the right man as far as she dared.
Which, of course, was very far indeed. Unsuspecting men of South Beach beware. Giselle Cesare was very much on the prowl.
And hungry.
As long as the food critic from the Miami Herald didn’t show up anytime soon and the club continued to increase revenues—a likely event now that they’d shaken off some of the scandals attached to the business—life promised to be very, very good.
In flagrant celebration of that fact, she spun on her toes until the silky red skirt of her dress twirled out from her body, exposing her thighs and her panties to a rush of breezy air à la Marilyn Monroe.
Delicious.
She whirled faster to keep her short skirt airborne, reveling in one of many sensual delights that would soon follow. Her toes ate up the tile as she crossed the kitchen, spinning her faster and faster until—
A man caught her eye from the edges of her peripheral vision.
A grinning, gorgeous man.
She nearly tripped in her haste to halt herself, feet tangling in confusion. Gorgeous men never magically appeared in her kitchen.
Then again, she usually had her very own gargoyles posted around the entrance to any room she happened to occupy. Is this how easy it would be to find a hot guy if she had been born into the world without a troop of overbearing brothers?
Her heart slamming an erratic pace between the dancing and the sudden enticement of the newcomer, Giselle took a deep breath and tried to gather her composure while she thought of the appropriate thing to say.
“I hate to disappoint you if you’re looking for a late-night snack, but the kitchen is officially closed.” Okay, so that wasn’t exactly the kind of come-on line she issued effortlessly to gorgeous men in her dreams, but she was damn rusty at this. There’d been a time in her life when she’d been a bit of a hellion just so she could wrangle some occasional freedom from her family’s relentless watch over the only daughter in the brood. But she’d been too busy pulling her weight to get Club Paradise off the ground this year to expend any energy on man-hunting.
The sexy stranger grinned back at her, never shifting his lazy stance against her stainless steel rolling cart full of sterilized dishes.
“Officially closed? Does that mean all the activity going on in here is of an unofficial nature?” He sounded amused at the prospect.
Giselle looked him over more carefully as she wondered whether or not to be offended. Was he laughing at her song and dance routine with his sly smile and all-the-time-in-the-world body language?
She examined more clearly his striking green eyes set in an angular face. His hair was every bit as dark as her own, sort of brown bordering on black, but his skin lacked the bronze hue of her Italian heritage. She had him pegged for Irish ancestry. Or maybe those deep green eyes were making her see something that wasn’t there.
He possessed a lean, rangy body with none of her brothers’ muscle bulk. Nevertheless, he had a definite don’t-mess-with-me stance that suggested he could hold his own.
She took in the dark khakis and black T-shirt covered by an unbuttoned jacket. With the eye of a woman who’d bought dozens of shoes for her four brothers over the years, Giselle recognized expensive leather moccasins that had seen some high mileage. In fact, from the lightly scratched face of the understated gold timepiece he wore to the premature laugh lines around his eyes, everything about the man said he’d seen a lot of living, though he couldn’t be too many years past thirty.
And the heat emanating from those green eyes assured her he wasn’t laughing at her.
A hungry shiver rippled over her skin.
“Unofficially, I’m doing some prep work for tomorrow,” she admitted, juggling the pomegranate to a nearby counter as she blew a stray lock of hair from one eye. Why, oh, why did she have to reek of garlic when she met the most intriguing man she’d laid eyes on in more years than she could count? “Giselle Cesare, executive chef.”
He straightened as he reached for her hand. “Hugh Duncan. Nice to meet you.”
If she thought it odd that he didn’t follow her lead and mention a little something about himself, she forgot all about it when his fingers enveloped hers. The warmth of his touch surrounded her palm, communicating some spark of life force that made her tingle with awareness.
Hello.
Her whole body seemed to sit up and take notice.
“Do you always have this much fun working, Giselle?” He relinquished her hand too soon, leaving her feeling just a tad bereft without the electric buzz of his touch.
“No. Tonight is special because I’m celebrating.”
“I take it if you refer to 4:30 a.m. as tonight, that means you’re a night owl who hasn’t gone to bed yet instead of a morning person who likes to rise before dawn?”
“Mornings are for sleeping,” she confirmed, although a man like Hugh Duncan could inspire a woman to use the morning for other things. Like taking handsome strangers to bed, peeling off their clothes and—
“I have to admit you’ve got me curious.” Hugh pinned her with a level look, his green eyes divining too much.
Had she spoken her wayward thoughts aloud?
“What exactly are you celebrating?” he prodded when she remained silent.
Relieved he hadn’t read her lascivious thoughts, Giselle backed up a step and gestured him to follow her deeper into the kitchen. “Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll tell you? The kitchen may be closed, but that doesn’t mean I can’t locate something snackable for a fellow night owl.”
When he didn’t move to follow her immediately, Giselle knew a moment’s panic. Hugh Duncan was her ticket to a week of sensual delights, and she had no intention of letting him slip away easily. The man had entered her turf after all, proving he must be at least moderately interested. And he wore no wedding band on his left finger.
Not that a girl could count on a missing ring as evidence of no commitment. Giselle had learned that the hard way the last time her brothers had been out of town over a year ago.
She couldn’t be in over her head already, could she?
“I wouldn’t want to impose.” His feet followed her more slowly, his gaze moving around the kitchen with unhurried thoroughness. “But it’s not often I run into such a tempting offer.” His gaze shifted back to her at the same moment the word “tempting” eased from his lips.
Giselle thought she’d have heart palpitations as she reached the small table where she’d planned to offer him a seat. But, damn it, now the whole issue of whether or not he was married danced irritatingly around the back of her brain. After the major screwup she’d committed by sleeping with a married man who’d claimed he was single, how could she not clear the air straight out of the gate?
She gripped the back of one of the chairs pulled up to the butcher-block table and hesitated. “It’s definitely not an imposition and I’d be glad for the company.”
Still
