At least then you had less chance of your words being used against you.
“Good morning, Nick.” She looked up from her desk when he arrived, her voice cheerful, her ruby-tinted lips curved up in a smile. The sight of her, dressed in a clingy red top that dipped low in the front to show off an enticing glimpse of cleavage, sent a jolt through him. Apparently Lexie clothed could arouse him as much as the memory of her naked.
“Good morning.” He nodded to her, trying to act casual, trying to avoid staring.
“Did you have a good weekend?” she asked.
Was this a trick question? Was she waiting for him to bring up the events that had started off the weekend? Did she expect him to admit she’d shaken him up, and not in a good way?
“It was fine.” He threw the conversational ball back to her. “How was yours?”
She assumed a coy expression, her eyes sparkling with teasing mirth. “Oh, I had a very nice weekend. There’s nothing like fantastic sex to get things off to a good start.”
That she’d thought the sex they’d enjoyed was fantastic pleased him. Apparently he hadn’t lost his touch.
But then something black and ugly wrapped itself around him. She had been talking about the two of them, hadn’t she? “So what did you do this weekend?” he asked casually. “I mean, after Friday?”
“Oh, I went shopping. To the movies. Fun stuff.”
Alone, he hoped, then pushed back the thought. He didn’t have any right to tell her who to see or what to do with her time. One night didn’t give him any claim to her.
On this depressing note, he went into his office and shut the door. He focused on catching up on paperwork, and tried to forget all about the woman on the other side of the door.
But the woman apparently wasn’t going to let herself be forgotten. He’d scarcely pulled the first file from the stack on the corner of his desk when she came breezing into his office without even knocking. He looked up, annoyed. “Yes?”
“How did you spend your weekend?” she asked.
Here it was then. She wasn’t going to let it go until she’d wrung some kind of apology from him for running out on her. He frowned. “I really don’t have time to discuss this right now,” he began.
She sat in the chair across from his desk and crossed her legs, a good bit of knee and shapely thigh, clad in sheer black stockings, showing beneath the hiked-up hem of her black skirt. Did she do that deliberately, knowing the move commanded his attention?
“I know what you were doing,” she said. “You were watching Ellen Wittier. Did you find anything? Did her lover ever show?”
He shook his head. “No sign of the guy.”
“I’ve been thinking about this and I think you should let me talk to her.”
He shook his head. “No way. I don’t want her to get suspicious.”
“She won’t be suspicious.” She leaned toward him. “You said yourself she spends a lot of time alone. So she’s probably lonely. And lonely women like to talk. I’ll simply arrange to run into her somewhere and strike up a conversation.”
“Right. And she’s going to tell you—a stranger—all about her boyfriend?”
“I won’t be a stranger by the time we’ve talked a few minutes.” Her smile would have looked smug on anyone else. On her it was flat-out sexy. Confident. The smile of a woman who’d seen you naked and knew exactly what to do to make you beg.
Not that she’d made him beg, but it was a tempting fantasy….
He pulled his mind out of that trap and focused on business. The truth was, he wasn’t getting anywhere with this case on his own. And Lexie’s idea made a certain amount of sense. “All right. You can give it a try. But be careful. Don’t give anything away.”
“I won’t. Now didn’t you say you had her schedule?”
He opened a drawer and took out the case file. In it were the copies of Ellen’s date book that Wittier had given Nick. He handed the sheets to Lexie.
She scanned the pages, then tapped a pink-painted nail against one. “This is great. She has an appointment for a manicure at a nail salon in LoDo. I’ll make an appointment for the same time and it’ll be easy to strike up a conversation.”
He nodded and replaced the sheets in the file. “Let’s hope you find something.”
“Or maybe I’ll find out she really isn’t cheating. Our client ought to be happy with that.”
So it was “our” client now? He really couldn’t object to that. If she wanted to help out with a few investigations, he’d let her. But he’d make the rules about when and where. As long as he remained in charge, everything would be okay.
She stood and smoothed her skirt. “I’ll call and make an appointment at the nail salon right away.”
She turned to leave but he cleared his throat, stopping her. “Was there something else?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah.” His chest was tight. He hated this kind of thing but he wasn’t going to be a jerk about this. “About Friday night…”
He’d half hoped she’d jump in with another comment about how “fantastic” it had been, saving him from having to grovel, but no such luck. She fixed him with a level gaze and waited.
“Sorry I ran out like that,” he said. “Without a note. I—” He shrugged. “I’m not much for notes.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “About the note. Not that you left.”
Right. So she did think he was a jerk. He waited for her to let him have it, but she surprised him by sitting down again and pulling her chair closer. “It would have been okay if you had stayed,” she said. “I mean, I wouldn’t have read more into it than you wanted.” She smiled. “I just want us to have a good time. To enjoy each other for the next few months.”
Something like relief rushed over him, coupled with innate caution. “I did have a good time.” A great time.
“Me, too.” She stood again, still smiling. “Now that we understand each other, I’ll go make that appointment.”
He watched her go, then collapsed back against his chair, stunned. If he were one of those hard-boiled types popular in forties’ movies, he’d have a bottle of whiskey stashed in his desk for moments like this one.
Unfortunately, the only pain relievers in his desk drawer were half a bottle of aspirin and a roll of antacid. Not enough to sharpen his thinking where Lexie was concerned. She might think they understood each other but as far as he was concerned, there was no understanding women. Especially one like Lexie who was in turns tough and tender, who made love as if she’d never have the chance again and who hid secrets behind silk scarves.
But then, they all had secrets to hide, didn’t they? Private wounds they kept hidden from the world. Maybe that was what had unnerved him most about those intimate hours at the hotel: some part of him had recognized that Lexie might be the one to uncover those wounds, the one to learn his secrets. And maybe that scared him more than anything.
5
LEXIE WAITED IN HER CAR until she saw Ellen Wittier go into the nail salon. A few moments later, she followed. A string of bells attached to the door announced her entrance. The young Vietnamese woman who was working on Ellen’s nails looked up. “May I help you?” she asked.
“I have an appointment for a manicure.”
The woman looked toward the back of the shop and said something in Vietnamese. Another young woman emerged from behind a beaded curtain. “You pick color,” she instructed, gesturing toward a turntable filled with bottles