Can't Buy Me Love

“There is a significant—” Margaret paused to emphasize just how significant “—monetary penalty should you return to work. In addition, there is a non-compete clause that troubles me.”

“It didn’t trouble Alexis,” Vincent inserted smoothly.

“We have had barely forty-eight hours to review the contract.” Margaret peered at Vincent over the top of some unflattering reading glasses. They were in no way stylish, nor had they ever been. Shopping for frames would take time, time a high-powered attorney like Margaret didn’t have.

“I would suggest that if Alexis works for another firm, you mitigate the financial penalty,” she said.

“I wouldn’t work for another firm.” That would be defeating the whole purpose of the marriage.

Margaret and her awful glasses turned to Alexis. “All the more reason to take a second look at those financial terms.”

Alexis didn’t want to take a second look. Truly, she was going to start on a family right away and planned to spend the next few years decorating nurseries and changing diapers in between rejuvenating facials. No sense in wasting time. No sense in destroying the lovely weightless bubbly feeling she’d had ever since she’d agreed to marry Vincent and let him worry about acquiring money for a while.

And then Dylan spoke. “Vincent, I usually advise my clients to provide for the unexpected. In this instance, a clause dealing with your possible incapacitation would not be amiss. Should your income stop, under these terms, Alexis would be penalized for supporting you.”

Dylan sure was a real lead weight.

Vincent gave him a patronizing smile. “If I had wanted such a clause, then I would have inserted it myself.”

“If you’d thought of it.”

“I did.”

“Judges like to see those clauses.” Dylan wasn’t intimidated in the slightest, Alexis would give him that, though not much more. “They’re a sign of good faith and make the pre-nup harder to break.”

“I expect an unbreakable contract from you, Dylan. Is my faith misplaced?”

“Not if your faith takes my advice.”

Sheesh. Why didn’t they just unzip their pants and get out rulers?

“Alexis has faith, don’t you, Alexis?” Vincent asked.

Dylan’s gaze flicked to Alexis at the same time Margaret’s foot nudged hers. Yeah, yeah. The clause should be there. She couldn’t help feeling that it was some kind of test, though.

“Vincent…” she began.

“If I’m incapacitated, then more than ever, I would want my lovely wife by my side.” He reached across the table and squeezed Alexis’s hand. “We’d hardly be destitute. I have a lifetime income from the firm.”

“Oh.” Wow. Maybe she’d never go back to work. Work was overrated. Spa paraffin and sea-salt scrub pedicures were not. Alexis slipped back into her fantasy as one of the rich and idle.

She heard a buzz and saw Vincent remove his cell phone. “Excuse me. I need to take this.” He raised his eyebrows at Alexis. “Briarwood.”

The next big case. One that she would have been working on with him if she hadn’t been planning a wedding in a week. “Of course,” she mouthed. But Vincent had already turned away and was leaving the room.

“Alexis, you and I need to talk.”

“Margaret—”

“But not now.” Margaret picked up her copy of the contract and stood. “I’m going to look up a couple of things.” She pointed at Dylan. “You know the rules. No discussing the contract unless I’m present.”

Dylan sat back in the chair, palms outward. “Hey. She’s a lawyer, too.”

“She was,” Margaret stated over her shoulder as she jogged out the doorway.

That stung a little until Alexis told herself that Margaret was just jealous. Who wouldn’t be?

She turned her gaze to the man across the table to find him watching her. She watched him back. He looked the same. More polished and with shorter hair, but basically the same. They might have been sitting across from each other at one of the heavy wooden library tables at school. They’d always had to put the table between them so they could concentrate on studying instead of each other.

It rarely worked then and it wasn’t working now.

Dylan had never been one of those catch-your-breath attractive men, but he made the effort with what he had and the effect was a nonthreatening handsomeness. Except now, it was threatening her peace of mind. She narrowed her eyes at his tan. Fake. When did these men have the time?

“So,” he said.

“So,” she said back. He was going to be trouble. She could tell already.

“Long time no see.”

“Commencement.” She’d stared at the back of his head two rows ahead and alternated between fury and heartbreak. But she’d recovered.

“So how have you been, Alexis?”

“Good. I’ve kept busy.”

“You’re being overly modest. The mere mention of your name strikes fear into the hearts of small-business owners everywhere.”

Was that a compliment, or not? And did she care? “I’ve heard your name bandied about, as well.”

“I’ll bet you have.”

“Usually ‘that damn Dylan Greene.’ You should change your letterhead to D. Dylan Greene.”

He laughed. “Yeah. Vincent has had to restructure a couple of deals when he couldn’t break one of my pre-nups.”

“Actually, I did the restructuring.” Hours and hours and hours of restructuring.

“You get to do the dirty work, huh?”

Alexis folded her hands on the table in front of her. Gripped her knuckles, actually. Hard. “I get the experience.”

“Which you are now throwing away.”

Alexis drew a deep breath. So much for their stilted little conversation. “Watch it, Dylan.”

“I am watching it.” He pushed back from the table and stood. Shoving his hands in his pockets he walked over to the huge windows looking out on the Colorado mountains. “I’m watching a woman throw away her career. What happened to you, Alexis?”

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