How to Resist Prince Charming(56)

Tom frowned. “Now, what’s that supposed to mean? What do you know?”

“I don’t know anything, Tom. It’s just a mother’s intuition, okay?”

“Honestly, dear,” he called back on a snort. “I don’t know where you get your ideas. Lenna is not dating anyone without telling us about it. We’d know.”

Unless…maybe her one date with Spencer’s youngest boy, Tyler, had gone better than she’d let on. Maybe she was going to surprise them with an engagement announcement. To be honest, he wouldn’t mind her being settled and secure with a Farris…just not the damn, infuriating Farris he currently worked for.

“Did you see her tonight?” Maxine asked. “She glowed. She absolutely glowed.”

“Yeah.” He rolled his eyes, even though his mind whirled. “Because she’d just gotten a real job.” If he were his youngest daughter, he’d add Duh right there, but he managed to hold himself back.

“I don’t think so,” Maxine said. “She’s been acting differently for over a month now. She hasn’t been coming to Sunday suppers as much, and her reasons for not being able to make it have always been so vague. Then there’s that gleam in her eyes lately. I can’t explain it. Something’s going on with her, Tom, something besides a career.”

Maxine finally strolled fully into the room, dressed in a long nightgown. She paused and frowned at the half-cleared bed where Tom had stopped messing with the pillows and was standing there frozen with shock on his face. With her own impatient sigh, she took up his job, ridding the bed of the excess cushions.

“I think she’s in love,” she finally said, tossing the last accessory into an armchair.

Tom shook his head. “Well, I think your motherly instincts are all out of whack. She’s just happy about her new job.” He refrained from bringing up the dreaded M word. But menopause had been starting to plague his wife lately. That’s probably what this was all about.

“Maybe,” was Maxine’s demure reply as she folded back the covers. “Maybe not.”

Tom rubbed his bottom lip between his fingers. Well, damn. She seemed so sure of herself. It made him think of that nineteen-year-old Farris kid again.

Lenna Farris?

Hmm. Didn’t sound so bad.

But he despised the idea of Maxine knowing more about Lenna than he did. Their oldest had always been a daddy’s girl, and he preferred to keep it that way. If Maxine had tapped into something about Lenna he hadn’t, he’d be...well, she was wrong. That’s all there was to it.

He could be cruel and remind her he’d always been closer to Lenna than she had. He knew more about their firstborn. But Maxine looked quite lovely in her silky, brown nightgown.

He appreciated the way the material kept sliding over her body and teasing him with glimpses of soft curves. Upsetting her was the last thing he wanted to accomplish.

Reassuring himself he knew Lenna better, he agreeably murmured, “Maybe,” as he followed Maxine onto the mattress and between the sheets, not giving the Lenna-in-love idea another thought.

He flipped off his night light and reached for his wife.



The Sunday before Lenna started her first day at ProTech, Braxton leaned against the opened door to her apartment as he watched her call her family and tell them she couldn’t make it to supper...again. Instead, the two of them went to a fancy restaurant and decided to celebrate her new job.

When they returned to her apartment afterward, they spent most of the evening sitting cross-legged on her bed, discussing the people she’d be working with the next day. Braxton fed her more information about her future co-workers than she could possibly remember. She merely watched him, nodding, as he grew animated, talking about his old position.

A small frown puckered her brow. “I still don’t see why you left,” she finally said.

Braxton paused and glanced away. “Because... my dad asked me to,” he tried to explain without explaining.

Lenna opened her mouth. He saw a “but” coming, so he quickly added, “Now, Donna Jorgensen is a real airhead. If you ask her to do something for you, don’t expect it to get done right. You’ll know her by her long, curly, red hair.”

He went on, detailing every ProTech employee he remembered, not providing Lenna the opportunity to ask him again why he’d left. He didn’t want to think about the reason he’d deserted his dream job in order to fill his father’s shoes at Farris.

To distract her, Braxton kissed her until they were both breathless.

She tugged his shirt up over his head to press her mouth frantically to his chest. “You should be ashamed, you know,” she panted while she batted his hand away from his zipper and lowered it herself.

Thinking she’d caught on to his diversionary tactic, he lifted his face, eyes wide and mouth already open to spit out an apology.

But Lenna only grinned as she reached inside his pants and cupped his testicles. “How could you turn a perfectly innocent goody-two-shoes like me into a complete nympho?”

Grinning in relief, Braxton kissed her lips and murmured, “Because I’m damned lucky.”



Late that night, Braxton woke in the wee hours. After having a nasty dream about Tom Davenport stealing Lenna away so he could never find her again, he couldn’t get back to sleep. Next to him, she slept on, looking too peaceful to be experiencing her own disturbing nightmare.