Clearing his throat, he finally managed to force his gaze away from her, only to have it fall on her shop’s window. His teeth clenched at the provocative display. A mannequin couple stood in what was supposed to be a cozy kitchen. The oven door was open, and the female mannequin, dressed in a short, slinky, fire-engine-red dress, held a cookie sheet in one oven-mitted hand. In the other hand she held an oversized heart-shaped, pink-frosted cookie. With her glossy scarlet lips parted and her eyes half-closed, she was lifting the cookie toward the male mannequin that stood behind her.

Dressed in a black satin robe and matching boxers decorated with small pink hearts, the male mannequin’s hands rested on the female’s hips, his head bent toward the curve of her neck. Across the top of the window, painted in bold crimson script were the challenging words, Taste Me…Then Just Try To Walk Away.

An image of Lacey, her curves encased in that sexy red dress, offering him that cookie, flashed through his mind, leaving a trail of heat in its wake that had nothing to do with the bright sunshine.

“You planning to visit the fortune-teller, Evan?”

Evan blinked away the distracting, disturbing image and turned to look at Paul West, an attorney who’d been his best friend since college and who’d moved his office into the Fairfax building only last week. With his brain still not fully recovered, he managed only to grunt, “Huh?”

“The fortune-teller. By the number of people I’ve seen stop by her table, I’d say she’s the hit of the party. You going to get your cards read?”

“Me?” Evan asked, raising his eyebrows. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am, the operative word being serious. Which is what you’ve been too much lately. Loosen up a little. Relax. This is a party, remember?”