New and…Improved? & Andrew in Excess

1

IT WAS JUST ANOTHER DAY in the life of Rebecca Anne Lewis. Work, work, work.

As a chemist for Sierra Scientific Laboratory, Becca did little else. It was in her blood. All her life she’d been a fine, responsible, steady human being. A rock.

And wasn’t that just the problem? Rocks were solid, but boring.

Last month she’d turned the big three-oh. Thirty. And while her life was fine, her condo was fine, her job was fine, she wanted to scream from all the humdrum fineness.

As it had more and more, her secret fantasy came to her, the one where she threw all caution out the window. Where she became mysteriously beautiful and bold, different and exciting.

She definitely wouldn’t have to struggle to remember if she’d had sex in the last decade.

The lab door opened, and steady, confident footsteps headed down the hall toward her. For a moment, Becca closed her eyes and pretended those footsteps belonged to a tall, dark, gorgeous man who was about to make her every fantasy come true. He’d take one look at her and reach out with a powerful swipe of his long, strong arm, sweeping the counter clear. He’d lift her up, then slide his hands down her hips to her thighs, which he’d open and slip between, still watching her with those smoldering eyes. His tennis shoes squeaked and-

Wait a minute.

Her dream man didn’t wear squeaky tennis shoes. Becca sighed as reality intruded on the only sex life she had at the moment-the one in her thoughts.

The footsteps still came. Not her mystery man, but her boss Kent Wright. “A change,” she muttered, fanning herself. “I definitely need a serious change.”

“What? You’re going through the change?” Kent stood in the doorway, looking tall, dark and annoyingly amused.

“Not exactly.”

“You sure? I mean, you are officially old now.” He came toward her, shoulders straight, stride long-legged and confident. Not cocky or full of ego, just incredibly comfortable in his own skin. Laughter twinkled in his dark eyes. “Practically over the hill,” he added.

“Funny.” Jeez, a girl turned thirty and everyone felt free to remind her of it daily. Just yesterday the staff secretary had brought her black roses. “And not that it’s any of your business, but I meant change as in adventure. Not the change of life.”

“Adventure.” He glanced at her speculatively, and she could hardly blame him. She was the epitome of nerdness. In school she’d been voted mostly likely to have her picture used in the dictionary to describe the word dork. College hadn’t been much better, but at least then, with all her various science classes, she’d been surrounded by people more like herself.

“What kind of adventure?” he wondered. “As in blowing up your work station?”

He spoke mildly, with good humor in his deep voice, but Becca blushed all the same at the reminder of how she’d lost her last chemist position. She had an incredible amount of book smarts, always had. But what she more than made up for in IQ, she seemed to lack in good, old common sense. It had gotten her into trouble more times than she liked to admit.

And had lost her more jobs than she cared to think about.

Thankfully she’d had a really good interview with Kent, and he appeared to believe in her. But she didn’t want to press her luck. Outlining her new plan for an exciting personal life might scare him off. Actually, it would scare off anyone that knew her. “And that particular incident with the explosion didn’t count,” she said defensively. “I didn’t mean that kind of adventure.”

“Ah.” He nodded sagely. “So this time you’re going to do it on purpose.”

“Yes. No!” But she laughed at herself because what else could she do? “This has nothing to do with work. I’m talking about my personal life.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s…fine.” She rolled her eyes. “But it’s so boring I can’t think of a thing to say about it. That’s going to change.”

“Should I be worried?”

“Of course not. I’m not your responsibility.”

Thankfully, he let that go. “Saw your report on the TD virus,” he said. “Fine job.”

Fine. There was that word again, and though she tried to not take it personally, she wasn’t entirely successful. “Could you think of another adverb?”

“But fine is the one that fits.”

“I hate that word.”

“Because…?”

“Because it’s as boring as the rest of my life is!”

He blinked slowly. “Which brings us back to this change thing, right?”

“Yes.” She glared at him. “So if you don’t mind, please don’t tell me my work is fine.”

Another man might have looked at her perplexed, or laughed, but Kent merely absorbed her request. Then in a deceptively serious voice said, “I’ll put out a memo. All employees take note, use the words ‘fine’ and ‘Becca’ in the same sentence at your own risk.”

Oh, as if he could understand. He had dark hair, even darker eyes and a lethal smile when he used it. He was tall, lanky but muscled, and stunningly gorgeous in a dangerous sort of way that, according to his staff who were all too happy to talk about him when he wasn’t within hearing range, never failed to garner him female companionship when he chose.

