Page 8 of You Had Me at Chocolate

He gave a humorless half laugh. “No, please, tell me how you really feel.”

Clem refused to feel sorry for him or to back down. He was a grown adult who had, by any measure, made an outstanding success of his life. So… he was going through some stuff. Who wasn’t? He’d figure it out. Without marrying her—marrying anyone she hoped—in the process. “This is your dream, Jude. You make it happen.”

“I have built up a restaurant from scratch, you know. I’m not a novice.”

It was her turn to laugh. “No, you didn’t.” Was he for real? “You’d become a mega television star on the world’s most watched cooking show. You can’t tell me that all the right people weren’t laying out the red carpet for you. Tying themselves in knots to help you. Taking any little hiccup or problem and solving it for you.”

She didn’t know that for sure, but she followed his career enough to know that he suddenly had a lot of rich backers including a major television network who’d filmed a documentary on the process. To launch a new restaurant in New York within months of his win had been no mean feat but his celebrity had helped. As had hosting a bunch of Hollywood A-listers every night of the week.

“Truly starting from scratch is a lot scarier than that. But if it’s your dream and you’re committed enough then you can achieve it. And it’ll be so much more satisfying because you did it by yourself. Like you did when you took yourself off to France all those years ago.”

Jude had left home three days after his high school graduation, putting his ass on a plane for Charles de Gaulle determined to be a chef. He’d posted her a letter on his way to the airport—the last one he’d ever sent her.

“That’s what you need now—personal accomplishment. No leg ups. No helping hands. And if a woman comes along in the midst of all that because suddenly you’re happier and more fulfilled than you’ve ever been in your life and you fall head over heels in love…”

Clem faltered. The idea of him falling in love with someone caused a tiny squall in her belly. Which she ignored. She hadn’t seen Jude Barlow in years and rarely thought about him. She had zero time for belly squalls.

Or wobbles.

“Then that’s the cherry on the top.” Absently, Clem realized she’d used a culinary reference. “That’s the way it should be.” Not from some stupid marriage pact they’d had no business in making. At twelve. Like they’d been the kid actors in some Hollywood rom-com.

“You always did have your act together,” Jude said with a wry kind of smile.

Clem wasn’t so sure she was a great example given how mundane her life had become when she hadn’t been looking. But she was going after what she wanted now. And so should he. “Just… go home, Jude.”

He looked at her for long moments through those pale, bleary eyes then rubbed a hand over his face in the way of the truly exhausted. His whiskers scraped against his palm as he absently ran his fingers along his jaw and Clem felt the delicious frisson of it in the sudden hardening of her nipples.

Clearly, she was not exhausted.

“I don’t even know where home is anymore.”

His mother had mentioned that he’d sold his apartment in New York so Clem figured that wasn’t a possibility but it wasn’t like Jude freaking Barlow didn’t have options. “Why not go see your mom?”

“I will soon but…” He nodded his head slowly as if he was deciding something on the spot. “I think I’m going to hang around Marietta for a while.”

A crazy little pulse leap caused a spike in Clem’s temper. The rub of her erect nipples against her bra only added to her ire. “If you think I’m going to change my mind when I get back then let me disabuse you of that right now.”

“I know, I know. I get it. I just…” He shrugged. “I need to sleep for a week and then I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.”

“Wasn’t that what Africa was about?”

“Africa was about…” He gave a half laugh. “Shedding my ego. Letting go of the last ten years. Not thinking about the next ten. I only really thought about what was next in that last week and when I got on that plane and didn’t know my next move, I guess I just panicked. Combine that with jet lag and…”

Clem nodded. “You wound up in Marietta.”

“Right.” He grimaced. “And now I have to change course. Rejig. And that’ll be easier to do that away from distractions. So… why not here?”

Clem shot him an incredulous look. “Really?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Because it’s not Paris. It’s not New York. You can’t walk down the main street at midnight and get a slice of pizza or see a show.”

He shrugged and, god help her, Clem’s gaze drifted to how well those shoulders filled out his sleeves. “Couldn’t do that in the Sudan, either.”

Glaring at him she said, “You know what I mean.”

“Who knows? I might even find an inn around here.”

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