Private Pleasures

Chapter One

Mariah Stevens tiptoed around the shadowy bedroom, quietly picking up her scattered clothes so she wouldn't wake the man sprawled on the huge cherry-wood bed dominating the masculine room. Hunter green bedsheets were tangled in his long, muscular legs, and by sheer luck managed to drape over his hips just enough to cover him modestly. But the rest of his body was bare…gloriously, magnificently bare.

Looking away from that distracting chest and lean belly, she concentrated on her search. In her eight months of dating Grey Nichols she'd seen him naked plenty, but the sight of him never failed to arouse all her feminine instincts. One touch, even a simple, chaste caress, had the ability to melt her heart and body. The scoundrel knew it, too, and used that knowledge to his advantage.

Moonlight spilled into the room from an unshaded window, shimmering off her teal suit skirt and panty hose. She retrieved the items and added them to the neat pile at the foot of the bed, then picked up her slip.

Grey stirred, and she glanced in his direction. He stretched like a big, lazy cat, muscles and sinew rippling with the movement. The sheet dipped low as he reached toward the side of the bed she slept in when she spent the night. His hand grappled with air, her vacant pillow, then fell slack. His sable lashes drifted open and their eyes met. She stilled.

He had the most fascinating eyes. Like chocolate spun with the finest gold. Seductive, warm and altogether too sexy. She remembered thinking when they first met that he had bedroom eyes, the kind that had the ability to undress a woman in a single, sweeping glance, or make a woman shed her inhibitions and undress for him. He'd managed to do both.

A familiar honeyed warmth flowed through her, and she resisted the urge to do exactly what those incredible eyes were asking: take off the shirt she wore and slide back into bed.

The piece of lingerie slithered through her fingers like quicksilver and pooled on the rest of her garments. "Hi," she said.

"Hi, yourself." His voice was a sleepy rumble, his smile pure, unadulterated sin. "What're doin'?"

"Picking up my clothes." Finally spotting her panties by his walk-in closet-how in the world had they gotten clear across the room?-she scooped them up and put them on.

Rolling to his side, he leaned on his elbow and propped his head in his palm, watching her as she bent over. "The view is great, honey, but three hours after the fact isn't the time to start worrying about your clothes being wrinkled."

"I know that." She shot him an exasperated look, tempered by a soft smile. "I need to go."

He glanced at the glowing digital clock on his night-stand, then back at her. "It's past midnight. Stay the night."

"I can't." She disappeared into the bathroom for a moment and returned with a brush she kept in a drawer Grey had given her for her things.

He frowned. "Why not?"

She turned on the brass lamp on the dresser, illuminating the room with a soft glow. Pulling the brush through the tangles in her long, waist-length hair, she met his gaze in the mirror. "I don't have a change of clothes and I have an early appointment with a very important client."

"Let Jade handle the account."

At the mention of her sister and interior design partner, she shook her head. "He specifically asked for me." Separating her hair into three parts, she began braiding the blond strands. "He's a very conservative businessman who wants to redecorate his office. I'm afraid Jade's splashy, offbeat visions would scare him away."

Grey chuckled, the sound low and intimate in the dusky room. "You've got a point. Her clientele does tend to run toward the eccentric."

"That's why we work so well together." Finding an elastic band on his dresser, she tied off the end of her braid and flipped it over her shoulder. "We each have our own style, which gives our clients more variety."

He crooked his finger at her. "C'mere and I'll show you some variety."

"I've got to go, Grey." Regret tinged her voice. "Really."

He sighed heavily. "I hate it when you sneak out on me, you know that, don't you?"

She rolled her eyes at his exaggeration. "I never 'sneak' out on you." Opening one of his drawers, she rummaged through the contents until she found a pair of soft, drawstring sweatpants.

"Now what are you doing?"

"Borrowing a pair of sweatpants so I don't have to wear my suit home." She approached the bed, one brow lifted. "Do you mind?"

