Although they are nice enough guys, I don’t have the time, or interest, to date right now. My apartment is overflowing with flowers, and the idea of another cup of get-to-know-each-other coffee makes me want to cry.”
“Easy solution. Call your bachelors and tell them no.”
Lexi had never been good at saying no. Her whole life she’d worked hard at making people happy. A lifetime of revolving parents could do that to a girl. “I can’t.”
She paused, waiting for Marc to laugh at her, disagree with her. For him to say that it was as easy as looking them in the eye and saying, “N. O.” To point out that people did it every day and, in fact, it was something she should have mastered by high school.
But he didn’t do any of those things. He didn’t do anything at all except lean his head against her side door and patiently stroke Wingman. In silence.
Also not good with silence, Lexi felt compelled to add, “I promised my grandma I would fulfill all of the scheduled dates that she had agreed to. It would be rude to cancel on them now.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Natasha said, her heels slapping the concrete as she approached. When she was certain that the towering effect was in place, Natasha stopped, her hands on her hips.
Today she was dressed in cream-colored pants, with matching pumps and a summer jacket, an ice-blue silk shell, and enough sparkly accessories and bad attitude to make Lexi squint.
Natasha turned her eyes on Marc. “I thought we were meeting for lunch at eleven thirty?”
“We are,” he confirmed innocently.
“Really?” Lexi whispered.
Marc ran a hand over his face and sighed. He avoided Natasha’s gaze, instead fiddling with the cuff of his shorts. Marco DeLuca, total ladies’ man, was squirming, and not in a good way. In fact, he looked slightly harassed, and Lexi suddenly wondered if he was hiding from his love life as much as she was.
“Oh, because it’s eleven fifteen and you’re dressed for the gym. BoVine has a strict dress policy,” Natasha said, then turned to Lexi. “By the way, I forgot to tell you the other day how sorry I was to hear about you and Jeffery.”
“Thanks, but I’m doing well,” Lexi lied. Natasha was only sorry that she hadn’t yet had the chance to rub it in, and by the sparkle in her eye she was getting ready to do exactly that. Especially since Lexi had witnessed yet another rebuff from the great playboy himself.
“I mean, divorced and thirty. Sounds rough. They write articles about people like you.”
“Twenty-nine. Remember I was a year behind you. And Jeffery and I parted amicably. Actually, we’re still close,” Lexi shot back. “Oh, and I love those pants. Are they cream? No, too yellow. What color are they? It’s hard to tell with the sun in my eyes.”
“These, well, they are more of a custardy color—”
Wingman’s ears perked up, his tail started beating the concrete, and he let go a single bark.
Natasha took a step back, obviously startled.
“Lexi,” Marc warned.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear. What color did you say it was?”
Eyes firmly on the dog, Natasha took another step back and said, “Custard—”
The words had barely left her lips and Wingman was up. He charged Natasha, his tail flicking mud in every direction as his big dirty paws landed right in the center of Natasha’s ice-blue heart.
“Oh. My. God,” she shrieked as she backed into the gas pump. “Get him off!”
“Down, Wingman,” Marc said, but Lexi noticed that he took his time getting to the dog to haul him off a very angry Natasha. “Down.”
By the time Marc got Wingman settled, Natasha was sporting two enormous doggie prints on her silk and two pissed-off slits for eyes. And they were zeroed in on Lexi. “You did that on purpose!”
“I guess you’d better go get cleaned up. I hear that BoVine is uptight about who they let in.”
“Lexi? That is you!” Chad said from behind them, sidling up to the group and giving her a big hug, his hands sliding a little far south for Lexi’s liking. “It’s so great to see you. I was waiting for you to come out of the station, and I had almost given up.” He looked at his watch. “I have to be in court in an hour. I’m just so glad that I finally ran into you.”
He hugged her again, his hands slipping—again.
A low, threatening growl sounded, and Chad slowly backed away.