Sophie hugged her. “You know you’re always welcome here. Don’t make us wait until Christmas to see you again. Join us for game night before then. You might be surprised how much you enjoy it.”
“I absolutely will,” Lexi promised and was still smiling as Sophie walked away.
“Liar,” Clay said.
Without looking at him, Lexi answered, “It’s called being polite. You might want to try it sometime.”
“What you overheard was a joke, Lexi.”
“Bite me,” she said between gritted teeth that were still flashing a smile.
“I would, but you keep saying no,” he countered easily.
She met his eyes, reached over, and adjusted his tie. “That’s because I only sleep with men I like.” She trailed her hand down his tie and loved his quickly indrawn breath. Despite what he’d said to Sophie, Lexi knew Clay found her attractive. The turn off was that he found many women attractive. She looked him over slowly, blatantly. There was no denying he was a good-looking man, but the size of his ego overshadowed the temptation to find out how endowed the rest of him was.
His hand closed around hers and held it against his chest. “Try me. You might be surprised how much you like it.”
Despite the warmth that flooded through her at his sultry suggestion, Lexi threw back her head and laughed. “Quoting Sophie as a come-on? Honey, you’re off your game.”
His eyes narrowed. “You can deny it, but I know how I make you feel.”
“Tell yourself whatever you need to.” She gave his hand a squeeze then pulled hers free. Her smile was real now. They’d gone there before and would go there again. It was a flirtatious, harmless sparring. Although she would never do anything about it, these exchanges with Clay always left her feeling young and beautiful, which was sometimes harder to do as she neared thirty.
She looked across the room at her best friend, Kenzi, standing with her husband, Dax. “Is it strange for you to see Dax happily married?”
“Very.”
Her attention slid to her twin sister, Willa, and her husband, Lance. “I can’t believe my sister is married as well.”
“Thanks to me.”
Lexi arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “You’re still trying to take credit?”
“A bet is a bet, and I won.”
“Too many shots of tequila were ingested before that bet was made—making it null and void.”
“I beg to differ.”
“I didn’t take you for the type to beg,” Lexi said cheekily.
He placed his hand on her lower back, bent near her ear, and growled, “I won’t have to; I won.”
Lexi ignored her racing heart and the way her skin warmed beneath his touch. The details of that inebriated bet hadn’t survived her hangover the next day, but she wasn’t about to admit it. “Double or nothing?”
“Normally, I wouldn’t refuse such an offer, but I’d rather collect my winnings and go home. Or, more accurately, take you home and collect my winnings.” His breath was a warm caress on her ear.
“Can’t tonight, I have a date after this.”
His hand tightened on her back. “On Thanksgiving? With who?”
“His name doesn’t matter.” It didn’t. She wouldn’t sleep with him. She’d been on one date with the man she was meeting after dinner, and it hadn’t been an amazing one. He had, however, asked her to join him for drinks that night, and Lexi was certain she’d need a few later. She was happy Kenzi had found love, happy her sister had found the same, but things felt different now. Kenzi and Willa walked around with stupid grins on their faces, talking about babies and furniture like either topic was worthy of prolonged discussion.
Even though there had been times when Willa and Lexi had pulled away from each other, needing space, they’d always returned to each other. At the end of the day, they’d always been all the family each other had. It wasn’t that way for Willa anymore. She had Lance now. She was blissfully pregnant and had attached herself to Lance’s parents as if she’d sprung from Sophie’s vagina.
And they love her right back.
Which is good.
Only it didn’t feel that way for Lexi. Even if she wanted to, she would never fit in with the Barringtons the way Willa did. Willa was soft spoken, sweet. Lexi didn’t know of one single person who hadn’t automatically loved Willa. Lexi was honest enough with herself to acknowledge that not everyone had the same reaction to her. She was too much for some people. She always had been.
“You don’t have a date,” Clay said.
Lexi met his eyes. “You almost sound like you care. You’ll get over it, though. Women like me, we’re a dime a dozen.”
Chapter Two
It was a sweet torture to be seated next to Lexi during the multicourse Thanksgiving meal. He enjoyed their earlier banter about the bet because he suspected she didn’t remember what she’d agreed to. The actual bet had been for a dinner out, but he was enjoying seeing how far she’d let him go with it before she called bullshit. That topic was temporarily on hold, though. They were close enough for an occasional accidental touch to be expected, but they were under enough scrutiny from the others that their usual sexually charged discourse was curtailed.
He lowered his voice and asked, “How is the job search going after Poly-Shyn?”
She studied his expression for a moment before answering seriously. “I always land on my feet. I’m doing some short gigs while looking for something more permanent.”
“I heard you left suddenly.”
There was a flash of annoyance in her eyes. “I really can’t stomach another lecture on being more responsible.”
His eyebrows rose in surprise as he realized he’d touched upon a sensitive subject. “I could hardly lecture anyone about anything.”
Her expression relaxed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to snap at you. It has just been a frequent topic of discussion lately.”
“Because you left without giving your notice?”
The look she gave him hinted that she had another snappy comeback that she held back. “Yes.”
“Why did you?”
“Because I’m completely irresponsible, unable to understand how my actions affect others, and at the end of the day chronically ungrateful.”
“Ouch.”
“I could go on, but I’d rather not.”
“I’d heard you were enjoying the job.”
She pushed the food around her plate for a moment then laid her fork down and leaned in. “I slept with one of the project managers there and his wife threatened to make a public stink if I didn’t leave.”
“Lucky bastard if it were true, but it’s not,” Clay said softly. He didn’t believe her. There was too much defiance in her tone. “Why lie to me? I don’t care either way.”
She sighed and pursed her lush lips briefly. “That old greasy pig made a pass at me, and I turned him down, maybe more harshly than I should have but he’s married. Then, out of nowhere, his wife confronted me. She told me she knows Sophie and would tell everyone that I slept with her husband if I didn’t quit.” She looked across at her sister then back to Clay. “I don’t want to mess things up for Willa. She’s happy here.”
Clay’s hands clenched on the table. Poly-Shyn would be down a project manager by Monday night. The family who owned the company, the Hendersons, could take care of him, or Clay would handle it himself.
She seemed to sense his thoughts because she reached out and touched his hand. “Please don’t say anything to anyone. It’s done, and I want to forget it. Willa doesn’t need to know.”
He turned his hand so it closed over hers. “This isn’t about her, it’s about you. No one should treat you that way.”
Her smile was thin. “It’s okay. I was ready to move on anyway.”
“The bastard needs to learn a lesson.”
“What he’ll learn is that people like to think the worst of me. Please don’t get involved.”
“So, you’d rather leave him there to do
it to another woman?”
She pulled her hand away from his. “Don’t judge my choices. Before you tell me what I should or shouldn’t do, why don’t you share a list of how you’ve made the world a better place recently?”