"Yeah, I mind." Quick as a snap, he manacled her wrist and tumbled her onto the bed. Quicker, he pinned her beneath the heat and strength of his body. She gasped and stared into dark, predatory eyes fueled with purpose. The sweatpants fell from her fingers and slid to the floor.

"Do you know," he said in a slow, deliberate drawl, "that you look great in my shirt?"

The meltdown began, liquefying her bones. When he wielded that seductive charm of his she couldn't resist him. Didn't want to. It amazed her how tender and playful Grey could be when they were alone, the ruthless, arrogant facade he presented to the rest of the world gone. "Yeah?" she prompted huskily.

"Umm." He nuzzled her neck while he unbuttoned the shirt in question, his fingers brushing the swell of her breasts. "You look even better wearing nothing at all."

She closed her eyes and automatically arched her neck for his mouth. A shiver of anticipation cascaded down her spine. She had to stop this madness.

"Grey-" His name escaped on a wispy catch of breath.

He lifted his head to stare into her eyes. "You fit perfectly into my life," he murmured.

Her heart skipped a beat. His words were the most intimate declaration he'd ever given her. She'd often wondered about fitting into his life, considering the unconventional way their relationship had evolved-quickly, and with a fiery passion that had both terrified and thrilled her. Grey was like no other man she'd ever known.

He'd pursued her with a single-mindedness, an l-want-you-in-my-bed kind of single-mindedness. And still, knowing his intentions, she'd fallen hard for him and his seduction of flowers, dinners and drugging kisses. Then came that fateful night in his office when a kiss had led to a touch, a touch to intimate caresses, shed clothing and wicked promises. When he'd gently pressed her onto his leather couch and followed her down, she'd lost her heart. Although he'd made her none of the promises she'd longed to hear, she'd been more than willing to make love with him.

Much to her surprise, he hadn't dropped her for another conquest, as was his reputation, she'd learned from a few male colleagues. She didn't know what made her different from all his other brief affairs, but it had never mattered. Being deliriously in love with someone tended to obliterate all reason.

They were good together and very compatible in bed-especially in bed, she thought with a private smile-in business and on a personal level, though she occasionally felt he kept a part of himself distanced from her. A part of his past he'd never shared before. Something emotional and painful. She'd granted him that privacy, hoping in time he'd come to trust her enough to confide in her.

Grey pushed the collar of his shirt off her shoulder, baring her breasts and bringing Mariah back to the present. Dark eyes watched her nipples grow taut in the cool night air. "I hate it when you leave in the middle of the night."

She loved that boyish pout of his. Smiling, she pressed her hands lightly against his chest, reveling in the feel of firm muscle and crisp, curly hair. "I can't help it."

He dragged his gaze back to hers. His serious expression tightened the lines around his eyes and mouth. "I want to wake up to you every day."

She searched his face, seeing a vulnerability that touched a tender chord in her and sped up her pulse. "What are you saying, Grey?"

He pulled in a deep breath. "You know I'll be moving into my new house next week."

"Yes." His "new" house was a breathtaking five-thousand-square-foot custom-built home that sat on a hill overlooking Malibu Beach. She'd spent the past six months consulting with Grey over tile squares, carpet samples, fabric swatches and wallpaper samples, along with selecting all new furnishings for each room. "The decorating was finalized two days ago and furniture should be delivered the beginning of the week. You should be able to move in by Friday. I'd be more than happy to help you box stuff and move it-"

He pressed two fingers against her lips to stop her babbling. "Mariah, there's something very important I want to ask you."

Her stomach flip-flopped, then a batch of butterflies hatched. He looked nervous, more nervous than she'd ever seen him. Beneath her palms, his heart raced. God, she was crazy in love with him, had known after a few months of dating that he was a man she could spend the rest of her life with. She'd been patient with him. Had he finally realized he loved her, too? That marriage was the only logical progression left to their relationship?

She'd waited forever for this moment, when some man would ask her to be his wife. Maybe it sounded a bit corny, but ever since she was a little girl she'd dreamed of getting married and having babies. In all her fantasies, she'd never envisioned Grey proposing in quite this way, but then Grey never did anything conventionally. All at once she was aware of her disheveled state after their evening together, her skin still tingling and glowing from his earlier possession.

