Lucy folded her arms over her chest. “We can’t ask him to be my fake husband. First of all, I haven’t agreed to play this game. Secondly, Dex is my accountant, not my boyfriend. I hardly know him outside our professional dealings. And I just met him in person for the first time five minutes ago!”

“Let’s just ask him,” her mom said. “See if he’d even consider it.”

Through the door, Dex coughed loudly, as if to remind them he was still waiting.

Lucy motioned toward the sound. “Come on. We can’t leave him out there. He’s an important, busy man. I’m sure he has numbers to crunch or something.” Swallowing hard, she pulled the door back open and headed to the sales floor. And found Dex examining a pair of red lacy crotch-less panties. He didn’t look in the least confused by them, which sometimes happened to the more clueless men who came in to buy something for their girlfriends or wives.

His gaze skimmed over her body so fast she wasn’t really sure she’d seen it. Was he imagining her in those panties?

A warm flush started at her ears and worked its way down to her throat and neck.

With a barely concealed amused expression on his face, he returned the underwear to the display table. “Everything okay?”

Mom went over to him. “I…we…Lucy has a question for you.” Placing a palm in the middle of Lucy’s back, she shoved her forward. Lucy stumbled, righting herself just before she slammed into Dex’s broad chest.

Coward.

A slow, sexy grin settled on his lips. “Something you want to ask me?”

Oh, God. Did he think she was going to ask him out? He did, she could see it in his eyes. No one looked like he did and didn’t get regularly propositioned by clients. Worst of all, the idea her mother wanted her to propose was even more unprofessional than that. Last thing she wanted was a man who was as orderly and mathematically minded as Dex the accountant.

As her father. May his hyper-organized, abusive self remain far away from her and her mom.

It didn’t matter that Dex was built like a linebacker and had a cleft in his chin like Ben Affleck, or that he smelled like a redwood forest. None of those things changed the fact that she went for leather jackets, not leather briefcases.

He didn’t have a single tattoo or piercing, although who could really be sure under his suit? But it sure would be fun to rumple him up in the sack. In truth, the thought had crossed her mind more than once in the last six weeks during their phone conversations. But then he’d start talking about how her piles of receipts could be “more organized” and her penmanship on invoices “less messy,” and that had always been more than enough to bring her back to reality.

But the very thought of being in his bed heated her cheeks.