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There was so much she could be passionate about here, if she allowed it. The hint of chest behind Gage’s open-necked shirt, the strength of his tanned forearms sprinkled with golden hair, the pull of crisp cotton over muscular shoulders. All of that had inflamed her passions once, and it would be so easy for her to allow it to be so again. She eased her thoughts back to safer ground. Away from sliding her hands over those broad shoulders, pressing her lips to the pulse on his neck, letting him wrap his arms tightly around her...
Thoughts that would take her nowhere good. She ignored their allure.
‘We’ve been trying to grow an enhanced rose. One with slightly different notes in the scent. Last year a bush showed promise so we cultivated a field of them and invited a few parfumiers here. Let their best noses smell it.’ She paused, allowed the anticipation to build because there was joy in this, for her at least. Something she’d worked hard for and achieved on her own. And there was a tiny nugget of hope inside that people would be proud of her achievements. That Gage might be proud. A small thrill skittered through her at making him wait. Making him interested in what she had to say. Enticing him.
As the silence stretched, he raised an eyebrow and she relented. ‘It started a bidding war for exclusive access. We’re still in negotiations, but people are willing to pay a lot. It’s—’
‘Exciting’ Gage finished the sentence, looking at her over steepled fingers. ‘And an achievement.’
What she’d dreamed of when her dreams of having Gage had died.
Warmth coursed over her, heat rising to her cheeks. She must look as pink as the roses in her field right now. Here was a chance. It might be tiny, but it was a chance nonetheless.
‘What are you saying?’ Her words might have been a little too urgent, her voice a little too breathy, but she didn’t care.
The corner of his mouth quirked up in something of a smile, which looked a bit triumphant for her liking, but if this was a lifeline, she was taking it.
‘I’m not bloody-minded about the process. If a business stands up to scrutiny, it stays. The farm does. For now.’
The whole of her unwound, as his words sank in. Eve couldn’t help the smile that broke out on her face. In business she’d learned to hide her emotions, but she didn’t care about that now—this was something to celebrate. She walked over to where he sat, and he turned in his chair to face her. He could still take her breath away with those eyes of his, as perfect as a cloudless summer day. Her heart fluttered a few silly beats, as it always did when he was near. Around him she reacted like a girl barely out of her teens. He tilted his head back to look up at her.
‘Thank you,’ she said. All her tension seeped away, and something else entirely overtook it. A sensation so unfamiliar she’d almost forgotten what it meant. The surge in her pulse, the butterflies in her stomach. The bursting in her chest evidence of true happiness. She’d had so little of it in recent years. At that moment she didn’t think too much about what she was doing as she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, the merest brush. Something entirely platonic. Except the smell of him, all earth and spice, made her linger a bit longer than she should. Maybe she sighed. Maybe her breath brushed his cheek in a way it shouldn’t have before she pulled away. She should move back to her seat, but she didn’t.
‘My pleasure,’ he said. His voice was low and soft, better suited to dimmed lights and late nights than this morning in a breakfast room. And the sensations coursing inside her morphed into something else, something liquid, hot and potent. ‘But that’s not the type of kiss you’d give your fiancé.’
Her heart picked up its rhythm to something harder and faster. She should be terrified by this, but she wasn’t. The anticipation of a coming dare overtook her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘We’re having dinner with Greta Bonitz tonight. Our engagement won’t be convincing to her if that’s how you act.’
‘I thought you were convinced I could fake it?’
‘Time to prove it.’ He held out his hand, palm up. His voice was a murmur, like a breeze through rose petals. ‘Touch me.’
She should back away but his hand was there, and she craved to feel his skin against hers once more. He was right, in public they’d have to hold hands, at least try to look adoring, if this were to work. Maybe, just maybe they could reach some sort of truce here and now. She placed her hand gently in his. He wrapped his fingers round hers, stroking the backs of her knuckles with his thumb. All she wanted to do was close her eyes and give in to the sensation, his warmth, the gentleness of his touch.
‘You scared, Eve?’
It was the game they’d played when they’d been kids and had sneaked off to the bottom of their respective gardens to see each other through the vine-covered hole in the wall. She’d always risen to the challenge of that taunt. Whether it had been climbing trees too high or catching garter snakes, a dare had always been her call to action.
She gazed into the everlasting and perfect blue of his eyes. She could drown in them they were so deep. ‘You don’t scare me, Gage Caron.’
His pupils were wide and dark, his nostrils flared. The knowledge that she still affected him jolted through her with the hot roar of power. He might be able to destroy her and her business, but she held something too. His desire. She wanted it, to wrest back some control of her own. Then he tugged at her hand. She followed with no resistance, allowing herself to be reeled in. Gage widened his legs so she stood between them, and drew her close with a smile that was all triumph. She swallowed, a pulse thrashing wildly in her throat.
‘Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf now, cher?’
CHAPTER FIVE
SHE SHOULD RUN yet all Eve craved was to sink into Gage and take everything that his wicked smile promised. He was all dry heat and the crack and fire of an electrical storm, dangerous and thrilling. She was rooted to the spot, watching him blaze in front of her with a hypnotising energy.
This was a test of her determination. But if he thought the look of him sitting there as sinful as Lucifer would chase her away, he was sorely mistaken. She didn’t run anymore. She never would again.
‘Sugar, you’ll learn that I’m no Little Red Riding Hood,’ she said, her voice low and raw in a way that sounded alien to her ears.
‘Who are you then?’
She cupped his cheek, traced the smooth, freshly shaven skin as she leaned down, her lips a whisper away from his. Breathing the same breath as if in that moment they shared one life together.
‘I’m the woodcutter.’
