The Negotiator (Professionals, #7) - Jessica Gadziala Page 0,55

and a crisp white tucked-in shirt, the top two buttons undone, but without a jacket.

There was no real work to be done here, no one seeing him but the rest of us, but he still felt the need to dress up.

Which I found oddly endearing, to be honest. And since all of the clothes he bought for me were dresses, we sort of matched. I would have felt really out of place if I was always in a dress and he was walking around in sweats.

"No. He's been trying to convince me that I have the slightest idea what I am doing here," I told him, waving toward the scattered possible ingredients spread across the island.

"You'll do fine. Just think of what you like to put together taste-wise, and combine those things," he offered, shrugging.

"I have forgotten what everything tastes like," I told him, tone grave, something that made a smile break out across his face.

It was so unexpected, so uncommon on his stern face, that I felt like my chest was tight at getting to witness it.

That was cheesy as hell.

But it was true nonetheless.

Maybe I liked things a little bit cheesy these days.

"Alright. How about I make you a frappe?" he offered, already moving to do so, grabbing the milk, the instant coffee, and the chocolate syrup. "Then you can remember what some things taste like, and can focus on your food again."

"That sounds like a good plan," I agreed, watching him as he moved around.

I never gave much thought to someone making me coffee before. Kai had done it many times for me. And I had done it for him, for a lot of the guys in the office. It was just a normal, everyday gesture.

Somehow, though, this felt special. Maybe because Christopher was not a friend, because my feelings regarding him were shaping up to be a lot more than friendly.

And because the fact that he even knew how to make a frappe, let alone did it for someone else, had been shocking to Alexander and Cora —two people who seemed to know him better than anyone else.

So maybe it actually meant something that he did it for me.

Sure, I could have been fantasizing the issue a bit, but it just seemed something a little extra, a little special.

And like being on the receiving end of that smile, getting a man like him to make me coffee just felt really nice.

In fact, just about everything about Christopher was starting to feel nice.

"Okay, try this," he offered, holding out the sweating glass as he stuck a stainless steel straw into it.

Obediently, I took a long sip, tasting the milk, the coffee, the chocolate, and a hint of something else.

"Something is different," I told him, looking up at him.

"Yeah? What is it?" he asked, head dipping to the side a bit, making me realize he was challenging me to try to remember what things tasted like, how they went together.

This was an easy one.

What went really well with milk and chocolate?

"Caramel," I told him, getting another of those warm smiles.

"There you go. You got this, angele mou," he said, making his way past me, giving my hip a little squeeze, then disappearing outside.

Angele mou.

I didn't know that one.

Mou was 'my.'

And 'angele' sounded almost a lot like 'angel.'

My angel?

Could he possibly have been saying that to me? Calling me that?

I could practically hear the guys at work scoffing. That anyone would think of me as an angel, that anyone would dare to say it to my face.

I would have been scoffing with them just a few weeks before.

Now, though?

Now, I had to admit, my stomach did an unexpected little flip-flop at the endearment.

I wanted to hear it again.

Preferably with his lips close to my ear while he was inside me.

I should have cared about lines of propriety, about keeping professional and personal issues separate, about not sleeping with someone who had sort of kidnapped me, and kept me from the outside world.

Yet, I did not.

At all.

For a second.

I was going to get that man in bed.

And I was going to enjoy every last second of it.

After I figured out what to feed these guys.

With another couple of sips of delicious frappe in my system, I seemed to start moving on autopilot.

I lined a baking sheet with the chicken breast, carrots, potatoes, peppers, some lemons on the chicken, a little rosemary and garlic, and drizzled the whole thing with olive oil.

About an hour later, I was arranging some olives around