She dampened her bottom lip with her tongue. "What is it?"

His intense gaze focused on her face. The stubble lining his jaw gave him a dark, dangerous edge. "We've been dating for eight months now," he stated, his tone rough.

She smiled, trying to lighten the moment for him and put him at ease. "Longer than you've been with any woman, I do recall you saying."

"True," he agreed, skimming a hand along the curve of her waist to her hip. "I don't want anyone but you. You're everything I've ever wanted. You're intelligent, beautiful, amusing and sexy as all hell."

"Flattery will get you everywhere, Nichols," she teased in a sultry voice. She twined her arms around his neck, feeling languorous and wonderfully exhilarated. "I'm glad you still feel that way."

"I've definitely met my match."

Excitement and anticipation mingled. She shifted restlessly beneath him, wanting to hear those four words that would irrevocably change the direction of her life. "What did you want to ask me, Grey?"

He cleared his throat, hesitated, then, "Will you… I mean, I think we should… Aw, hell," he muttered in frustration.

Seeing how difficult it was for him to propose, she decided to make it easy on him. She placed her hand on his bristly cheek, certain the love she felt for him shone in her eyes. "Yes, Grey," she whispered. "I'll marry you."

He blanched and jerked away from her, a horrified expression transforming his handsome features. "Marry?" The one word choked out of him.

"Yes." She frowned. Had she misunderstood his intentions? More cautiously, she continued. "That is what you were trying to ask me, wasn't it?"

Shaking his head wildly, he moved off the bed faster than a thief escaping a potentially volatile situation. "No!"

Confused, she sat up, pulling the edges of the shirt around her bare breasts. "Then what were you going to ask me?"

He filched the sweatpants she'd taken from his dresser and yanked them on, pulling the drawstring tight around his waist. He paced the floor, his mouth stretched into a grim line.

Feeling foolish that she'd misdiagnosed all the signs pointing toward a marriage proposal, she wrapped her arms around her drawn-up knees to hold herself together. "Grey?" Her voice was as tentative as she felt.

Abruptly he stopped a few feet away from her side of the bed. "I…I want you to move into my new house with me."

Her stomach took a dive off a very steep cliff, taking her heart with it. "Move in with you?" she echoed, praying she'd somehow heard him incorrectly.

He pushed his fingers through his thick, sable hair. "It's a practical arrangement, considering how we virtually live together as it is. Most of the time you stay here, but I'm tired of ping-ponging between both of our condos. And with you living with your sister, we rarely have any privacy at your place."

She stared at the man she loved, trying to claw her way out of the numbing shock of disillusionment fogging her mind. "You…you want to live together?"

He breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. "Yes."

She couldn't live with empty promises. Not again. No matter how much she loved him. "No."

He looked taken aback by her reply. "No?"

"No!" Her strength returned on a wave of determination. "I can't live with you, Grey."

"Why not? You know all my bad habits," he said, then added a shrug. "Not that I have many."

She lifted a brow at his arrogant assumption.

"Okay, I have a few habits that are less than desirable," he admitted, "but I'd hardly call squeezing the toothpaste from the middle of the tube a crime. And I know you hate it when I leave my underwear on the floor, but I eventually pick it up."

If they were having this discussion under different circumstances she'd be laughing by now. But that was difficult to do when she felt like crying instead. "This isn't about toothpaste or your underwear, Grey. It's about commitment."

He jammed his hands on his hips, looking offended. "I'm committed to you."

She swallowed the knot in her throat and tasted the awful bitterness of despair. "Not in the way that matters."

"I haven't dated anyone since you." She recognized the tight clenching of his jaw. An involuntary action that happened whenever he was losing control of a situation. "Eight months is longer than I've ever lasted in a relationship. Doesn't any of that matter?"

She smoothed her hand over the cool sheets, unable to lie to him. "Yes, it matters." But she wanted, and needed, more.

