air from her lungs.
In faded blue jeans, a white T-shirt and cowboy boots, the billionaire oil king looked just as he had in college. Yet there was an air of authority and importance that emanated from inside him, from every pore. An arrogance that said he knew exactly what he wanted and he wasn’t afraid to go after it, and pity the person who dared get in his way.
Beginning with her pink-tipped toes, his eyes embarked on a leisurely journey, working their way up her body. Slowly they climbed, no shame, no apology, as if he had every right to be mentally undressing her.
Over her hips, across her mostly flat stomach…
She clasped her hands behind her back, so he wouldn’t see them tremble. What was wrong with her? She was no longer the naive, sheltered girl who had been swept away by a trust-fund rebel. She was a strong, self-confident professional. She had co-written the definitive guide on divorce for the modern woman. She was a New York Times bestselling author, for cripes’ sake. She could handle Dillon Marshall.
She hoped.
He finally reached her breasts and took his sweet ole time, caressing them with his eyes. She felt the tips tingle and tighten against her will. The urge to cross her arms over her chest was almost unbearable, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
This inspection, this violation, was all a part of the game he played.
She narrowed her eyes and raised her chin to a don’t-even-mess-with-me angle. When he finally reached her face, his eyes locked on hers and held, and one corner of his mouth tipped up in a familiar, cocky smile.
He shook his head, eyes simmering with male appreciation. “Damn, darlin’, you look good enough to eat.”
If looks could kill, Dillon would be knocking at the pearly gates. His ex-wife’s whiskey-colored eyes impaled him like razor-sharp daggers.
Talk about a blast from the past. It was the same look she’d given him ten years ago, the day she walked out on him.
Though the particulars of that morning were still fuzzy, he remembered stumbling in stinking drunk at 7:00 a.m. after an all-nighter with his buddies. His third all-nighter that week…and it had been only Wednesday. He’d tried to coax her into bed, to show her how sorry he was—hell, it had worked before—and she’d lobbed an empty beer bottle at his head.
Lucky for him that her aim had been as bad as her temper.
But damn, did she look good now—tall and willowy and soft around the edges. The kind of pretty that crept up on a man slowly, then dug its claws in deep and held on.
Too bad she was a major pain in the behind.
He turned up the charm on his smile, knowing it would irritate the hell out of her, since that in large part was the motivation for this trip. He intended to make her suffer. “What, no kiss?”
Sure enough, that telltale little crease formed between her eyebrows. She always had taken life too seriously. He used to admire her confidence, her determination. The woman knew exactly what she wanted, and she hadn’t been afraid to go after it. Too bad she’d never learned how to have fun. He’d tried his best to teach her, to loosen her up, and what had it gotten him?
A lot of grief.
It would be that much more satisfying when he finally broke her spirit.
“You don’t look happy to see me,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed, like May be she thought that if she concentrated hard enough she could wish him out of existence.
“Oh, right, you still think I’m a…now, how did you word it in that little book of yours?” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Something to the effect of me being a self-centered, pigheaded horse’s ass?”
Her chin rose in that familiar, stubborn tilt. “Not once did I use your name in that little book, so you can’t say one way or the other who I was referring to.”
She might not have used his name, but the implication had been more than clear.
Clear to him.
Clear to his family and friends.
And clear to the millions of women who had flocked to the bookstore to get their hands on the new must-read self-help guide.
Nearly every negative little story and anecdote she’d included in the text had been plucked right out of their marriage. Talk about social devastation. The class of woman he normally dated wouldn’t give him the time of day, and the women who would, the morbidly curious and monetarily motivated, he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy.
“Besides, it was self-absorbed and bull headed,” Ivy added. “And I never used the term horse’s ass. Even though you were one.”
He flattened a hand across the left side of his chest. “Darlin’, you’re breakin’ my heart.”
“Look, you can cut the good ole boy crap. I don’t imagine you’re any happier than I am about being stuck together for a whole week.”
It was just like her to cut through the bull and get right to the point. And as usual, she was wrong. He couldn’t be happier.
“For Deidre and Blake’s sake, I’m going to try to make the best of it,” she continued in that master-of-the-universe tone. “I expect you to do the same.”
He just bet she did. Was she under the impression they were going to pick up where they left off? With her issuing orders?
Had she forgotten that he didn’t take orders from anyone?
“How do you s’pose we go about doing that?” he asked in the same good ole boy twang, since it clearly annoyed her.
“I think we should agree to avoid each other whenever humanly possible. I’ll stay out of your way and you stay out of mine. After this week, we never have to see each other again.”
The never seeing each other again part sounded just fine to him. But that was only a fraction of the good news. He’d been looking for a way to irritate her, to make her as miserable as humanly possible, and she’d just served it up on a silver platter.
The worst thing he could do to a control freak like Ivy was take away her control.
A corner of his mouth twitched, but he held the smile inside. He pretended to give her demand some thought, then gave her a solemn nod. “Sounds like a good idea.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “So that’s it?”
“Sure.” It did sound like a good idea. For her. That didn’t mean he had any intention of doing it.
She had no idea the flack his family had taken after her book was released. Call it childish and immature—hell, he’d been called worse—but the way he saw it, he was long overdue for a little payback. Some good old-fashioned revenge.
If keeping his distance was what she really wanted, for the next week he would be stuck to that woman like glue.
