and popped it in her mouth. Okay, she was young. You had to make allowances.
She offered the bar to him. “Want some?” Have some chocolate-flavored wax.
He held up a staying hand. “Uh, no, thanks.”
“You don’t like chocolate?” She gaped in amazement.
“I’m a chocolate snob.”
“Oh, Godiva.” She rolled her eyes.
“No, more like Cupid’s Chocolates,” he said, unable to resist dropping his company’s name.
“That stuff is expensive,” she said with a frown.
“Ever hear the saying you get what you pay for?”
“I’m a student. I can’t afford to pay that much.”
She was on this trip. She couldn’t be that broke. Still, generosity urged him to zip open his carry-on. Give the kid a treat.
Was this the equivalent of feeding a stray? He was aware of her looking over his shoulder, like someone standing over a guy panning for gold, eager to see what he came up with. Yeah, this probably wasn’t such a good idea.
Too late. He heard the little gasp and knew she’d seen the gold nugget. A suitcase stuffed with gold nuggets. Now there would be no getting rid of her.
Oh, well. Convert them when they’re young, then you’ll have them when they’re older and they have money. He pulled out an Orange Blossom Special, a three-ounce bar—55 percent dark chocolate infused with orange and loaded with almonds.
“Are you allergic to nuts?” he asked.
She wiped saliva from one corner of her mouth and shook her head, too awed to speak.
“Well, then, this is for you. But you have to hand over that poor excuse for chocolate first.”
She did and practically snatched the bar out of his hand. “Where did you get all that? Are you a salesman?”
In a way. “Something like that.”
She unwrapped the chocolate, broke off a piece and put it in her mouth. Closed her eyes and let out a groan. Chewed a little and groaned some more. Sounded like a woman working her way to an orgasm. Trevor looked around, hoping not too many people had heard it.
“OMG.” Another groan.
Okay, this was getting uncomfortable. “Excuse me, I’m just gonna...” Run away. Trevor zipped his carry-on back up and bolted. The men’s restroom. She couldn’t follow him there. He found a stall and shut himself in.
* * *
“I’m so glad it worked out for me to come,” Athena White said to her father as they towed their carry-on suitcases through the crowd at LAX, heading for the Lufthansa gate. “This is going to be so much fun.”
“Yes, it will,” said her father agreeably.
It was the first trip they’d taken together since her mother’s death, which had been six years and one second wife ago. Athena was an only child and she and her father had always been close, even more so when her mom was ill. They had faced the hard time and terrible loss together.
Then something even more tragic had happened. Nicole. The very memory of that sneaky little gold digger still was enough to make Athena’s blood pressure spike. Nicole had been forty-one, only one year older than Athena. Daddy’s old tennis buddies had finally lured him back to the racket club and there had been Nicole in her short little tennis skirt, needing help with her backhand. That tennis club membership had been an investment that sure paid off for her.
Daddy had been easy pickings—widowed and lonely, and after no longer having a sick wife to care for, drifting and purposeless. Athena had tried to point out that Nicole was after Daddy’s money. A nice-looking doctor with a healthy financial portfolio—every greedy woman’s dream. But Daddy, it turned out, was as human as any man, and vulnerable to flattery. Nicole had convinced him she was more interested in his tennis game and his brilliant mind than his bank account. They were soul mates, so what did the age difference matter? It had worked out fine for Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
So Nicole had led him to the altar like a sheep to slaughter and, once they were married, proceeded to throw around his cash like it was Monopoly money. Spending someone’s money was one thing. Marrying him for his money was quite another. It soon became apparent that Nicole enjoyed spending time with Daddy’s American Express card and her girlfriends more than she did spending time with him. The bitch. She spent their short-lived marriage making demands on him, doing everything she could to put a wedge between him and his daughter and then, finally, leaving him for a heart surgeon. How appropriate. Maybe he could