Summer in Napa - By Marina Adair Page 0,56

to keep from saying something that would blow their cover when she felt herself flush. It wasn’t the heat of the coffee that warmed her, rather that behind all the meathead BS Marc was spewing out, he was silently showing her that he listened, paid attention, and that fake relationship or not, he cared. Because a dark-chocolate mocha with a shot of hazelnut and lots of whipped cream was not only her favorite, it was the exact caffeine fix that she needed.

Problem was, the charming playboy with the badass smile and disarming dimples could easily become more than just a quick fix.

Marc’s smile faded as though he read her mind. “Hey, look at me.”

Unable to resist, she did, her heart clogging her throat. She didn’t care if Nora Kincaid and her gossiping biddies were watching or that Abby was two feet away. She wanted Marc to kiss her, right there on Main Street, in front of the farmers’ market, and in turn the entire town.

So when Marc leaned down, Lexi went up on her toes to meet him halfway. When he was close enough that she could smell his skin, feel his breath skate across her lips, he opened his mouth and—licked up the entire left side of her face.

With a horrified gasp, she pulled back.

“What?” He shrugged. “You had a huge glop of chocolate on your cheek.”

CHAPTER 9

She was wearing yellow tonight. A paper-thin yellow dress with little white flowers that she filled out to perfection. It barely had straps, just skinny strips of fabric holding it up over her otherwise bare shoulders. And when she moved, hell, even when she breathed, the dress swished back and forth over those long, toned legs.

She was killing him. And so was that damn smell.

Wingman, nose shoved in the half-inch crack at the bottom of the window, whimpered. He’d been that way for most of the night, drooling over the smells wafting in from Lexi’s apartment. So had Marc.

Marc’s stomach grumbled, and on cue Wingman looked over with those big doggie eyes. “I know, boy. Let me finish this and then we can go upstairs and grab some dinner.” He’d gotten a pretty fair understanding of where the bakery stood, financially. All he needed to do was finish jotting down his ideas.

Glancing at his computer, he noticed it was after eight. If he stopped staring out the window and focused, he could be done by ten.

Wingman barked, as though saying no, and looked back out the window. Every night, right around this time, Lexi would start tinkering in her kitchen, and Wingman sat like a lovesick pooch waiting for the pretty lady with yummy treats from across the alley to invite him over for dinner.

Tonight it was pork with—Marc sniffed the air—some kind of herby sauce.

And there he was—once again—staring up at her window instead of focusing on his work. Between trying to catch glimpses of Lexi, going over Pricilla’s books, which were a complete disaster, and coming up with a business plan to help Lexi save her grandmother’s floundering bakery, he’d accomplished jack shit. Lexi was only part of the problem. Guilt, for spying on a woman who was obviously struggling to keep her grandma’s shop afloat, intensified when he discovered a staggering amount of unaccounted monies in Pricilla’s books. Marc couldn’t think past how much he wanted to pummel Jeff for putting him in this situation.

Lexi, on the other hand, had been much more productive. He watched her pick up four plates, balancing them on her arms like a pro, and disappear from the kitchen window, only to reappear in the dining room. She arranged the plates in a precise order, centering each one on the place mats she’d set out earlier in the evening. Two plates were identical, a beautiful chop of meat, the perfect proportion of what looked to be wild rice and a fancy drizzle of pink sauce. The other two plates, although identical to each other, were drastically different from the first, but even though he was squinting he couldn’t make out what was on them.

She stood back and eyed each one, tinkering with the silverware before taking a seat in front of the far-right place setting. After taking just a single bite, she glared at the first dish and shoved the plate back.

Even pouting, she was cute. Tonight she was supposed to be mastering the pork portion of the menu, and the irritated look in her eye meant that she had stuck to their grandmothers’

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