No Regrets

No Regrets
Cindi Myers

Go to Spain. Take gourmet cooking class. Sleep with six men before I turn thirty…After a near-lethal accident forces her to reevaluate her life, Lexie Foster is finished with being Little Miss Conservative. And she has the to-do list to prove it. When she lands a job with private investigator Nick Delaney, it's clear that her dead-sexy boss would be an excellent candidate for a few of the more x-rated things on her list.Nick has his reservations, however. He may be tempted, but he can't forget about their cases. That is, until the night Lexie exercises her own brand of seduction…and proves to him that he will only regret the things he doesn't do.

“I have a proposition for you.”

Lexie leaned toward Nick, her voice low. “When was the last time you had a really good time?”

Words stuck in Nick’s throat. His pulse pounded in his temples and in his groin. He was close to giving in. Too close.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I have a business to run and I can’t be distracted.”

She smiled with a sly, knowing expression and rose. “All right, Nick. You’ve made up your mind and I respect that. For now.” She moved to the door and looked over her shoulder at him, that same self-assured smile still in place. “And just so you know, I’ll be making every effort to convince you to change your mind.”

He swallowed hard. “You don’t need to do that.”

“Oh, but I do.” The smile broadened. “Six months is a long time. I hate to think of spending all that time alone, don’t you?”

Dear Reader,

Like many of you, I’m a voracious reader. Of course, I adore romance books, but I also read nonfiction, history, mystery and suspense. I’m a big fan of private eye stories. Any time the old movie The Big Sleep, with Humphrey Bogart as P.I. Philip Marlowe, shows up on TV, I’m there!

So I had tremendous fun writing my own private eye, Nick Delaney, in this book. Of course, he required a heroine who was up to any challenge he might throw at her, so I created Lexie Foster, a woman intent on taking every advantage of the second chance she’s been given in life.

This is also the first time I’ve mixed a little mystery with my romance in a book. I hope you’ll enjoy the results.

I love to hear from readers. You can write me at P.O. Box 991, Bailey, CO, 80241, or e-mail me at Cindi@CindiMyers.com. And be sure to visit my Web site at www.CindiMyers.com for all the latest news.

Until next time…

Cindi Myers

No Regrets

Cindi Myers

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

For Diane and Mike

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

1

SOME PEOPLE THINK LIFE is full of second chances. But the way Lexie Foster saw it, do-overs didn’t come around that often. When you got the chance for one, you’d better grab it and make it good.

Or so Lexie tried to explain to her best friend, Candace French, as they lingered over frozen macchiatos on a mid-June afternoon in the coffee shop of the building where they worked in downtown Denver.

Where Lexie used to work, that is.

“Call me dense, but I’m just not getting this,” Candace said as she stabbed a straw into her drink. “Your first day back at work since the accident and you quit? Why?”

“I never liked working at Culpepper and Piper.” Lexie took a long pull on the macchiato, savoring the rich caramel and coffee flavor. She’d never really appreciated things like good coffee drinks before, but those days were over. “I’ve wasted too much time already in that dead-end job,” she explained. “The accident taught me that life is too precious to waste a second of it.”

She didn’t remember much about the accident itself, but the feelings surrounding the night lingered: the heart-stopping terror as she felt her car begin to slide on the icy road and watched it hurtle toward the guardrail; the confusion as she tried to see the ambulance lights pulsing somewhere to her left through a haze of blood, garbled voices shouting unintelligible words; the bleakness that washed over her upon waking in the stark white world of the hospital, unable to move; the incredible joy when they’d released her restraints and she’d discovered she would fully recover; the desire to get out into the world and experience everything that had consumed her during almost six months of rehab.

She sucked up more of the macchiato with a satisfying slurp and looked at Candace. “I’m going to do all the things I was too timid or busy or lazy to do before.”

Candace looked skeptical. “What kind of things?”

“I’ve made a list.” Lexie opened her purse and pulled out the little red leather notebook she’d bought especially for this purpose. “I’ve written one hundred things I intend to accomplish.”

Candace opened the book and scanned the first page. “Have affairs with at least six men before I’m thirty?” Her eyes widened. “That’s only three years.”