Free KISS AND MAKE-UP by Leslie Kelly Page B

to a realization: Cassandra Devane was not going to give up and slip quietly back out of his life.
    He should never have gone along with Jackie’s stupid dinner scheme, or have met Cassie for drinks Wednesday night. Because both of those events had given them a reminder of how good they’d once been together…as social friends during dinner. And as intensely compatible lovers during their crazy kiss at the bar.
    Wyatt couldn’t think about that kiss at the bar. Nor could he allow himself to picture the hurt expression on Cassie’s face after he’d said those cruel things to her. He’d been so certain that driving her away had been the right thing to do. He’d almost been able to ignore his own pain at having done it.
    In the end, though, neither had been true. He couldn’t ignore the pain, and he hadn’t driven her away. Cassie was still here. And she was driving him absolutely nuts by insinuating herself into every part of his life. Not only did he have to hear his sister chattering nonstop about Cassie, but he got the same spiel from his own secretary.
    Worst of all, he had to deal with his ex-wife in the flesh. Very, very tempting flesh.
    God, she’d practically taken up residence in his office. She was constantly coming by, stopping his heart whenever she appeared in the doorway, with that sunny smile and that warm laugh. She always came in on a wave of excitement. Like now, late Friday morning, when she emerged from the elevator, carrying an enormous box. Wyatt’s jaw dropped. “What the hell is this?”
    “Lunch,” she said brightly. “A giant submarine sandwich. Everyone’s been working so hard on this automotive campaign, I figured you could use a break.”
    Sylvia, his secretary, came hurrying out from behind her desk and hoisted one end of the six-foot-long box Cassie was maneuvering around the corner to the break room.
    “Thanks so much, Cassie, everyone will really appreciate this,” Sylvia said.
    As if the box contained an elixir of the gods, every one of Wyatt’s employees poked their heads out of offices or over the tops of cubicles. Sniffing, they followed her like she was the Pied Piper of Hamlin.
    Lunch that day was practically a party, with Cassie serving up slices of turkey sandwich to his staff. She charmed them, praised them and pretty soon had all of the men ready to kiss her feet and all the women lining up to take makeup advice.
    The afternoon wasn’t much better. She came back around three, loaded for bear with a case full of face creams and makeup for his staff. With Sylvia’s help, she gave makeovers to any woman who wanted one. It wasn’t until he heard her chatting up each and every product to his design team that he realized she was working on them—to work for her!
    “We’re not doing this campaign,” he told Gabe Wiley, one of his top guys, who’d come to work for Wyatt fresh out of Georgetown University last year.
    Gabe was peering into the break room, where half a dozen women sat reading product labels while waiting for green slime to harden into some kind of rocky paste on their faces. “They really do make good products,” the younger man said. Wearing a reminiscent smile, he added, “My girlfriend has this Fresh Face raspberry body lotion that absolutely drives me insane.”
    He didn’t want to think about that because he couldn’t imagine raspberries without remembering the way he and Cassie had once devoured a small container of them while lying naked in bed. They’d bounced and fallen and rolled into some very interesting places—places he’d been happy to explore with his mouth.
    Thinking about raspberries would soon get him thinking about the vanilla ice cream he’d insisted went so well with fruit. And which he’d smeared all over Cassie’s belly and thighs, laughing while she shivered. He’d warmed her up by licking off every drop.
    Dangerous memories.
    “My sister raves about the vanilla lotion,” said Jerry, his in-house graphic