Love by Association

Shit. Who had time to stop at a damned nail place?

How did women do this on a full-time basis? It had taken her an extra half hour to get ready that morning. Time she’d needed to attack the script she’d been given on Saturday and had yet to tend to.

Wayne had a copy and was in charge of finding someone to beef it up. But Chantel had to at least read it in its original form so she’d know what changes were made when she got the copy back.

And she was going to have to put gas in the car the department account had paid for her to rent. With the clothes and shoes she’d purchased, the nails and hair treatment, she was down to less than a hundred dollars of her original budget.

In cream-colored pants and a black, tapered silky cotton button-up shirt, embellished with a floral border in black stitching, she swung one stiletto black heel out of the car before remembering to exit gracefully. Her second leg followed more slowly.

The walk she had down. Two steps from the front door, it opened.

“Welcome.” Colin’s greeting might have been formal, but the glance he gave her body—all the way down and back up again—was not.

He was a tornado in her life. Spinning in unexpectedly. She was in grave danger.

Taking the hand he offered, she let him lead her—a woman capable of taking him down—up the last step.

Suddenly he stopped and turned, causing her body to knock into his. Full front to full front.

“Julie’s in the kitchen,” he said, his lips only inches from hers. “She’s serving quiche and fruit this morning and will be ready for us in about five minutes.”

Step aside, Harris commanded.

The intense look in his blue eyes captured her. Rooting her. Sounds good. Johnson’s thought couldn’t quite make it from her head through her throat.

When he lowered his head, dropping his lips to hers, caressing her mouth in the most spectacular way, she just kissed him right back. Fully. Open mouth to open mouth.

“Good morning.” He was grinning at her.

“Good morning.” Chantel didn’t even want to know what the silly grin on her face looked like.

She shouldn’t have kissed him.

But at least she’d stopped.

His hand still holding hers, he led her inside.

And she wished Chantel Johnson was real.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

HE CONFESSED HIS SINS. Chantel looked pained in the brief second before she schooled her expression. He wouldn’t have seen the pain at all if he hadn’t been looking straight at her as he apologized for trying to manipulate her into helping his sister.

Julie teased him, and the moment passed. Breakfast was...reminiscent of the days when an entire family lived in that home and ate at that table.

The quiche was probably phenomenal, but Colin didn’t remember much about the food.

“So...have you tried to get your series published?” Chantel’s question came over coffee. She’d cleared her plate—not that she’d served herself all that much. He’d yet to meet a woman with a truly healthy appetite.

Still, he liked a woman who didn’t pick over her food. And would probably be just as hot for a woman who did if that woman was Chantel.

He was still waiting for Julie to answer. His sister had gone completely still and was staring at the few pieces of remaining melon on her plate. This was his fault.

Julie took a bite of fruit. He ached for her and hated feeling so helpless, so powerless to make things better for her.

He’d failed her. And, in so doing, had failed his parents, too.

Closing his eyes against the thought, Colin swore to himself that he would never again agree to settle for less than he knew was right. The papers he’d signed with Smyth ten years before had solidified the resolve in his professional life then and there. Which had probably gone a long way toward insuring the beyond-expectation success the firm had experienced over the past decade.

It was time to apply the same resolve to his personal life. No more settling. Never again was he going to be this powerless...

“It’s okay.” Chantel broke the deafening silence just before Colin broke his promise to his sister to let her handle things her own way by opening his mouth and butting in. “I know you don’t want to use me,” she told Julie, her voice soft and sweet and about the most beautiful thing he’d heard in a while. “I’m asking because I’m genuinely interested in the answer.”

“No,” Julie said. Her shoulders straightened. A prelude to picking up her dish and leaving the table. “As I explained to Colin when I figured out what he was doing, I don’t want them published.”

Chantel nodded, as though, in the publishing world from which she’d come, not wanting to be published was perfectly normal.