He sat on the edge of the bed next to her, searching her gaze for answers. "If it matters, then why can't you move in with me?"

Her one experience living with a man had given her a clearer perspective of what she wanted. This time she wasn't going to settle for less than full measure. "Because the day I move in with someone is the day I'm wearing a wedding ring. That's the kind of commitment I'm talking about. A forever kind of commitment. A total commitment shared by two people in love."

He rubbed his forehead with his fingers, his expression reflecting his misery. "You knew I wasn't looking for marriage when we got involved, that I don't intend to get married. Ever."

"Yes, you did say that, but I kept hoping your feelings would change."

"My feelings have changed," he stated emphatically. "I care for you more than I've cared for anyone in my entire life."

"I'm touched. Truly I am," she said, aching deep inside for something she knew would never be. "But it's not enough. Not anymore."

"It was enough a month ago, a week ago, a day ago," he pointed out, his voice rising in frustration.

"I love you, Grey." It wasn't the first time she'd said those words to him, yet the sudden terror in his eyes was as fresh and raw as the first time she'd declared her emotions to him.

He blinked away the panic and forcibly regained his composure. Grasping her hand, he brought it to his lap and held it gently. "I know you do, sweetheart-"

"Do you love me?"

His face paled, and the fingers stroking her palm stilled. "I've never asked another woman to live with me."

She managed to laugh. "I guess I should consider it an honor, but that's not what I asked you."

Dropping her hand, he stood and prowled around the room, his body tense. She watched him, trying to understand the perimeters of their relationship. Grey had never been one to express his emotions verbally; she'd learned that over their months together. He'd never told her he loved her, but she knew what they had together was special-special enough to base a future on. And sometimes, when he looked at her a certain way, she was positive he loved her, whether he verbally expressed the emotion or not.

"I don't know if what I feel for you constitutes as 'love,'" he said, shooting major holes in her theory. "Hell, Mariah, I don't even believe in love."

She hadn't known that. The knowledge hurt and saddened her. All her life she'd been surrounded by people who loved her, family who openly expressed their feelings and emotions. She wondered how she could have been so blind to this cynical side to Grey, how she could have believed he just needed time to fall in love with her.

"People grow to care for one another, and I care for you deeply," he went on. "Love is an illusion, a pretty word for something that doesn't really exist."

"That's not true," she argued. "My parents are in love, and they've been happily married thirty-nine years."

He shot her a skeptical look. "Your parents are in the minority. My mother claims to have been in 'love' four, no five times, and has been divorced just as many times." He shook his head in disgust. "If that's what love and marriage is all about, I don't want any part of it."

Mariah digested that. She didn't have to scratch much deeper than the surface of that speech to realize he'd had a crummy childhood. He'd never told her much about his family, just that he'd been an only child, and that his father had died when he was thirteen. Every time she'd ask, he'd brushed off the subject and gone on to another. Now she knew why. She wanted to know more about his parents, his childhood. But she really didn't think now was the time to discuss family relations.

Grey picked up his briefs lying on the floor and dropped them into the dark green hamper just inside the bathroom. "Why is marriage suddenly so important to you, Mariah?"

"It's always been important." Heavyhearted, she slid off the bed, instinctively knowing that after tonight they would never be the same. How could they be when they both had different visions for their futures?

He blocked her way to her clothes, his five-inch advantage and his dark scowl making him appear imposing. "Marriage wasn't important when you moved in with Dale Simmons."

She cringed at the reminder of her previous catastrophic relationship. "That's why I won't make that mistake again. It's too convenient living with someone. All the luxuries of a marriage without the emotional obligations. I want total commitment, Grey. All or nothing. And we've been together long enough, without living together, to know whether or not a marriage would work." He obviously didn't think one would, but then again, she'd just recently discovered that he didn't have much faith in the institution of marriage.

She attempted to step around him, but he blocked her path again. His intense gaze captured hers. "Did you love him?" he asked abruptly.

She didn't need to ask who he meant. "Yes."

"Did he love you?"

"Yes." At least for a while she'd known Dale loved her.

