indecency at Mardi Gras was. She wanted a man who was serious, focused, someone who was an achiever, not a fun-loving, slick G-boy with no sense of propriety. Thinking of the chances the two of them had taken together made her squeeze her eyes closed.
Thinking of the chances the two of them had taken left her awash in lust.
She made an impatient noise. It was time to end their little arrangement, no matter how much fun it was. She was ready, finally, to go forward with her life, and that life didn’t—couldn’t—include Alex Spencer.
Putting Alex firmly out of her mind, Julia flipped through the latest issue of American Curator. A major auction of early Roman pieces was scheduled for fall, she saw, making a note to herself. Some recent reports of ancient Egyptian and Babylonian forgeries. And a story about the heist of the Zander collection from Stanhope’s Auction House. No leads there.
Reading the list of items taken was enough to make Julia’s eyes cross well before the end. A shame, but having met Zoey Zander at a few of her mother’s society dos, Julia would have laid even money that the “antique” items weren’t even authentic. The jewels, perhaps, but as for the rest of it, Zoey was more about flash than substance. Having it look right was more important than having it be right.
Julia had never understood that. To her, it was the history of a thing that mattered, the story she felt when she touched it. Absently, she rubbed a finger over the bit of scrimshaw that sat by her telephone, a personal treasure that she knew she shouldn’t touch with bare hands but was helpless not to. She could imagine the whaler who’d spent long, windblown days working at the ivory, setting it aside at the cry of “Whale ho.” If she closed her eyes, she could smell the salt tang of the sea, feel the motion of the ship, imagine the distant blue horizon and the pale vault of the sky overhead.
It had always been like that for her, since she’d been a child. She remembered going to the Metropolitan and staring at a pale blue glass cup in the antiquities wing, a glass that had been in the ground so long it had turned iridescent. It fascinated her so much she’d relentlessly pestered her mother, her nanny, her great-aunt Stella to take her to the Met over and over. An artifact from an ancient desert kingdom, she’d read on the identification card and imagined a little girl like herself who might have drunk from it. And at night, she’d dreamed that she was the little girl, a princess whispering in the desert dusk with her favorite friend, a young boy who dreamed of becoming a great warrior.
She hadn’t had that dream for a long while.
“Hey, gorgeous.”
No matter how wrong for her he might be, something about Alex’s voice always sent a warm shiver through her, whatever she was thinking, whatever she was doing. Julia opened her eyes and gave her visitor a bland look. “Well, if it isn’t the infamous Alex Spencer.”
He leaned against her doorway, looking like some GQ model in his expensive suit and hand-dyed silk tie. “Miss me?”
She rolled her eyes. “How can I miss you when you won’t go away?”
“I can’t go away. I have to stick around to keep you from falling asleep at your desk.” He clicked his tongue at her. “Maybe if you got to bed at a decent hour, you’d be more awake.”
“Sometimes I get pestered by late-night callers,” she said.
“You shouldn’t answer the door, then.”
“I’ll remember that next time.” She folded her hands in front of her. “So what can I do for you, Mr. Spencer?”
“A favor.” He stepped into the office and her lungs took a breath of their own accord. Honestly, there was nothing the man could do that wouldn’t look good. He had a gift for it, from his cropped dark hair spiked with just a bit of gel to his glossy Italian leather shoes. And she knew from personal experience that he looked just as effortlessly handsome in shorts and a polo shirt.
Or in nothing at all.
Maybe it was the thousand-watt smile, the square jaw, those green, green eyes. Eyes currently glimmering at her in humor, making her realize she’d been staring far too long. “Making notes for a portrait?” he asked.
“Wondering if I maybe saw you on the post office wall,” she replied. “So what’s the favor?”
“Someone I want you to see today. My sister’s got a friend who wants to bring in something for you to look at. She thinks it might be valuable—”
“Alex, no,” Julia was groaning before he’d even finished. “No, no, no. You know how it works. They’ve gone to a flea market or on holiday to Morocco and they’ve got some piece of trash they’re convinced is the real thing.”
“Maybe it is,” he suggested.
“And maybe it’s a tourist tchotchke. Do you have any idea how often I’ve looked at those kinds of things?” she pleaded. “They’re never real. Trust me, antiquities don’t just fall in a person’s lap.” But he had that gleam in his eye that he always got when he proposed something outrageous, she saw sinkingly, that look that always seemed to get her to do what he wanted.
“Look, it’s a favor for my sister. Why don’t you just give it a look and see what you think?”
“I have a better idea,” Julia said silkily. “Why don’t you look at it?”
“I’ve got to leave for lunch with a big donor—” he glanced at his sleek Bulova “—like, right now.”
“And I’ve got meetings all afternoon.”
“Then it’s good she’s coming this morning, isn’t it?”
That stopped her for a moment. “Well, aren’t we sure of ourselves,” she said tartly.
“Oh, come on, Julia, it’s five minutes. It’s for my sister. Family.”
And if she didn’t watch it, she’d cave to him yet again, just as she had the night before. With everyone else she was intelligent, self-possessed, in control. It was only with Alex that she lost the ability to say anything but yes. “I don’t have time,” she lied. “I don’t know what made you think I’d agree.”
Alex stepped inside and closed the heavy wooden door. “Maybe I could offer you something in return.” He ambled across the room looking amused, as though he could read her like the Sunday Post.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked uneasily, already feeling the treacherous flutter in her stomach.
He didn’t answer, just leaned on the corner of her desk. “You know that your eyes always get a little darker when I come close?” he asked conversationally, reaching out to take her hand. “And they definitely get darker when I do this,” he added, touching the tip of his tongue to her palm.
And lust just exploded through her. For an instant, all she wanted was to have him naked, against her, on top of her. In her. Outside in the hallway, voices passed by the door, chattering about the weekend.
Inside, Julia froze, mesmerized by a touch, staring, boneless. And she’d just sat there and let him do it, she thought in annoyance. She wasn’t the type to just melt because some good-looking guy stroked his thumb over the back of her hand, stroked it and stared
