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Lucas crossed the room in a few ground-eating strides and snatched the phone from its cradle. “Brierly.”
The cool tone of his voice and the sudden chill created by his absence, shocked her back into reality.
She had been about to have sex with Lucas.
In his fucking kitchen!
How insane was that?
“What do you mean, ‘Sandrine is too busy to watch our daughter’?”
Our daughter.
Goodness.
“She wanted this week. She demanded this week.”
Caroline slid off the prep table and bent down to retrieve one of her clogs that had fallen to the floor.
“It’s not that I don’t want Nadia with me, but I was just-”
Caroline closed the kitchen door behind her, she didn’t want Lucas to think she was eavesdropping, even though his voice was reaching ‘kitchen rush volume’ as he argued with whoever was on the other end of the call.
And she really didn’t want to be there when Lucas realized how insane he’d been to kiss her.
She just couldn’t bear it if he looked at her and told her he’d just been carried away by the moment and hadn’t meant any of ‘that.’
The back hallway was short enough to walk without putting her clog back on. The tile cool under her feet. Speed was more important than comfort.
She may be desperate to make a name for herself in the culinary world, but the name she wanted to make was as a chef. She didn’t want to begin her career as Lucas Brierly’s girlfriend. Who would take her or her career seriously after that?
She knew that finishing her time at Bulldog would be hard on her. After all, she’d made tons of friends at the restaurant. But the tears that she felt gathering on her lashes were for herself alone.
She’d been lying to herself every time she said that she didn’t want him like her next breath of air. Being so close to him, tasting him, and having him pressed up against her like a lover only fed her need for him.
The bar on the backdoor clicked as she pressed on it and swung open.
“Ah, the backdoor just opened, I’ll bring her in.”
Caroline stood there, shocked.
The woman on the outside of the restaurant was all business. Tall. Copper hair. Tailored suit. No nonsense. Even the phone she held in her hand was sleek, black, and completely unadorned. A far cry from Caroline’s own cover marked with cartoon vegetables. The differences were a mile apart.
“I’m here to bring Nadia to her father.”
The little girl was standing beside the woman, her free hand twisting one of her pigtails around her finger. She looked every inch a porcelain doll. She had her father’s eyes, clear and intelligent, but her beauty must have been her mother’s. Ebony dark hair, a heart-shaped face, and cupid-bow lips. She was perfection.
Her mother must be too.
All Carolina could do was step to the side and point down the hallway. “Kitchen.”
Just as soon as she stepped out of the way she heard Lucas’ voice echo off the wall. “Caroline, wait.”
Everything stopped when he appeared at the end of the hall.
She saw his eyes as he looked from one person to another and his daughter.
Nadia tugged free of the other woman and ran down the hall, her patent leather Mary Janes scuffing along the tiles until she was in her father’s embrace.