"The guy fooled around with other women behind your back!" he said, shaking his head incredulously. He grabbed her arms, his grip gentle but firm. "Doesn't that make you think, even for a moment, that love isn't all that it's cracked up to be?"

It had been poor judgment on her part. That, and Dale had strung her along with empty promises she'd been too naive to see through. At thirty-two she'd like to think she was wiser than she'd been at twenty-six.

"That experience has made me cautious about the men I date, but not totally against a lifelong commitment. I want that, Grey, and I want that with you, not the convenience of living with someone then deciding you want something better."

Grey dropped his hands back to his sides, feeling more defeated than he had in his entire life. She was asking for something he didn't have in him to give. He could tell her exactly what she wanted to hear, but if anything, their relationship had always been based on trust and honesty, and he refused to taint it with lies. And there was no way he'd let her believe he had any intentions of getting married. To anyone. Ever.

"I…I can't, Mariah," he whispered.

Tears welled up in her eyes, but she held her chin high. "Then I think we need to start seeing other people." She skirted past him.

He turned just in time to see her swipe a tear from her cheek. His stomach twisted into a gigantic knot. He never wanted to hurt her. He couldn't give her what she wanted, but he didn't want to lose her, either, no matter how selfish it seemed.

"I don't want to see anyone else, Mariah," he said, as if that might change her mind about them. About staying. About moving in with him.

Her back to him, she shrugged out of his shirt and slipped on her bra and blouse, then faced him while doing up the buttons. "Neither do I, but I don't want to invest anything more into a relationship that won't go any farther than this. I want a husband, Grey, and children. Do you want children?"

Her question caught him off guard. They'd never discussed kids before, but then he'd had no reason to. He'd always known they'd never be a part of his future, and that was the end of that discussion for him. Cut-and-dried. No compromise.

"That's what I thought." Weary resignation laced her voice. She stepped into her teal skirt and shimmied it up those long, slender legs he'd found so enticing when they'd first met. Once they'd slept together, those limbs had become an endless source of fascination for him.

"You don't want children, do you?" she asked, an odd catch to her voice.

He dragged a hand over his jaw, despising the old, painful childhood memories creeping up on him. Memories he wanted to remain dead and buried. "I'm too old to be a father."

Her gaze captured his. He was skirting the truth, and the shrewd look in her eyes told him she knew it, too. "Too old or too scared?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" he automatically responded, even as he mentally cursed her perception.

She gave a one-shoulder shrug and slipped into her sling-back pumps. "Being a parent is a scary proposition."

Caustic laughter escaped him. "Yeah, well, I'm afraid I didn't have a great role model growing up, therefore parenthood holds little appeal for me."

"I understand," she said softly as she gathered up the underthings she hadn't put on.

She didn't understand, not really, he thought a little desperately. And he didn't know how to explain emotions he hadn't thought about in over twenty years. An unhealthy bitterness toward a father who'd taken out his grudges on a little boy he'd resented from the start. And resentment toward a mother who'd been too afraid to risk her husband's contempt to protect her child from the emotional and verbal degradation Aaron Nichols had dished out.

No, Mariah would never understand, not when she'd been raised in a healthy atmosphere with traditional, honest values. Hell, he wouldn't know honorable family morals if they slapped him in the face.

A crushing pressure banded his chest. All his adult life he'd worked hard, his drive and ambition an asset to the small security company he'd built from scratch into a large corporation. He'd learned to wield control, manipulate situations to his advantage and depend on no one but himself. There was nothing he wanted that he hadn't been able to acquire.

Except now, with Mariah. He found it ironic that the one thing he wanted most he couldn't purchase with the millions his business turned over in a year's time. Mariah, it seemed, was priceless.

She turned to him, her eyes a misty blue. "I think it's best if we just end things now."

He didn't move, though his hands balled into tight fists at his sides. "Just like that, it's over?"

"We want different things from a relationship. That's obvious now. There's no sense in going any further." She took a shaky breath. "Goodbye, Grey."

