Page 22 of A Taste of Christmas Magic

“You said it had recipes.”

“Ummm, yeah.”

He held out a hand, palm up, and for a wild second, she imagined resting her hand in his. But no. Her imagination was galloping off without her brain. Rustin wanted the book.

“I don’t know why I’m feeling so protective about the book,” she admitted. “It’s not like it’s a family heirloom or anything.”

“Could be.”

“No, Grandma Millie wouldn’t have put a family heirloom in her mini library outside her house. You know the one,” she reminded. “She’s had it for years. Bring a book, take a book.”

His hands shifted to his hips, fingers arrowing toward the most masculine part of him, and Chloe’s heart skipped a beat. His eyes looked like shadows, swallowing her.

Act like an adult.

Rustin was in her home. He was going to help her—hopefully. She needed to leash her impulses and fantasies and show him respect since Jessica had been uncharacteristically rude.

To steady herself, she walked to the island peninsula that separates the living space from the kitchen and retrieved the bound book. Holding it to her chest, she faced Rustin.

“Maybe it is a Maye heirloom,” she said, hesitating. “Usually there are so many books in the mini library, but last night there was only this, as if it had been abandoned,” she whispered, hating the catch in her voice. “I feel like it called to me. Accepted me.”

I need to shut up now, relating the book to my past. Ugh!

“Show me,” he invited, and Chloe had to remind herself that he meant the book. Rustin gazed at her so intently it was hard to breathe. His whole sexy vibe and his masculine energy unnerved her, made her feel unraveled down to her essence in some way. Primitive.

“I’m not a Maye,” her dry voice croaked out. She tried to swallow. “Not really.”

“Maye enough.” His scrutiny swung over the entire carriage house apartment—the art, the antiques, the architecture, none of it chosen by her. “You’ve always been a Maye, Chloe.”

“I was wrapped in a pink blanket in a Moses basket and left on Grandma Millie’s doorstep like a Christmas gift fruit basket.”

His eyes widened. “That’s real? I thought that was just spiteful gossip because your coloring was so different and, well, Miss Millie raised you, not Elizabeth Katherine and Sean Ryan Maye,” he sneered their names.

Of course he wouldn’t like the three Ms’s parents. They were pillars of Belmont society and had taken their lofty positions quite seriously.

“Miss Millie kept you.” Rustin took two steps forward so that she could feel the heat, the snarling energy that pulsed off his body like he was some kind of cosmic phenomenon. “That meant something. She loves you. What matters is what you’ve become, not how you started out.”

Warmth infused her. Rustin made it sound so easy to leave the past behind. Her throat tightened, and her eyes pricked with tears. Never had anyone dismissed, accepted, and summed up her beginnings so succinctly.

“So be a phoenix,” she said doubtfully.

To her shock, he peeled off his black T-shirt, and she found herself looking at a chest that appeared airbrushed perfect. Her breath tangled, and her tummy heated.

“W-what…?” The bronze skin, the muscle definition, the ink made her head swim.

He tapped his left pec. “Phoenix,” he said. “First tat. Total cliché, but I was seventeen and was proving a point to myself. I needed something I’d see every day to remind me that I was rising from my past, not defined by it.”

Like I want to.

“Rustin,” she breathed into the rush of feelings.

“Show me the book, Chloe.”

The hardness of his voice and eyes was a slammed door on her feels.

She handed the book over, bracing for Rustin to scathingly shut her down. He’d been to culinary school. Had trained in some top kitchens in different cities and countries, and she had the impulse to snatch the book back, protect it from his well-trained scorn.

Rustin stared at the cover, one hand passed over the leather and binding reverently. He carried the book to the window that looked out over Grandma Millie’s garden and Maye Park with the bare oaks and crepe myrtle branches pointed toward a bright blue sky.

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