Page 36 of Recipe for Temptation

He held his breath.

“No, that’s okay. I’d better go ahead and take care of my errands. Besides,” she added as an afterthought, “between sightseeing and playing paintball yesterday, we did a lot of walking and running. So that should tide me over for another day or two.”

“Excuses, excuses,” Michael teased.

She laughed. “I know, I know. But I’ll be there with you in spirit.”

She’d been “there” with him for the past six days. He couldn’t get her out of his mind.

“I’ll call you when I’m on my way,” he told her.

“Sounds good. See you soon.”

Not soon enough, Michael thought as he hung up the phone and set it on the nightstand.

Smiling, he clasped his hands behind his head and gazed at the ceiling as images from yesterday tumbled through his mind. He remembered their incredibly romantic breakfast on the balcony at his restaurant. When he introduced her to his staff afterward, he’d been fascinated by the way she’d laughed and chatted easily with everyone, charming the apron off his temperamental pastry chef and graciously accepting Griffin’s profuse apologies for the mix-up with the food critic.

Reese had a way about her, an infectious warmth coupled with an earthy sensuality that was utterly bewitching. As the day progressed, Michael had found himself falling deeper under her spell. By the time they’d finished shooting each other up with paintball guns—the most fun he’d ever had with a woman, bar none—he knew he was in trouble.

In the span of one day he’d gone from wishing he’d never laid eyes on her, to lamenting any time spent apart from her.

“Whoa,” Michael whispered, shaken by the turn of his thoughts. He couldn’t believe what was happening. Here it was barely eight o’clock in the morning, and he was lying in bed with a goofy ass smile on his face, obsessing over some woman he hardly even knew.

What the hell?

It was crazy. Totally out of character for him. He’d lost his damn mind.

Yet as he untangled himself from the covers and swung out of bed, he knew the extra spring in his step had everything to do with the fact that he’d be seeing Reese again very soon.

And the sooner the better.

But three hours later when he pulled up to the now-familiar bungalow and saw a florist’s delivery truck parked at the curb, he got a sinking feeling in his gut. And that was before he saw Reese standing in the doorway, her phone cradled between her ear and shoulder as she signed for the delivery. When the driver handed her a long white box tied with a red satin bow, she beamed with pleasure.

It was like a blow to Michael’s chest.

He waited until the delivery truck had rumbled off before he climbed out of the car and slowly started up the walk. By the time he reached the front door, his good mood had completely disintegrated, replaced by a dark, seething emotion he didn’t want to identify.

“Michael.” Reese looked surprised to see him. Or maybe guilty was a better word. “I thought you were going to call when you were on your way.”

He’d been so eager to get there he’d forgotten to call. Not that he was about to tell her that. “Since I said we could go around eleven,” he said mildly, “I figured you’d be ready.”

“I am. I just…Never mind.” She opened the door wider and nervously gestured him inside.

As he stepped into the foyer, his gaze went immediately to a box of two dozen long-stemmed red roses lying open on the table.

“Nice,” Michael murmured, slowly removing his sunglasses. Roses were the kind of gift a guy sent to get himself out of the dog house—or into a woman’s bed. Unoriginal, but highly effective.

Reese wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Yes, they are nice.”

“For you?” Please say no. Please say they came for your friend Layla.

Reese hesitated, then reluctantly nodded. “Yes. They’re mine.”

His heart sank, though he should have known better than to get his hopes up. “So my hunch was right about you,” he said, his voice pitched low.

Her hand fluttered to her throat. “What hunch?”

“I suspected you might have a boyfriend. And you do.”

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