He watched her walk out of his bedroom and his life, listening to the front door click behind her. He sank back onto the bed, an empty, bleak feeling consuming him. He'd spent the majority of his life alone, but he'd never felt so desolate until that very moment.

"Mariah, how long do you intend to mope around?"

Mariah glanced up from the evening news to her sister, Jade, who stood next to the couch with her hands on her skinny hips. She wore a tight leopard-skin top that hugged her curves and black spandex pants that disappeared into a pair of black leather boots. Her short golden brown hair was teased into a full style and today, thanks to the modern inventions of colored contact lenses, her eyes were a deep violet hue.

"I don't mope," Mariah mumbled. Tucking her legs under her on the couch, she wrapped her old chenille robe around her and reached for the bowl of frozen grapes on the end table. She popped one into her mouth and chewed.

"Correction. You never used to, until a week ago." Jade waved a hand in the air, and the stack of bangle bracelets on her arm tinkled with the gesture. "God, Mariah, you won't even let me erase Grey's answering machine messages because you want to hear his voice. If you haven't noticed, we've run out of tape."

Mariah chewed on another grape. "I'll buy a new one if you'll just leave me alone."

"No way. Somebody's gotta pull you out of this blue funk you're in. Just look at you," she said, shaking her head in disgust. "You're a mess. You only leave the condo to go to work, and even then you just stare off into space. And for goodness' sake, you can't live on frozen grapes alone."

She bit into another icy piece of fruit. "Why not?"

Jade gave an exasperated sigh. "I've never seen you like this before. Not even after you and Dale split up."

Her breakup with Dale had been inevitable, she'd seen that toward the end of their relationship. But with Grey the end had come so suddenly, without any warning. She loved him more than any man she'd ever had a relationship with, but in the end that hadn't been enough-for either of them. She stuffed three more grapes into her mouth.

"Riah," Jade said gently as she sat beside her sister, "even Mom and Dad are concerned about you. Especially Dad. You know how he gets when someone hurts one of his little girls. He was ready to pick up one of his shotguns and pay Grey a visit."

Mariah's head jerked up. "Tell me you're joking."

Jade shrugged, a smile tipping her mouth. "He was just feeling a little protective. He really liked Grey. We all did, and I think he had his hopes set on a wedding. And a grandchild."

Mariah groaned at her father's relentless pursuit to see his daughters married. And his continual reminder that they hadn't managed to give him any grandchildren to bounce on his knee before his arthritis got too bad. "That's not going to happen anytime soon, at least not with Grey. 'Wedding' and 'children' aren't in his vocabulary."

"If that's the case, it's time to move on to new and better adventures."

She shuddered at the thought of dating again, of trying to find someone who shared the same interests and had the same goals. Someone caring, confident, yet sensitive when it counted. Sexy didn't hurt, either, with sable hair and drown-in-them-forever brown eyes. Too late, she realized, she'd just described Grey.

"I don't want to move on," she said woefully.

Compassion softened Jade's expression. "Riah, no man is worth all this self-destruction. Take it from me. I know firsthand."

Yes, she did, Mariah thought, putting the half-eaten bowl of grapes aside. After a very rocky relationship had nearly stripped her of all confidence, Jade had pulled herself from the depths of despair and emerged as a whole new person.

Jade was right. She was wallowing in self-pity, and it changed nothing. It made her feel a little better, but it didn't alter the empty, lonely feeling inside her. No, she didn't think that would go away for a long, long time.

Taking a shaky breath, she met her sister's caring gaze. "Oh, Jade, I don't know what to do. I miss him so much it hurts. I almost don't care if he won't marry me, just so I can be with him. But then I know we'll eventually break up again, and I'll have to suffer all over."

"I know it's hard, hon," Jade said, patting her knee. "I think what you need to do is get out and meet new men so you can forget about Grey."

She pleated the end of her robe's sash. "I wish it was as easy as that."

"It is."

Mariah frowned, skeptical of the sudden enthusiastic sparkle in Jade's eyes. "It is?"

