“Can I ask a personal question?”
“Sure.”
“Are you a virgin?”
Gretchen felt her cheeks heat. “I was engaged at one point, remember?”
“So?”
“No, Gary, I’m not a virgin.”
“Thank God.” He looked relieved. “There are some things I just can’t teach.”
Gretchen laughed. “I love you, Gary.”
“Where did that come from?” he asked, looking startled.
“From Jill. She told me to tell the people who are most important to me how much I care for them.”
He seemed to think it over, then his expression softened. “I love you, too. Now get a move on. You’ve got a lot of work to do. And I don’t mean in the office.”
“Thanks for the advice.” She headed for the door.
“Anytime. Know something? I like this. I’m starting to feel like Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady. Between you and me, I always thought the man was gay.”
Gretchen laughed. “Well, Professor Higgins,” she said, “I’ll let you dress me up and make me over. But I’m telling you right now, this Eliza Doolittle draws the line at filling her mouth with marbles and singing about the rain in Spain.”
“We’ll see about that.” Gary waggled an eyebrow at her.
Chuckling, Gretchen returned to her office. As she opened one of the Harrison files, she thought about what she’d jokingly told Gary. When it came down to it, for Marco Garibaldi she just might fill her mouth with marbles and sing about the rain in Spain. Because he was worth it.
Chapter 2
His landlady had legs. Killer legs. Eye-popping legs. Long, gorgeous, endless legs. How had he never noticed?
As Marco unfolded his body from the car he’d just parked on his side of the garage, he let his gaze travel the length of Gretchen Montgomery’s legs to the simple black dress she wore, and he had his answer. He’d never noticed her legs because, before today, he’d never seen her hemline above her calf.
In his wildest imaginings, he’d never pictured her permitting said hemline to climb to thigh level, as it did now, or allowing the fabric of her dress to cling so tightly it looked as if it had been glued onto her. His mouth went dry when his gaze fastened on the low, square neckline. Not only did she have great legs, she also had cleavage. And one stunner of a figure.
“Wow,” he murmured under his breath, thinking that it was about time Gretchen Montgomery broke out of her shell.
Leaning back against his car, he loosened his shirt collar. The weather might have cooled to a balmy eighty degrees, but looking at his landlady in that dress definitely had him hot under the collar. Uncomfortably hot.
Sometime, during the three-and-a-half weeks since their midnight conversation on the front porch, she’d undergone a complete transformation. It was incredible. She was the caterpillar who had emerged a butterfly, Cinderella after her fairy godmother had outfitted her for the ball.
She’d cut her hair, he realized. Now he would never get a chance to run his fingers through its lustrous length. Instead of feeling regret, he couldn’t help admiring the appropriateness of the new style. Her now shoulder-length brown hair curled gently around her face, emphasizing her cheekbones, the curve of her chin and the elegant length of her neck. Should the occasion ever arise, her hair was still plenty long enough to run his fingers through.
She wasn’t wearing her glasses, and he saw that her eyes were a rich, chocolate brown. They still gleamed with the intelligence she couldn’t hide, but there was something else there, too. Amusement? Awareness of the effect she was having on him? As she leaned against her car, he saw that his landlady was inspecting him as closely as he was her.
Something was still up with her, that was for certain. Whatever it was, today Marco liked it a lot. After the day he’d had, she was a sight for sore eyes. Or, to take the trite analogy one step further, she was just what the doctor had ordered—he being the doctor in question.
It had to be a man, he decided, and wondered at the sour taste the thought left in his mouth. In his experience, no woman went to such trouble unless a man was involved.
“You like?” she asked.
It took him a beat to realize she meant her car. Expecting the aging, sedate Volvo, he did a double take at the sleek, black Dodge Viper that now graced his landlady’s half of the garage.
Marco gave a low, appreciative whistle. “That is some car. When did you get it?”
“An hour ago. It has an 8.0-liter V10 engine, 450 horsepower and six-speed manual transmission. It can accelerate from zero to sixty miles per hour in 4.1 seconds.”
To Marco, she sounded as if she were reciting painfully memorized facts, much like a second grader reciting her times tables.
“You know what all that means?” he asked. His heart skipped a beat when she grinned impishly.
“I haven’t a clue. All I know is that the salesman made a big deal out of it, and that the car can go fast.”
He laughed. “Mind if I look it over?”
She stood aside. “Be my guest.”
Slowly he walked around the vehicle, running a finger over the sleekness of its gleaming curves. It was the kind of car he’d always dreamed of owning. Once he paid off all his school loans, that is. It cost a small fortune, he knew, more than most people earned in a year. More than he’d be able to afford for quite a few years to come.
How, he wondered suddenly, and with a start of concern, had his landlady afforded it? Now that he thought about it, she had spent a lot of money lately. That outfit didn’t come cheap. Nor did the ongoing repairs to the duplex. Like the music that had kept him awake three weeks earlier, the way she was dressed today, not to mention buying a vehicle like this, seemed so out of character for her that he couldn’t help wondering what was going on. Was she involved in something—or with someone—that, in the long run, would only bring her trouble?
Before he let his imagination run away with him, Marco decided a note of caution was in order. After all, what, if anything, did he really know about her? Maybe she’d scrimped and saved for years, just to savor this moment of ownership. As for the improvements to the house, it only made sense for a homeowner to keep up her property. Probably a tax write-off, as well.
And the new clothing? The answer to that one was also simple. She couldn’t drive around town in a car like this wearing a three-piece suit. Could she?
“I removed the hardtop myself,” he heard her say. “It was surprisingly easy.”
“So I see,” he replied, peering into an interior that was all cognac leather and fancy gadgets.
“Impractical, isn’t it?”
Straightening, he returned his gaze to hers
