Page 40 of Duty and Desire
QUIET MAN
By Kristen Ashley
CHAPTER 1
CALL A COMMANDO
Smithie
“I’m getting a breast reduction.”
Smithie took his attention from the piece of paper he held in his hand, looked across his desk and all the way across his office to the woman striding through the room.
The woman who was the subject of the words written on the paper in his hand.
His throat was tight.
“I’m going natural,” she finished her announcement.
Charlotte McAlister.
Lottie.
Known far and pretty damned wide as Lottie Mac.
Lottie Mac, Queen of the Corvette Calendar.
Though Smithie just called her Mac.
He’d been wrong. She wasn’t done finishing her announcement.
Mac stopped at the front of his desk and proclaimed, “And you can’t talk me out of it.”
It took Smithie a minute to force his mouth to regain the ability of speech.
“I don’t care what you do to your body. It’s not my body. I don’t know why you think I’d have a say in it.”
Lottie gawked at him.
He got this.
He was a strip club owner and she was a stripper. His premier stripper. He had velvet ropes to contain the people who lined up, wanting to watch her dance. It wasn’t a stretch she’d think he’d have a problem with her getting rid of her implants.
Forcibly pulling his mind from the paper in his hand, he turned it over and laid it on the desk, giving his full attention to Mac.
And what she was saying.
Mostly,whyshe was probably saying it.
Before he could dig into that with her, she kept speaking.
“I interviewed seven plastic surgeons in the Denver area. I’ve chosen one. I’m doing it next month.”
“Why?” Smithie asked.
“Why?” Mac asked back.
“Not heard a thing about you doin’ this, now you’re not only doin’ it, you did all the research into it,” he pointed out. “So what’s the deal and what’s the rush?”
