the object of most of his sexual fantasies these days—had just told him.
But instead of processing her news about winning the lottery, all he could do was think about how incredibly sexy she looked. Even in ragged jeans and slouchy yellow sweatshirt, with her blond hair bound haphazardly atop her head in something vaguely resembling a ponytail. If you disregarded all those straggly pieces framing her face. Although, even those straggly pieces were awfully sexy. Made a man want to lift a hand and skim it oh-so-slowly over her—
“I know it’s hard to believe,” she said, interrupting what had promised to be a damned nice fantasy. She paced restlessly from one side of his living room to the other, her sock-clad feet silent on the expansive, expensive, Aubusson.
“But it’s true. It’s true!” she cried again, pivoting around to smile at him. “I won the lottery, Marcus! I’m rich! I’m rich! I’m rich!”
“You’ll be rich,” he reminded her. “On Monday.”
“Right,” she agreed, sobering. Some. For a second or two.
Then she started bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, her smile dazzling. She paced to the other side of the room, perched herself on the edge of an exquisite Chippendale chair for a nanosecond, then shot up and started pacing again.
“You have to help me, Marcus,” she told him as she passed by him quickly enough to create a breeze.
“I’ll help you,” he promised. “First by fixing you a double Stoli, straight up. I think you could use it.”
She spun around with enough force to send a less grounded individual spinning right out of the room. “No, no, no, no, no. Not necessary,” she told him. “I’m intoxicated enough as it is.”
He feigned disappointment. “What? You started happy hour without me? That’s not like you, Dinah.”
She smiled at his mention of their usual Friday evening ritual. Dinah worked at home as a freelance writer, so she invariably heard Marcus return home from his architectural firm everyday. Over the last three months, it had become their custom to spend every Friday after work enjoying cocktails and conversation together. It had become even more customary for the two of them to have dinner together at one or the other’s apartment a couple of times a week.
They’d struck up a nice friendship within days of her moving in to the building. It was just too damned bad she wasn’t interested in him romantically. But she’d never shown any sign that she returned his very profound interest in her, so he hadn’t pressed the issue. Not that he could understand for a minute why she wouldn’t be interested in him. He’d never had that problem with women before. Ah, well. It wasn’t his to question why. But it was his to keep his fantasies about Dinah to himself.
“You have to help me, Marcus,” she said again, bringing his attention back to the matter at hand. Pretty much. He did still kind of wonder what she had on under that sweatshirt.
“I’ll be glad to,” he told her. “What do you want me to do? Water your plants while you’re gone?”
She started bouncing up and down again. “No, I want you to come with me,” she said, her brown eyes wide with excitement.
The drink he’d been lifting to his mouth stopped just short of completing the action. “Come with you?” he echoed. “Why?”
“Because I’m going to need another driver.”
“What are you talking about?” Marcus asked. “You’re planning to drive to Georgia? By Monday?”
“If we take turns at the wheel, we can drive straight through. We won’t have to stop except for food and restrooms.”
He eyed her curiously for a moment. “Why would we want to do that, when you can hop on a plane and be there within hours?”
Her expression went vaguely horrified. “A plane?” she repeated, voicing the word as if it were something unspeakably vile. “I can’t get on a plane. No way.”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, no. Don’t. Dinah. Don’t tell me you’re one of those people who’s afraid of flying.”
She made a mild face at him. “Well, of course I’m not afraid of flying. Just how flaky do you think I am?”
He sighed in relief. “Good. So what’s the problem?”
“It’s because of the curse,” she told him.
Marcus was afraid to ask. Nevertheless, “The curse?” he repeated cautiously.
Dinah nodded. “Yeah. The curse. The gypsy curse.”
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