sound so surprised? You think I can’t actually cook? You think I just add my name to someone else’s recipe?’ She’d done a degree in food science. She knew what was nutritionally valuable and what wasn’t. And she loved experimenting with flavours and tastes. She’d taken the comfort eating thing and turned it into something positive. With a mother like Alicia, what choice did she have? She’d been put on that many diets.
He raised his brows. ‘Did I say all that? Did I even suggest it?’
She felt faint warmth in her cheeks. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time someone implied that I’ve only used my connections to make a success of my business.’
‘Well, I didn’t imply anything of the sort. And from what I see here I can guess you make a success of your business all by yourself.’
She sent him a quick look of suspicion, but he didn’t seem to be teasing so she gave him the humorous history that she didn’t usually share. ‘When I was a teen my mother decided a cabbage-soup diet would be the one to finally shed my puppy-fat.’
‘Cabbage soup?’
She could hear his disgust and once she’d have totally agreed. She’d never hated her mother more than when she’d told her to detox for three days with nothing but some vile broth made from only onions and cabbages. She’d never felt so sick in her life. And so she’d gone into the kitchen, starving, and made her own soup. Then when her mother had grilled her on what she’d eaten that day she had been able to answer honestly—‘just some soup’.
‘I took to making it myself—played with the ingredients.’ She’d added cheeses, meats, spices and flavouring to soup and turned something spartan and simple into something succulent and calorifically sinful. Her products had intense flavour, were highly sought after, and sold as soup for the connoisseur.
She moved to stand next to him at the hob, stirred the other pot and grinned at the recollections. ‘Now my cabbage soup is one of my biggest sellers.’ She looked up, forgetting that eye contact with him was dangerous to her mental agility. ‘It has a full cup of cream in every pack.’
‘Naughty Cally.’
She batted her lashes. ‘What can I say? Subversive is sometimes the only way.’
‘Subversive,’ he echoed softly. ‘I must bear that in mind.’
Staring up at him, she felt the heat from his gaze far more than the heat from the element that was threatening to burn the soup. Then, of all the ridiculous things, she shivered. Immediately his eyes darkened, and she sensed rather than saw his tiny movement closer and her own minuscule advance in response.
The rattle of the pot lid pulled her back. She turned the gas off quickly, lifted the pot and stepped away from his stifling nearness. Went back to mundane conversation. ‘I make my own stock from scratch. I love the whole process.’
He watched her retreat with that teasing glint now back in his eyes. She knew damn well he knew how he affected her. He must be so used to it. But, man, it was humiliating. She told her backbone to lose the invisibility cloak. Couldn’t she at least try to dish it out as well as him? Couldn’t she tease him in the way he teased her? Meaningless, playful banter?
He stirred the soup in the other pot left on the hob with suspicion. ‘Don’t you ever eat anything else?’
She turned in surprise, then stopped to actually think about it. ‘Not often, no.’
‘You just live on soup?’
‘Well, I have a smoothie for breakfast, then, yeah, soup for lunch and dinner. I’m usually in a hurry and just grab some from the shop. It’s good to taste it—now that it’s produced on a bigger scale I need to make sure none of the quality is lost.’
‘Don’t you ever want to chew on something? You don’t get bored?’
‘No.’
‘Hmm.’ He seemed to ponder for a moment. ‘You know, I like something I can really get hold of. Something with some texture, some bite.’ He looked back at her with wicked eyes again. She knew he was flirting, dangerously close to being bold. Well, she could handle that—couldn’t she?
‘Is that so?’ She sent him a look from under her lashes, laughing inside at her pathetic attempt to inject cool into her voice. Then she turned to the fridge and opened the vegetable drawer that was always bursting with fresh produce.
The cucumber was thick and long and she weighed it with her hand, fingers curling tight around its girth as she turned back to him. She saw the sparkle in his eye and she gave him a bland smile back. The she picked up the biggest knife in her collection—not one she’d usually use on a hapless vegetable, but, in this instance, a point needed to be made. With quick, precise movements, she stripped its skin. She glanced back up to him. He’d stepped to the other side of her bench and was watching, the corners of his mouth twitching. She looked back down, slightly disconcerted, and got on with her dissection. Mr Cucumber could get a load of this.
For a few minutes the only sound was the bang, bang, bang as the blade hit the board. She worked swiftly, efficiently, until there was only a pile of pulp.
‘So, let’s see, you’ve skinned, deseeded and sliced that cucumber till it’s barely recognisable.’
‘Sure.’ She had the cool tone down pat this time. ‘I think we can safely say it’s dead. Now it’s ready to be eaten.’
‘Only now that you’ve stripped it of its life force?’
‘That’s right.’ She went back to the fridge and got the container of thick yoghurt. Spooned some into a dish, mixed it in with the cucumber and added seasonings.
‘There are a couple to choose from, but I think you should try the spicy sausage.’ She spoke over her shoulder as she spooned the steaming soup into a bowl. ‘I think you’ll find it has plenty of texture and bite. You may even need some of the yoghurt dip to take the edge off.’
‘The one with the cucumber? Because, let’s face it, without the cucumber, that dip would be nothing.’ He grinned then. It widened into a full-blown smile and laughter followed. Warm, rich, irresistible laughter. Suddenly, effortlessly, Cally found laughter bubbling out too.
‘You’re not all you seem, Cally,’ he teased as their humour dimmed.
‘In what way?’
‘There’s a little more to you than I expected.’
‘What did you expect?’
‘As little as you expected from me, I think.’
She looked up quickly, only to be caught again by his gaze.
‘Not just a pretty face,’ he murmured.
She got back to fussing with the bowls pronto. He wasn’t talking about her. She wasn’t a pretty face at all; she was plain and ordinary. And his face wasn’t pretty either; it was beautiful. ‘Never go out with a man who is better looking than you’—that was her motto. She just had to remember to stick to it.
‘You mind eating in here? The formal dining room doesn’t get the sun at this
