so that he could press his lips against the back of her neck.
‘Dee told me that you gave up your job in banking to spend your life doing something you loved instead,’ he said, and his low soft voice seemed to resonate against the side of her head. ‘That takes guts. And passion. If Lily gave you even a hint of that, then, yes, the lady does deserve the best cake you can make. Even on a Sunday. But why do I feel that you are only telling me part of the story?’ He paused and slid just far enough way so that he could run his fingers back through her hair.
‘Why did you really leave your old life behind, Lottie? What made you give up a well-paying job and take a risk on a bakery? You must have had choices.’
He sensed her shoulders lift with tension but waited patiently until she was ready to fill the silence. ‘I did. If I’m honest, I had too many choices. My parents couldn’t help. My dad wanted me to move to France and a ready-made slot in an IT company he had started as a retirement project. But not one person thought that I had it in me to retrain for a completely new career and start my own company. And that...hurt for a while.’
He swallowed down hard, stunned by the calmness of her voice, and pressed his chin against the top of her head. ‘Then they didn’t know you. Their loss.’
A deep chuckle bubbled up from inside Lottie’s chest and he could feel it through his fingers. ‘You’re right. They didn’t know the real me at all. My boss, my friends—even my boyfriend at the time—thought I would be back to work and my old life within six months. They were wrong. I love it. I sold enough shares to make it happen, but with Dee’s help I think we created something very special. I am Lottie’s cake shop now, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.’
‘So you gave it all up? Career, lifestyle, everything you had?’
‘I traded up. Some of the happiest times of my teenage life were spent helping Lily in the kitchen, experimenting with pastry and flavours and textures.’
‘Any regrets?’
‘Some. I thought the friends I had made at school and university would stay my friends. But that didn’t happen. Suddenly we didn’t have anything to talk about any longer. Packing it all in and starting a bakery was what you did for a hobby when you retired, not your life’s work. So I’ve had to make new friends instead.’
‘Wait a minute. Your boyfriend didn’t support you when you were going through so much upheaval?’
Rob slowly but firmly turned her around at the waist until his gaze was locked on that stunning face, his hands resting lightly on her hips.
‘You are a beautiful woman, Lottie. He was a fool to let you go.’
Lottie smiled and pressed the flat of her hands on his chest before replying in a low, hoarse voice.
‘He didn’t let me go. We both knew that our relationship had come to an end. He wanted to climb the corporate ladder and achieve his dreams in banking. I didn’t want that life any longer and he didn’t understand how I could leave it all behind and start again on a shoestring. So don’t judge him—that wouldn’t be fair.’
‘Then he was an even bigger idiot. Although it does make me wonder.’
‘Wonder what?’
Lottie leant back within the circle of his arms so that she could gaze up into his face, and the compassion and need that Rob saw in those wide green eyes fractured the frosting of ice around his heart like an ice pick and kept on picking away until the warm and vulnerable core was exposed to the world.
It destroyed him. Broke him. Blasted away the shell that he had built up.
So that when he did reply, every word came from the heart instead of the head before he had a chance to change his mind.
‘I was simply wondering whether you’d be willing to give another bloke a chance to show you how stunning you are. Is that so outrageous?’
Lottie inhaled a sharp breath and her gaze scanned his face as though she was looking for something. And found it.
‘No. Not so outrageous at all.’ She smiled.
‘Excellent. Then why not start right now? Today. With me.’
* * *
Lottie’s brain froze.
Him? Rob wanted her to start dating him?
He was holding out the most delicious temptation and all she had to do was say yes and find out if his touch was as exciting as she thought it would be.
For a night or even a weekend, if she was lucky, she would find out what it was like to be the object of a man’s desire again.
Until he left. And she would be right back where she started. Alone.
Her gaze scanned his face. He was serious.
As serious as the most forbidden fruit could be.
‘You don’t know how to give up, do you?’ Lottie said with a shaky smile.
‘Not good enough for you?’ Rob grinned back.
And then he nodded his head up and down, just once.
‘Ah. I see your problem. You’re too afraid you might get used to the idea of having a fling? Maybe even like it. Yup, could be trouble.’
‘Come on, Rob. Your life and work is in California and you’ve already told me that you don’t plan to come back to London any time soon. I have my bakery and right now there are no plans to open a cake shop and tea rooms in Carmel. So thank you for the compliment, but you know it would never work out. I’m not interested in long-term relationships.’
‘Good. Because that’s not what I am suggesting. In fact, just the opposite. My rules are pretty simple: a short-term relationship between two consenting adults, no strings and no expectation of anything more than what we have for as long as we have it.’
She looked into those eyes. Fatal mistake. It meant she was powerless to resist when he moved forward and pressed his long, slim fingers either side of her head and tilted his head to lean in.
His full mouth was moist and warm on her upper lip, and she could not help but close her eyes and luxuriate in the delicious sensation of his long, slow kiss.
Her arms moved around his neck, he moved closer, and she kissed him back, pressing hotter, deeper, the pace of her breathing matching his.
Somewhere at the back of her brain a sensible voice was shouting out that this was not a clever thing to do.
Bad Lottie. Very bad.
His lips slid away down her jaw to kiss her throat so she could gasp a breath.
‘Take a chance on me, Lottie,’ he whispered as his cheek worked his way down the side of her neck to her collarbone. ‘I want to be with you, get to know you. Will you give me a chance to do that? Can you learn to trust me that much?’
She forced her eyes open wide enough to see that his own eyes were closed, his face...oh, his face. She was so going to regret this. One of her
