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Sights, sounds and sensations flooded through his system—as they’d been doing far too frequently in the past week.
Ruby’s full breasts heaving against the confining apron, her soft sobs echoing in his ear, her body clasped tight around his as he came—all wrapped in the scent of vanilla sponge cake, icing sugar and sex. Ruby’s eyes meeting his, rising to any challenge.
‘Let’s do this tomorrow, Terry.’ He pulled at the collar of his shirt, which felt as if it were strangling him.
Terry looked at him a moment, clearly torn. ‘But the trial starts tomorrow and we haven’t—’
‘I know, I’ll handle it.’
Terry nodded slowly, as if he were trying to placate a wild beast, then gathered up his papers and left. As soon as the door clicked shut behind him Cal hurled the pen across the room and watched it ricochet against the oak panelling.
‘Fun!’ The single word echoed off walls lined with leather-bound books. ‘What the hell was fun about it, Ruby?’
Fantastic. Now he was talking to himself too.
Having spent a week, make that three weeks, ever since he’d returned from Cornwall in fact, thinking about one woman and one woman only, he’d discovered that he no longer had the ability to think about anything else. His focus, his concentration, his neat, tidy, well-ordered life had been blown to smithereens by a nuclear warhead known as Ruby Delisantro. And she’d had the audacity to call it fun.
What they had shared had never been fun. Not really. Not for him. And certainly not for her if how she’d looked at him the last time he’d seen her was anything to go by—the sheen of tears turning the chocolate brown of her eyes a rich caramel.
So why had she put it in her note? He winced. Maybe because he’d said the same thing in his.
Pushing back from the desk, he stood up and loosened his tie. Undoing the top two buttons of his shirt, he walked over to the chambers window and stared out at the lawn below where a couple of clerks were eating their lunch.
Those idiotic notes were just a couple of the many mysteries about their relationship that he had been unable to solve. Nothing about their time together made any sense at all. He thrust his hand into his hair, furrowed it into rows.
Why had the sexual chemistry between them been so electric, for example, even though she’d never been his type? Why had she been able to get to him in ways no other woman ever had before? How had she been able to undermine his stability, his sense of certainty and make him question every single thing he’d ever taken for granted in his life in the space of a weekend? And why hadn’t her declaration of love panicked him nearly as much as her assurance straight afterwards that she would get over it and him, with no trouble at all?
He cursed, flattened his forearm on the warm glass and rested his forehead against it.
He’d spent a whole week determined not to go after her again. Not to succumb to the bone-deep desire to promise her anything she wanted to get her back.
He didn’t make promises, because he had always been terrified he wouldn’t be able to keep them. But it was becoming blatantly obvious that staying away wasn’t an option any more. Because the need to see her again was driving him completely nuts. And not just because he wanted to hold her again, to touch her, to explore her body and exploit the sexual attraction between them. No, he thought wryly. Wanting to see her for sex would have been far too simple, too straightforward.
And nothing about Ruby had ever been simpl
e.
He didn’t just want to see her for sex, even though he’d tried to make himself believe it when he’d written that ridiculous note, and then thrust inside her with about as much finesse as a battering ram when she’d come to his chambers.
He straightened, blew out a breath.
The truth was, he wanted so much more than sex from Ruby. He wanted to spend time with her. He wanted to talk to her. He wanted to inhale that spicy vanilla scent while discovering everything about her. Her favourite colour, her favourite book, her favourite film. What sort of music she listened to, even who she voted for—although he expected that discussion to cause more than a few arguments. He wanted to know what her best subjects were at school. The first thing she’d learned to bake. What her dreams were for her business. How she’d got the tiny crescent-shaped scar he’d noticed on her right hip. He even wanted to see her damn baby pictures. He was curious about her past, her present and every tiny thing in her life that had made her the strong, defiant, capable and yet caring woman she had become.
He frowned, squinting into the sunshine. It was madness, romantic in a way he’d always despised, but he couldn’t shake the conviction that had been forming ever since he’d watched her walk away while he’d stood frozen in shock on the terrace of her friend’s bar.
The conviction that they were connected. That they had so much more to learn, to discover about each other. That they weren’t finished, but had only just begun. And that for the first time in his life he wanted to make a promise. To Ruby. And only Ruby.
‘Damn it! What the hell are you waiting for, Westmore?’
A sudden sense of urgency propelled him across the room in four long strides. He grabbed up his wallet and his car keys and shoved them into the back pocket of his trousers. He’d wasted a whole damn week already, he thought as he dashed out of the door and strode down the corridor. He didn’t care what Ruby said, or even what she wanted. She loved him. She’d said it herself. Which meant she was going to have to face the consequences.
No way in hell was she getting over him. Because he wasn’t going to let her.
‘Why don’t we double the number of Chocolate Indulgence then and drop the Coffee Crumb altogether?’ Ruby propped the specs back on her nose and marked the changes on her order sheet. ‘Not a problem, Jamie. We aim to please.’ She gave a forced laugh at the young executive’s offer of a date, and turned him down, as she always did. But Jamie’s relaxed flirting brought with it none of the pleasure it once had. Saying her goodbyes, she dropped the phone back in its cradle and flung her specs on the countertop.
‘I can’t believe how persistent that guy is,’ Ella said from across the kitchen where she was busy cutting out cookie dough. ‘You’d think he’d have taken the hint by now.’
Maybe he would have, Ruby thought, as she rubbed her neck where the muscles ached, if she hadn’t once egged him on, enjoying their weekly flirting session as much as he did. Now all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and never speak to another man again in her entire life. Because she didn’t want any other man but Callum Westmore, and, unfortunately, he didn’t want her. She sighed and grabbed her apron off the hook by the cooker.