And yet, despite looking like a Greek god, he didn’t choose often. She might have only been at Sierra a short time, but one thing she’d already learned through the watercooler gossip train was that he liked being alone, liked not having anyone to account to, and most of all, liked keeping his feelings and thoughts to himself. It gave him an edge that made him all the more appealing to the opposite sex.

But it wasn’t his appeal that bothered Becca. It was her own lack of appeal.

With one finger, Kent reached out and stroked the spot between her eyes that always wrinkled when she concentrated or frowned. She was frowning now. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you your face could freeze in that position?”

They’d never touched before.

It was only a finger, and yet the strangest thing happened. A bolt of awareness shot through her. It was so strong as to be almost painful. Her glasses fogged. Even her tongue got into the action, tying itself into knots.

And Becca rendered herself completely stupid.

“That was some strong static electricity,” Kent said, staring, perplexed, at his finger.

“Was that what that was?”

“Definitely.” But now he frowned too, and stepped back, slipping his hands in the pockets of his white lab coat. “Couldn’t be anything more.”

“Absolutely not.” After all, Kent had an aversion to “more,” to anything that tethered his precious freedom.

What she didn’t know was why, but she had other things to think about. Such as her decision to make a major change in her life-style. Really, it was overdue.

She’d spent her entire childhood as a mousy, chunky, sharply intelligent child, playing in the shadow of a vibrant, gorgeous, fun-loving sister.

She’d spent her teens pretending she loved to study more than getting noticed by boys.

Little had changed there, she was afraid.

As an adult, she spent most of her time wearing a white chemist coat, thick glasses, her hair stuffed into a backward baseball cap, peering into a microscope trying to find a cure for the common cold. When she wasn’t at work, she was at school learning more, still pretending it was more fun to work than have a social life.

That’s who she was. Plain-Jane, total fashion nightmare, nose-in-a-technical-book, Becca.

And yet…she had the secret heart of a rebel, she just knew it. So she turned away from Kent, buttoned up her lab coat, sat at her stool and thought, someday I’m going to figure out how to knock a man’s socks off.

“I’m sorry.” Innocently, he looked at her with those deep, unfathomable eyes, which should have been her first hint-he’d probably never been innocent. “Did you say something?”

“No.”

“Yes, you did. Something about my socks, which is very unusual, since I’ve noticed on Monday mornings you’re all work and no play. So there must be something…” His fingers swept aside his white lab coat, and he pulled at the soft, faded denim encasing his powerful, long legs. Two white athletic socks were revealed, tucked into white running shoes with frayed laces. “Hmm. They look fine to me.” He studied them seriously and rotated his ankles. “They actually match today, which is new.”

“They have a pink tinge to them,” she said, as if she didn’t care that even his calves were perfect. “You ought to try bleach.”

“Yeah, that’s what happens when they get washed with red lace panties.”

Her eyes went wide as she jerked her gaze back to his. “You’re kidding.”

“Maybe.” He let out another of those killer smiles. “Maybe not.”

“Humph.” She crossed her arms and turned away, unreasonably annoyed with him.

“You could be happy for me.”

“Might be happier,” she muttered, reaching for her notes. “If I was getting some too.”

“To get some, Becca, you actually have to date.” With wry amusement, he leaned back against the counter as she fussed at her station, the picture of rough and ready trouble.

“How do you know I’m not?”

“Well, you told Cookie, who told Tami, who told-”

“Ah.” She ground her teeth. “The gossip mill.”

He smiled, which only magnified the mischief dancing in his eyes. But there was something about discussing her nonexistent sex life that really got her going, and it was only slightly mollifying to know he actually thought she was rejecting date requests, instead of not receiving any.

“Of course you’d have to break away from work long enough to have a good time,” he added conversationally, reaching around her to flip on a second light over her work station.

He smelled good, she noted reluctantly. Not like cologne, but more an outdoorsy, male sort of smell that made her yearn. And that annoyed her all to heck, too.

“I’d ask you what you did this weekend but I could probably guess.” He smiled. “You worked on school stuff, and for some extra excitement, you came in here to put in a little time on your latest project.”

Was that really what everyone thought? That she was all work? No play?

That it was true didn’t help. “How do you know?”

He waggled a daring brow, every single hard-muscled inch of him oozing sin. “Because you have that not-relaxed, still-tired-even-though-I-just-had-a-weekend look.”

