Page 92 of Getting Wrapped Up

He chuckled. “I suppose the bathroom and shower would be considered cliché too?”

She leaned in with her arms on the table and a sly look in her eye. “I can tell you that I got a little hot when I saw the big desk in your den.”

Oh, yeah, they’d do the den twice. He’d thought of her when he’d bought that big sturdy desk.

She tried sipping her coffee again and the grimace wasn’t as extreme.

Levi hid his smile behind his cup.

“So where you from, sweetheart?” one of the men, Frank, called.

Levi was impressed that they’d waited so long.

Kate gave Levi a wink, then turned to the men with a hand over her heart. “Are you telling me that Levi hasn’t talked about me?”

The men chuckled.

“California,” Ben said.

“San Fran,” Thomas added.

Frank shrugged. “Just making conversation.”

“Well, ask her something real,” Ben said.

“Small talk is for the young. None of us have the time for all that,” Albert said with a chuckle.

Ask her something about her ex-boyfriends, Levi willed the men as he tried to casually sip his coffee.

He could ask her of course, but these men had a way of getting things out of people. He knew firsthand. He’d spilled his guts about his parents’ marriage of convenience and their poorly hidden cheating. He’d told them about how he and his grandfather were drawn to women who needed them and they loved being the hero and fixing everything—from serious problems like abusive ex-boyfriends to simple things like a ride home from a club. His brother and father, on the other hand, got off on impressing and amazing women.

And while all of the women who had encountered one of the Spencer men had a good, memorable time, it was clear that the guys had some issues.

Phoebe had cured Joe. And Levi knew that Kate was changing him.

Kate didn’t need him. She was in no way a damsel in distress.

And he was madly in love with her.

But he didn’t know all the details about how she’d become so strong and independent, except that her mother had dealt with some serious emotional issues that seemed not to consider her children and their feelings. He didn’t know about Kate’s past heartbreaks—or the hearts she’d broken. He didn’t know about her parents’ relationship with one another. He didn’t know if she liked Johnny Depp movies.

These were serious things.

And he hoped that Ben, Albert, Conrad, Frank and the others would help him get to the bottom of them.

“You’re a city girl, then,” Conrad said. “Never lived in a small town?”

Kate shook her head. “Spent my life in California and we’ve lived in San Francisco as long as I can remember.”

“What do your parents do?” Larry asked.

“My dad is in real estate and my mom is the head of marketing for a local winery.”

“Wine,” Larry said, nodding his head. Then he chuckled, “Heard of it.”

The other men also laughed and Kate sent Levi a grin.

“You don’t have wine here?” she teased.

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