Page 94 of Recipe for Temptation

Warmth tingled through her veins. She sighed. “Sleeping under the stars. How utterly romantic.”

“Well, now, I never said anything about sleeping.”

She gave a breathy laugh. “You can’t keep me up another night, Michael, or I won’t be able to function on the set tomorrow.”

“You did just fine today,” he drawled, his warm breath tickling her as he nibbled her earlobe.

She shivered. “Be that as it may, I still need to get some rest. Back home, I had a nine o’clock bedtime.”

He snorted softly. “You might as well forget about that. I usually don’t get home from the restaurant until after eleven, and there’s no way in hell I’d be able to crawl into bed with you and keep my hands to myself.”

A foolish smile spread helplessly across Reese’s face. He was talking as if they were already a couple, the very thing she’d been fantasizing about all night. “Then I suggest you start bringing your butt home earlier, Mr. Executive Chef,” she sassed.

“Yes, ma’am.” But his voice had grown quieter, and the lips that had been nuzzling her suddenly went still.

Silence lapsed between them, punctuated by the crickets’ noisy chirping.

As Reese’s euphoria faded, she drew a shallow breath. “So…when does your family return?”

“Saturday.”

She nodded slowly. “And Asha went with them?”

“Yeah. You sound surprised.”

“I guess I am. Once the party was over, I just assumed she’d hop on her private plane and head back to New York. I know how busy she is. Her assistant, Pierre, must have called her a hundred times the day we went shopping together.”

“Hmm.” Michael paused. “Samara thinks something may be going on between Asha and my father.”

“Really?” Reese turned in the cradle of his arms to stare at him. “But they’re always bickering.”

His amused gaze met hers. “Maybe that’s because they’re fighting an attraction. You and I know something about that.”

She grinned wryly. “Good point.”

“Anyway, they haven’t been arguing as much as they used to. So maybe Samara’s on to something. She and Marcus are keeping a close eye on them during the trip.”

Reese shook her head, marveling, “Your father and Asha. Now that would be the ultimate example of opposites attracting.” She searched Michael’s face. “How would you feel about them hooking up?”

“It’d be a little weird at first,” he admitted, smiling. “I can’t see my father with a high-maintenance woman like Asha. But if they make each other happy, then I’m all for it. God knows the old man deserves to be happy.”

Reese hesitated, then ventured cautiously, “Because of the way things turned out between him and your mother?”

Michael nodded.

Reese held her breath, waiting to see if he would confide in her, as Quentin had so confidently predicted.

Just when she’d started to lose hope, Michael said in a low voice, “When I was sixteen, my mother cheated on Dad with Grant. They worked at the same hospital. She was a nurse, and Grant was a big-shot neurosurgeon. Marcus came home early from school one day and caught them kissing in the kitchen.”

Suppressing a horrified gasp, Reese said, “Poor Marcus. He was only?—”

“Ten. And to give you an idea of how traumatized he was, it took him twenty-five years to forgive her.”

“And you?” Reese gently probed. “How long did it take you?”

“A while.” Michael’s expression was grim. “After the divorce, she disappeared from our lives for a long time, missed a lot of important things. I think she felt guilty, and that’s why she and Grant waited several years to get married. Anyway, when I agreed to give her away at her wedding, we had a long heart-to-heart, and I got to hear her side of the story for the first time.”

He blew out a deep breath. “To make a long story short, she’d turned to Dad for consolation one night after her high school sweetheart was killed in a car accident. They slept together, and she wound up getting pregnant. They were both scared and devastated, but being the honorable man he’s always been, Dad offered to marry her and raise her child as his own, whether or not I was.”

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