She made it sound like a flaw.

“It only comes across as controlling,” she continued, “because you try to drag the rest of the world along with you.”

“Sometimes the world needs a little dragging.”

Take Devin. She could get an extra hour of sleep tonight, or she could agree with him on a nanny and get extra sleep from here on in. It was a no-brainer to Lucas.

“Sometimes you have to stop and smell the roses,” she told him.

“They don’t bloom until July,” he pointed out.

Devin cracked a small smile at that, even as she shook her head. Then she reached for her laptop case, and Lucas automatically reached out to lift it for her, brushing her shoulder with his forearm as he leaned around her.

The touch was electric, and he reflexively jerked away. The action brought the front of his thigh against the side of hers, and sexual energy jump-started his body.

What was the matter with him?

Sure, she was a gorgeous woman. But he’d been careful to keep that in perspective. He had no call, no business, no right to think of her as anything other than an obstruction. He wanted Amelia, and Devin was in his way. Wanting Devin was nowhere in the plan.

He sucked in a breath, lifting her laptop, drawing away. Wanting Devin? No way. Not going there. Not ever.

Devin followed on Lucas’s heels as he carried her laptop along the wide hallway on the main floor of the mansion. Her shoulder and thigh still buzzed from their contact. Was that really the first time he’d touched her? Ever?

She searched her brain, but she couldn’t remember another occasion. And apparently, the experience would have been seared into her spinal column.

“You can use this one as an office,” he was saying as they neared the front foyer. He opened a door off the hall, revealing a small library.

He hit the light switch, and a desk lamp came on, bathing the room in a soft glow.