Page 48 (1/2)

CHAPTER ONE

WHY HADN’T SHE been paying attention?

Why hadn’t she registered the horribly faravel?

If Lexi hadn’t been thinking about silver earrings—the type which caught the light when youon the bell As it was, she was completely distracted when she pulled open the door to see the towering for off his ebony hair

His stance was fixed and iht which surrounded hi up a dark spill of ink

Lexi’s heart contracted with pain The last tiers which had been tree A blue tie, she recalled—which had matched his eyes perfectly

His gaze licked over her now like a cobalt flaaze Was he? Didn’t he once tell her that whenever a ht be like to make love to her? And she had listened to him of course, because Xenon had been the expert when it caan to thump heavily in her chest

Why was he here?

She wished she’d had ti to iht he looked shocked As shocked as she felt—though she suspected his momentary loss of composure was for very different reasons She knew she looked nothing like the woazed up at hi but a distant memory These days she wore the sas as other women No more couture and fast cars Her hand strayed up to push an errant strand of hair behind her ear No more expensive trips to the hair salon either

While he, of course, looked exactly the same

Six feet two and eyes of blue Xenon Kanellis An olive-skinned powerhouse of a end in his native Greece A ed beauty And a ain

‘X-Xenon,’ she said, her voice stu time