"Yep." She grinned. "First, we're going to get you a whole new look."

Mariah gulped. "We are?"

Jade nodded. "A head to toe makeover." Picking up a long strand of Mariah's blond hair, she eyed the length critically. "Have you ever thought of trying a new hairstyle, maybe cutting it shorter?"

Once, right after she'd met Grey. But when she'd mentioned it to Grey he'd balked at the suggestion, claiming how much he loved her silky long hair. Gently, but firmly, she pulled her hair from her sister's clutches. "No," she lied.

"Too bad. A shorter cut would look awesome on you." Grasping Mariah's chin between thumb and forefinger, she tilted her head up for her inspection. "You've got great cheekbones that you never take advantage of. Ever thought of colored contacts? Green would be stunning."

Mariah pulled her chin back, her lips pursed. "Absolutely not."

"Okay, okay," Jade said, relenting. "But we'll definitely have to spruce up that wardrobe of yours."

"What's the matter with my clothes?" Mariah reached for the bowl of grapes.

Jade caught her sister's hand midstretch and placed it back in her lap. "Your suits are blase, and the dresses you wear are too conservative. You've got a great figure, Mariah, and lots of cleavage. Display it to your advantage."

Mariah pulled the lapels of her robe higher around her neck.

"And I've seen that dreadful cotton underwear you wear." Jade feigned a loud yawn. "Bor-ing."

"It's comfortable," Mariah said, feeling silly that she had to defend her choice of underwear to her sister.

Jade dismissed her with a wave of her bangled arm. "Trust me, silk feels much better against your skin, and it makes you feel sexy and feminine. It'll boost your sagging spirits."

Mariah was doubtful that a change in lingerie would make her heartache go away but at the moment, looking down at herself in a frumpy robe and socks with holes in them, feeling sexy did hold a certain appeal. "Okay. When do we start this makeover?"

"This weekend. Saturday we'll visit Pierre, my hairdresser, just to trim up the ends of your hair," she assured Mariah when she started to protest. "Then we'll spend the rest of the day getting pampered-facials, manicure, pedicure, massage. The works."

Mariah felt a smile coming on, and gave into the urge to let it spread across her face. "Sounds like an…interesting day."

"Oh, but that isn't all." Sitting back, she rested an arm across the back of the couch and crossed her long legs, her face wreathed in excitement. "Sunday we spend shopping for your new wardrobe, and in between all this we're gonna clean your room of any traces of Grey. Last, but certainly not least, we're going manhunting at Roxy's Nightclub."

"Manhunting?" Mariah's voice squeaked.

"For a new boyfriend." She leaned closer and gave Mariah a dazzling smile. "For you."

Letting Jade organize her closet and makeup drawer was one thing, but she didn't trust her sister with her personal life. "I don't want a new boyfriend."

"You don't think you do, but hey, life does go on, and as Dad puts it, he's not getting any younger." She pressed a hand with long red nails against her chest. "I certainly don't have any plans to tie the knot any time soon, so that makes you Dad's only hope. Do you remember Richard Sawyer?"

The switch in subjects threw Mariah off-kilter. "You mean the lawyer who came to see you about a consultation on redecorating his office?"

"That's the one. Tall, blond, rich, with a great body," she recited breezily. "Well, when he was in a couple of weeks ago to sign his contract he asked about you," she said, tapping her knee with a fingernail. "He sounded very interested, if you know what I mean."

She'd been so completely Grey's-heart, body and soul-that the thought of another man touching her, even holding her hand, bothered her. "I don't know, Jade-"

"Tell you what," Jade cut her off with a wink. "I'll tell him you're recently uninvolved and very available, and we'll let nature take its course."

Mariah rubbed her forehead. She couldn't mourn Grey forever. There would come a time when she'd have to cut her losses and move on and date other men. Her heart rebelled, but logically she knew that was the only smart thing to do. Because, ultimately, she wanted a husband and children, and she couldn't do that without a mate. She sighed in resignation. "Okay, set me up." Jade clapped her hands gleefully. "Let the new Mariah emerge!"