Barbara Dunlop - The Elliotts - Bedroom Secrets - Under Deepest Cover

“No. But you were looking at me.”

“I was looking because the clothes and hair color are still so different. I have to get used to them.”

“Me, too. I hadn’t realized how positively frumpy I’d become. But even in my wilder days, I still looked like me.”

“You still look like you.” He came and sat next to her at the bar, then leaned close enough that she could smell the faint scent brought on by his morning exertions. Not expensive cologne, but soap and sweat. A healthy, male scent. “Your smile is the same. You have a very pretty smile, only you don’t use it enough.”

“I don’t have much to smile about.” But that really wasn’t true. Yes, she’d become the target of some unsavory people, and yes, she’d lost her job and her home and her very identity. But she just didn’t care that much about those things. She was hanging out with a dangerously sexy spy and she was going to help him solve a crime. She had a wardrobe to die for and a personal-style consultant any woman in the world would give up her acrylic nails for.

“That’s better,” Bryan said, and Lucy realized she’d given him the requested smile.

Four hours later Lucy was in Victoria’s Secret, feeling a bit like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Bryan had taken her first to get the contacts. She’d been fitted on the spot with a pair of bright-green lenses, and she’d walked out of the optometrist’s office feeling unburdened without the heavy glasses. She could see better, too. She’d forgotten how superior vision with contacts could be.

Next, Bryan had taken her shopping for all the things Scarlet hadn’t provided—mostly athletic clothes. He’d bought her a pair of first-class Nike running shoes and a couple of color-coordinated designer outfits. She’d never worn designer clothing before yesterday, thinking it was silly to pay so much for a label. But she’d found out the clothes really were superior in quality. The fit and feel were fantastic.

She’d mentioned that she didn’t have any sleepwear, so Bryan led her into the pricey lingerie store.

“We don’t have to do anything this fancy,” she protested. “You’ve already spent so much—”

“I can afford it. I want you comfortable, and you can’t be comfortable in some cheap polyester pajamas.”

“I can’t be comfortable in a peek-a-boo nightie, either,” she pointed out. But as she looked around, she realized the sleepwear here was gorgeous—not the least bit sleazy. She saw beautiful silk nightgowns in the most delicious pastels, but she also saw some pretty cotton nightshirts, and she knew that was what she should choose. Something supercomfortable.

“Uh-oh,” Bryan muttered as she tried to find her size in a peach nightshirt.

Lucy’s skin prickled with nerves. “What?” Had the bad guys tracked her down already? She glanced around, wondering if there was anyplace she could duck for cover if bullets started to fly.

“It’s my stepmother. Of all people.” He sounded disgusted. “Put down that nightshirt. I wouldn’t buy a girlfriend anything like that. Here.” He grabbed three skimpy nightgowns from a rack and thrust them at her. “Go try these on. Maybe you won’t have to meet her. Oh, cripes, she’s seen us. Too late.”

The woman in question was petite and very thin, with unnaturally platinum hair in an expensive cut. She wore a pair of snug, low-rise jeans and a clingy shirt that looked pretty good on her surgically enhanced figure.

She might have been pretty but for the superior sneer on her face, which Lucy guessed was perpetual.

“Bryan, what on earth are you doing in a lingerie store?”

“Hi, Sharon,” he said without much enthusiasm. The two didn’t touch. “I’m buying a gift. This is Lindsay Morgan. Lindsay, my stepmother, Sharon Elliott.”

Sharon nodded her acknowledgment while giving Lucy a thorough once-over. “Soon to be Sharon Styles again, thank God.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Lucy said politely. “Bryan, I’ll just go try these on and give you two a chance to visit.” And she scurried toward the dressing room, anxious to escape the obvious tension between Bryan and his stepmother. Her absence would also give Bryan a chance to explain her presence however he chose, without worrying she would say something to mess up his story. She was so new at this undercover thing, and she figured it was better if she got used to it in small doses. She hadn’t forgotten the crazy story she’d blurted out to Scarlet, which they now had to live with.

When she got to the dressing room, she quickly undressed and tried on one of the silk nightgowns. Though Bryan had chosen the clothing at random, he’d gotten her size right, and the gown was absolutely gorgeous.

Without meaning to, she pictured herself wearing it in Bryan’s loft. With Bryan looking on approvingly.

Though there was no one present to know her thoughts, her face flamed. She decided right then she would choose this gown—and a couple more just as sexy. She was done being frumpy, even if Bryan would never see the lovely scraps of silk on her.

“Who is she?” Sharon asked the moment she and Bryan were alone.

“I met her in Paris, but she’s from Kansas,” Bryan said, sticking to the story Lucy had told Scarlet. Although Sharon didn’t have much contact with the family since the divorce proceedings had begun, she did talk to Bryan’s father from time to time as they wrangled over the settlement details.

“And you’re buying her lingerie?”

He shrugged. “Something wrong with a man buying his girlfriend lingerie?”

Sharon’s eyebrows flew up. “Oh, so she’s your girlfriend. I don’t recall that you’ve had a girlfriend in a number of years.” As if that made him suspect.

Bryan chose to let that comment pass. “Lindsay is pretty special.”

“She seems very … sweet,” Sharon said. “Well, I must get on with this. I’ve been invited to a wedding shower, and though I hate those things, it’s at the Carlyle, and I heard there might be a couple of celebrities present.”

That figured. Sharon had always been a social climber extraordinaire. She came from a wealthy family—Patrick had handpicked her for his son Daniel, after all. But her parents weren’t famous-rich, like the Elliotts, and she’d reveled in her society-wife role, snubbing her old friends and collecting a new, richer batch. Now she was trying to elevate her status even higher.

He didn’t dislike Sharon, for she’d been tolerant enough to him and his brother, Cullen, two boisterous stepsons. But she didn’t give him any warm fuzzies, and she’d been pretty obstinate about the divorce.

She drifted away to shop, and Bryan found himself alone, staring at the wide array of sexy lingerie. Each thing he looked at—each bra and panty set, each nightie, each thong—he couldn’t help but picture on Lucy.

He’d been hoping last night was just a fluke, that he’d merely been turned on by the glamorous trappings Lucy had displayed. But when he’d seen her this morning, he’d known it was something far deeper than clothes or hair color that attracted him to Lucy Miller.

Lucy had an inner core of goodness that radiated from her. He’d never met anyone like her. He, on the other hand, was part of an ugly, shadowy world. Their two worlds were colliding, but that contact could only be temporary. She didn’t belong in his, nor he in hers. He had to remember that.

Lucy reappeared a few minutes later. “Is she gone?”

He nodded. Sharon had grabbed a slinky black nightgown, paid for it and left without a backward glance. He wondered if she would find an excuse to call his dad and report what she’d seen. Despite the pending divorce, Sharon loved to gossip. “I’ll put those up for you,” he said to Lucy, holding out his arms. “You can go back to the nightshirts.”