Can't Buy Me Love. HEATHER MACALLISTER
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Why didn’t they just unzip their pants and get out rulers?
“Alexis has faith, don’t you, Alexis?” Vincent asked.
Dylan’s gaze flicked to Alexis at the same time Margaret’s foot nudged hers. Yeah, yeah. The clause should be there. She couldn’t help feeling that it was some kind of test, though.
“Vincent…” she began.
“If I’m incapacitated, then more than ever, I would want my lovely wife by my side.” He reached across the table and squeezed Alexis’s hand. “We’d hardly be destitute. I have a lifetime income from the firm.”
“Oh.” Wow. Maybe she’d never go back to work. Work was overrated. Spa paraffin and sea-salt scrub pedicures were not. Alexis slipped back into her fantasy as one of the rich and idle.
She heard a buzz and saw Vincent remove his cell phone. “Excuse me. I need to take this.” He raised his eyebrows at Alexis. “Briarwood.”
The next big case. One that she would have been working on with him if she hadn’t been planning a wedding in a week. “Of course,” she mouthed. But Vincent had already turned away and was leaving the room.
“Alexis, you and I need to talk.”
“Margaret—”
“But not now.” Margaret picked up her copy of the contract and stood. “I’m going to look up a couple of things.” She pointed at Dylan. “You know the rules. No discussing the contract unless I’m present.”
Dylan sat back in the chair, palms outward. “Hey. She’s a lawyer, too.”
“She was,” Margaret stated over her shoulder as she jogged out the doorway.
That stung a little until Alexis told herself that Margaret was just jealous. Who wouldn’t be?
She turned her gaze to the man across the table to find him watching her. She watched him back. He looked the same. More polished and with shorter hair, but basically the same. They might have been sitting across from each other at one of the heavy wooden library tables at school. They’d always had to put the table between them so they could concentrate on studying instead of each other.
It rarely worked then and it wasn’t working now.
Dylan had never been one of those catch-your-breath attractive men, but he made the effort with what he had and the effect was a nonthreatening handsomeness. Except now, it was threatening her peace of mind. She narrowed her eyes at his tan. Fake. When did these men have the time?
“So,” he said.
“So,” she said back. He was going to be trouble. She could tell already.
“Long time no see.”
“Commencement.” She’d stared at the back of his head two rows ahead and alternated between fury and heartbreak. But she’d recovered.
“So how have you been, Alexis?”
“Good. I’ve kept busy.”
“You’re being overly modest. The mere mention of your name strikes fear into the hearts of small-business owners everywhere.”
Was that a compliment, or not? And did she care? “I’ve heard your name bandied about, as well.”
“I’ll bet you have.”
“Usually ‘that damn Dylan Greene.’ You should change your letterhead to D. Dylan Greene.”
He laughed. “Yeah. Vincent has had to restructure a couple of deals when he couldn’t break one of my pre-nups.”
“Actually, I did the restructuring.” Hours and hours and hours of restructuring.
“You get to do the dirty work, huh?”
Alexis folded her hands on the table in front of her. Gripped her knuckles, actually. Hard. “I get the experience.”
“Which you are now throwing away.”
Alexis drew a deep breath. So much for their stilted little conversation. “Watch it, Dylan.”
“I am watching it.” He pushed back from the table and stood. Shoving his hands in his pockets he walked over to the huge windows looking out on the Colorado mountains. “I’m watching a woman throw away her career. What happened to you, Alexis?”
2
ALEXIS WAS INSTANTLY ANGRY on so many levels, she could barely respond. “Are you married, Dylan?”
“No.”
“Been married?”
“No.”
“Given birth?”
He leveled a look at her.
“Anyone given birth on your behalf?”
“Not that I am aware of.”
“So you really don’t know what’s at stake for women who have children? Things are very different for men and women.”
“No duh.”
“Ooh. Like the technical lawyer-speak, Dylan.”
“I’m not speaking as a lawyer. It’s against the rules.”
“Then what are you speaking as?”
“A friend.”
“I think not.” She’d been aiming for matter-of-fact, but had hit snippy.
He smiled. No grinned, damn it. “You’re still mad at me.”
“I am so over you.” She was. She was.
“You’re still mad. Yes, you are.” The grin widened. “I must be a better lover than I thought.”
Typical. “I’ve had worse,” she told him. “And I’ve had better. You’re somewhere in the middle. Average.” Honestly, never tell a man he was the worst lover you ever had, he wouldn’t believe it. But mediocre? Now that really got to him.
“And how does Vincent rank?”
She couldn’t believe he’d asked that. “You’re not the first to imply that Vincent must have selected me to be on his team because I slept with him, but you’re the most unexpected. That was unworthy of you, Dylan.”
He blinked. “I wasn’t impugning your legal skill.” Watching her carefully, he continued softly, “You’re marrying the guy.”
“Yes.”
“So it’s a safe assumption you’ve slept with him.”
They stared at each other and Alexis knew that she must not look away. Didn’t dare blink. She was good at this game. Her eyes were so dark people remarked on them. She used cosmetics to emphasize them and she practiced chilling expressions that revealed nothing.
However, eyes were one thing. The blush she was horrified to feel creeping up her throat was something else. She, who could bluff anyone, could not bluff Dylan.
She blinked.
And he pounced. “You’ve never slept with the guy.”
Alexis darted a look toward the doorway. How mortifying if Vincent or Margaret caught them discussing such a subject. “That—is—none—of—your—business.”
Dylan sat on the edge of the table. “But I’m fascinated by your logic—or the lack thereof. What the heck are you doing, Alexis?”
“I’m thinking with my head and not with my heart. ‘If more people thought with their heads instead of their hearts, we’d be out of a job.’ You said that.”
“I did. Go on.”
“Well,”