the scent of cheese and lunch, good bread and … chocolate. Not the full-cream praline chocolate she had used to make the dessert he had just enjoyed, judging from the clean dessert plates, but an undercurrent of bitter, sharp and aromatic cocoa. As distinctive as any type of coffee or wine. And, to her attuned senses, as tantalising as the most expensive cologne any Paris perfumier could concoct.
That was probably why her throat went amazingly dry the instant one side of his mouth turned up into a cheeky smile which creased the side of his face and was obviously intended to make her swoon at his charm.
Not going to happen.
Even if it was remarkably effective. And he still smelt amazing.
She flicked her hair back behind one ear, desperate for something to do whilst attempting to find out why he had called to her. Perhaps his lovely wife had sent him to apologise, and he was being a dutiful husband?
Then she looked into his eyes.
Okay. Perhaps not such a good boy after all.
In fact those eyes were sparkling with excitement, and an interest which seemed to be aimed at her.
A frisson of more than professional interest lit like a fuse inside her poor heart—before she dumped a large bucket of icy water over it.
This was a married man with a child, whose mother was still sitting in the retaurant! The sooner she remembered that and let him get back to his coffee and his elegant and stunningly beautiful wife the better.
Handsome people who had won first prize in the gene pool lottery belonged together—not in kitchens with the hired help.
Daisy lifted her chin. She had waved goodbye to being second best the day she’d packed her bags and left Paris and her cheating former boyfriend Pascal behind. Not even this Greek-god-handsome face and body were going to sway her down that rocky path again. She had learnt the hard way that good things did not always come in beautifully wrapped packages.
This man looked like a praline wrapped in gold foil, but for all she knew that tempting cover might well conceal a bitter lemon boiled sweet. All promises. No delivery. Been there, done that, and hadn’t even come back with the T-shirt to show for it.
‘Did you need something, Mr Ormandy?’ she asked in as sweet a voice as she could manage—but the tone seemed to emerge as a sort of a squeak.
‘I was hoping that you might spare me a few minutes to talk about a business proposition, Ms Flynn. And please call me Max, as all my friends do,’ he murmured, and flashed her the full-on charming smile which, aimed at any other woman, would instantly have had her on her knees.
The cheek of the man! His wife was still in the same room, chatting to the head chef. She didn’t know what kind of business proposition he had to offer her, but she knew she didn’t want anything to do with it.
Even so, she had to rally her defences before replying.
‘A business proposition? What kind of business could we possibly have in common? Unless, of course, you happen to be in the chocolate trade? That is the only way you could tempt me to take you seriously.’
She had intended him to take her question as a joke. After all, she wasn’t interested in the least in whatever he had to offer.
This was why his reply hit Daisy right between the eyes and rendered her completely speechless.
‘Actually, I am in the chocolate trade. I happen to own an organic cocoa plantation in St Lucia. The Treveleyn Estate grows some of the finest organic cocoa beans in the world, and I’m looking for a dessert chef who is as passionate about chocolate as I am. Tempted now?’
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