Free Just Kiss Me by Rachel Gibson Page A

drive you,” Nonnie volunteered her son like he was a chauffeur service, then turned her attention to the voice on the phone. “Oh that’s great.”
    Vivien glanced at Henry and the aggravation chasing away his slight smile. As a boy, he’d often been kind of scary and intense. As a man, he looked more dark and broody than scary, like Heathcliff or Mr. Darcy or Joe Manganiello.
    “I’ll take a cab,” Vivien said rather than risk Henry getting stormy or pensive or going werewolf on her.
    “I’ll drop you off at Berlin’s,” he offered but he didn’t sound happy about it.
    “Yes, that’s right.” Nonnie paused and looked at Vivien. “What size are you, dear?”
    “Zero.”
    ZERO. ZERO WASN’T a size. It was nothing. Zip zilch zippo. Diddly-squat. It was a goose egg, a bagel, a rolling doughnut. It wasn’t the size of a woman. Or least it shouldn’t be the size of a woman.
    Henry sat in a black-and-white chair, leaning forward with his forearms on his thighs, and pretending to read the fashion magazine in his hands. He sat near the rear of Berlin’s and he couldn’t quite figure out how he’d landed the job of Vivien’s chauffer and personal bodyguard. He’d meant to just drop her off and be on his way, but she’d sat in his truck staring at the storefront instead of opening the door. She’d fussed with her big sunglasses and the ball cap he’d lent her, clearly nervous. He’d been thinking of a way to shove her out the door when he heard himself offer to wait for her inside the shop. He supposed it was the Southerner in him, but if he’d known Vivien would take more than ten or fifteen minutes, he would have bitten his tongue off rather than take on the job.
    Hell, he already had a job. One that did not include Vivien Rochet trying on dresses and studying herself from different angles in a three-sided mirror. At the moment, his latest job waited in his shop for him to finish. He’d built the curved kitchen island of cherrywood and steel, and he needed to add drawers and pulls before he had his guys install it in a penthouse on Prioleau Street.
    “I’m almost done. I promise.”
    Henry lifted his gaze from an article on “beach hair.” Vivien moved from a dressing room, breezing past him toward the floor-length mirrors. The back of his skull pinched his brain. He recognized that dress. It was the first one she’d tried on an hour ago. If he’d had a gun, or a knife, or a hammer, he might have put himself out of his misery.
    Once again, he watched Vivien study the dress clinging to the slight curves of her body. She turned from side to side and placed a palm on her flat stomach. With her free hand, she lifted her hair off her long neck and shoulders as if she’d never seen herself in that particular dress. Like she hadn’t noticed the way it cupped her small breasts and cute little butt, or the way the black material rested across her white shoulders.
    “This dress does fit beautifully on you,” a sales-woman told her as she got down on one knee and fussed at the hem. “I think it just needs to be taken up an inch.”
    “I think you’re right.” Vivien tilted her head to the side. “And with the Manolo peep toes, I won’t look so short and stocky.”
    Stocky
? She was either kidding or one of those annoying women who dug for compliments. She dropped her hair and slid both of her hands down her side to her behind. If she asked if the dress made her butt looked big, he didn’t trust himself not to choke her. He’d almost forgotten that she was a spoiled movie star who thought people lived to serve her and couldn’t get a morning latte without an assistant. There had been a time in his life when he’d been as thoughtless. When his ego had driven him to win at all costs and put his needs above those around him.
    “I’ll wait for you outside,” he said as he stood.
    From within the three mirrors, three Viviens lifted their gazes from the hem of her dress. Her green eyes sought his