Робин Грейди – Unfinished Business: Bought: One Night, One Marriage / Always the Bridesmaid / Confessions of a Millionaire's Mistress (страница 11)

Amusement coloured his features. ‘Relax, Cally. I’m not going to eat you.’ He took a sip from his glass. ‘At least, not yet.’

She crossed her legs a little tighter and reached for her own glass. ‘I think you’ll find there’s something else on the menu.’

With a sly smile he set his drink down. ‘Tell me about your business.’

‘Why?’

His shoulders lifted carelessly. ‘It’s a big part of your life. I want to understand it better, understand why it’s so important to you.’

‘OK.’ That she could do. She started at the beginning again—her experiments in the kitchen that were motivated by the impudent desire to subvert her mother’s diet regimes, then her study in food science and the decision to go into business herself. She didn’t go into the decision to have the company donate half its profits to charity—he didn’t need to know all that.

But as she talked she relaxed, telling him some of the jokes between her and Mel. The crazy times when they’d worked through the night to prepare enough when the big orders had started rolling in, the crazier times now she had more staff to manage and more customers to satisfy.

‘It really is everything to you.’

‘It’s my baby.’ She laughed, hiding the secret stab that came with the knowledge her business ventures were the only babies she’d ever have. ‘It keeps me up all night—teething trouble, the works.’ She glanced out to where the vivid blue of the pool seemed to meld into the wide blue of the sea. ‘Actually, to be honest, it’s not so much a baby now as an unruly teenager who I’m thinking of turfing out of the family home.’

‘Really?’ He laughed.

She nodded, joined in his warm, melodious mirth with a chuckle of her own. ‘It’s eating up all my resources.’

‘Raiding the fridge?’

‘And how!’ She sighed and her laughter died. ‘I think I need a manager. I went into it because I wanted to do the fun bits, you know—the creative stuff, the recipe prep. Let me tell you, management and paperwork is not fun. But the way the business is growing that’s what I’m having to do more and more of.’

‘But if you gave it up what would you do?’

She grinned. ‘I have lots of ideas.’

‘I bet you do.’

He nodded and they talked more—business, contracts, supply and demand. Somehow almost an hour passed.

‘Are you hungry?’

She was, but not for what he was offering. Why wasn’t he offering what she wanted? Had she read this weekend all wrong? Here she’d been thinking they were in for some seriously naughty fun and, while she’d wanted to keep him in his place, she was disappointed that all he was interested in was showing her his house, chatting about work and now feeding her.

‘A little.’

As she followed him to his kitchen she realised she was actually a lot hungry. There were some seriously yummy smells wafting in the warm air.

He took oven mitts and lifted a tray out of the oven. She watched, mouth watering as he put the bread on a cooling rack.

‘Did you bake this?’

He nodded.

‘It’s not one of those take-and-bake jobs from the supermarket?’

‘Never,’ he declared. ‘Ever had one of them smell as good as this?’

She poked at it. ‘How did you get the crust so.’

‘Crusty?’ He laughed.

She nodded. ‘Not even the French bother baking a French stick in their homes. They go to the baker. You can’t get the same crust in a home oven.’

‘I don’t have a home oven. I have an industrial oven.’ She turned and had a good look at the machine fixed into the wall. Industrial was right. You could feed an army cooking with that thing. ‘Why? You’re some sort of glorified banker, aren’t you? Why on earth do you need an oven like this?’

He’d torn some strips of bread and offered her one. ‘I like bread. I like baking. I like baking bread.’

‘Can you cook anything else?’ She munched on the warm loaf.

‘Maybe. If I wanted to. I don’t want to.’

‘Why not have a bread maker?’

He stopped just before taking another bite. ‘Why not go to the shop and buy a loaf?’

‘But it takes hours. You have to leave it to prove. All that kneading.’

He grinned. ‘Exactly. The reward isn’t all in the result. The reward is also in the process. Taking the time. Each step along the way. There is nothing like kneading the dough. Rolling it, pushing it, over and over. Then you know it’ll rise well, the taste will be superior. It has to be done slowly. It has to be done by hand.’

Her cheeks flushed, trying not to think about the images his words were bringing into her brain. And he knew. She knew he knew. They weren’t just talking about bread.

‘Like all good things. It takes time.’

‘So who taught you to bake bread?’ She tried to get a grip. ‘Your mother?’

‘I taught myself. Mum was at work. I had to eat. The good thing about bread is that you don’t need a lot in the way of ingredients. And the ingredients themselves are cheap. I’d bake bread—big, heavy loaves. And then I’d make toast or sandwiches. I can make anything into a sandwich.’

Cally processed the info. Understood. He’d been hungry as a kid. ‘It was just you and your mother?’

He nodded. ‘And you?’

She didn’t want to talk personal much any more. Didn’t want this to progress beyond anything much more than it was—a dare, a one-weekend-only special. She didn’t want to develop feelings for him other than lust, which, hopefully, would soon be sated. It would be all too easy to like him—a lot. Aside from the obvious physical factor, he was interesting, funny. He stood so easy in his own skin. He knew his body and he’d be as comfortable working his way around her body too. He made it all seem so simple.

So she nodded assent and then turned the conversation back. ‘You bake often?’

‘Fairly. It relaxes me.’

‘You don’t seem like you’d need relaxing. You seem pretty laid-back. Assured.’

‘You think? I get uptight. I certainly get frustrated.’ Another innocent smile. ‘What do you do to relax, Cally?’

‘Same as you. I cook.’

‘Aren’t we a good combination? I make the bread, you make the soup. Complementary.’

It was too hot in the kitchen. She wanted to get back into the lounge or, even better, the deck. Uptight didn’t even begin to describe how she was feeling. She focused on the bread again, studying the thickness of the crust, the texture.

He looked thoughtful. ‘You know, the best way to make you understand isn’t to tell you, but to show you.’

‘Show me what?’

He grinned, as if knowing she wasn’t thinking quite along the lines he was. ‘How to bake bread.’

Oh. Right. By the time she’d told herself she really wasn’t disappointed he’d pulled out a bin of flour from the walk-in pantry.

‘You’re serious?’

‘Absolutely.’

Fascinated she watched as within minutes he had ingredients lined up on the bench and the scales out. A big old-fashioned earthenware bowl sat centre-stage.

‘Don’t you use an electric mixer?’

‘I do everything by hand.’ He gestured for her to come beside him. ‘Only today, you do everything by hand.’

He ran the taps and washed his hands; she followed. Amused and fascinated she watched; she hadn’t baked in years. He measured the flour, took yeast from the fridge, mixed in a little sugar, a little salt, water. Eventually he ditched the wooden spoon to work with his hands and then dumped the dough from the bowl to the bench.

‘Now knead.’

He stood aside, and she stepped up to his bench, painfully aware of him behind her, watching over her shoulder. She felt stupid, self-conscious, and with a sigh started pushing at the dough. He watched in silence for a few minutes and she knew he wasn’t impressed.

‘You need to put your heart into it, Cally,’ he chided. ‘If you want anything to be any good you have to give it everything. Just let go and get into it.’

Right. With the most gorgeous man ever to walk the planet at her back making her feel as if she were under a microscope. She heard a muffled grouch and then his arms encircled hers, and he put his hands on her own. Slowly he guided her, showing how to work the dough—the way he worked it.