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if you insist you’re not attracted to him, I’ll just get rid of this.” She cast a meaningful glance at the trash can and eased to her feet.
    Quick as a snap, I grabbed her arm and snatched the tabloid. “Give me that.” As if I hadn’t stared at it for the last hour, I studied the large black-and-white photo gracing the front page.
    Royce had his arm around a leggy brunette, a slight smile curling his lips. The caption underneath read, “Son of multimillionaire Elliot Powell caught with Gwendolyn Summers. Has Royce found his bride already?”
    The article vaguely mentioned the two were at some sort of charity gala for kids with cancer, and I had to wonder which was the real Royce. The womanizer I suspected him to be—wife applications, for God’s sake—or the Good Samaritan who donated money and time to charity?
    I sighed. To my consternation, the last two weeks had passed with amazing speed, and most of my nights had been filled with images of Royce and me cavorting like sex-starved nymphs who had only a few days to live.
    I couldn’t banish the man from my mind.
    After getting a new driver’s license and finding a new tube of Chocolate Mystique lipstick—which had taken four hours and six different stops—I should have been happy. Instead, I thought of nothing but Royce. And that made me…unhappy.
    He’d sent me a check, as promised, with a note attached that said if I had any trouble finding the right lipstick to let him know and he’d have one made. How sweet was that? I wouldn’t have taken him up on it, but still. I was on the road to obsession,almost to the point where Royce would need a restraining order against me.
    I knew better than to let myself desire the man. Yes, Royce was handsome (okay, deliciously gorgeous), but he was a Triple C, just like Richard. Plus, he apparently wanted a wife. I never wanted to get married again.
    Did my body care about that? Noooo.
    Each evening before I went to bed, I made a list of the reasons why I shouldn’t be attracted to Royce, why I shouldn’t want to rip the clothes from his body and have my wicked way with him. In fact, I’d made several lists.
    None of them helped.
    “Look, even if I did drool over him,” I told my cousins, “Royce is a man. That means he’s only interested in women who are not boobularly challenged.”
    Frowning, Mel brandished the butter knife she held through the air. “Boobs so don’t matter anymore. Flat is in. Flat is the new black.”
    My brows arched. “Then why is the implant business booming? Why are push-up bras in such demand?”
    She obviously didn’t have an answer, so she shook her head and said, “Forget boobs. You said he kept staring at your lips.”
    “I had dirt on them.” I’d noticed the moment I returned home and had almost died of embarrassment. I’d also wished Royce to everlasting hell for not telling me.
    “He probably wanted to lick the dirt away. Thefact is, you’ve got yourself a pair of hooker lips. The man wanted them all over his body, is my guess.”
    “I’ll concede that he might, might have liked my lips, but he couldn’t care less about the rest of me.” He hadn’t even asked me out after I’d fallen into his crotch. Not that I would have said yes, I quickly reminded myself.
    “Sure, you’re not pretty in the classic sense, but that doesn’t mean you’re dog food.”
    I almost choked on my muffin. When I regained my voice, I said, “Gee, thanks Mel. I feel so much better about myself now. In fact, my self-esteem has suddenly skyrocketed.”
    “You’re misunderstanding.” Mel sighed, the breathy sound layered with exasperation. “Your look is fragile, like a cameo. Something most women can never achieve. You’ve got the kind of appeal that forces a man’s protective instincts to surface.”
    Kera grinned slowly. “She’s right. And I think you’re a closet sex kitten, Naomi.”
    Closet sex kitten. Meeeeoooow. No one had ever accused me of that before. In fact,