Bad Boys Southern Style. JoAnn Ross

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      Emma was still smiling long after Sloan had left for the airport.

      “I believe,” she told Gabriel later that afternoon, “that things in Savannah could get very interesting.”

      They were lying in bed, bathed in the warm afterglow of passion after making love. It still amazed her that after all these months together, she still couldn’t get enough of him. And, amazingly, if his behavior in the past half hour was any indication, her husband, who undoubtedly could have any woman in the world he wanted, felt the same way.

      “Mais, yeah.” He pressed his lips against her temple. Skimmed a wickedly clever hand down her side, from her shoulder to her thigh. “Sort of like nitroglycerin and a flamethrower are interesting.”

      She laughed, enjoying the image even as heat bloomed beneath his caressing touch. “I suppose it’s only fair.” She twined her arms around his neck and lifted her face for his kiss. “Why should we have all the fun?”

      Emma’s last thought, just before her husband took her back into the mists, was that her two favorite commitment-phobic people might have finally met their match.

      Six

      They’d agreed, during their brief phone call, to meet at the restaurant. Although he’d offered to pick her up, Roxi had thought that a foolish waste of time and effort, especially since he was already staying at the inn.

      She’d heard the hum of jet engines during the call and wondered what it must feel like to actually be able to pick up one of those phones in-flight and pay the outrageous charges.

      “Of course, when you’re rolling in dough, I guess there’s nothing you can’t buy,” she told her cat, La Betaille, who was lying on her bed, watching her get ready for the dinner date. “Undoubtedly even women.”

      Ignoring her with a feline elegance that belied the fact that the eighteen-pound former stray was missing one ear and had a diagonal scar across her nose, La Betaille began fastidiously washing her huge black paws.

      “I wonder if the casting couch still exists?” She reached into the small enameled box on the dressing table and took out a pair of earrings shaped like crescent moons. They might be rhinestones rather than the diamonds Sloan Hawthorne was undoubtedly accustomed to women wearing, but Roxi liked the way they sparkled.

      She studied the results in the full-length mirror standing across the room. “Though I’ll bet a man like Sloan Hawthorne probably doesn’t have to hold out walk-on roles in his movies as a carrot to get women to go to bed with him.”

      She’d spent the better part of the morning shopping for an outfit designed to knock off the Hollywood hotshot’s socks, and if she was lucky, various other pieces of clothing.

      She turned sideways and ran her hands down the front of the dress. Her breasts, which had always suited her just fine, thank you, suddenly seemed, well…a bit insignificant.

      Since when had she started comparing herself to any other woman?

      “You’re an original, you,” she said, looking over her shoulder at her butt, which, if she did say so herself, looked damn fine in this dress. “Besides, it’ll be a new experience for him. Touching real, honest-to-god womanly flesh instead of silicone.”

      Apparently unimpressed by that prospect, La Betaille merely yawned.

      She’d just fastened a moonstone pendant around her neck when the limo Sloan had insisted on sending for her arrived outside the small carriage house she was renting behind one of the stately homes on Chippewa Square, where Forrest Gump had sat on his famous bench and contemplated life as a box of chocolates.

      “Okay,” she said, as the driver rang the bell. “Showtime.” Smoothing her hands over her hair, Roxi drew in a deep breath and pressed a hand against her stomach, which had suddenly gone all fluttery.

      Which was just proof that she’d definitely been working too hard. Men never made Roxi Dupree nervous.

      She reached down and stroked the cat’s head. “Don’t wait up.”

      As if taking her literally, La Betaille rolled over, closed her amber eyes, and immediately fell asleep.