Picking up her left hand, he ran his thumb over the gold band she wore. A treasure that had once belonged to her mother. "Then I guess this ring did its job."

She laughed, her eyes sparkling with agreement. "Until now, anyway." Then she shrugged and grew a bit more serious. "I suppose it was just a matter of waiting for the right guy to come along to sway me into an affair-that, along with the right set of circumstances."

And their circumstances had been ideal. "All I can say is, lucky me." He rubbed her soft, cool fingers along the light beard growth on his cheek and watched her nipples blossom and bead against the sheet. "But three years is a hell of a long time to be off the market. I understand grieving after your husband died, but why would you want men to think you're taken for so many years?"

He expected her to tell him that her husband had been her one true love, that she hadn't been able to bring herself to date after his death, because she'd been too devastated and it had taken her time to get past her feelings for him. It was the most logical explanation.

"Dating and men just haven't been a priority for me, not when I have The Daily Grind, which has demanded a whole lot of my time over the past three years." She gently pulled her hand out of his grasp, and though he felt her physically withdrawing from him and the conversation, he let her go.

Her answer surprised him. Her reply was convenient, too pat and evasive for a woman who'd gone to such lengths to give the impression that she was taken. He instinctively knew there was more to her reasons for remaining single. He'd heard the feigned nonchalance in her tone, which contradicted the sudden defensive tilt to her chin that told him he was traversing on deeply personal issues.

And because he was a man who liked puzzles and unraveling mysteries, he persisted. "Women run businesses of their own and date all the time. Some are even married with families."

"I'm sure those women weren't left in debt up to their eyeballs by a man they thought they knew and trusted."

He didn't miss the underlying bite to her tone, which did nothing to deter him. "Your husband?"

"Yes." She shook her head and blew an upward stream of breath that ruffled her bangs across her brow. "I can't believe we're having this conversation."

Neither could he, since he wasn't one to indulge in cozy, intimate chitchat and personal revelations after sex. But now that it was out in the open, he was intent on discovering the real story behind that ring encircling her finger, and a past that had obviously kept her celibate for an amazingly long time.

Slipping his leg beneath the covers, he found her calf and casually caressed her smooth skin with his toes. "What happened?"

She rolled to her side, facing him less than a foot away, and exhaled a slow, unraveling breath. "I was naive and fell for a reckless, untamable charmer who knew how to say all the right things to sweep a woman off her feet, and he did exactly that."

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear that had fallen across her cheek, accepting the excuse to touch her for what it was. "You certainly don't strike me as naive." Not when it came to life or men.

"Okay, then I was a blind fool." Self-recriminations laced her voice. "Travis's impulsive, frivolous ways were so invigorating compared to my sensible, practical life, and he gave me something to look forward to at the end of all the hours I was working at the cafe. He was daring and adventurous, and that made me feel a sense of freedom that was new and exciting and addicting. So when he asked me to marry him after three months of dating, I said yes and we did the deed in a quickie civil ceremony that my aunt and uncle found out about after the fact." A noticeable wince creased her features.

He resisted the urge to smooth out those disturbing wrinkles with his thumb, a comforting gesture that took him off guard. "I take it they weren't happy about not being invited to the wedding?"

"They weren't happy about the marriage, period. Or Travis as a husband. They'd never really liked him." She yawned as the late hour, her long day, and physical exhaustion began taking its toll. "I had a huge argument with my aunt and uncle, my first ever yelling, screaming match with them, as I defended Travis and my right to marry who I wanted."

Her voice dropped in volume, the regret she harbored unmistakable. "In hindsight, they had good reason not to trust my judgement when it came to Travis, because they saw deeper than just the surface of a good-looking face and flirtatious smile. They saw his charming personality for what it was-a way to get what he wanted."

"And he wanted you?"

She nodded. "It seemed so, maybe because I was so eager to please, and yes, even naive when it came to men who were so good at deceiving women. He definitely conned me."

"How?" Another nudge to get her to spill more.

