Page 4 of Sleeping with Her Enemy (49th Floor 2)

Ex-fiancé. Whatever.

He just looked at her, though, for a long moment, like he was trying to decide something. When he spoke, his voice was low and controlled. “Like I keep saying, you’re better off without him.”

She didn’t know how to respond to a Dax who wasn’t fighting with her. And, God, how had she sunk to the point where Dax Harris was giving her relationship advice? “Oh, and you’re the expert on relationships?” she shot back, half hoping to fan the nearly extinguished flames of the little tiff she’d started. She leaned closer, bracing for battle. Battle would be distracting. And distracting was what she wanted right now.

Dax smelled good. She would have expected him to smell like…what? What did jerks smell like? Anyway, certainly not like sea air and a hint of coconut. He smelled like a beach, which was very…surprising.

And that was not the kind of distraction she was after. What was she doing? Oh, right. Battle. Bracing for battle.

He shook his head. “I’m about as far from an expert on relationships as you’re likely to find.”

The fact that he was so uncharacteristically unwilling to argue with her deflated her a little. She shouldn’t have said all those things about Mason. Had she no shame? Relationships were hard work. People were complicated. She would have liked to think she knew better than to trash Mason in front of a jackass like Dax, but apparently not. “Well, good, because you’re pretty much the last person the world I’d take relationship advice from. How’s….” She trailed off, casting around for the name of Dax’s latest model-girlfriend. They never lasted, so it was hard to keep track of them. “Shelly?”

“Shelby,” he corrected. “But Shelby and I have decided to go our separate ways.”

“I rest my case,” she said, aware that she was talking a little too loudly.

“Listen, all I’m saying is that Mason wasn’t the right guy for you. He was too nice.”

“He was too nice,” she echoed, incredulous.

“Yeah. Like if Martha Stewart had a DIY-boyfriend craft, she’d come up with Mason. Doctor, blandly handsome, boring. He probably had some lame-ass hipster hobby like brewing craft beer.”

“He collected vintage records,” Amy said, swallowing a giggle and feeling a little guilty for throwing Mason under the bus again. “He would drive a hundred miles out of his way for a nineteen-whatever Otis Redding, but then he wouldn’t listen to it. Not even once. It was like having the object was more important than getting any enjoyment of out it.” Crap. Maybe she’d hit on something there. Mason had thrown himself into wedding planning with an enthusiasm that matched his passion for record collecting. Yet in the end, he hadn’t actually wanted to be married. Not to her, anyway.

“I rest my case,” Dax said. “Even his name—Mason. Really?”

“Oh, and Dax is so much better?” she snapped.

She could see the vein in his temple bulging as it always did when they sparred. But he remained silent. Amy found herself a little disappointed that he wasn’t going to rise to the bait or even acknowledge the barb. “What kind of genius names their kid Dax? It’s the kind of name Gwyneth Paltrow would come up with.”

His head whipped around. “Hey,” he snarled. “Insult me, but leave my mother out of it.”

Oooh, his mother was apparently a sore point. Amy smirked and filed that one away for future reference. She pretty much despised Dax, but he was the perfect person to be with right now. When he’d first suggested—no, insisted—they go out for a drink, she’d thought he was crazy. But now she saw the genius of the plan. She already knew he was an asshole, and he hated her right back, so she could say practically anything to him. She could even tell tales about Mason, because nothing she said would ever get back to Mason—Mason and Dax, though both successful and wealthy, moved in different circles. And there was a certain twisted enjoyment to be had in spending time with someone who didn’t have a clue.

And there was the part where he smelled inexplicably good. She leaned in and took another sniff, not even bothering to be subtle about it.

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