A quick glance in the small mirror over one of three sinks confirmed the painful truth. It was there for the entire world to see. Pale skin, paler green eyes rimmed with fatigue, the hair beneath her baseball cap a dull, nondescript brown.

Who had time to worry about hair? The glasses she wore hid most of her face, which was fine since she didn’t wear an ounce of makeup. Not that she didn’t like makeup, she thought defensively, it was just that when she applied it she had the tendency to resemble Frankenstein’s bride.

Her body was blah, not curvy, not lean. Just average. And totally hidden under baggy jeans, T-shirt, sweatshirt and lab coat.

But that was because she didn’t like to worry about what to wear in the mornings. Thankfully S.S.L. provided the oh-so-bulky lab coats, so really, it hardly mattered how she dressed.

Bottom line though-she wasn’t great date material. Not even average date material.

“Another frown.” He sounded surprised and wary, too, as if he knew he was the cause, but didn’t quite know what to do about it. “Maybe you should work,” he said with genuine concern. “That always seems to cheer you up.”

“Oh yeah, there’s the answer, more work.”

He blinked at her reaction and she felt a spear of guilt. “I’m sorry. I guess I’ve got the Monday blues.”

“No, that’s not it,” he said slowly, cautiously. “You’re different today.”

Yes, she was different. At least, she wanted to be. “Well, to tell you the truth…”

“Uh-oh. You want a raise already.”

“This isn’t about work!”

“Okay.” He leaned back and crossed his ankles, looking totally at ease, while her hopes and dreams gnawed at her. “Shoot.”

But the phone rang, and while Kent studied her thoughtfully, she answered it. “Sierra Labs.”

“Becca!”

Summer, her sister, had a carefree, happy, infectious voice that instantly made people smile. Becca resisted.

“Hey, you there?” Summer asked. “What’s the matter?”

Becca broke eye contact with Kent and shoved her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose. “I haven’t said a word. How do you know something’s the matter?”

“I just know. Work or school?”

“Life,” Becca said without thinking, then wished the words back.

“Well you work too hard. You never give yourself a break, much less a good look in the mirror. But that’s why I’m calling, I have just the thing to fix that.”

“You always have ‘just the thing’,” Becca said. “And the last time I fell for that, I ended up with green hair.”

Kent raised his eyebrows.

“I was just learning to use color effectively,” Summer said into the phone with great dignity. “I’ve come a long way since then.”

From the corner of her eye, Becca watched Kent bend over his own work, his wide shoulders flexed with intense focus, his hands steady and sure.

He’d already forgotten about her.

Made sense. He was only her boss. They barely knew each other. So why couldn’t she look away? His muscles were clearly outlined down the length of his taut, lean back. His long fingers stretched and worked, and suddenly, with a shocking heat, she wanted those fingers on her.

It was the craziest thing.

Kent reached for his coffee and took a sip, his strong throat muscles working as he swallowed. Such a great swallow, she thought, entranced. But since she apparently couldn’t look at him and still have a functioning brain, she readjusted her baseball cap and turned away.

Still, the strange and unwelcome lust pulsed through her.

Oh boy, this was bad. Getting hot over her boss. Very, very bad. She definitely, really, really, needed an adventure, and fast.

“Becca?”

“Yeah.” She cleared her husky voice and tried to get control of her hormones. “I’m here. Listen, Summer…” She lowered her voice. “Remember how we always talked about having a wild adventure together? Like flying to Italy on a whim without a travel plan? Or learning to deep-sea dive? Or going to a strip joint?”

Behind her, Kent choked on his coffee.

In her ear, Summer laughed. “You mean when we were young and stupid?”

Had it been that long since she’d dreamed? Carefully she avoided Kent’s curious gaze and said, “Let’s do it now.”

“Oh Becca, you’re so funny. As if either of us could just take off now that we’re so busy. And speaking of that, let me get to it. I just wanted to congratulate you.”

Becca sighed. “For what?”

“You won our first monthly salon makeover. Here at the salon. Isn’t that cool?”

“But I didn’t enter any-”

“Now I know you won’t take this the wrong way,” Summer interrupted smoothly. “But no one is more deserving of Summer’s Place First Giveaway Makeover than you.”

“Gee, thanks. I think. And when did you decide to run a contest for a makeover?”

“I’ve been dying to get my hands on you for years now, you know that.”

A makeover. Good Lord. “Look, I’m going to be really busy having an adventure-”

“No one’s ever too busy for salon treatment.”

