Can't Buy Me Love

ALEXIS WAS INSTANTLY ANGRY on so many levels, she could barely respond. “Are you married, Dylan?”

“No.”

“Been married?”

“No.”

“Given birth?”

He leveled a look at her.

“Anyone given birth on your behalf?”

“Not that I am aware of.”

“So you really don’t know what’s at stake for women who have children? Things are very different for men and women.”

“No duh.”

“Ooh. Like the technical lawyer-speak, Dylan.”

“I’m not speaking as a lawyer. It’s against the rules.”

“Then what are you speaking as?”

“A friend.”

“I think not.” She’d been aiming for matter-of-fact, but had hit snippy.

He smiled. No grinned, damn it. “You’re still mad at me.”

“I am so over you.” She was. She was.

“You’re still mad. Yes, you are.” The grin widened. “I must be a better lover than I thought.”

Typical. “I’ve had worse,” she told him. “And I’ve had better. You’re somewhere in the middle. Average.” Honestly, never tell a man he was the worst lover you ever had, he wouldn’t believe it. But mediocre? Now that really got to him.

“And how does Vincent rank?”

She couldn’t believe he’d asked that. “You’re not the first to imply that Vincent must have selected me to be on his team because I slept with him, but you’re the most unexpected. That was unworthy of you, Dylan.”

He blinked. “I wasn’t impugning your legal skill.” Watching her carefully, he continued softly, “You’re marrying the guy.”

“Yes.”

“So it’s a safe assumption you’ve slept with him.”

They stared at each other and Alexis knew that she must not look away. Didn’t dare blink. She was good at this game. Her eyes were so dark people remarked on them. She used cosmetics to emphasize them and she practiced chilling expressions that revealed nothing.

However, eyes were one thing. The blush she was horrified to feel creeping up her throat was something else. She, who could bluff anyone, could not bluff Dylan.

She blinked.

And he pounced. “You’ve never slept with the guy.”

Alexis darted a look toward the doorway. How mortifying if Vincent or Margaret caught them discussing such a subject. “That—is—none—of—your—business.”

Dylan sat on the edge of the table. “But I’m fascinated by your logic—or the lack thereof. What the heck are you doing, Alexis?”

“I’m thinking with my head and not with my heart. ‘If more people thought with their heads instead of their hearts, we’d be out of a job.’ You said that.”

“I did. Go on.”

“Well,” she deliberately lowered her voice, injecting a sultry quality, “you know that first, wonderful rush of passion, when two people can’t get enough of each other, when they’re blind to anything else about each other as long as they can be entwined for hours and hours…?”

His eyes had darkened. Alexis thought he might even be drooling. He nodded and swallowed.

Deliberately breaking the mood, she sat back and threw up her hands. “It never lasts. And then you’re stuck with what’s left. And you look around and think, ‘Ick. I can’t live with that. What was I thinking?’ And then you realize you weren’t thinking. You were seduced by the sizzle. This time, I evaluated the rest of the man first. And he’s some man.” She gave Dylan her best seductive smile. “I’ll fire up the sizzle later. And you know I can.”

For a moment, she would have sworn that she had him, then he said, “Better make sure you’ve got some good wood.”

“Don’t be crude.”

“Hey, I’m just saying that if you want little sizzlers, you’re going to have to build the campfire with something.”

“And explain to me why you care about my campfire?”

He reached toward her and she thought he was going to touch her. She just stopped herself from flinching as he tapped the contract before her. “I want to know if successful career women selling themselves as high-priced wives is the new trend.”

“You’re being deliberately insulting.”

He eyed her speculatively. “I might be trying to shake you up and see if all your cylinders are firing.”

“Do you ever use plain English?”

“I thought the statement about selling yourself as a high-priced wife was pretty plain.”

“I look on it as protecting my future and the future of my children.”

“I’m listening.”

He was. And Alexis wanted to explain. “I want children and the thing is, a woman risks a lot careerwise these days. As soon as she’s visibly pregnant, she loses her edge. If she becomes angry, it’s hormones. Sad? Hormones. Aggressive? Hormones. So it’s ‘let’s not put too much pressure on the little mother.’ Give her the routine cases. Don’t let her start long-term litigation, because she’ll be taking maternity leave. And from then on, she’s on the mommy track, because she can’t work the long hours she has been because children get sick and she’ll have child-care problems. And guilt. Let’s not forget the guilt. I have seen it happen over and over again. For some reason, men don’t have these problems. He takes time off to meet with the kid’s teacher and he’s a caring and involved father. She takes time off and she’s allowing her children to interfere with her work. I don’t want to have to choose between my children and my career, so I’ll take time off in the beginning and go back to work when they’re older. The beauty of it is that I’ll pick up right where I left off. That’s what it says in the contract. My lovely, lovely contract. So don’t talk to me about throwing away my career. I’m preserving it.”

Dylan regarded her for a moment, then moved closer on the table until he was sitting right next to her, and then he stared at her some more.

She didn’t want him staring at her and she didn’t want him sitting next to her. He was too close. He made her too aware of him as a man, a man that, in spite of herself, she still wanted. After all this time, it wasn’t fair that her body would betray her this way.

Alexis looked down at her copy of the prenuptial agreement, flinching when Dylan nudged her chin upward with his knuckles. “You’re not in love with him.”