Page 7 of You Had Me at Chocolate

It seemed like Jude’s ego had learned squat from his self-imposed ostracism in Africa. I need. I need. I need.

Help me. Help me.

“I need a woman who can help me be a better man, Clementine.”

Chapter Two

Clem couldn’t believe that her brain could be at boiling point when her body was suffering from a cold flash of arctic proportions. But cold was better, she figured. Frostiness was the right way to get through this when she had a hundred plus people partying just outside her door. For damn sure he deserved a roasting but the ice in her veins would help her to keep things in check. Help her be logical rather than emotional.

Instead of flame thrower, he’d get polar plunge.

“Wow,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm and icicles as she withdrew her hands. “You sure know how to sweep a woman off her feet.”

He winced and she almost felt sorry for him.

“I’m sorry…” He raked a hand through his hair. “I’m screwing this up.”

Oh, you have no idea, buddy.

“No, no, do go on,” she dismissed on a wintery blast of civility as she moved over to her window which looked over the street. Placing the paper crane down on one of two piles of books sitting on the deep sill, she crossed her arms as she turned to face him. “How do you figure this will go down? We just pick the next available date at the church and I get a dress and we do the deed?”

He shuffled his feet, shoved his hands in his pockets. “No, of course not. I guess we’ll… spend the next few months getting to know each other again, renew our friendship first. Go from there.”

Clem had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop from pulling a face. Or screaming. Getting married might not be on her radar for the foreseeable future, but she had thought about it at various stages of her life. Thought about who the guy might be and how that life might look. And it was nothing like this horribly bland proposition Jude was offering.

She wanted spark. She wanted fireworks and giddiness and that crazy leap in the pulse. And, and, and… Her brain whispered, tummy wobbles, and she quashed it ruthlessly.

“Yeah.” She shook her head. “That’s not going to suit me, I’m afraid.”

If he was taken back by her rebuttal he didn’t show it, he just sent her a lopsided smile. “What,” he said, his voice light, “you don’t want to think it over a little first?”

Man… she didn’t know how big his balls had been at twelve but she sure knew the size of them now. He clearly had giant cahones.

“You know, I can’t decide if this is celebrity arrogance or male ignorance.”

He spread his hands in appeal. “I’m just saying, why not sleep on it?”

She sent him a thin smile. “Nope. Leaving aside the utter ballsiness of your assumptions, I am leaving in two days for an eight-week Mediterranean tour. And if you think for a single solitary second, I’ll be mulling over this ridiculous proposal then you’re wrong because when I get home, I’m selling up and moving to New York. I have a job starting there in January.”

“You’re…” He stared at her, a confused V forming between his eyebrows. “Leaving?”

“Uh, yeah.” She bugged her eyes at him. “And maybe if you’d called ahead, got in touch somehow, I could have saved you the trip.”

Clem watched as the information sank into his brain, watched a range of expressions chase each other across his face, his brain obviously ticking away.

“You’re… moving to New York?”

“Yeah. Ironic, right?”

The fact he was fleeing the Big Apple just as she was about to take her first big bite out of it didn’t really fit in with his whole pinkie swear destiny narrative. She sighed, suddenly not mad, just exasperated that he would think she would drop everything to be with him and prioritize his life, his hopes, his dreams.

She was at a crossroads here, too. But she was forging her own way.

“This is not just my birthday party, it’s my leaving party. My last day at the library is tomorrow. So I’m not going to marry you, Jude. And you shouldn’t marry anyone else either—not in your current state of mind. What you need is to not be with anyone. You need to figure this out for yourself. I, or any other woman for that matter, wasn’t put on this earth to help you do squat.”

Too many people had clearly yes, chefed him for too long.

“Certainly not to make you a better man,” she continued, on a roll. “The Jude I knew already was a good person—go find him. And then go find an inn and make your dream come true. I know you’re used to having an entourage at your disposal, a lot of yes people around you telling you how fabulous you are but I’m not one of them.”

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