“ARE YOU GOING TO BE home for dinner tonight?” Chelsea called to David as he headed off for work.
He paused. “What’s for dinner?”
“I’m trying out a new recipe with stuffed chicken breasts in a wine sauce.”
“My pants are getting tight. I skip my workouts so I can eat your food.”
“You make it sound like that’s a bad thing.”
“I feel like I’m living on the set of Julie and Julia. People aren’t meant to eat so much butter and cream and wine.”
“Nonsense. Julia Child and her husband both lived into their nineties. I’ll take butter and cream over a bag of potato chips any day. Healthier and tastier.”
“I don’t eat potato chips.”
She put her hands on her hips. “If you’re going to be grumpy about this, I’ll toss you a green salad.”
“I’ll be home for dinner.” He walked by her and his lips quirked. “And stuff me a chicken breast.”
When he got to work he realized he was going to have to do something about the routine they’d fallen into. It was too easy, too comfortable, too damn domestic.
But, oh, that woman could cook. It was strange because she looked like one of those women who lived on carrot juice and celery sticks, but she didn’t. She not only cooked the way Mozart created music, but she also had a hearty appetite and enjoyed food so much it was a pleasure to watch her eat.
He figured she was blessed with a fast metabolism, plus, she wasn’t one for sitting around. She always seemed to be busy doing something. All that food was getting burned off all right. Sadly, not on hot sex.
He’d promised to keep his distance, but that woman was becoming an obsession to him. Having slept with her once, it was like she was a drug he couldn’t get out of his system. He fantasized all the time about what he’d like to do to her in an apron, and nothing but an apron. Never in the past had he thought of a kitchen as more than a place to store beer and reheat pizza. Now he thought of it as the most erotic room in his town house.
And the more he wanted Chelsea, the more she treated him like a cross between a business coach and the big brother she’d never had.
An unaccustomed frown settled on his forehead and wouldn’t budge.
When Jane had to remind him of a scheduled meeting off-site with an important client, he knew he was losing the laserlike focus that made him so successful.
David wasn’t a man who got distracted by women, or one who kept glancing at the clock, willing the day over so he could run home and see the woman waiting for him at home.
And when he got there what did he get? Hot, crazy sex? No, artery-clogging meals that were shortening his time here on earth.
On his way to the client’s his scowl deepened. Seemed to him that little Miss Cordon Bleu was setting all the rules in this relationship. She didn’t want sex. Fine. They didn’t have sex. She wanted to cook constantly, start a business from his kitchen. Fine, he’d been decent about that. But using him as her test-kitchen guinea pig? No, that one wasn’t going to work.
Not without some serious concessions on her part.
He wouldn’t mind eating rich food and enjoying decent wine if, at the end of it, there was somewhere for all that decadent pleasure to go.
Of course, she had Philippe. But Philippe was in France, very far away. He wasn’t the one eating all of her food, he wasn’t the one sharing a home with her. If he didn’t want another guy poaching his territory, why wasn’t he here? David knew for damn sure that if Chelsea was his woman he wouldn’t be letting her shack up with another man. And, knowing what her food did to a guy, he wouldn’t be letting her cook for her roommate, especially if said roommate was a red-blooded male who wasn’t getting any.
As he went over his sales pitch for the meeting, the pitch where he convinced the owner of a local record label that his company was large enough now to institute a corporate insurance plan, he realized that he’d been handling the whole Chelsea thing all wrong.
He’d lived by her rules so long he’d forgotten that rules were meant to be bent until they broke.
What did he do best in all the world?
He was a salesman.
If he couldn’t sell a woman who was young, attractive and also not getting any—oh, yeah, and living with him—to have sex with him, then he might as well find a job in an anonymous cubicle somewhere because he had no place on the executive level of any business.
He spent the drive out to the record label mentally sharpening all the weapons in his seduction arsenal.
Like closing any sale, the prospect of getting Chelsea into bed filled him with excited anticipation. He couldn’t wait for tonight.
A bit of compunction hit him as he stopped for a red light. What if she and Philippe were serious? When he arrived at the record company a few minutes early, he called Sarah.
“Sarah Wolfe,” she barked when she answered.
“And that’s going to scare any business away.”
“I knew it was you. And I’m in a pissy mood.”
“You can hardly tell.”
“Do you want something?”
“Yeah, actually, I do. You got a minute?”
“Sure.”
“It’s about Chelsea.”
“What did you do to her? I swear to God, David, if you upset her in any way, I’ll kill you. She’s vulnerable, you know? She’s still finding her feet back here at home, she’s trying to start a new business and that’s not easy. So if you’re giving her any trouble, I’ll come over there and pack her up myself and she can move in with me and you can look after my cat.”
For a few seconds there was silence. He could hear her aggressive breathing and waited until it had calmed a bit. “That was quite some rant. Feel better now?”
She laughed, which was a good sign. “Damn you, yes. Sorry. I’m having a personal issue.”
“You’re not getting any, either, are you? I know the signs.”
“This whole sex thing is the worst evolutionary invention.”
“Speak for yourself. As a matter of fact, that’s what I’m calling about.”
“If you want the birds-and-bees talk, sweetie, you want Dad. He and Mom are back next week. I hear a family barbecue is on the agenda.”
Oh, she was definitely starting to feel better. “I am calling about Chelsea. There’s this guy she talks to a lot on the phone. Philippe. You know anything about him?”
“Her gay friend in Paris? The one she went to cooking school with? What about him?”
The birds began to sing, the sun had never shone brighter, life was a magical feast and he was about to chow down. “Her gay friend Philippe? Yeah, that’s the one. I was just wondering if he knows the truth about the fake engagement. I mean, can we trust him?”
“The guy’s in France and doesn’t speak English. Frankly, I think you have a whole lot of bigger problems to worry about, bro. Like that family barbecue. You better hope Mom hasn’t been knitting baby booties on her trip.”
“You’re right. Listen I gotta go, I’m late for a meeting, but we should get together real soon. Hey, maybe we could all go out one night. You and me and Chelsea and I’ll find a fourth.”
“I can find my own date, thanks.”
He was surprised. “Really? I didn’t think you were seeing anyone.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Shouldn’t that put you in a good mood?”
“Wrong again.” She muttered something and then “Later,” and she was gone.
He shook his head as he got out of his car. Women in general were difficult enough to figure, but sisters? Or maybe it was just his sister.