another man? Relief trickled through her. But underneath, winding through like a silver thread, lurked an irrational fury. He hadn’t wanted their baby, so how dare he show concern over another man’s.
Fucking great. Now she was getting all fired up over an imaginary partner who’d supposedly fathered her child.
This was what being around Ross Edmond for five minutes did to her.
“The father,” he hedged, his voice slightly deepening even as his words confirmed her suspicion. “Where is he?” Once more he scanned her home. “Did he move back with you?”
She barely smothered her snort. “His father isn’t in the picture.” Not a lie. “It’s just us,” she added, skirting him and heading into the living room.
Not because she relished the idea of him having more access to her house, her private sanctuary. She would be a fool not to guard her life, her secret against him. But she also needed to be free of that tiny space where his scent filled her nostrils, sat on her tongue, clung to her clothes, her skin. She just craved a breath that didn’t carry him.
Ross stared at her, his crystalline gaze unreadable before he glanced away, a muscle ticking along his jaw. “Charlotte, I—” he ground out, thrusting a hand through the longer strands of dirty blond hair that waved away from his face.
“What else, Ross?” she interrupted him, not bothering to prevent the edge from creeping into her voice. She tried not to glance down at her watch, but the minutes steadily ticking by before Ben woke drummed against her skin like impatient fingertips. “You said there were two reasons you stopped by.”
For a moment he studied her, flint in his eyes and the sculpted length of his jaw still tight. “Last night, Billy asked you about joining the advisory board for the festival. It was awkward as hell for him to put you on the spot like that, and I understand if you decide against it. But I wanted to see if you’d made a decision.”
“You couldn’t have called and asked me this?”
“I don’t have your number.”
“No,” she shot back. “But somehow you found out where I lived, so unearthing my phone number probably wouldn’t have been that much of a leap.”
“Touché,” he murmured, his lips quirking in that maddening—and damn sexy—half smile that had never failed to tempt her into stroking her fingers across his mouth. Three years ago, she could, and did, submit to that urge. Now she curled her fingers into her palms, convincing herself that the itch tingling in her fingertips and palms had zero to do with that old impulse. “You’ve been away from Royal three years, but surely you haven’t forgotten how not much remains secret around here. It didn’t take but asking the right question of the right person to find out where you’d moved to. Just making that clear so you don’t think I took up a second career as a stalker in your absence.”
She snorted, crossing her arms over her chest. He spoke the truth. And she hadn’t missed the “everybody knows your name and your business” mentality of this small Texas town.
Of course, she and Ross had achieved the miraculous. Their affair had been one of the best-kept secrets in Royal.
Until she’d outed them to Rusty, that is.
“Right. About that.” She shook her head, loosening her arms to hold her palms up. “I’m sure your friend meant well, but given our...past, it’s probably not a good idea for me to be on your advisory board.”
“Last night, I agreed with you. But I’ve been thinking...” His gaze narrowed on her, and she resisted falling into that storm of ice and heat.
“Thinking what?” she prodded.
“That the success of this festival, Soiree on the Bay, is important to a lot of people. With that in mind, I’m willing to put aside our past—” his lips twisted as he mimicked her word “—to achieve that goal. And this advisory board is part of that. We need the best creative and forward-thinking minds in this group. And whatever happened between us, I remember you were a brilliant, innovative chef. You can bring that originality, imagination as well as your business sense to the board. It can only benefit all of us.”
What had that silent but deafening pause been about? What was he not saying? She gave her head a hard, mental shake. None of her business. She couldn’t afford to get bogged down in anything Ross. In anything Edmond.
Been there, done that. Had the stretch marks