her neck.
Skye had the kind of beauty that made men drool like dogs in a butcher shop. Lexi would swear there were times she’d heard them pant. Skye was the earth goddess, while she, Lexi, was always compared to an ice princess. Cold, unobtainable and remote. The contrast had never made her happy.
Whenever she overheard men talking about the two of them she wanted to protest that she could be warm and sexy, too. She was fairly sure. But it wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have and not an argument she was sure she could win.
“At least I’m not bleeding,” Izzy said cheerfully as she came out of the bathroom. She saw Lexi and grinned. “You got engaged and didn’t tell me?”
Lexi laughed and moved toward her. “You’re crushed, right?”
Izzy, dressed only in a thong and strapless bra, hugged her tight. “Beyond crushed. You look good. Tell me about the guy. Is he hot? He should be hot.”
Lexi stepped back. “He’s hot.”
“So
“Did you see this?” Skye asked, pointing at Izzy’s leg.
Lexi glanced down, then winced at the long scrape. The red skin and thick scab went from midthigh to just below her knee.
“I don’t even want to know what you did to get that,” Lexi muttered.
“Rock climbing.” Izzy sounded cheerful. “I slipped. It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
Lexi looked at Skye who rolled her eyes.
“She’s never going to grow up,” Skye said. “I’ve told her to be careful, but does she listen?”
“Oh, please,” Izzy told her. “I’m plenty grown up.”
The two sisters sniped at each other in a loving, familiar way. Lexi listened and tried to enjoy the conversation, all the while feeling slightly on the outside.
It had always been that way, she thought wistfully. Skye and Izzy were only a year apart. She was three years older. Skye and Izzy shared both a mother and a father. Lexi only had Jed in common with them. Sometimes she felt like the odd sister out.
Izzy slid into a pair of silk pants with a slit up the side. The opening stopped just below the wound. Next she shimmied into a bright-red halter top that perfectly suited her dark hair and hazel eyes. She was the sexy wild child.
She faced herself in the mirror. “Okay, I look great. So Lexi, let’s hear all about the guy. Cruz Rodriguez. I’ve heard about him. He’s rich, which isn’t all that interesting. But he owns race teams. I wonder if he’d let me drive one of the really fast cars.”
“You can ask,” Lexi told her, making a mental note to tell Cruz to say no. Izzy didn’t need anyone fueling her need for adventure.
“You’re not pregnant, are you?” Izzy asked.
Lexi coughed. “No. Not even close.” That would require sex, something she’d managed to avoid for nearly two weeks.
“Just wondered. You’ve avoided being tied down for a while now. I didn’t know what had changed your mind.”
“She fell madly in love,” Skye said, watching them both. “At least that’s the story she told me. Is there a different one now?”
Lexi kept her expression pleasant when she really wanted to run for cover. “No. Love it is.”
“Hmm.” Skye looked as if she wanted to argue.
Izzy picked up the gold-and-diamond necklace she’d left on the dresser. “Better you than me,” she said. “I would hate being tied down. Guys are great. I mean sex, sure. Where’s the bad? But commitment? So not my thing.”
“Family matters,” Skye told her. “Roots are important. Don’t you want to belong to someone? To have a place?”
Izzy fastened her necklace, then put her finger in her mouth and made a gagging sound.
Lexi smiled as she thought about how different they all were. Skye and Izzy shared a mother, but they were still worlds apart. Skye wanted a traditional life. Izzy wanted to experience every thrill possible, then do it all again. And Lexi…She frowned, not sure exactly where she fit in. Maybe somewhere in the middle?
Everything was different now, she thought sadly. Since Jed had set them against each other.
“What’s wrong?” Izzy asked, meeting her gaze in the mirror.
“Nothing.”
“It’s something.”
“Jed. The deal. Winner take all.”
The sisters looked at each other.
“He has his reasons,” Skye said, sounding prim.
“They’re stupid reasons,” Izzy said. “He’s a total jerk.”
Maybe, Lexi thought, but for all Izzy’s claims that her father’s opinion didn’t matter, the youngest of them hadn’t been willing to tell him she wasn’t interested.
Winner take all, she thought. Which meant two of them got nothing. They had joked that Lexi wanted the business, Skye wanted Glory’s Gate and Izzy wanted the world. In truth, what they wanted was a father who loved them. Winner take all.
She shook off the depressing subject. “Izzy, do you know Garth Duncan?”
Her baby sister turned to face her. “I’ve heard of him but I don’t think we’ve met. Why? Would I like him?”
Lexi laughed. “I have no idea. I just wondered.”
“Will I like Cruz?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t hesitate,” Skye said. “You’re that sure?”
Lexi worried about a lot of things, but her sisters meeting her fiance, as fake as that relationship might be, wasn’t one of them.
“I’m that sure,” she said.
They went downstairs. Cruz stood by the bar, talking to another man. Skye pointed him out to Izzy.
“That’s the one.”
Cruz must have sensed their interest. He turned and flashed his killer smile. Lexi quivered all the way down to her toes. Beside her, Izzy used her fingers as a fan.
“When you’re done with him, can I have him?” her baby sister asked in a whisper. “Just for sex. It wouldn’t be serious. He’s gorgeous.”
“That is beyond tacky,” Skye muttered. “Izzy, you’re impossible.”
“That’s why I have the most fun.”
Cruz moved toward them. Lexi made the introductions. He was charming, as ever, but only seemed to be looking at her. She felt the heat in his gaze. The wanting. Her body stirred in response and for a moment she had trouble remembering why she bothered resisting him at all.
CHAPTER SIX
CRUZ ACCEPTED THE congratulations of men he’d done business with for years. He saw them assessing him, thinking that now they would have to accept him. Some made the change easily, others resisted.
The engagement party was as elegant as he’d imagined, with about two hundred people there to wish him and Lexi well. Most of the women looked at him as if they understood why she would want him in her bed, while the men wondered if they’d made a mistake in letting her stay single so long.
This was everything he’d claimed to want, he reminded himself as he took a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. Or nearly everything. The engagement was a means to an end. He would go through this all again
