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Amusement sparked in the depths of his eyes as if he were privy to some in-joke, before he dropped his hand and turned away, leaving her flustered, confused, and staring at a very fine butt.
Hearing him call her Cam resurrected memories of the way he’d breezed into Rainbow Creek one sunny Saturday morning, strolled into her parents’ coffee shop, took one look at hername badge, and said “I’ll have an espresso please, Cam” with a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his boyish face.
She’d been a goner, falling head over heels for the laid-back, nomadic builder who’d taken a piece of her heart along with a huge chunk of pride when he left.
As for that butt…tight, firm, filling out his worn denim to perfection…no, she wouldn’t dwell on how long it had been since she’d admired it, gripped it…
“Fine, have it your way,” she muttered, grabbing the end of her French braid and fiddling with the elastic, hoping her plait hadn’t unravelled along with her common sense.
Valentine’s Day had really got to her, and calling the chubby cherub some nasty names under her breath, she marched across the café and slid behind the bar.
One espresso, extra-strong, two sugars, and laid-back Blane with the twinkly eyes and charming smile could take his sexy butt and high-tail it out of here, leaving her to do what she did best: run the best damn café in Melbourne.
Chapter Two
Blane slid into a chair next to the two guys who were helping him turn his dream into a reality.
Correction, an adjunct to his dream, he thought, as his glance flicked to the bar, drawn to the sassy brunette paying an inordinate amount of attention to the espresso machine.
Cam had changed so much.
Her short spikes had gone, replaced by a long plait hanging halfway down her back, the three ear studs down to one, and the lean body he remembered all too well had developed a few curves. Eye-catching, gorgeous curves he couldn’t take his eyes off.
Though the biggest change was her personality. Gone was the impressionable, spontaneous girl he knew and loved and in her place, a blunt, confident woman who had no qualms about declaring how unwelcome he was.
Not that he expected any less. For what he’d put them through, he deserved it.
But he didn’t have a choice back then and glancing around the café, her dream a reality, and back to her deftly making his coffee just the way he liked it, he knew he’d done the right thing.
Besides, she may act like he was as welcome as a cockroach on health inspection day, but there’d been something about the way her brown eyes had sparked when he’d called her Cam, about the way she’d reacted to his touch, that gave him hope.
“Hey, how’re the plans coming along?” Blane asked.
“See for yourself.” Dirk, the cabinet maker, pushed the plans across to him. “The architect has made changes to the guest bedrooms as you requested and we’ve run with the new specifications. What do you think?”
Blane studied the tiny straight lines, the numbered annotations, and ruffled the hair at his nape, a habit he’d acquired while laboring over countless financial reports during the years it had taken forBA Constructionsto rival it with the big guns in Australia’s building industry.
“Looks okay to me.”
The pungent aroma of freshly brewed coffee, strong and bittersweet, drew his attention away from the plans and back to the bar where Cam placed a steaming cup on a saucer.
He studied her with the same intent he’d reserved for the plans, noting the tendrils escaping her plait curling in defiance around her heart-shaped face, the high cheekbones, the mouth a tad on the full side to be strictly beautiful.
His gaze drifted lower, to a funky, bright top whose color defied logic but blended perfectly with the color scheme of the place—all bright pinks and blues and golds—to the hint of cleavage which resurrected memories of how she’d felt in his hands, the sounds she’d made the first time he’d touched her…
A short, shrill whistle interrupted his journey down erotic lane and his gaze snapped up to meet hers—questioning, daring, challenging, as if she’d caught him checking her out and was calling him on it—as she crooked a finger at him and pointed to the steaming espresso on the bar.
“I told you Cam’s great,” Dirk said. “She serves the best coffee this side of the Yarra. Mike and I always come here for meetings.”
“So you said.”
Blane couldn’t thank Dirk enough for letting slip this vital bit of information when he’d arrived in Melbourne a week ago. Blane had barely begun his search for his ex when he’d found her and now that he had, he had no intention of letting her slip away.
As for the guys telling him she needed a project manager for renovations on her apartment, it had been a stroke of pure luck.
He’d been hellbent on barging in here the minute he’d discovered her whereabouts but once he’d discovered that particular tidbit of information, he’d bided his time over the week, knowing she’d be more responsive to him on a professional rather than personal level.
Not that he intended to keep the status quo that way for long.
