The tap tap of stiletto heels sounds closer now, like someone is approaching, as David fires off another question. “Can you—?”

A woman’s voice interrupts. “Can you paint a badass tiger on the door?”

No. Fucking. Way.

That voice. That sexy purr. Like honey, like whiskey. Like dirty dreams.

Everything in me goes still. I haven’t heard that voice in years. I don’t even have to turn around because one more click, then another, and here she is, standing in front of me. Looking hotter than she ever did before.

Long brown hair. Dark chocolate eyes. Legs that go on forever.

Henley Rose Marlowe.

Fuck me senseless.

It’s her.

The woman who drove me crazy.

I’m momentarily speechless as I take her in, because she’s not twenty-one anymore. She’s five years older and twenty-five times hotter. Yes, her hotness has squared with the years.

But I’m not about to let a potential deal slide through my fingers. I never let women get in the way of work, especially not one who’s inserting herself into the middle of a conversation with a fucking tiger comment.

I get around her interruption by going along with it.

“The tiger can even be roaring,” I suggest, as if she’s just some random car lover who’s keen on chitchatting, not a girl who used to work under the hood in my shop.

“Maybe even breathing fire,” Henley offers, like we’ve got this wordplay down pat, Who’s on first? style.

David gets into the action, too, emitting a rawr as he holds up his hands as if they’re claws.

Henley flashes him the sexiest smile I’ve ever seen, and in less than a second, the fire-breathing tiger inhabits me. Because I’m jealous as hell. For no good reason.

David smiles back at her.

Okay, maybe for that reason.

Which is not an acceptable reason at all. I shake off the useless emotion as David speaks again. “That’s it. I’ve officially decided I want a tiger on the door of a DeLorean. Painted in green, like the color of money.”

Yep, he’s rainbow-sprinkles all the way, and I focus on the sprinkles, not the flirty grins exchanged between this guy and a woman who was never mine, not even for one night.

“You can have it in royal purple, in emerald green, in sapphire blue,” I tell him. “You can have it with a flag on the hood, a pinstripe on the door, and the sweetest stick shift you’ve ever felt in your hands.”

“Purple and a sweet stick? I’m sold.” He clasps my hand in a good-bye shake. “I’ll be in touch.” He takes a step to go then stops. “Is purple too crazy a color? What do you think?” he asks the woman who’d make any red-blooded man gawk.

Perfect figure. Pouty lips. Tight waist. Gravity-defying tits. If God created an ideal woman to sell anything to any red-blooded man, he’d make her just like Henley.

Not sure he’d intend her to have such a smartass mouth, though.

She licks her lips. “Purple is hot as sin,” she says to David, like the words are for his ears only. She presses her fingertip to her tongue then touches the hood of the car as if it burns her. She raises her hand, letting the imaginary flame fly high.

David eats up her show, laughing and grinning.

“That’s an excellent selling point for purple. What about you, Max? Favorite color?” He holds up one hand as a stop sign. “Wait. Let me guess. Gold? Silver? Red? Blue?”

I shake my head. “Black.”

Then David says good-bye and heads off, and I’m left with this vexing vixen who hates me. She stares at me like a cat that won’t look away till you give her your hamburger. I don’t break her showdown, nor do I offer her a bite.

“Black,” she repeats, tapping the toe of her red suede pump as she glares with dark brown eyes full of fury. “Like your heart.”

Have I mentioned the last time I saw her she marched out of my shop in a blaze of angry glory?

Might be because I fired her sexy ass five years ago.

Yeah, there’s some bad blood between us.

2

Henley Rose and a hot car go together like peaches and cream, like fine Scotch and a long, dirty night. Which means working with her was like walking into the Garden of Eden every single day. It was a test of willpower because the woman could craft a car as if it were an erotic dance.

Not a striptease.

Not an in-your-face pelvis thrust.

But a beautiful fucking ballet of a woman seducing a machine. Those hands, the way she wielded tools, the intensity in her focus—it was sensual, and it was sinful, and it was this man’s fantasy made flesh.

Imagine what it was like working with her for one, hard-on year.

I mean, hard year.

I survived the challenge because she had talent to spare. And I never treated her differently because she was a woman, or because I thought about her naked an obscene amount of the time. I treated her like anyone else—specifically, all the people I work with who I never ever imagine in anything less than full-on Siberian winter garb, complete with the thermals and Michelin Man coat.

“Black heart still intact.” I tap my sternum. “Same model as before.”

“I’d have thought you’d get an upgrade by now. Faulty parts and all.”

“No recall needed on the ticker. It works just fine in this cruel bastard,” I say, reminding her of the words she’d uttered the day she stormed out.

She arches a brow. “Shame. You should have let me replace it. I’m good at making all sorts of clunkers run better.”

Jesus Christ. She still takes no prisoners. “I’ve no doubt you have all the tools to fix anything, and if you couldn’t find the right one, you’d use a blowtorch.”

She adopts an expression of indignation. “There’s nothing wrong with using a blowtorch,” she says, taking extra time on the first syllable.

How the hell did I ever last with this woman? Before I can even fashion a comeback, she taps her toe against the tire on Wagner’s car. “I see you still like to make your cars with big, manly wheels.”

I roll my eyes then make a give it to me now motion with my hands. “All right, Henley. Deliver the punchline.”

She bats her lashes. “What punchline?”

“Big? Manly? You’re going to say it’s some sort of compensation thing going on. That’s what you always said about the guys who wanted the biggest cars with the biggest wheels.”

She smirks. “Was I wrong in my assessment?”

I laugh. “I don’t know. I didn’t check to see how that added up for them.”

“Nor did I. My focus was always on the work.”

“As well it should have been.”

“That’s what you taught me.”

“I’m glad you learned that lesson.”

“I learned so many lessons from you.”

I take a deep breath and change directions. “What was up with the badass tiger comment out of nowhere? Couldn’t you just wait till I was done to say hello?”

She winks. “C’mon. I was just having fun.”

“Fun? More like trying to get involved in everything.”

She feigns shock and dances her fingertips along the hood of Wagner’s car. “I was merely being helpful and trying to land you a client. Don’t you remember? I was always trying to help you.”

I park my hands on my hips. “Why do I feel like you’re here more to taunt me than to deliver generous humanitarian aid?”