perfect woman. Hell, she probably already had someone she thought was Miss Right all picked out and ready for him.
He cursed under his breath as he strode into the open-air mall with its endless sea of useless junk. Frowning, he shook his head. He wasn’t hanging around in here for more than an hour, deal or no deal, or he might run into someone he knew or—God forbid—his family.
But he’d agreed to this ridiculous challenge. And if Maggie wanted to introduce him to some woman who worked at the Hoagie Hut, he’d have to do it.
Beside him a couple of teenage boys whistled under their breath, and Nick looked up, following their gazes. His chest tightened as the reason for his presence in this shoppers’ Babylon walked toward him in a pink sundress. She’d gone home to change. He must’ve just missed her.
Maggie moved with grace, with just a soft sway of the hips—not too obvious. But, man, she was all female. Long, tanned legs, trim waist, full breasts, her dark hair piled high on top of her head. She still looked fairly conservative, but he knew now what she wore underneath her conservative clothes. And that made her simple, pale-pink dress sexy as hell.
Damned if she wasn’t looking just a little bit like Miss Right herself.
The thought dropped into his mind with a noisy crash. Kind of like a wrecking ball, he thought as he promptly shoved it aside. He and “Matchmaking Maggie” were roommates with a business arrangement. And he didn’t mix business and pleasure. Besides, she wasn’t even remotely close to his kind of woman. She probably dated accountants with beige Volvos, not a man who worked with his hands and drove a Harley. She was classic, elegant—a good girl with crazy ideas. Not to mention a major pain in the—
“Hi, there,” she called brightly. “Get settled in all right?”
“Fine,” he said, his body stirring from looking at her too long. “Why am I here?”
“Well, good afternoon to you, too.”
He arranged his face in what he hoped passed for a smile. “Afternoon. Now, why am I here in this gulch of discounted garbage?”
Her gaze roamed over him. “Before I send you out to find that special someone, we have to do something about—” she waved a hand at him “—this.”
“You have a problem with the way I dress?”
She seemed to consider this.
“You’re not going to turn me into one of the suits that you probably date,” he said.
“I don’t date suits.”
He raised a brow. “Oh, really? Then what kind of man turns your crank, Maggie?” What’s good for the goose, he thought. If she got to dig into his personal life, he was just as entitled.
“No one turns my crank,” she said in a hushed whisper. “I don’t date.”
“Come again?”
She hesitated, her gaze slipping to the floor. “Well, what I mean is that I haven’t dated in a while and I’m not planning to date anyone until my business is a success.”
A splash of ice water in the face couldn’t have shocked him more. “That could be months, maybe years.”
She nodded. “Maybe.”
Dating was her business. And she was too busy? He’d heard a lot of bull in his life, enough to know when he wasn’t hearing the whole truth. But he didn’t think she was going to tell him anything—not here anyway, not now. Hell, they were going to be living together. He’d find out soon enough the real reason why she didn’t want to date. His inexplicable curiosity about her seemed to demand it.
Without thinking, he leaned in and brushed her cheek with his thumb. He heard her gasp softly, and he felt like an idiot. He showed her the tiny eyelash he’d rescued from her cheek and said, “Make a wish,” feeling like an even bigger idiot. But her skin was so soft he’d forgotten himself for a moment.
“Just one?” she asked with a shy smile.
At that moment he’d give her any little thing she wanted. But he wasn’t the kind of man who showed a woman her effect on him. “Don’t get greedy,” he grumbled.
She laughed, then blew her eyelash off his thumb.
Desire poured through him. Not good, he thought. He needed to keep his distance or he was going to pull her close and kiss that long, graceful neck of hers. “If that wish was for me to go clothes shopping without complaint, it’s not coming true.”
She tilted her chin up at him. “You’re being unnecessarily stubborn.”
“I’m not changing. This is who I am, Maggie. Take it or leave it.”
“This is not about who you are. This is just about your clothes.” She smiled. “C’mon. It’ll be fun.”
“Fun for who?” he asked.
“For me. And it’ll be my treat.”
“Oh, please,” he grumbled. “I own my own company. I can pay for a few pairs of jeans.”
“Pants,” she corrected. “Nice pants.”
“I hate to point this out, but I never agreed to a wardrobe change.”
“Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward a men’s store. “You have a roof over your head—and I have you. For four weeks. Body and soul.”
He liked the way that sounded. He knew he shouldn’t. But he did.
She glanced at her watch as they walked. “Then after you get clothes we’ll go see Domingo.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What’s a Domingo?”
“Not what, who,” Maggie explained. “Domingo is a hairstylist. Well, actually he’s a hair genius, but—”
“Hell, no. No way. No!”
“Oh, c’mon.”
“No.”
She stopped at the store’s entrance, crossed her arms over her chest. “Is this a Samson thing? Shed your locks and lose your strength?”
“First of all, I don’t have locks and second, women find my hair sexy.”
“It’s not the hair, Nick,” she said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Her gaze flickered from his face to the floor and back. “Well, maybe it’s not the hair they find sexy. Maybe…ah…maybe it’s just you.”
His gut tightened as if he was taking Suicide Pass at eighty miles an hour. She wasn’t supposed to be talking to him like that or looking at him like that, either. This whole day was just plain strange. He had no idea how it could get any stranger.
But it suddenly did.
