rel="nofollow" href="#u8c411afe-f335-5bb1-b129-6a081d8be6bf">Chapter 12
Prologue
Alexis Sharp took a deep breath before plunging into the empty pool at her health club. Alexis preferred to get her daily swim in early, before she went to work. She’d often wished she had a pool at one of her two beauty spas, but reality would kick in and she knew it was too expensive to install and not really what her customer base wanted. Her clients wanted top-notch hair care, facials, massages, mani-pedis and the like. What they didn’t want was to get their expensive hairdos wet. So, she made do with a daily swim that was as necessary to her as breathing.
The cool water stimulated her and gave her a chance to think. She was so busy running the spas, her volunteer work teaching water aerobics and being a swim instructor on the weekend that she often felt as if she was treading water when she was on dry land. She used her schedule as the reason why she didn’t date; she was just too busy. However, she and her closest friends knew that wasn’t the real reason she didn’t make room for social interaction in her life. She’d had a normal dating life at one time. She’d been engaged, in fact; right up until the night she’d found her fiancé in bed with his ex-girlfriend. That had put a crimp in her feelings about men for quite a while. Plus the tales of romantic woe she’d heard from the women of her family since she was a small child. Her mother insisted that all the women of their family were doomed to never have a successful relationship with a man. If it was just her mother talking, Alexis could have overlooked it, but her grandmother, her aunts, cousins and her sisters all agreed that there was no point in any women in the family woman trying to fall in love because they had a love curse on them. It was all nonsense, of course, but when Alexis was adding up the reasons that men were off-limits in her current life, she’d think about her mother’s pontificating with a grim smile.
Alexis swam vigorously for a while, enjoying the feeling of the water against her body. After doing about twenty laps, she turned over and floated on her back. She’d been swimming since she was about three years old and her enjoyment of it never flagged. Her love of the water was one of the reasons she kept her hair cut so short. And the fact that it suited her face so well. Glancing at the big clock on the wall, she decided she could stay in five more minutes. She had taken the day off because she was having her two BFFs over for lunch today and she wanted to make sure everything was ready. Not just the food, she wanted to get herself emotionally ready, too, because she knew that her friend Emily was going to interrogate her about her social life, rather her lack thereof.
After her dear friend Emily had surprised everyone by getting married out of the blue, Alexis had done an abrupt about-face and decided that she was going to find her own Mr. Right. She’d had enough of being alone and if Emily could find a tall, handsome doctor and start a new life, so could she. After her firm declaration of her intention to meet her perfect mate, Emily was going to want to know about her progress and the fact was there wasn’t any. It was both embarrassing and frustrating for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that she was tired of being celibate.
There were times that her body drove her crazy with longing for a lover. Alexis had to admit there were times she wanted Mr. Right Now; she couldn’t have cared less about Mr. Right. Alexis was a perfectly normal woman with perfectly normal desires. She couldn’t sublimate her desires in her work forever; all the spa business in the world couldn’t prevent her from wanting all the things that any woman wanted. Things like an understanding man, a good lover and plenty of really good sex. If she didn’t get some soon her sheets might burst into flames from all the hot dreams she’d been having.
She stopped her lazy floating and turned over and started stroking again, swimming ten more laps before getting out of the pool. She was still alone because most people didn’t start coming into the gym until later in the morning. Especially on a morning like this one, with pouring rain and the occasional clap of thunder. Thunderstorms were typical in Columbia, South Carolina, especially in the summer, but they didn’t bother her at all. Alexis had always been fond of rain; she was a true water baby. She was patting off her face with her towel as she walked to the women’s locker rooms. She’d almost reached the door when a really loud crackling arose, followed by a clap of thunder that sounded like an explosion. The room went black and Alexis had to stifle a scream as she collided with a wet man who was coming out of the adjacent men’s locker rooms.
He was very tall, as her nose reached the middle of his chest. His arms went around her and hers went around him in an automatic response. His skin was damp from the shower all members had to take before getting in the pool, but he didn’t feel clammy. Instead, he felt wonderfully warm and he smelled terrific.
“Are you okay?”
Alexis had to clear her throat before answering, because his deep voice did something to her, something really nice.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Thanks for asking.”
The lights flickered and it looked as if they were coming back on. Alexis seized the moment to back out of the tempting arms of the stranger and scoot into the locker room. She fumbled the handle on the women’s side just as the lights began working again. She toweled off most of the water and got dressed in record time without stopping for a shower. She was normally cool and in control, but the feel of the tall man’s body on hers had lit a fire in her. She wouldn’t have been able to recognize him if she met him on the street because she hadn’t gotten a look at him, thanks to her running off like a scared rabbit. But the brief encounter reminded her of just why she’d decided to get back in the dating game. She couldn’t ignore her needs, wants and desires anymore. Maybe it was time she got back in the dating game and play until she won. Just once. If she played it right, one time was all she’d need.
Chapter 1
“So exactly when are you going to start dating, Alexis? I thought you had a big change of heart when I got married.” Emily Wainwright, recently wed and soon to be a mother, accompanied her words with a sweet, teasing smile that Alexis would tolerate only from an old friend. Emily had been Alexis’s bestie since elementary school, along with their other BFF, Sherri Stratton. The three of them were sitting around the table in Alexis’s cute kitchen. Like the rest of the house, it was beautifully decorated; Alexis had really good taste. They were enjoying the lunch that Alexis had prepared when Emily had brought up what was once a sensitive subject. Sherri braced herself for a dose of Alexis’s wrath, but it didn’t come. Instead, Alexis laughed.
“I admit that I’ve been known to sidestep the dating scene, but I’ve actually been trying to do a little more socializing,” she admitted. “And it’s not the easiest thing in the world. Girl, dating is hard,” she said emphatically. “Have some more salad?”
Emily