The Bachelor And The Beauty Queen. Carolyn Hector
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ago she’d purchased a condo in the downtown district after spending several months living out of the loft above the boutique.
“Well, hurry up.” The bell above the door jingled. A strange vibration filtered through Lexi’s veins when the man stepped fully inside. The afternoon sun glowed behind him, but warning bells went off in the back of her mind as she realized the visitor’s identity. The room went silent with awkwardness.
“Mr. Reyes?”
The way his black eyes pierced her, she felt naked, exposed. She reached for the collar of her T-shirt and gave the material a modest tug. Mr. Reyes’s eyes focused on the two other people in the room before settling his glare on Lexi and giving her body a once-over. Once again, he earned a perfect ten on her personal score card in overall appearance and stage presence. Decked out in khakis and a white button-down Oxford, he commanded the attention of everyone in the store. Even the music stopped when he walked inside.
She didn’t scare easily, not really. At least not usually. Lexi folded her arms beneath her breasts and raised an eyebrow, hating herself for giving him a perfect ten for his walk. He’d strutted into the shop with confidence. “May I help you?”
“I just was looking for Mr. and Mrs. Foxx.”
“They’re gone.” Andrew perked up and offered. “If you would like coffee, I can make you some while we wait for them to return.”
Mr. Reyes gave a tight smile. “No, but thank you for the offer. I came by to get the keys. They didn’t happen to leave them with you, did they?”
“Keys?” Dread washed over Lexi. In the back of her mind, she replayed his eyes scanning over the model of her planned expansion. She mentally calculated the price of his suits, guessed the ballpark figure of his net worth. Her heart sank into the pit of her stomach. A tear threatened to form in the corner of her eye. The lack of a phone call and the Sale Pending sign next door... The blood rushed to her head and swelled against her ears.
“Yes, the property next door.” Mr. Reyes gave a half smile, clearly enjoying dropping this news. He pointed toward the space standing between her boutique and the coffee shop.
“Mr. Reyes, I am busy.”
“Yes, you are.” His voice trailed off as his eyes cast disapprovingly over her. “Please, since we’re going to be neighbors, call me Stephen.”
As a former beauty queen, Lexi held her composure with a stiff smile. All this over a dress? What a petty man. Contestants received extra bonus points based upon behavior. Stephen’s score now dropped to a zero.
“Neighbors?” Andrew asked for her.
“Well, we need to go over the legalities,” he said casually, “but I need a place to move my business, so I put a bid on the place next door.”
“This is ridiculous!” Chantal spouted what everyone thought. “You seriously outbid her because of a dress?”
Stephen’s attention turned toward Chantal for a brief moment, then to Lexi. Unlike Chantal, Lexi did not cower. She squared her shoulders and jutted her chin forward.
“You gave me some sound advice,” he said to her. “You told me I needed to keep a better eye on my niece, so here I am—making sure she never sets foot in this shop again.”
Silence fell over Lexi, who was not sure what to say. “I did promise we weren’t done.”
“All this because you think I sold your niece a dress?”
“I don’t think,” he clipped.
Lexi inhaled a sharp breath. “I would like to meet this niece of yours. No one here has sold my personal dress to a child.”
“So now my niece is a liar?”
“I am saying there has been a mistake.”
“She’s either a liar or a thief?” Stephen raised a brow.
The room grew hot. Lexi’s cheeks flushed red. She had to get her bearings. Pressing her nails into the palms of her hands as she made a fist, Lexi slowly breathed in and out. “If you would be so kind as to bring your niece in here, we can get to the bottom of this mystery.”
“Ha!” he scoffed. “I think you’ve done enough damage to my family.”
Lexi opened her fists. “So this is like some sort of revenge plot?”
Stephen sniffed the air and contemplated his next words. “Actually, it’s going to be a lot like that. I think, instead of never selling my niece a dress again, I may decide to have you never sell a dress again, period.”
From the arrogance in his voice, Lexi imagined him to be the type of man to stroll into a restaurant without a reservation an hour before closing and order Lobster Thermidor or a rack of lamb. His entitlement irked her.
“Well. I see that no one left my keys here with you. I guess I’ll be on my way to their home and pick them up.” He nodded his head goodbye in Chantal and Andrew’s direction.
Once the bells over the door stopped chiming, Lexi let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “What just happened?”
* * *
Turning a bakery into an office would take most of the summer, but doing so made sense. Things in his current home office were too close for comfort. Technically he blamed himself for the loss of his keyboard. One of these days he needed to remind Philly not to take food out of the kitchen. The wonderful cotton candy her grandparents had bought deflated and brought in a trail of ants on his desk. The new building was hardly turnkey ready. Thankfully he had Nate and his toolbox to help get things in order to open up the brand-new location of Reyes Realty. He needed this space. The fact it irritated the beauty queen was icing on the cake.
The brief glimpse of upturned pink lips displaying her disappointment, however, did not satisfy him. For a brief moment, a twinge of guilt hit him. Stephen did not, by nature, set out to be cruel to women—just women who threatened his niece. Is this what parenting did to a person? Made them vengeful and spiteful? Stephen refused to believe her story about not selling the dress to Kimber. Anyone could have made the sale.
The sound of the gravel crushed beneath the tires of his brother’s SUV reminded him of the crushing of Lexi’s dreams. Since last seeing her, he couldn’t get her face out of his mind. Sad or mad, the woman was beautiful. He wondered what a happy smile looked like on her, or better yet—a satisfied smile after being thoroughly made love to.
“Are you smiling because we’re going to the fair?”
The sound of his brother’s voice broke Stephen out of his daze. In the passenger’s seat, he glanced over to his left at Nate behind the wheel and offered a lopsided grin. “Of course.” Stephen cast a glance toward the backseat, where the girls sat wearing matching Atlanta Braves jerseys. He wanted to be able to peer over heads at the small fair and locate any of them if they got separated. “I’m ready to get on some rides and eat some food. How about you, ladies?”
“I’m ready for my crown,” Philly called with a bright smile from her booster seat. Her soft brown hair, pulled back into one ponytail by his own two hands, bobbed back and forth. It had taken him six tries, but finally Stephen had gotten the ponytail to stay.
Nate groaned and banged his head against the headrest. “Did you remember to bring your caboodle?”
“Her what?”
“Her caboodle,” Nate replied. “The pink case holding all of her makeup—”
“Makeup?” Stephen choked as they parked. Three of the four doors opened while he remained firmly in his seat. “What are you talking about?”
“The Miss Peach Blossom contest?” Nate said with a slow mocking tone before he stepped out from the car. “Where has your mind been all week? It’s the only thing Philly’s been talking about.”
How