15 "I found this,"

Lee leaned against the door and worked to measure her breathing. He'd nearly kissed her. She nearly let him.

What was she thinking? She was pregnant, for God's sake! With another man's child, a man she honored and loved as a friend. Okay, on that last night the friendship had transferred into a "with benefits" situation, but they'd also talked about marriage. Afterward.

Oliver had asked if she would ever consider tying the knot again and she'd told him only with the right man. Not that Stuart hadn't been the man. He had---until her inability to conceive or bear a child erected a barrier between them. Until the misery in Stuart's eyes caught the attention of another woman, a woman he'd married immediately after his divorce from Lee, and who had given him a child seven months later.

So much for true love.

And then there was Oliver.

How could she have even considered kissing Rogan? Yet, her imagination bloomed with his taste, texture, heat and an involuntary tingle ran up her thighs.(stop it! He's a road to nowhere). One she was determined to avoid. Never mind that he had issues, linking her to her ex-husband in the worst possible way: pilot error. A fact she'd suspected for years, suspected deep in her core.

On a slow inhalation, she let another truth seep in, let herself adapt to the realisation that he would be her neighbour. The man across the hall.

Fourteen days ago the renter had been a woman, a reclusive environmental artist. Two years and Lee couldn't remember hearing a sound next door.

Intuitively, Lee knew Rogan would make himself very accessible in the office two steps from her threshold. Palms to her burning cheeks, she walked across the diminutive apartment, her shoes quiet on hardwood that undulated with the season's temperatures. She would make some tea. Peppermint, to ease her stomach.

A knock sounded on her door. Rogan?

Looking through her peephole Lee saw the distorted face of Lucien Damon, Oliver's father. Surprise had her blinking. Shat did he want? The man rarely spoke to her. Even during childhood when she'd played with Oliver, Lily and their friends, he had avoided her. She didn't need a rocket scientist to explain the senior Damon's feelings toward her, and figuring out why had long since grown wearisome. She didn't understand his reasons, she didn't understand him. Still, she had no intention of opening herself up to ridicule. Growing up, she had heard enough ridicule about her mother.

Straightening her shoulders, she swung the door open. Large and bulky in a navy storm coat, Lucien glared at her with a pale blue eyes from the stairwell's muted light. Like ice, she thought.

"Lucien."

His hand jerked up and she took a backward step. "I found this," he said. "I think it's yours."

Lee dropped her gaze to his broad, work-hardened fist. A fist strangling a pink silk scarf. She had looked everywhere for the dainty accessory. Between Lucien's thick fingers the fabric looked wispy as smoke.

"Thank you." she took the wrinkled scarf.

"Where----"