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Category: Romance/General Nonfiction
Description: When Jason and Lexi meet at last, he is incensed that she kept her pregnancy secret, he would have come back and married her. His 8-year old son, Raph, adores his father, somewhat to Lexi's dismay. She wants to be the only parent in her son's life. Jason reveals her innate selfishness in denying him his rightful place as Raph's father. Realizing Raphael may not want to employ a woman who is so ungenerous to his brother, she agrees to a marriage in name only, for the sake of her son. When Lexi has to fly to New York to initiate changes in accounting, Jason's father forces a meeting with this common conniver, as he calls Lexi. Terrified, she phones Jason for help. Will his help consist of protecting Lexi by throwing his father out of the apartment, or will he stay to help Lexi surrender to the love there was, once, between them?
eBook Publisher: DCL Publications LLC, 2008 Australia
eBookwise Release Date: December 2008

5 Reader Ratings:

Great	Good	OK	Poor

Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [253 KB]
Words: 53904
Reading time: 154-215 min.

"I enjoyed this story despite some very unlikable characters. I found Jason and his family to be manipulative, often undermining both Lexi's authority with her son, who I will admit is a well brought up little boy, and her confidence in herself. Everyone seems to blame her for hiding her son from his father, but she was little more than a child when she got pregnant, and more importantly, Jason's brother knew where she was and what she was doing the whole time. That aside, and fortunately before the child becomes completely contemptuous of his mother, the two find common ground and this becomes a very good love story. I liked that the characters are realistic, not overly noble or perfect, and the love story heats up wonderfully as time goes on. Lexi and Jason are never boring in this very engrossing tale."--Maura Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance

The only sound in the hotel room was the whispering chill of the air conditioning.

Jason Thalassinos lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, wondering what on earth had possessed him to go to the Acapulco's elegant bar in the afternoon. Letting this woman--blonde, attractive, but not Lexi--talk him into going up to her room with her. To have his libido vacuumed? Hardly. He hadn't even been in the mood for that, but the woman--what was her name again? - had been soft-spoken and gently persuasive. That must've been it. Her gentleness had reminded him of Lexi, whom he had loved so desperately that summer, nine long years ago. Lexi, who had moved away without telling him, and who remained lost to him, in spite of his best efforts to find her.

Suddenly aware that the woman was talking, he turned toward her. He noticed that her triangle of curls was considerably darker than her hair. As if he cared. He tried to concentrate on what she was saying.

"Jase, you seem miles away. I thought, after such fabulous sex, your attention would stay here in the room with me."

Yes, he thought. Sex. That's all it was. That's all it ever is, now. Only with Lexi did I make love. Still, that isn't the blonde's fault.

He smiled at her. "I'm pleased you were pleased."

"Oh, Jase, I was more than merely pleased ... You're a fabulous lover, but I'm sure you've heard that many times before. Jase?"

He thought: If she calls me 'Jase' one more time ... Dammit, I can't stand this any longer.

"I have to get going," he said, rising from the bed in one fluid movement.

The woman gave him a long, considering glance, taking in his dark, unusually handsome face, his tall, rangy build, the deep chest with the sprinkling of black hair outlining his muscular pecs, and forming a line to his navel and on, losing itself in the raven curls surrounding his manhood, impressive even now, dormant. She wondered if she could entice him back to bed, because he really had been a quite exceptional lover, twice, with hardly any recovery time.

"Jase, I thought we could..." she began, but Jason interrupted.

"No, honey. I told you I didn't have a lot of time. I've got to get home." He realized he sounded unreasonably curt, which was unfair. His long-time unhappiness wasn't this woman's doing.

"Well, yes, but since we're so fantastic together, I supposed..."

Then you supposed wrong, Jason thought savagely.

He forced himself to smile, and speak pleasantly. "No, honey. I warned you not to expect more, remember?"

He picked up his clothes from the floor, and disappeared into the bathroom. He came out after a while, his raw silk suit surprisingly immaculate, bearing in mind that it had been lying in a heap for the past hour. The Armani people had sworn this fabric wouldn't crease or wrinkle, and they'd just been proved right.

He went over to the bed, briefly touching the woman's shoulder in a casual farewell. "Bye, honey. Have a nice life," he said, and walked out of the room.

Jason went to the Acapulco's guest parking and found his car. Or rather, he thought uneasily, Alicia's car. His dead wife's car. Definitely not his sort of car at all. A dark blue, four-door Lexus. Come to think of it, not her sort of car, either. She had favoured what she called 'young' cars.

Tonight, at dinner with his brother and sister-in-law, he should mention the Lexus, and ask if Lydia wanted to keep her mother's car.

He smiled wryly. What had he been thinking of when he married his sister-in-law's mother? Out of compassion, he'd thought at the time. She had seemed so lost and unhappy, but invariably he could make her laugh. Hardly a sound reason for proposing. Still...

Jason shook his head ruefully. Clearly he had no talent for marriage, although he admitted the deck had been heavily stacked against him. Alicia ... Great looking woman for her age, but twenty years older than he. After three unhappy weeks of marriage, she had given him back his freedom by killing herself.