calendar to start booking. If you don’t get at least three parties booked from that event alone, then you suck.” He leaned across the counter and smiled at her. The gauntlet had been thrown.
He watched her for a reaction. This would tell him everything he needed to know. If she backed up, she probably didn’t have the stamina or backbone for the business. If she met his challenge, then she had a chance.
Cammie was beaming. “You say three? I’m going to book no fewer than five parties from this event.” She glanced around. “We’re hosting it here?”
He nodded, fascinated by her reaction. “Great. So where are the Christmas decorations?”
“Decorations?” He stood up and glanced around. They had never decorated the Hamptons house for the holidays. All the winter parties were held in the city. This idea of his was going to be unusual, to say the least, but selling ideas was his business. Okay, selling ideas was supposed to be his business and this was his chance to prove himself, just as much as it was Cammie’s chance to prove that catering was hers. He smiled. “Guess we just will have to go shopping, after we discuss your vision for this event.”
All the times he had seen Haley and Sam working together, they had adjourned to the library. This house didn’t have a library. This house didn’t even have a study. This house was a place to relax and get away from work. Only he would bring it with him. He shook his head.
“What? You doubt me?” She stood up even straighter, threw her shoulders back, brushed her hair away from her face, and gathered it up in a messy bun. “Hope you ate Wheaties for breakfast. We have lots of work to do in the next few days.”
Then she turned her back on him and began to acclimate herself with the kitchen. Adam watched in fascination as she looked over what pots and pans they had, the serving dishes. She was making notes on her phone as she worked. A good thirty minutes later, she looked up and caught him sitting there with his head propped up on his hand.
“What are you doing?” She stood there with her hands on her hips.
“I’m just…thinking,” he responded shyly. He had been caught.
“Why aren’t you working on ideas for this advertising campaign? I’m checking out the kitchen and thinking food and décor and I can’t even get you to keep your part of the bargain. Ad campaign. Now!” She sighed in frustration to punctuate her discontent.
“Yes, ma’am.” He stood and left the room. He would never get anything done while watching her. Yet she was such a surprise that he couldn’t imagine doing anything but sitting around watching her. Damn it. What would Sam do in this situation? He was always so much more controlled, so confident. He never would have made this kind of rookie mistake. He wouldn’t have been caught looking. Hell, he probably had never been distracted in his life, as single minded as he was.
Searching through the sofa table drawers, he soon realized that he had left the kitchen just a bit too hastily. He had to go back in there to get a pad and paper. He looked like an idiot. He had no phone, no iPad, and instead he was forced to work with the most rudimentary methods of note making. He snuck back into the kitchen, afraid of disrupting her chain of thought.
“Did you have something you wanted to run by me?” She glanced up at him, completely serious.
“What if we meet in an hour? We’ll go over the groceries first. Do you want to order take out and then go grocery shopping, or do you want to get groceries while picking up take out?” He tried to act like that was the reason he was in there, but as he opened the kitchen drawer and pulled out a pad and pen from the drawer in the island, she smirked.
“Well, genius, in an hour, let’s go out for a working lunch and then pick up groceries on the way back here.” She smiled and batted her eyelashes at him playfully.
Frozen for a moment, completely lost in her eyes, he struggled to regain his composure and head out of the room while she looked on slightly confused. “So, I’ll just go now. And I’ll just see you in an hour.” He backed out of the room.
There was something about a kitchen that always made Cammie feel