to get back to the office,” Jane said. “I have an important presentation.”
“First we have to light your candles on your chocolate birthday cake so you can make a wish.”
For a birthday that had started off all wrong and had been filled with unsettling surprises, Jane couldn’t remember when she’d had more fun. Why was that? she wondered.
As Mindy struck a match to light her candles, Jane closed her eyes.
“Think of something you truly truly want, and your wish will come true,” Mindy said softly.
Jane tried to concentrate on the position of director of market research but drew a blank. Instead she conjured a broad-shouldered hunky giant with a sculpted mouth and black-lashed, green eyes, who was wearing a red tie with even hotter pink flamingos flapping all over it.
She squeezed her eyes tighter and tried to focus on the job she wanted. Matt’s image was as stubborn as the man himself and refused to budge.
“Are you thinking of something you really want yet?” Mindy quizzed hopefully.
“No!” she snapped and mentally stuck out her tongue at the vision of Matt.
“Mind if I sit down?” murmured a deep, familiar baritone.
Her eyes flew open, and there he was—as if she’d truly conjured him. Mom would love this.
“I certainly do mind. I was trying to make a wish before my candles go out.”
He sat down anyway and closed his eyes. A look of fiendish bliss transformed his dark, rugged features. His eyes opened. He leaned forward and blew out her candles.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“I made a wish for you on your birthday.” He began plucking candles out of the cake and licking chocolate icing off their bottoms.
“You can’t do that.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, it’s a done deal, darlin’.” He licked another candle. “Besides, you were blocked and I was feeling creative. When are you going to realize we’re a team?”
“No, we’re not.”
“We could be—if you’d let it happen.”
“What did you wish for?” she asked him, to change the subject.
“I can’t say, or it won’t come true.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t make my wish.”
“I think it’s sweet,” Mindy said, watching them both far too intently.
“How did you find us?” Jane asked. “No—don’t tell me. Mother?”
He grinned. “She called me again.”
“What if I don’t want your wish to come true?”
“Then it won’t.” He signaled the waiter and ordered a piece of cake just like hers.
The cake was thick rich chocolate and sinfully delicious. Being a cook, she was wondering about the exact ingredients as she ate it, while he simply savored his. He began taking a bite of his cake every time she took a nibble from hers. He watched her, and she watched him. Soon she forgot all about cooking. When she ran her tongue across her upper lip, he did the same. There was a rhythm to it. The river flowed by, tourists laughed and chattered, and the chocolate melted on her tongue just as his ripe kisses had.
“Dark, oozy chocolate’s my favorite flavor,” he said.
“Mine too,” she whispered.
“At least there’s something we enjoy together.” He moved his face nearer hers so that he could whisper. “Besides kissing.”
When she felt his warm breath against her cheek, she jumped away from him. Still, it had been a long time since she’d enjoyed anything more than eating chocolate cake while staring into his sparkling green eyes.
“You’re dangerous,” she said, patting her mouth with her napkin.
“I certainly hope so,” he replied.
Chapter 5
“Mother—please!”
The fragrance of Matt’s flowers were cloyingly sweet. Jane wished she could ignore them. If only she had windows she could open.
If only her mother hadn’t called.
“Mother, I can’t deal with this!” Jane closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “I’ve got a meeting with my boss in two minutes, so listen to me! Please, quit calling him!”
“If she offers you the job, refuse it. Tell her Matt would be better.”
“This kind of help I don’t need.”
“A smart woman is smart enough to let her man win—at least until she’s got him hooked.”
“Do you ever read anything that’s been written this century? Your ideas are medieval.”
“No, your generation is impossible. There aren’t going to be any grandbabies. We’re going to be extinct.”
“Mother!”
“But the cards explicitly recommended—”
“Mother!”
“I really do see him in your future!”
“Mother!” Each Mother was louder than the last.
“Stop shouting. It’s not good for me, you know.”
Her mother took a breath. Jane glanced at her watch.
“Okay. All right. But, Jane, if you were half as smart as you think you are, you’d wear those contact lenses I bought you and play more. But go ahead and keep messing up your own life. Just don’t come crying to me when he gets himself snapped up by some floozy, and you realize you’re in love with him when it’s too late.”
“What?”
“You’ve been in love with him for years.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“I remember the way you trailed around after him on the playground, always pestering him until he pulled your ponytail or something. Remember the time you sat on his cowboy hat?”
“What I remember is having to leave home and go to a private, big city high school because he humiliated me. I didn’t get to graduate with my friends.”
“Lighten up. Not in this lifetime will I forget that kiss last Christmas. You could barely stand.”
“He
