Unless she counted how fast he’d run out on her.
Wincing at the memory, she got busy with the day’s takings, did a final check for tomorrow’s bookings, determinedly avoiding looking at the table where the occasional low rumble of laughter emanated from.
She focused on the booking diary and accompanying table sketches, running her finger down the list of names, matching them to the table numbers, but the figures blurred and danced the harder she stared at them, and, finally relenting, she allowed her gaze to drift upwards.
Either Blane had been staring at her all along or he was doing his mind-reading trick again, for the second she looked up their gazes locked and held, an unexpected rush of heat flooding her body, making her tummy quiver and her legs tremble so hard she had to grip onto the bar for support.
He smiled, a slow, sensual upward curving of his lips, a smile designed solely for her, a smile that was temptation personified.
She didn’t stand a chance.
No matter how often she told herself this was just a quick catch-up supper while they discussed business, no matter how hard she tried to believe she wasn’t doing this because she was curious to hear his excuse for what he’d done, no matter how much she wanted to turn him away, to hurt him as he’d hurt her six years ago, she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Blane Andrews, in all his tempting glory, still intrigued her enough to sit down over her favourite dessert after all this time…with her husband.
CHAPTER TWO
‘WHAT? You’ve seen me eat chocolate before.’
‘Not with such gusto. It’s cute.’
Camryn waved her fork in the air, enjoying this way too much. Not just the death by chocolate sampler platter, which was to die for, but the easygoing camaraderie that had sprung up between her and Blane with little effort.
She’d been determined to discuss business, scoff down her chocolate and bolt out the door. Instead, they’d made desultory small talk over hot mochas, loosened up through sensational almond biscotti and were presently at the comfortable ‘let’s sit back, relax and avoid any potential mine-fields’ stage.
‘So what you’re really saying is I’m a pig.’
He shook his head and dug his fork into a massive wedge of mud cake. ‘You’re trying to get me into trouble.’
‘Am I?’
She sent him her best innocent smile and forked another mouth-watering, melt-on-her-tongue, divine piece of choc-orange mousse cake into her mouth.
‘Oh, yeah.’
He couldn’t take his eyes off her, and, rather than being disconcerted, she was enjoying the attention way too much.
‘From where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re already in trouble.’
Big trouble, the kind of trouble that couldn’t be explained away no matter how hard he tried or what he said.
Yet the longer she sat here, more relaxed than she’d been in ages, she couldn’t summon up the animosity his actions of six years ago deserved.
Shoving more cake into her mouth, she flicked her tongue out to catch a crumb clinging to her top lip, the spark of excitement in his eyes as they riveted to her mouth sending heat streaking through her body in a way she hadn’t experienced since…for ever.
After a long, loaded moment he blinked, his eyes crinkling with the smile never far from his face.
‘Look, I know you want to talk about your renovations and that’s probably the only reason you agreed to meet me here, and I promise you we will talk business later, but now I’ve buttered you up with your favourite food, I want to tell you what this is all about.’
Just like that, the smooth chocolate mousse solidified into an indigestible lump in her stomach.
What was she doing, play-acting as if everything was fine and she was on some kind of date?
Blane was her husband.
Who she hadn’t seen in six long years.
She should be grilling him, not noticing the sexy new grooves bracketing his mouth, the laugh-lines that had multiplied around those striking eyes, and his penchant for rubbing the back of his neck when she put him on the spot.
‘If you’ve softened me up with chocolate, what you have to say must be pretty bad.’
It had better be, for she’d accept nothing less than a catastrophe on the scale of Melbourne City Council shutting down every café in the Docklands as an excuse for what he’d done to her.
He held his hand out, and it wavered in a so-so gesture. ‘Considering I’ve spent the last six years thinking about you, wondering if I did the right thing, wishing there’d been some other way, I don’t think it’s all bad.’
‘Let me be the judge of that.’
She sat back and folded her arms, resisting the urge to hug them around her middle for what scant comfort she could get.
His smile faded, and, crazily, irrationally, she missed it. He’d rarely been serious when they’d first met, making her laugh every chance he’d got, and it looked as if nothing had changed. Ever since he’d waltzed into the café a few hours ago he’d been smiling, which explained why she could barely think straight.
His smile had been her undoing in the past— that and his boyish charm, his sensitivity, his warmth, his passion…
Gulping a healthy lungful of air to ease the pain in her chest, she tried to focus before she did something crazy—like tell him it didn’t matter where he’d been or why as long as he’d come back.
‘Go ahead, tell me. Give it to me straight, I’m a big girl, I can take it.’
Regret clouded his eyes as he reached across and held out his hand, silently imploring her to take it. But she couldn’t. Not if she wanted to remain detached long enough to hear him out and put an end to this unwise evening.
‘I need you to understand why I left.’
‘So you can ease your conscience?’
He withdrew his hand, folding his arms in a posture mirroring hers, sadness ageing him beyond his twenty-seven years.
‘This isn’t about making me feel better.’
‘Then what’s it about?’
He pinned her with a direct stare, his eyes steely pewter in the soft candlelight from a corny red-heart tea-light burning low in the centre of the table.
‘Us.’
Camryn swallowed the lump of emotion lodged in her throat. How could one tiny word hold so much pain, so many memories?
Us.
Cam and Blane against the world.
Young,
