* * *
Pulling the edges of her robe together, Lexi stumbled out of the shower. Embarrassment, sheer fury, plain terror, cycled through her in a matter of seconds.
Her robe clinging to her wet skin, she followed the six-foot French woman, who was utterly naked, into the lounge of the suite.
“Where is Nikos?” the woman said in a delicious French accent.
So that’s what this was about. “This is not Mr. Demakis’s suite,” Lexi managed, through the shock sputtering through her.
The woman’s shoulders were thrown back, a perfectly manicured hand on her hip, not an inch of the confidence with which she had simply barged into the shower that Lexi had been occupying, had left Emmanuelle at realizing her mistake.
Blinking, Lexi shook her head, the utter perfection of the woman’s body etched into her mind. She hurriedly looked around the lavish suite. The woman couldn’t have walked through the street and into the foyer naked, could she? Though with a body like hers, no one would blame her.
Spotting a towel, Lexi threw it at her and continued her search again.
She breathed in relief as her gaze fell on a small, silken red heap on the cream leather couch.
She pulled it up just when the door to the suite opened and in walked the man she wanted to strangle. With a keycard in his hand as if he owned the hotel. “I don’t believe this. Is the whole world just allowed to barge into my suite?”
His gaze moved from her face to the red silk dress in her hand and then toward Emmanuelle whose slender frame was hidden from the entrance.
The blasted man burst out laughing. The sound punched Lexi in the stomach, knocking the breath out of her.
Shaking with anger, she threw the dress at him with as much force as she could muster. The weightless garment fell silkily at his feet. “That woman barged into the shower, naked, and gave me the fright of my life.”
“Calm down, Ms. Nelson,” he said smoothly and picked up the dress.
Mumbling something Lexi couldn’t hear in Emmanuelle’s ear, he handed the dress to her.
Who, in turn, nodded and pulled her dress on. Next to Emmanuelle, who looked just as striking in her red dress as without it, Nikos was the very epitome of dangerous sophistication that Lexi might as well be from another galaxy.
Why she even cared she had no idea. Except that he was very good at turning her inside out.
“I’m assuming seeing Emmanuelle naked has sent your nervous system into shock?” With a look that took in everything from her wet hair to the thin silk robe that she had bought in the teen section of her local department store, he marched past her.
Knowing that he would just tease her mercilessly whatever she said, Lexi clamped her mouth shut. She stood there resolutely, refusing to hide.
Emmanuelle kissed his cheek, looked past him at Lexi, threw an air kiss at her and walked out of the suite.
Reaching her, he flicked a wet strand of her hair from her face. Lexi shivered, the hint of stubble on his jaw, the strong column of his throat, a feast to her senses. That sense of being tugged toward him came again. “Are you okay, or should I call for a doctor?”
She folded her arms. The prick of her nails into her skin was the only thing that helped her to focus on his words. “Am I in a bachelor-type reality show starring you?” Unwise curiosity gnawed at her. “Does the woman in New York know about this one?”
Wariness replaced the dark humor in his gaze. “Excuse me?”
“The brunette, your girlfriend in New York?”
He settled down onto the cream leather couch with a sigh, his long legs extended in front of him. “Nina’s not my girlfriend. I don’t think she would even like the term. And neither is Emmanuelle.”
“She walked in here, naked,” she said, her line of thinking shocking her, “and left like a kitten when you asked her to.” Mortification should have turned her into a red blob by now. “What was that whole...exchange?”
Clasping his hands behind his head, he slid lower into the couch and closed his eyes. “I told her I didn’t want to see her anymore and she left.”
“Then that was the end of your—” she scrunched her brow “—association?”
“Association, Ms. Nelson?” He leaned forward in the couch, something restless uncoiling in him. “Have I wandered into the sixteenth century? No wonder—”
“Affair then, okay?” she said hurriedly. She didn’t want another taunt about Tyler. “That was ruthless. You say it’s over and she leaves. Is that how—”
“How I conduct my sexual associations? Yes. And stop feeling sorry for her. If she had wanted to end it, I would have walked away, too.”