come out right.” He laughed.
Gisella took another precautionary step back. The man looked as if he was going to devour her right there in front of everyone. “Well, like I said. I’m just trying to drum up new business,” she said, trying to swallow her nervous tremor.
“You’re not going to have a problem with that once everyone tastes this wonderful creation. How long have you been baking?”
Her smile brightened again. “All my life. My mère and grandmère still run a shop in Paris.”
Gisella’s accent enraptured Charlie.
A woman to their right emitted a low moan of orgasmic pleasure. “Oh, my God, this cake is off the chain.” The woman turned to her companion. “Here, taste this.”
Gisella’s cheeks blushed a rich sienna. “I love baking and cooking. Food is life, no?”
Charlie just smiled. “Have you ever heard that the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?”
Eyes twinkling, Gisella’s lips turned up into a sly smile. “If I wanted your heart, I would just take it.”
Charlie cocked his head with a bemused grin, but when he opened his mouth for a quick retort, a pair of hands slipped over his eyes.
“Guess who.” A high-pitched feminine voice floated over the shell of Charlie’s ear while a small set of breasts pressed into his back.
Not now. He controlled his irritation while he forced a smile. “Let me see now,” he said, wondering how to get out of a potentially sticky situation. “Could this possibly be my favorite woman in the whole wide world?”
“And who would that be?” the woman asked with attitude edging her voice.
Charlie reached to uncover his eyes. “Dear ole Mom, of course,” he answered, pulling away the small hands and turning around with his ready-made smile still hugging his lips.
“Hey, you.” He still didn’t know the name of the smiling beauty, with a short spiked haircut and eyes the color of maple, but he was determined not to go down in flames. “You came!”
The woman’s face lit up with pleasure. “I wouldn’t have missed your birthday for the world.” She inched closer and lowered her voice in a conspiratorial whisper. “Especially after that wonderful weekend last month.”
Charlie was still clueless to the woman’s identity. After all, that was four weekends ago, and he was never without company on any of them.
“Well, I’m glad you made it,” he whispered. His mind scrambled for a way to get rid of her so that he could get back to Gisella.
“I hope you’re saving one of those for me,” she cooed, pulling one sleeve of condoms from around his neck. “In fact—” she leaned in close “—why don’t we slip away upstairs and I give you your birthday gift?” She grinded her hips against his to ensure he caught her meaning.
Charlie’s brows jumped at the suggestion. “Why don’t you meet me up there in about twenty minutes? I gotta say hi to a few more people first.”
The beauty sucked in her bottom lip and gave him a wink. “Don’t leave me waiting too long.” Still holding the sleeve of condoms, she turned and switched her hips as she moved through the crowd.
Charlie sighed and then turned back to address Gisella.
She was gone.
Glancing around the perimeter of the room, Charlie’s heart pounded in double-time. He moved through the crowd, searching.
“How about a dance?” a new woman asked, looping her arms around Charlie’s neck.
“Not right now.” He tried to pry the woman’s arms away but she locked her hands together and kept him ensnared between her arms. “I’m looking for someone,” he confessed.
“Another woman?” she asked, inching up an eyebrow.
Charlie glanced down and recognized Lexi—another fling from last month. “Oh, hey.” He changed up his program. “How are you? I’ve been meaning to call.”
“I just bet you have,” she said, smiling though her tone held a lethal edge. “I should have listened to my girlfriends and stayed away from you.”
Charlie’s lips curled wickedly. “Then why didn’t you?”
Lexi hesitated and then allowed her eyes to roam down the front of his body. “Because I wanted to see whether you’d live up to your reputation.”
He arched an eyebrow, his ego expanding. “How did I do?”
She flashed him an incredibly white smile. “You’re a cocky sonofabitch.”
“That is what makes me so adorable.”
“One of these days…”
From the corner of Charlie’s eyes he caught sight of Gisella heading toward the door. He finally pulled Lexi’s hands from around his neck and winked at her. “Hold on a second.”
“Yeah. Right. I won’t hold my breath.”
Charlie plowed back into the crowd and tried to maneuver his way to the door. But every few steps another woman would grab him by the arm, the neck and even his crotch to ask why he hadn’t called them in such a long time.
At the door, Gisella stopped and kissed Isabella on each cheek and then waved goodbye to her.
“No. Wait,” he called after her, but the loud music swallowed his voice and a throng of women kept pulling at him. By the time he made it to the door and then glanced down the hallway of his Buckhead high-rise, Gisella was long gone.
Chapter 2
“He’s not my type,” Gisella repeated to herself. No matter how many times she made the declaration, a part of her rebelled at the notion. The thought just kept coming to the forefront of her mind how handsome-no-how fine Charlie Masters was. From the moment that six-two, golden brown Adonis strolled inside his high-rise apartment, Gisella could hardly take her eyes off of him.
The man exuded confidence and possessed an undeniable sexual prowess that dampened his fair share of panty liners whenever he walked by. And those eyes—playful hazel green—that sparkled if you were fortunate enough to hold his attention.
No wonder every woman in the room was practically drooling and shamelessly throwing themselves at him. It wasn’t surprising that he looked as if he was reveling in his element.
From the moment she’d slipped her hand into his, there was a powerful magnetic pull toward him, which was right on course since she had an affinity for bad boys, the very habit that she’d promised herself to break.
With a determined shake of her head, Gisella erased Charlie’s image just as she arrived at her car in the high-rise parking garage. “Forget about him,” she mumbled under her breath as she unlocked the car and slid in behind the wheel.
But
