Love Thy Neighbor by Sophie Wintner Page B

make you feel alert, inspired? What colors soothe you? Which ones relax you? Do you like leather, velvet, suede, horsehair?”
    When they finished up in his office, she turned to his bedroom. “Let’s start in your closet.” She opened the doors and let her hand skim his suits, shirts, the racks of jeans and shoes.
    She folded her arms and smiled at him. “You’re a neat freak. You are full of surprises, aren’t you?” She looked at him from over her shoulder.
    “I’ve got so much clutter all around me with my work, I need to know that at least one corner of my life is under control.”
    “We could build in some more compartments, give you some more hanging room.”
    “That would be brilliant.”
    She took copious notes, and about two hours later, after they had gone through every room, they were done and back downstairs. He poured a couple glasses of wine for them while Nikki went over to the couch. He watched as she leafed through her notes, her lips pursed and deep concentration registered across her stunning face.
    “Now, one thing we need to discuss is your studio. I’m going to need at least two, maybe even three weeks to get in here and do what I need to do. Are you going to be able to shut down for that long?”
    He smiled, admiring how she approached this. He knew he was hooked on her, and it wasn’t just her body or her dark brown eyes, her satiny hair or that deceptively innocent smile; it was her mind. He loved the way this woman’s mind worked. He explained that he had a location shoot coming up. “You’d have full run of the place for at least three weeks.”
    “Okay. Then we could start with the studio space—that’ll be perfect.” She made more notes in the margin.
    Dallas had never seen this side of her before. She was all business. He was impressed yet slightly disappointed. He supposed that meant their run-in on Sunday morning with her ex-fiancé had worked. Dallas knew he’d made the guy nervous as hell. He figured the poor wanker probably begged her to take him back before Dallas had even made it across the hall and into his apartment.
    He knew that was what Nikki wanted and that made him happy, but at the same time, he couldn’t say he wasn’t hurt over it. He couldn’t say that he thought it was in her best interest. Plus, he couldn’t deny that he had wanted to take this woman into uncharted territory. She had a fire inside her that she’d never had lit, and it saddened him to think that he’d never get the chance to be the one to show her how sensual she really was.
    But hell, it was probably better this way. Now that she had her fiancé back, it was time for him to move on. What he needed to do was focus on his work.
    He had to block out a week’s worth of shots and hopefully find a way to pick up the shots he’d lost the day the client rethought their wardrobe selects. He had to scout locations for a magazine cover he had coming up. Another client wanted him to fly to New York for a casting session. There were meetings with clients and agents, and somewhere in between all that, he hoped he’d have time to get organized for the Antarctica expedition. That was, if he could get all his assignments wrapped up so he could go.
    His West Coast rep, Marco LaRousse, was coming from L.A. to Chicago to meet with him. He said he had some projects coming up, and Dallas would have to break the news to Marco that he planned on taking a three-month hiatus to go to the South Pole. They already had National Geographic on board, and his pal Conrad said the Discovery Channel wanted to document them. It was turning into a lucrative assignment, but Dallas didn’t care about the monetary gain. He wanted to capture the glaciers and create some awareness.
    Dallas promised himself that as a soon as Nikki left tonight, he’d call Conrad and he’d get serious about this shoot in Antarctica. He knew he should probably call his brother back, too, but he wasn’t ready to deal with anything having