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“What?” Amelia kept her eyes on the cinnamon bun.
“That guy. Ben.”
Amelia finally glanced up at him and rolled her eyes. “What do you care?”
That meant yes, which made jealousy blast through him in a wave of heat. Curling his fists against the onslaught, Leo took a controlled breath. Then he loosened his limbs and shrugged. She was right; what did he care? It wasn’t like he could chase after Maggie Darcy’s little sister. Emory would kill him, if Maggie didn’t do it first.
Leo knew the kind of man he was, and he knew he’d never outrun the reputation he’d earned. Amelia Darcy was far, far too good for him.
“Why haven’t you asked him out?”
Amelia snorted. “Please.”
“What?”
She clicked her tongue. “Right. Becausethatwould go over well.”
Confusion momentarily overshadowed Leo’s jealousy. “What’s that supposed to mean? Why wouldn’t it go over well?”
“Um, hello? Look at me?”
He did. He still didn’t get why that would stop a guy like Ben from being interested, because from where Leo was sitting, Amelia looked like a goddess. He especially liked the grumpy little frown that tugged at her brows. “You look fine to me,” he grated.
“How flattering,” she deadpanned. “I, like every woman, aspire to be called ‘fine.’”
Then, eyes dropping back to the cinnamon bun, her expression cleared. Amelia gave him a look of pure mischief and grabbed a knife and fork from the container at the edge of the table. “I’m going to commit a cardinal sin,” she admitted, eyes dancing, “and I don’t want to hear you give me any shit for it.”
Leo watched as she carefully cut through most of the swirls of the cinnamon bun, peeling it open with her utensils like she was a surgeon performing a triple bypass. The gooey center of the bun offered itself up to her, and she used the fork to pluck the middle swirl out of its nest.
“This is the best part,” she explained, then popped the whole thing in her mouth. Icing dropped onto the corner of her lips, but Amelia was too deep in her own personal cinnamon-flavored heaven to notice. Leo listened to the little moans that emanated from her throat and sat, rapt, unable to tear his gaze away from her.
She was a woman incapable of hiding her feelings. Annoyance, anger, ecstasy—it was all written right there on her face. She couldn’t hide her thoughts if she tried. For a man like Leo, who hid behind a mask every hour of the day, the sight was almost irresistible. A tug pulled at his gut, drawing him ever closer. He wanted her to open her eyes. He wanted to see something other than animosity written on her face when she looked at him. He wanted to make her laugh.
That little smear of white icing on the corner of her lips called to him. Before he could stop himself, his hand moved up, fingers sliding over the soft silkiness of her cheek. Startled eyes fluttered open at the touch, but Leo was in too deep to care. His thumb brushed the frosting off her lip, giving Leo the barest hint of how pillowy-soft Amelia’s lips would be to kiss.
When he brought his thumb to his own mouth, she stared at him, wide-eyed, and it wasn’t anger or annoyance heating her gaze; it was lust as violent and raging as his own.
And that’s when he heard the jingling of the bakery door’s bells, a mere second before a booming male voice reached his ears.
“St. James!” his boss, Fred Goodhew, bellowed behind him. “You can’t hide her from us any longer.” A gregarious laugh. A slap on Leo’s back, followed by a tight grip on his shoulders. Fred shook Leo as he squeezed his shoulder, cackling delightedly.
Leo dropped his thumb from his mouth, the sweet taste of cinnamon and icing turning sickly on his tongue. He glanced up at the middle-aged man standing beside his table. Fred Goodhew was built like a retired linebacker: solid, but softened with age. His salt-and-pepper hair was receding slightly at the temples, and his clean-shaven complexion looked slightly battered by years of sun and wind and hard living. He was dressed immaculately, as was befitting of a billionaire in charge of a luxury party planning empire.
The man was all smiles, but he suffered no fools. And Leo was a very, very big fool.
Fred was staring at Amelia, who looked like a deer about to gosplatagainst the hood of an oncoming car. Beside Fred, a younger woman clung onto his thick arm and smiled down at Leo and Amelia. Her chestnut-brown hair was pulled back from her face in a high bun, and she wore her designer dress like it had been made for her, which, knowing whose arm she clung to, it probably had. Her left arm was in a bright-pink cast that matched her purse exactly, held in a sling of the same color.
Another clap on the back from his boss sent Leo rocking forward.
“Well?” Fred prodded. “Aren’t you going to introduce us to your fiancée?”
FOUR
Hiswhat?
The cinnamon bun in Amelia’s mouth turned to glue. It stuck to the roof of her mouth and coated her tongue, an immovable substance that in no way resembled Camilla’s creation. Concrete cured to something softer than the dough currently filling Amelia’s gob. She stared at the couple looming above their table, then turned her startled gaze to Leo, waiting for him to correct the man’s obviously bonkers assumption.
His fiancée. Right.
