The Ex Factor. Nancy Warren

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СКАЧАТЬ it to you.” He’d given her that pen back in happier times, and now she was annoyed with herself for her sentimentality in using the damn thing every day.

      “So, we don’t tell the lucky couple that their wedding planner and his best man used to be married?”

      “No, I guess not.”

      “And that we hate each other?”

      He put down the pen, straightened to his full six feet and looked down at her. “I never hated you. That’s your department.”

      A moment passed and she pressed her lips together to keep from crying out that she missed him. Instead she said, “Why are you here, Dex? I mean, in the city. You work in New York now.”

      “I do. But I’m quoting on a project here in Philadelphia. A grand old structure that’s been a home, a warehouse and a boardinghouse, to name a few.” Enthusiasm lit up his eyes. “She’s a tired old girl, but with amazing bone structure. The best of the original architectural features are intact and the client wants to work with them, while bringing the building up to date. It’s going to be a boutique hotel and retail combination.”

      “Sounds amazing, and right up your alley.”

      “It is. I really want this one. And if it works out, you’ll be seeing a lot of me.”

      She raised one eyebrow.

      “Helping Sophie and Andrew plan their wedding.”

      He looked so sincere, so good, so sexy that for a moment she forgot the reason she’d divorced him. The five-foot-ten blonde goddess she’d found half dressed and wrapped around her husband. The saddest aspect of that fiasco was that on some level she’d noted that Dexter and the former model had looked natural together, two tall, glamorous super-people.

      “You’re good at planning weddings, not so good at staying faithful once you’re in one.” Her venom seemed to curdle the air.

      “Like I said, hate was always your department.”

      “Well, I got over it.” With a lot of tearful sessions with her girlfriends and some rather expensive ones with a therapist. “Now I’ve accepted that our marriage was a mistake.”

      “You sure didn’t fight for it.”

      The old, familiar anger began to surge inside her but she bit her tongue and counted to ten. Then eleven. Finally twelve before she felt calm enough to speak.

      “Why would I fight to keep an unfaithful husband?”

      He shook his head. “I don’t know why I bother, but I am telling you again that I never had sex with that woman. She was drunk and crazy.”

      “Didn’t look like you were trying very hard to peel her off you.”

      “Believe me, I was, and I could have used your help that night instead of having you turn tail and abandon me.”

      Oh, how she wished she could believe him, could have believed him six years ago when it had happened. But she didn’t believe him, and couldn’t imagine living with a man who thought so little of her that he’d betray her like that.

      “I guess maybe we were wrong about each other.”

      “I guess so.”

      He shoved his hands in his pockets, leaned against her desk, looking ridiculously masculine against the feminine lines of the furniture; it appeared as though the wood might snap from the weight of him leaning on it. But like her, the piece was stronger than it looked. “You’re still the sexiest woman I’ve ever known.”

      She snorted. “Oh, please.”

      “Or maybe it was us together. I miss a lot of things about you, but mostly I miss you in my bed.” He looked at her with such intensity that she felt her blood begin to pound. Of course she remembered. When she wasn’t cursing the man for his faithlessness she spent more time than she should cursing him for giving her the kind of sex that she’d never found before or since. Soul-scorching, sometimes tender, sometimes dirty but always intimate. She was secretly pleased that he hadn’t found that again either. Or so he said. But then maybe that was another line in the player’s handbook. How would she know?

      She forced herself to meet his gaze coolly. Took a deep breath and uttered the biggest lie of her life. “I don’t miss you.”

      She should have recalled that nothing ignited Dexter’s competitive instincts like a challenge. She saw heat flash in his eyes, anger and lust and a mix of emotions she couldn’t begin to identify.

      One second he stood there before her and the next he was pulling her to him, crushing his mouth against hers so fast that she couldn’t have moved away if she’d tried. She uttered a muffled protest, squirmed against him and then as the inevitable tide of heat swamped her, found herself melting into that oh, so familiar embrace.

      The initial hardness of his kiss softened and he began to play with her, igniting all her responses until she was crazy with pent-up lust and a need so strong she couldn’t begin to stifle it. She was so weak-kneed she clung to him, responding wildly, mindlessly.

      Every part of her ached and burned and throbbed. If he threw her down on the Hepplewhite desk now, or even on the reclaimed hardwood floor, she’d let him take her and both of them knew it.

      Then, as suddenly as he’d moved on her, he let go and stepped back. His breathing was faster than normal, his mouth wet from hers. Still, he managed to sound cool when he said, “I don’t think I believe you.”

      Then he turned and headed for the door. “Don’t work too late.”

      3

      “WHAT ABOUT THIS GUY?” Dee asked as they cruised the single man ads on the online dating site that she insisted had the best success with Philly singles. They were in her office and Dee had just finished setting up her account. Even twenty-four hours ago, Karen knew she wouldn’t have put up a profile on something called Plenty of Phillys but since that scorching kiss yesterday, she was determined to get out there and try to find a genuine, decent man who wouldn’t screw around the second her back was turned. Wouldn’t melt her with his kisses when he came back into her life.

      But the man whose photo she was looking at on her computer definitely wasn’t that guy.

      “I want to correct his spelling,” she said.

      Dee sighed and moved to the next one. Mohawk, tattoos and a spiked dog collar. “Ick,” they said in unison.

      The third profile featured a perfectly average-looking man with glasses, a full head of hair, and, perhaps more important, a profile written by someone who’d obviously passed high school English. “He’s a CPA, never been married, but looking to find a partner.” Dee glanced up at her. “That’s good, right?”

      “Yes.” Karen finished reading his profile. “I like that he mentions taking things slow. I really can’t handle fast right now.”

      “Great, let’s send him a wink,” Dee said pushing a couple of buttons before Karen could slap her hand away.

      “What have СКАЧАТЬ