Bargain in Bronze

He lifted her chin, angling her face so she had to lift her lashes and look directly at him again. “Why is that a problem?”

To her utter horror, stinging tears flooded her eyes. Damn, she was that silly, scared teenager all over again. “You were right. I am the same old scaredy-cat I was when I first went overseas. I’m sorry.”

His arms tightened for another second, and then relaxed. She knew she could push away from him if she wanted to.

“Lexie. I need you to give this a chance. This is special. You’re special to me.” He frowned. “I’d decided to stay away from you five minutes before you turned vixen on me. And I just lost it. Once I’d started, there was no stopping. Anything you offered I was going to take and I was going to ask for more. I want so much more from you, Lexie.

Not just sex.” He finally smiled. “Although it’s fair to say I want a lot of that too. The other night was spectacular, but it wasn’t enough. I thought it would be. I was wrong. I don’t want to have a fling with you. I want more. We are more. But then you acted all one-night-stand on me and it hurt. And some of what you said was right. That hurt too.”

“You only do temporary,” she countered, just as soft. Not wanting to be crushed any more than she already was. “You have millions of girlfriends. All temporary.”

“I don’t have millions of girlfriends.” He denied it strenuously. “I haven’t had the time. I went straight from my bachelor’s into my MBA and then straight into the firm. I’ve been too damn busy.”

“But you dated hundreds of girls in high school. Hundreds.”

“Hell, Lexie. You know why that was?” He laughed roughly. “I was trying to escape from you. From how much I wanted you. That six months I was a total man whore, yes I was. But it never worked. It was never great. It never worked and I grew out of it so quickly.”

“Not that quickly. You broke my heart so many times over.”

“You broke mine, too. You never looked at me again. I lived under the same roof as you. Complete torture. I had to try to forget you. I thought I had.”

He kissed her. Her senses lifted, soaring into the sky. It was familiar already, and yet there was so much more to explore with him.

“My heart feels a lot better now,” he said.

“Mine too,” she whispered.

“So,” he laughed, his brows waggling wickedly. “I have this month off from work. You have no job. What on earth are we going to do with our time?”

“Go on that big Ferris wheel again,” she said promptly “It’s a beautiful day—we might actually see something this time. I want to relax and enjoy the view.”

He glanced up at the sky. It was another gray day.

“So you’re going to trust me, Lexie? You’re going to say yes and stay with me? See where this takes us?”

She thought about it, about what she’d thought she knew and what she really knew. She’d jumped to conclusions—she’d been stupidly scared. She refused to let fear hold her back now. “Yes.”

Lexie knew it was no gamble. She had already won gold.

Acknowledgments

Thanks so much to my daily email buddies Nicola Marsh and Soraya Lane—you two keep me sane! Huge thanks to Liz for being such a fabulous editor. To the cover, publicity and copyediting teams at Entangled—thank you for helping get the trilogy looking good. And most of all, thanks to my wonderful husband who built me the best writing room in the world, and to my children for being such fun—I love you.