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      She’d left them on the bed, folded neater than he ever would have and tied with a hot pink ribbon that matched the smiling faces printed on the black material.

      Hello Kitty.

      Alex Kennedy, thirty-five, single and devastatingly fucking handsome, looked in the mirror. Straightened his tie. Smoothed his shirt. He slicked a hand back over his hair and stared into his own eyes for so long he imagined, for just a moment, he saw something there.

      A blink and another slide of his hand across his hair, and he looked at the bed again. They were only pajama bottoms, and they wouldn’t bite. But Genevieve could, and had, and he wouldn’t have put it past her to try again.

      She’d written his full name across the front of the card. She was the only person who’d ever insisted on it. Alexander. The Great, she sometimes added with that low, throaty laugh. Usually when she had his cock in her fist. She’d said it the last time she jerked him off while some dude they’d picked up at a club got between her legs and ate her until she came.

      The gift had been waiting for him when he got home from the meeting, which had been short and to the point. Global Communicom was buying him out, utterly, and taking over the transportation business he’d built here in Singapore. So sorry, Alex old chap, but there’s no room for you on the executive board, not even in a consultant’s position. Take the money, please, and get the fuck out. Alex wasn’t stupid enough to think it had nothing to do with the fact he’d been fucking Reginald Bell’s wife on and off for the past six months. Which was probably why she’d left him this present, he thought with another glance at the bed and its perfectly made-up sheets, the comforter pulled smooth over the top. She must have used her key to get in while he was out.

      He looked again at his reflection. Transcom had meant everything to him, had been built with sweat and blood. He’d left behind his entire life to come here and start it up, and in less than ten years had made himself a millionaire. Take the check, he thought. And get out, fuck you very much, have a nice day.

      Alex tugged one end and the smooth, slippery ribbon twisted around his fingers as it came loose from the floppy bow. The pants were cotton, black, with hot-pink Hello Kitty faces all over. Women’s pajama pants, but the elastic waist would be big enough to fit him, easily. She knew him well enough not to misjudge something as simple as a size. He should be considering himself lucky she hadn’t sent him a pair of ladies’ frilly panties instead.

      He tried to think if she’d ever left him a note before, but couldn’t remember. Text messages, sure. Dozens of them, usually filthy just like her mouth and just like she loved him to be. Well, not loved. Genevieve Bell didn’t love anything but herself. Even her pets had been chosen for their use as accessories and investment rather than anything as base as an emotional connection.

      How many swipes of her tongue had licked this flap closed? He tore the paper, thinking of her mouth. She’d have laughed if she knew. Maybe she did. She knew a lot about people, even the ones who tried like hell not to let her see anything important. Especially those people.

      Him.

      The front of the card was blank but for a small black square in one corner, a stylized gift. Inside: Happy Birthday. That was all. Two words, no summons or command. Not even a signature. He’d walked out on her, but it was Genevieve who’d cut him loose.

      That was worth a thank-you, if nothing else was, but because he was the asshole she’d called him more than once, Alex didn’t call her to give it. He looked around his flat at all the pretty things he didn’t care if he never saw again.

      He had enough money to go anywhere and do anything he wanted, but in the end there was only one thing to do. One place to go. One person to call.

      “Jamie,” he said when the man on the other side of the world answered his phone. “Guess what? I’m coming home.”

      The woman in the kitchen stood with a bowl in her hands, her face crunched in concentration. In profile her features were not as soft as they’d been in her wedding picture, but her hair hung halfway down her back in a mess of red-brown curls a man could get lost in. Alex watched her from the doorway, thinking what a lucky bastard Jamie had always been. Looked like the luck had held out.

      “Hello, Anne.”

      She screamed and dropped her spoon. He tensed to duck, but she didn’t throw anything at him. She set the bowl on the counter with a clang. There was more to say, an introduction to make, but looking at her wide, startled eyes and her mouth, half-open, Alex couldn’t seem to find one.

      It lasted a long time, that first moment. He got to see the color of her eyes and watch the rise and fall of her shoulders as she caught her breath. He’d known she was pretty from her photos, as if he couldn’t have guessed just from the fact his best friend had married her. But the woman in front of him was more than an alignment of features, a curve of ass and tit and belly. This was the woman who’d married Jamie. She could’ve had three eyes and an ass the size of Arizona, and Alex would’ve wanted a piece of her.

      The silence drew out. Just before it got awkward, he made a show looking over the rims of his sunglasses around the kitchen and back at her. “Hi. Anne.”

      “Alex? Wow. I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting you.”

      He was the big bad wolf when he took off his sunglasses, all the better to see her with. Released from the shadows made by the dark lenses, her face sprung into high relief. Every freckle, every line, every curve. She had smooth, straight eyebrows no entirely straight guy would have noticed. Not that Alex gave a damn. He hadn’t been entirely straight since the eighth grade.

      “Yeah, sorry about that. I rang Jamie’s cell and he said to head on over. He said he’d call you. I guess he didn’t.”

      “He didn’t.” She laughed and ducked her head, wariness in her gaze.

      What had Jamie told her about him? More importantly, what had he kept a secret?

      “Bastard.” The kitchen hadn’t changed much since the days when he and Jamie would bike their way over to hang out with Jamie’s grandparents and swim in Lake Erie, which edged the property. He made himself at home as Anne watched him with an expression he doubted she knew looked so cautious. Women liked smiles. It put them at ease. He gave her one of his best. “Something smells good.”

      She was baking bread and making brownies, and from the too-casual way she described it, he knew it was more for Mrs. Kinney’s benefit than anything Anne herself wanted to do. Jamie’s mom had stopped making Alex nervous a long time ago, but that’s because he’d stopped giving a fuck what she thought. Then again, he hadn’t married her son.

      He studied Anne’s efforts and listened to her describe what she’d done so far. He could do this, help her out. Prove right off the bat that no matter what stories Jamie had told, Alex wasn’t all bad. He might be a rascal, but he could bake a kick-ass brownie.

      Another smile, as charming as he could make it. Once on a trip out West he’d gone to a prairie dog farm, where the little rodents would take a peanut from your hand if you sat very, very still. He felt a little something like that now, like she was some skittish, pretty creature