"Within the first six months of our marriage, after the honeymoon stage wore off, I started to see a different side to him, too. A selfish, self-centered, arrogant side he didn't bother to hide. During our two-year marriage, he couldn't hold down a job. I pretty much supported both of us while trying to get The Daily Grind to the point where it was solvent and making a profit. I'd started the business with a loan from my aunt and uncle, and a small-business loan from the bank, so there was a good chunk of money going out in repayment. And since I spent a lot of time at the cafe-over twelve hours a day-it gave Travis a whole lot of time to play."

Steve experienced a surge of anger on her behalf. "Sounds like he should have at least been at the cafe helping you out."

"Oh, he always had an excuse why he couldn't be there," she said with a bitter laugh. "His best one was that he had job interviews lined up, but none of them ever seemed to pan out. If I questioned him, we'd get in a big fight. Sometimes he'd storm out after accusing me of not trusting him and leave for a few days. And when he returned, he wouldn't tell me where he'd been, just that he needed time to cool off. After a while, I just couldn't take it anymore."

It wasn't difficult to figure out where the marriage had been heading. "You filed for divorce?"

"I never had the chance," she rasped, a flicker of pain passing through her gaze. "The night I intended to ask for a divorce and tell him to pack his bags and find another place to live, he wrapped his sports car around a telephone pole, going over eighty miles per hour, and was instantly killed because he wasn't wearing a seat belt. He was with a woman that also died on impact, who I later discovered he'd been having an affair with."

His chest squeezed tight. What in the world did he say to the terrible betrayal she'd endured? He felt out of his element, and shocked as hell at what she'd been through.

"See what I mean by naive?" She didn't wait for him to answer or refute her claim, obviously believing it was true. "And if that mess wasn't humiliating enough, within a month of his death, I started receiving all these credit card bills in the mail that he'd applied for under both of our names but had kept from me. He'd bought jewelry and meals at fancy restaurants I'd never eaten with him, and he stayed in some pretty fine hotels the nights he didn't sleep at home. He paid the minimum payment on the credit cards while purchasing tons of stuff for his girlfriend, from furniture to clothes to a five-thousand-dollar stereo system he'd obviously enjoyed while he stayed at her place. To my horror, I realized that / was now tens of thousands of dollars in debt because everything was in my name, too."

She lifted her left hand and wiggled her fingers, letting the lamplight glimmer off the shiny band. "Which brings us back to this ring I wear, and three years without sex," she said humorously, as if she hadn't just given him a very private glimpse into her past, and possibly even a part of her soul. "In a nutshell, I've been working my butt off to pay off all those creditors and make sure I don't lose my business in the process. And then there's the money my aunt and uncle loaned me as part of my investment that I haven't paid in full yet, either, since I had to cut back on their monthly payments in order to meet my obligations with those credit cards that I'm still trying to pay off."

Now he understood her desperation in accepting his cut-rate fee in exchange for his help in finding her cousin, as well as her insistence on signing her paycheck over to him so he wouldn't be one of those debts hanging over her head. Their deal was temporary the whole way around, yet he'd never expected to be so intrigued by Liz beyond anything sexual.

While she'd been an unabashed vixen an hour ago, this strong yet vulnerable facet to her appealed to him, too. She was so determined not to depend on anyone to get her out of the mess she'd gotten herself into with her deceased husband, and now she was taking on the responsibility of finding Valerie, too.

"Dating and men are a distraction I haven't been able to afford the past three years," she said, bringing his mind and attention back to her.

"And I am?"

"You, Mr. Wilde, are a very exciting fling that came around at an opportune time." Smiling drowsily, she brushed her fingers along the tribal band on his arm. "I know exactly where we stand with one another. Neither of us wants anything long-term or complicated, so our arrangement is perfect."

She was offering him the kind of reassurances and rules he would have demanded from any other woman, yet his jaw clenched in denial, his reaction knee-jerk and unexpected. But Liz was right about them, and he'd do well to remember the boundaries of their temporary relationship. Which meant ending their night together and leaving-now.