“I will be,” she promised, but then she glanced down at her plain white tennis shoes, then turned her head and looked at Kent, who’d again immersed himself in work. He had files open, slides prepared and his light on. Even his face was tight with concentration as he scrupulously studied…a lingerie catalogue?

He caught her watching him and sent her a lazy smile that illuminated his face and made her catch her breath. His eyes were heavy-lidded, sensual, and for a moment, Becca allowed the fantasy to root. To put that look in his eyes, to be responsible for all that maleness…

But a makeover?

The whole thing was vain, narcissistic…and embarrassingly appealing.

“Think of all the publicity it will generate for my shop,” Summer coaxed.

“Yes, but…”

“I’ll need before and after pics because no one is going to believe the change in you, going from…well, absolutely no style, to-”

“Hey!”

“-to the height of fashion! I know you’ve never let me help before-”

“Because I do fine by myself.” Right. Uh-huh. Which was exactly why she’d just turned thirty and hadn’t had a date in so long her date-only lipstick had dried out. Again she looked at Kent, who’d gone back to studying his magazine, and her tummy tingled.

“Oh, Becca.” Summer’s voice lowered to plea level. “You are going to do it, aren’t you?”

Becca didn’t have a lot of family, Summer was basically it. For as long as she could remember, her sister had been after her to do something with herself. For herself. “I just don’t think-”

“That’s perfect,” Summer said quickly. “Don’t think.”

“A new hairdo is hardly going to change my life.”

“No, but it’s a start. It’s the works, Bec. Hair, makeup, clothes, everything.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re making this up as you go along?”

Her sister laughed lightly. Quickly. “Don’t be silly.”

But it was silly. And yet… “I don’t wear makeup.”

“I’ll teach you.”

“My clothes are fine.”

“Yeah, if you’re into Blue Light Specials.”

“Well at least my hair is…”

“Mousy. Baby, I’m sorry, you need a change. I can do it for you, let me.”

She sounded so sure, so excited. But then again, Summer-as her name implied-was everything Becca was not. Tall, thin, beautiful.

Pride was an ugly thing. “Let me think about it.” Setting the receiver back in place, Becca stood there for a long moment. She hated to disappoint Summer, it was like kicking a puppy. Her sister was just so happy and excited and bubbling and…perfect. All the time.

It wasn’t as if she was jealous, she loved Summer with all her heart. They were all each other had, but sometimes being with her was strangely deflating.

Kent tossed his catalog aside. “A strip joint?”

“Is that the only part of the conversation you heard?”

“It’s the part that grabbed me,” he admitted. “Are you going to do it?”

Truthfully, the idea of a makeover actually scared her. Gave her a weightless feeling deep in her stomach. Made her wonder, just for a weak little second, how things could be if…

Kent’s gaze filled with shock. “You’re thinking about it.”

Was it so unreasonable? So ridiculous? “So?”

“Well…I guess I can’t believe you’d go to a strip club.”

She gaped at him. “I’m talking about the makeover.”

“Oh.” The bad-boy grin he shot her had probably melted hundreds of hearts. Thousands. “And here I thought you were all work and no play,” he said softly, challengingly.

Okay, that did it. Sealed the deal.

Yanking up the phone, she pounded out the number to Summer’s Place and waited impatiently, foot tapping. “I wanted adventure,” she muttered. “I wanted a change. And darn it, that’s exactly what I’m going to get, if it kills me. This makeover is just the beginning. When I’m done there, watch out.”

“Watch out what?” Kent wanted to know, sounding unsure.

Good. “I just might go find a strip club for real!”

The look on his face might have been priceless if she wasn’t so worked up. “To watch or participate?” he asked carefully.

“Both.”

All amusement had drained from his face. “Okay, wait a minute.”

“I’m tired of being good. Why isn’t Summer answering?”

“Hold on a sec,” Kent said. “Back the train up.”

“No more boring and predictable.”

He watched her pace as far as the phone cord would allow. “What did you put in your Wheaties this morning?”

“I need action.” She whirled and paced some more, waiting impatiently for Summer to pick up. “I need red lace panties.”

“What?”

“Never mind,” she whirled away, but Kent turned her back to face him. “Becca-”

Shrugging him off, she clutched the phone tighter to her ear, relieved when Summer finally answered.

“I’ll do it. All of it,” Becca snapped, then before Summer could gloat, she hung up. “There. That should get the ball rolling.”