided. “I hope Simone hasn’t gotten herself into any trouble.”
“Nothing she can’t handle with her ten-thousand-dollar body, I’m sure.”
James seemed to battle a grin as he passed her a cup of tea with a half lemon. “I’ll admit she loves to make trouble, but this marks our first visit from the authorities.”
“I don’t suppose they can arrest her for disparaging my character in a public forum, can they?” Lexi sipped her tea, soothed by both the companionship and the drink.
“Her letter was disgraceful. I’d like to go on record as having recommended against that course of action.”
“Thank you. It did seem a bit over the top, even for Simone.”
James looked as if he would comment further, but after a fierce frown, he suddenly changed the topic.
“Is there any chance you can wrangle me an invitation to the Dance for Children ball next month?”
“No offense, James, but its five hundred dollars a plate. Are you sure you want to go?”
“Maria’s niece was diagnosed with leukemia this year, and we wanted to make a contribution. I thought this would be a nice way to do it, if it’s not too much trouble.”
Lexi wondered if Simone would shell out half as much money to the Dance for Children as her bighearted butler.
“Done. Tell Maria I’m sorry to hear about her niece and I’ll call her this week. Maybe we can run something in my column on this.”
“Thank you.” James finished his tea and replaced his cup on the platter. “If you are not careful, my dear, you are going to turn into the grand dame of New York’s social scene before you know it.”
“I’ll leave that to Simone. You know I pride myself on being a loose cannon in the social realm.”
“Yes, but you have the much-needed attribute of a generous spirit.”
He stood to leave, but before Lexi could protest, Simone’s brother, Anton, rounded the corner of the house.
The male counterpart of Simone’s blond perfection, Anton was not only handsome, but also reasonably nice. He’d occasionally stepped in to staunch Simone’s mouth when no one else had been able to, and his kindness had saved Lexi from more than a few playground scrapes.
“Lexi!” Anton kissed her on both cheeks, his white sweater and gym bag suggesting he’d been at the tennis courts. “What a nice surprise. I should have known when James didn’t answer the door that you were around here somewhere. You seem to be the only person who can distract the old man.”
He gave James a playful punch to the arm, but the dignified butler merely walked away with his tea tray.
“Good luck, Ms. Alexandra,” he called.
“Thanks, Jeeves.” She kept a wary eye on Anton as he pulled James’s vacated chair as close to Lexi as possible.
“I am so sorry about Simone’s recent nastiness.” He reached for Lexi’s hands.
“I’ll set her straight.” She reached to fix her hair, not wanting to hear Anton’s apologies for his sister. The two of them were as dysfunctional and codependent as ever. Their parents had died two years ago, leaving them more money than either of them was really mature enough to handle.
Lexi kept her eyes trained over Anton’s shoulder for signs of Josh. She kept hoping he’d leave the house soon, so she could tell herself he wasn’t really sleeping with Simone.
“Let me talk to my sister, Lexi,” Anton volunteered. “You’ve probably had enough to deal with in the fallout of this mess. You don’t need to listen to Simone’s put-downs, too.”
“Thanks, but I think I need to talk to her myself.” Lexi hated to admit she’d been spoiling for a fight all day, when Anton obviously wanted to play chivalrous savior.
She thought she heard a door slam somewhere inside the house, and squinted across the side yard to where the plain black Ford was parked. She had an idea that would be Josh’s car, probably a police vehicle.
Anton seized her hands while she wasn’t looking. “No, Lexi. I insist.” He cupped her chin in his hand. “I want to make this right for you. Let me take care of it.”
From nowhere, Josh Winger appeared between them, his big shadow falling across Anton in more ways than one.
Anton let go of her instantly.
“Too late,” Josh informed him, his words clipped. “I already took care of it.”
A little thrill passed through Lexi. Not because she needed Josh taking care of her, but because Josh had already finished up with Simone and come looking for Lexi.
Her mood improved just a little.
“Come on.” Josh tugged Lexi’s arm. “Let’s go.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I speak to Simone.” Lexi ignored the electric shock of his touch, the leap of every nerve ending through the sheer fabric around her arms.
Jos
h didn’t respond right away. He was still looking in Anton’s direction, his face twisted into an expression Lexi could have read from fifty yards away.
She’d never seen anyone communicate “get lost” quite so effectively.
“We’ll catch up with each other soon, Lexi.” Anton grabbed his gym bag and backed toward the house. “Nice to see you.”
He all but ran the last few steps. No wonder, considering Josh looked like he’d just walked off The Godfather set with his dark hair and heavy eyebrows, his prominent scar gracing one cheek.
If Lexi had any sense, she’d be running, too. Though, of course, for entirely different reasons.
“Isn’t that police intimidation or something?” Lexi asked mildly, studying her nails.
Josh had her hauled out of her seat and onto her feet in seconds. It happened so fast, she barely had time to react, but her treacherous body had followed his command on instinct.
“We need to get out of here.” His words were a husky whisper, not unlike the voice he’d used in the bedroom last night….
“I need to talk to Simone, Josh, and I’m not leaving until I do.” She reminded herself about taking control of her life again. “You are breaking all the rules of an anonymous encounter by following me around today.”
That caught his attention. His eyes widened.
“Who’s following who, lady? I was here first, remember?”
“And you’re free to leave first, too. I’m an independent woman, remember?” She folded her arms across herself in staunch defense. “I don’t need you, Winger.”
His jaw worked that over for a long moment.
He looked damn good in his black jacket and dark T-shirt underneath. He definitely looked like a bad ass. What turned her on even more was the fact that he probably was a bad ass. A fact even Mr. Knight in Shining Armor Anton had been wise to in the space of three seconds.
“Then here’s a newsflash for you, Ms. Independent.” He glowered at her with his light gray eyes, leaning just a little too close. “I happen to need you.”
Her heart jumped at the notion.
Lexi chided it, told herself she’d imagined the reaction. “Are you intimating something sexual?”