He reached across the table—surprising her a little if the sudden biting of her lip was any indication—and swiped the powdered sugar smudge from one high cheekbone.
She stilled beneath his touch, her skin as warm and soft as he imagined, before he pulled away to lick his finger.
“Very sweet.” Desperate to distract himself before he leaned across the table for a much more thorough sampling, Hugh scooped up the silver fork she’d provided and speared a bite of the explicit pastry.
“Thank you.” She leaned back in her seat and pulled a thin wooden stick from the knot of hair piled on top of her head. A silky brown mane fell about her shoulders while she tucked the stick into a black leather satchel alongside the table. “My pastries have developed quite a following among the locals.”
Hugh watched the dance of her wavy hair against the smooth column of her neck as he swallowed another bite of sweet pastry and wondered when he’d ever been so sensually bombarded on all levels. For a man accustomed to an austere existence in one unstable foreign country after another, Giselle Cesare provided an electric jolt to his system.
“I can see why. Tasty, as well as provocative. You don’t find that too often in a food.”
She quirked a dark eyebrow while a smile played about her lips. “Then you don’t know your foods well enough. Spend a little time with a chef and I guarantee you’ll change your mind on that score.”
He would have jumped at the chance if his mouth hadn’t been full. And perhaps that was a good thing, he realized as he gulped another bite, because he wouldn’t want Giselle to think for a moment he was dating her to unearth information on Club Paradise.
He could develop an exposé on the scandal-ridden resort with his eyes closed as soon as he knocked the considerable chip off his shoulder over having to write it in the first place.
Before he could decide how to proceed with the enticing woman seated across from him, she leaned forward to speak.
“So what do you do besides roam the hallways at the crack of dawn? Are you a hotel guest? A nightclub partyer who didn’t heed the last call?”
“I’m a wanderer. I’ve been out of the country for the last few months and I’m settling back into the rhythm of South Beach. I just followed the crowd into the Moulin Rouge Lounge around midnight.” He wondered fleetingly if Giselle had slipped an aphrodisiac into his pastry because the longer he sat across from her, the more he wanted to reach out and touch the warmth of her skin, inhale her exotic, spicy scent. “I checked out the club, strolled the beach. Next thing you know, it was closing time.”
“Next thing you know?” She rolled her eyes. “That’s four hours. I can never do anything for four hours without getting impatient. And I’m pretty sure I’ve never ‘strolled’ at any time in my life.”
Somehow that didn’t surprise him. He pointed his fork in her direction. “You’re more of a charge through life kind of person, I bet.”
“Exactly. I’ve never been very good at waiting for anything, and even back in my party girl days I never spent four hours at any single club. It was more of a trick to see how many places I could hit in that much time, you know?”
“You miss all the best parts when you rush.” He smiled, thinking about how much fun it would be to slow this woman down for four hours. Twenty-four hours.
She crossed her legs, extending one gorgeous calf toward him and inviting memories of what her legs had looked like as she twirled around the kitchen before. He’d never forget the sight of her bright red panties against her dusky skin.
Although she hadn’t revealed any more than a woman wearing a bathing suit, the fact that the peep show had been so unexpected had his mouth watering for a repeat performance.
She tucked a strand of wavy brown hair behind one ear. “What do you do when you’re out of the country? Do you travel for your job?”
Busted.
He’d been too busy thinking about how much he wanted to distract her from this line of conversation, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to admit his profession to the woman who worked for the subject of his next article.
Now, caught without an alibi and unwilling to lie to a sexy-as-hell female sending him definite “do me” vibes, he had no choice but to go with the truth. “I’m a reporter for the Miami paper. I thought I’d check out the resort on an informal basis before I make an official visit for a story.”
Okay, so he only told a portion of the facts. She didn’t need to know he’d stumbled across her tonight as part of his spying routine. She’d write him off as creepy before he could say so much as “nice to have met you.”
The come-hither vixen in the sexy red dress paled a few shades. Backed up visibly. “A reporter? From the Herald?”
“What? You have an ax to grind with the media or something?” No skin off his nose. He just hoped she wouldn’t rule him out on the basis of his job.
Because one way or another, he wanted to learn everything there was to know about Giselle Cesare.
PLEASE SAY SHE DID NOT JUST just serve an erotic pastry to a potential food critic from the biggest newspaper in the southeast.
It simply wasn’t possible. Giselle had worked too hard to distinguish herself as an up-and-coming chef. She’d poured every last dime of her share of the family inheritance into a portion of the resort ownership. No way could she afford to lose that money by screwing up this badly.
Leaping out of her chair, she set aside all thoughts of seducing Hugh Duncan as she wondered what else she could feed him that didn’t involve naughty depictions of female body parts.
She could still salvage this meeting. Maybe.
“An ax to grind? Who, me?” Her laughter sounded a bit manic even to her own ears. Oh, God, he was surely going to think she’d lost her marbles, as well as her desire to succeed in the restaurant business. “You want to try some calamari? It’s a house specialty in our Mediterranean dining room.”
Did he know the resort boasted three different eating facilities? She had no idea how familiar he would be with the way her kitchen operated.
Tugging open the refrigerator she stared into it, waiting for culinary inspiration to strike while a nervous sweat broke out across her brow. How had her day gone from awesome to gut-clenchingly awful in the course of half an hour?
She jumped when Hugh appeared at her side.
“I’m not hungry for anything but conversation. Care to join me?” He held his empty plate in his hand.
Giselle hurried to take the plate and the fork, letting the refrigerator door close behind her. “That’s fine, too. Did you want to take a tour of the dining areas while we talk?”
Of course, taking a walk meant she damn well better put her shoes on. What if he included in his review the fact that he’d caught her in the kitchen in her bare feet? She’d be doomed to health-code-violation hell.
The health department would close her down, her partners would kick her out as an owner and she’d never escape
