“Rosa, this is Daisy Sinclair.”
“What a beautiful name. A flower, like me.”
“Thank you. Nice to meet you,” Daisy replied slowly.
As Jamie took his seat—not across from her, oh no, right beside her—he said in a stage whisper, “It’s our first date.”
“No,” Daisy said. “This isn’t a—”
“Oh!” Rosa’s smile lit up her already shining eyes. “Then I know just what to make for you. House special. No problem.” She scurried back to the kitchen as if on a highly important mission.
“Let’s get something straight,” Daisy said, inching her chair away. “This isn’t a date.”
“Says the girl who couldn’t keep her hands off me.”
Daisy raised a finger in protest, but she had no comeback. Changing the subject seemed like the only option. “You come here often, I take it.”
“My office is right around the corner.”
“Your office?” She moved back more. “So, tell me, now that we both know you’re not a food critic, what is it that you do, Jamie?” Emphasizing his name seemed like a good way to remind him—and her—that she was mad at him.
“I’m a lawyer. Forsythe, Murphy and Burgess.”
“A lawyer, huh? I knew I shouldn’t trust you.”
“Hey, I said I was sorry.”
Yes, he had. Three times, but...she blinked. “What did you say the name of your firm was?”
Jamie repeated the name.
“Huh. That sounds familiar.”
“Well, it is my name. And Colin’s.”
“True.” Daisy squinted as she studied Jamie in the candlelight, trying to suss him out. “You don’t look like a lawyer.”
“What do I look like?”
“I don’t know. A NASCAR driver?”
He chuckled. It was a nice sound—deep and rumbling.
“What’s so funny?”
“You say and do the most unexpected things.”
Daisy finished the glass of water, hoping to hide her smile. His observation wasn’t necessarily that flattering and yet...the way he’d looked at her when he said it, well, it made her feel...hot. And the ice in her drink didn’t do a damn thing about the heat creeping up the inside of her tummy, through her chest and up her throat. She had to do something about her body’s involuntary reaction to Colin.
No!
Jamie.
She could not forget about that little setup. Sitting straight in her chair and holding a hand to her tummy in hopes of quelling the heat, Daisy said, “So, you pose as Colin often, do you?”
“No.”
He slid his chair closer so that their thighs were touching.
She nudged her chair in the opposite direction. “But you did last week.”
“Yes.”
Every time she moved away he pressed closer and, wow. The guy was solid granite. She cleared her throat. “Isn’t that, oh... I don’t know.” She tapped her lips. “Sort of juvenile?”
“Probably.” He reached into her lap, picked up her hand and kissed the back of her knuckles in a move similar to the one he’d pulled in the shop. She let him.
“Do you want to tell me why you did it?” The question came out in a weird, breathy voice.
“No.”
Daisy considered Jamie’s one-word answers, or tried to, which was hard because he was still holding her hand, caressing her knuckles, and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Plus his leg was moving, up and down, up and down, and it felt so damn good.
God. It had been too long. That was her problem: she hadn’t had sex in far too long, which was why she was responding to Jamie in this uncharacteristically flirty way. The question was why was Jamie being so forward? Why was he coming on to her? Was he really trying to seduce her? Or was he just feeding her more lies to cover up what he and his brother had done?
Suddenly a thought dawned. “Is it the bakery?”
He blinked. “Is what the bakery?”
“Did your brother think it was beneath him to review some stupid bakery?” That would certainly explain Colin’s disdainful attitude toward her in the restaurant.
As Daisy stared into Jamie’s face, she tried to conjure up the hurt and rejection she’d felt while sitting across from Colin at Le Beau Monde. The problem was the candlelight accentuated the hollows of Jamie’s cheeks, drawing attention to the fullness of his sensual lips and giving his eyes such an unholy and sinful glow that she could no longer picture Colin.
Only Jamie.
Staring directly into her eyes, he said, “I swear to you this had nothing to do with you or the bakery. I only did it because my brother needed me. For personal reasons.” He squeezed her hand. “That’s the truth.”
Or so he claimed. It was hard to believe someone who probably hadn’t said one word of truth to her from the moment they’d met and who was currently distracting her with soft caresses on the inside of her wrist. Yet, when she was able to focus, there was something in his face—the seriousness of his expression and the way his eyes had lost their sparkle—that told her he wasn’t lying. “And for the record, every word I wrote about your bakery was the truth. It’s a gem and you should be proud.”
She chewed on her lip as quotes from his review played over in her mind. Daisy Sinclair, who is as sinfully delicious as the bakery itself...
Yeah, okay. Maybe she’d memorized the article. So what? The bakery was a gem and she was proud.
“Look, Daisy, I’m really sorry about everything. This is not how I planned for tonight to go.”
“No? So, what was your plan?” Daisy tried to maintain the snark in her voice but failed miserably.
“I was going to pick you up, tell you who I really was and then take you out on the best date of your life.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Why was her hand still in his? “Tell me about it.”
“We would have left the gala early to go dancing.”
“Dancing?” The squeeze she gave was involuntary, a reflex to the fact that she
