her mouth felt perilously dry. “I know,” she said, praying she spoke the truth. “It won’t.”
“Even when we’re in your kitchen together?” he asked. His blue gaze challenged her to deny the memories of all the conversations they’d shared while she baked for him, all the times they’d explored each other’s bodies with wild, passionate abandon. “Or when I’m sampling your creations before they’re added to the menu?
“You already know my recipes,” she rushed to reassure him, lifting her face from his touch. “And the dessert menus are set.”
A single black brow questioned her assertion. “You’ve created nothing new in the five years we’ve been apart?”
Besides a beautiful child you know nothing about? “I’ve been too busy with the management side of my job.”
“That’s disappointing.” Heat gathered behind the blue of his eyes. “I was looking forward to learning another recipe or two.”
As if she’d dare to teach him again. She’d taught him every unique blend of spice, liqueur, and specialty flour she knew. She’d taught him to measure with his hands, to see with his mouth and tongue and to taste with his nose and eyes and skin. Their culinary lessons had invariably involved far, far more than mere food. Her flesh heated at the memory and she ducked her head to hide her blush.
He tilted her face back up again with one fingertip, the seductive curve of his mouth saying far more than any words he might have uttered.
“I wouldn’t teach you regardless,” she said, clearing her throat and forcing the memories aside. “It wouldn’t be a good idea for either of us.”
“Yes. I suppose it’s better to keep things impersonal,” he said he tracked the damning evidence of her blush, that single point of contact between them radiating out to every cell.
“Definitely,” she said, hating how her body craved his touch, how it rebelled at the thought of never being with him again. She wanted to maintain her distance, to keep Emma safe. So why this inconvenient yearning to connect with him as she had once before? To dissect every minute of the past five years they’d spent apart? To learn all the secrets of his past that she’d never had the courage to uncover?
Inhaling against the urge to press for details she had no business knowing, she lifted her chin and said, “You’re right about the Renaissance. It’s struggling. We all need to be focused if we’re going to turn it around. We can’t afford any distractions or rumors.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” His voice, smooth as silk, jarred her with its undertones of controlled, tempered steel.
Though he appeared to be relaxed, something was dangerously off. She could feel it humming in the air between them, making her skin prick with awareness.
She swallowed noisily and tried to muster a smile. It felt horribly forced and strained. “Well, then, I’m glad we got that cleared up.”
“As am I.”
She dropped her gaze to her watch, lifting her wrist between them. “I really need to go.”
“This appointment of yours … is it personal?” The question, delivered in a light, conversational tone, felt like a test. A test she had no chance of passing.
“Does it matter?” she asked in a thin voice.
“Unfortunately …” he began. His unrelenting focus trapped hers, and then he slowly lifted his palm to her cheek and stared down at her before saying, “I find it does.”
“But it can’t,” she answered on a thready exhale. “We agreed to keep things professional.”
“You’re right,” he said with a sardonic smile. “But our bodies don’t seem to be listening, do they?”
“Mine is,” she lied, while the seductive warmth of his hand sent a current of longing down her limbs. She wanted to bolt, to lurch away from his commanding touch, but her brain’s ability to control her muscles seemed to have shut down.
His eyes dipped to her traitorous body, taking in the flush of her skin, the agitated rise and fall of her breasts, and then returned. “Liar.”
She trembled with her denial. “I’m not lying,” she whispered. “I don’t want this.”
“Prove it.”
Unable to speak, she sucked in an unsteady thread of breath while his thumb tracked back and forth along her sensitive lower lip.
“What if this is just fate’s way of dealing with the past we never resolved?” he asked. “What if I was meant to find you again? To pick up where we left off?”
“I told you. I don’t believe in fate.” A sharp flare of desire shot through her belly as he abandoned her mouth to align both