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He poured glasses for both of them and sat close beside her. Content to enjoy her company, Ashton sipped his wine and watched her. She wore no makeup and that added to the aura of vulnerability that surrounded her at the moment. The scent of jasmine clung to her skin. A trace of damp lingered in the thick wave of brown hair cascading around her delicate shoulders. He guessed she’d been working out recently for a healthy glow suffused her skin.
“Did you always want to be a chef?” With her feet tucked beneath her, she took up very little space, but vibrancy had returned to her voice.
“I sort of stumbled into it.”
The truth wanted to spill out of him. Last night she’d shared a great deal about her childhood and school years. Her openness had tempted him to talk about his own past. But most of the people who knew what he’d done had either been dumped in the African jungle or buried in a shallow grave. An elegant, cultured woman like Harper would be horrified by what it had cost him to survive.
“When I was fifteen,” he began, abandoning the press release version of his past, “I left home and fell in with some bad guys.”
Describing Chapman’s ruthless gang of smugglers as bad guys was woefully inadequate. They’d been a mean bunch of criminals brought together by the most loathsome man Ashton had ever met.
“How bad?”
He pushed back his left sleeve and showed her a pair of long, faint scars on his forearm. “They liked to play with knives.”
“They did this to you? That doesn’t look much like playing. Why did you stick around?”
“Because I was cocky and stubborn. I thought I could take care of myself.” And he’d had nowhere else to go. Ashton brushed his sleeve down. “One of the guys did all the cooking for the gang. He took me under his wing. Kept me away from the worst of the lot. Turns out I had a knack for combining flavors.” Not the whole truth, just a sterilized version of what had really happened.
“Had you planned to do anything else?”
Ashton shrugged. He’d been a stupid, rebellious teenager who’d rarely thought beyond the moment. “I only knew I wasn’t going to follow in my father’s footsteps.”
Her lips twisted into an unhappy grimace. “What did he do?”
“He was a missionary.” He hadn’t planned to disclose that fact. Usually, he told people his father was a salesman. Which was pretty close to the truth. His parents spent their whole lives selling salvation to people who had no idea they were damned.
For the first time since she’d arrived on his doorstep, her eyes brightened. “A missionary? Forgive me if I say that you don’t strike me as the son of a religious man.”
She made no attempt to hide her curiosity. Nor did she curb the trace of laughter in her tone. This wasn’t the withdrawn, mentally drained woman who’d shown up at his door. The cloud that had followed her into his suite had retreated for the moment.
“I could say I’m not and explain that there are all sorts of missionaries in Africa, but my father and mother spent a great deal of my childhood visiting villages and spreading Christian values.”
His muscles grew more taut with each syllable that passed his lips. He began to notice an ache in his shoulders. The pain reminded him that he’d never set down the burden of unfinished business created by his choice to leave home and never look back.
“Wow, that was not a happy memory for you at all.” She set her fingertips on his forearm, her touch light and friendly.
Too bad his heart didn’t recognize the contact as casual. It gave a giant lurch like a racehorse surging from a starting gate. In seconds his breath came more quickly. Usually when desire hit him, he rolled with the blow. Why resist? Beautiful women were their own type of adventure.
But Harper Fontaine wasn’t just a beautiful woman. She was intelligent and ambitious, dynamic and resourceful. When he’d first started working with her, he’d been annoyed by her bluntness and impressed by her sincerity. Last night he’d discovered she was also a warm, passionate woman and the chemistry between them was electrifying.
“What about you?” he asked, turning the topic away from himself. “Did you always want to be a hotel executive?”
“From the time I was five years old.” She smiled fondly. “My father took me to the Waldorf Astoria and I fell in love. It was everything a grand hotel should be. We went at Christmas and the lobby was filled with these enormous evergreen trees covered in white lights and big red and gold balls. The railings were decorated with swags of ribbon and lights. It was magical. I knew I wanted to be a part of that someday.”
> He had little trouble imagining her as a wide-eyed child, holding tight to her father’s hand while she soaked up the magnificence of that fine old hotel. For her, it had probably been as exciting a place to visit as FAO Schwarz would be for most other children.
“I suppose being a Fontaine, hotels are in your blood.”
Her expression changed—the glow in her eyes dimmed, her mouth flattening into a somber line. “What’s it like traveling all over the world like you do?”
“Exciting. Exhausting.” Sometimes he longed to go home. Or at least that’s what he assumed he wanted. He never really felt as if he belonged anywhere. “I crave an ever-changing landscape.”
“That’s so different from what I’m used to.” Setting her elbow on the back of the couch, she propped her head on her hand and sipped her wine. “I’ve never traveled anywhere.”
“I find that hard to believe. There are Fontaine hotels all over the world.”
“Yes, but when I’ve visited the hotels I’ve never had time to sightsee. You said you couldn’t see me shopping in Paris. You were right. I’ve been there three times and never once toured the city.”
