just long enough to pinch her hand in the hinge mechanism. She was careful not to wince, shoving her hand quickly in her apron pocket.
“Here,” he said, an order this time, not an offer. Bree gave in, and stepped back to watch him snap the leg into place with aggravating ease.
“Thanks,” Bree said, hoping her voice was not laced with a bit of resentment. Of course, everything he touched just fell into place. Everything she touched? Not so much.
“Is your hand okay?”
Did he have to notice every little thing?
“Fine.”
“Can I look?”
“No,” Bree said.
“Yes,” Chelsea breathed.
Bree gave Chelsea her very best if-looks-could-kill glare, but Chelsea remained too enamored with this unexpected turn of events to heed Bree’s warning.
“Show him your hand,” she insisted in an undertone.
To refuse now would just prolong the discomfort of the incident, so Bree held out her hand. “See? It’s nothing.”
He took it carefully, and she felt the jolt of his touch for the second time in as many minutes. He examined the pinch mark between her thumb and pointer, and for a stunning moment it felt as if he might lift her tiny wound to his lips.
She held her breath. Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard Chelsea’s sigh of pure delight.
Of course, one of the most powerful men in Vancouver did not lift her hand to his lips. He let it go.
“Quite a welt,” he said. “But I think you’re going to live.”
Feeling a sense of abject emptiness after he’d withdrawn his hand, Bree turned her attention to the boxes of cookies scattered all over the floor, and began to pick them up. He crouched beside her, picking them up, too.
“Please don’t,” she said.
“Thank you for your help,” Chelsea said firmly, clearly coaching her boss how to behave around an extraordinary man.
“I can get them,” Bree said.
But Brand stayed on the floor beside her, reading the labels out loud with deep amusement. His shoulder was nearly brushing hers. An intoxicating scent, like the forest after rain, tingled her nostrils.
“‘Little Surprises,’” he said, reading the boxes. “‘Love Bites. Devilishly Decadent. Spells Gone Wrong.’ These are priceless,” he said.
His appreciation seemed genuine, but she now felt the same about her cookie names as she had just felt about the apron and the beret. She felt cute rather than clever. She wished she had come up with an organic makeup line, like the woman at the booth set up across the foyer from her.
“Bree, are these your creations?”
“Yes, Kookies is my company.”
“I like it all. The packaging. The names. I’m glad you ended up doing something unusual. I always wondered if it would come true.”
The fact that he had wondered about her, at all, knocked down her defenses a bit.
She stared at him. “If what would come true?”
“That night, at your prom. Don’t you remember?”
She remembered all kinds of things about that night. She remembered how his hand felt on her elbow, and how his same forest-fresh scent had enveloped her, and how every time he threw back his head and laughed her heart skipped a beat. She remembered dancing a slow dance with him. And she remembered that she, school bookworm and official geek, had been the envy of every other girl in the room. She remembered, when the evening had ended, leaning toward him, her lips puckered, her eyes closed, and him putting her away.
“Do I remember what?” she asked, her voice far more choked than she would have liked it to be!
“They gave out all those titles in a little mock ceremony partway through the dance. Most likely to succeed. Mostly likely to become prime minister. You don’t remember that?”
“No.”
“Most likely to become a rodeo clown, most likely to win the Golden Armpit for bad acting.”
“Those weren’t categories!”
“Just checking to make sure you were paying attention.”
As if anyone would not pay attention to him. His grin widened, making him seem less billionaire and more charming boy from her past.
She remembered this about him, too—an ability to put people at ease. That night of the prom, gauche and starstruck, she had wondered if it was possible to die from pure nerves. He had teased her lightly, engaged her, made himself an easy person to be with.
Which was probably why she had screwed up the nerve to humiliate herself by offering him her lips at the end of the evening.
“Now that I’ve jarred your memory, do you remember what your title was?”
“I hardly remember anything about that night.” This was not a lie. She remembered everything about him, but the other details of the night? Her dress and the snacks and the band and anyone else she had danced with had never really registered.
“Most likely to live happily ever after. That was the title they bestowed on you.”
The worst possible thing happened. Not only was she here on the floor, picking up her mess with the most devastatingly attractive man she had ever met, in a silly apron, with her hair scraped back in a dumb bun and granny glasses perched on her nose, but now she was also going to disgrace herself by bursting into tears.
NO!
Bree Evans was not going to cry in front of Brand Wallace. She had a broken dream or two, but so what? Who didn’t?
She bit the inside of her cheek, hard. She made herself smile.
“Of course they did,” she said. “Happily-Ever-After. Look. Here’s the proof.” She bought a moment away from the intense gaze of his eyes on her face. She picked through the boxes of cookies.
There they were, the favorite kooky cookie for when she supplied weddings. She opened a box and pulled a cookie from its wrapping.
Shortbread infused with strawberries and champagne.
She passed it to him, and he took a quizzical bite.
“There you go,” Bree said, and hoped he could not hear the tight, close-to-tears note in her voice. “Happily-Ever-After.”
She watched as his eyes closed with
