Laura focused on the energy of the kitchen and not the pounding of her heart. She chatted about something—the chef, the cooking show, the food. She distinctly remembered hearing those words in her own voice.
Oh, yes, the Christmas decorations. She heard him laugh when she pointed out the discrete holly pins on the kitchen staff’s hats and the Santa hats all the servers wore. Laura couldn’t hear music over the boisterous crowd, but she thought she heard the faint strains of Christmas music and pointed that out, too.
Mostly, she didn’t want Kamari to know how nervous she was. How her leg twitched up and down beneath the table and her fingers curled around each other on her lap. She smiled across the table at him and hoped, really, really hoped, he couldn’t hear the slightly breathless quality to her voice.
She could no longer fool herself. This was not a dinner meeting and certainly not anything business related.
If it looked like a date (Laura never obsessed over her outfit during business) and felt like a date (Kamari’s warm hand on her back certainly didn’t feel strictly professional), then it was a date and she could no longer deny it. Laura didn’t know whether to do the dramatic thing and run from the restaurant or throw caution to the wind and go for it.
She settled for sipping her water.
A date. Well, he said he’d ask her out one last time and that’d be it. And clearly she’d accepted. So what was her problem now? Laura couldn’t ignore or dismiss the way Kamari looked at her. As if she was the only woman in the entire restaurant. He said something she completely missed.
Blinking out of her thoughts, she leaned across the table. “What was that?”
“Just saying sorry.” He grinned and leaned closer, too. And, oh boy, were his eyes even more gorgeous up close. “I didn’t realize how noisy it’d be.”
“Don’t worry about it.” She laughed a little and hated it still felt as breathy as it probably sounded. She really needed to get a grip. “I’m used to it.”
Kamari shot her a questioning look and Laura bit her lip. Damn. That didn’t make any sense did it? And now she’d have to confess.
Well, it wasn’t as if this were any big dark secret.
“My parents own a restaurant in Manhattan,” she explained. “I’ve been around noisy kitchens since I was a kid.” She sipped her wine. When had that been poured? But it was delicious and she took another sip.
Probably not the best to drink too much to soothe her nerves. Bad first-date impression. Setting the glass down, she nodded to the line people working the kitchen.
“See that man in the back corner?” she said and waited until Kamari found the man she meant. “That’s the sous chef and in some kitchens, he’s more important than the executive chef. If the sous chef doesn’t like you, your career is kaput.”
Kamari—should she call him Tyler by now? She was woefully out of touch with this whole dating thing, she thought as he scooted his chair closer to her. Laura tried not to show how that move affected her. She cleared her throat and took another sip of wine.
But his laugh was low and amused. “It’s a lot like office politics,” he said, leaning closer. “If the wrong person doesn’t like you, your career is stalled.”
Nodding, Laura set her wine glass down and laughed with him. Laughing was easy with him and if it didn’t make her completely relax, it did ease a little of the nervous butterflies swirling in her stomach.
“That’s very true, but when the right person likes you—”
Kamari interrupted her. “When the right person likes you,” he repeated, “so many things are possible.”
Laura nodded before she realized she’d meant to. “I guess they are.”
“Can we drop all business pretenses between us?” he asked. “Laura, I’m not here to have a meeting with you about the skating rink or our next project. We can talk about those during normal business hours.”
He reached out as if to touch her hand, but stopped. Laura wanted him to take her hand, and it surprised her how badly she wanted it. She curled her fingers into the table then smoothed them out before he noticed.
“I came here,” he continued, “hoping to spend time with you. Hoping there could be more between us than architectural plans. I’ve been attracted to you since our first meeting.”
Surprised, she picked up her wine glass but didn’t sip from it. Instead, she played with the stem to give her hands something to do. “I thought the reason for your visit was like mine—staying up here to get away from the family for the holidays.”
Laura looked at him, saw the unmistakable interest in his blue gaze, and gave a slight laugh. Her stomach swooped, but she couldn’t tear her gaze from his.
“I guess not,” she said softly, so quietly she didn’t think he heard her over the din of the restaurant. The look in his eyes told her otherwise.
“Okay,” she said after a beat, when she was finally able to look somewhere other than at Kamari. But her gaze immediately sought his again. “I can have fun over the Christmas holidays.”
Since when did her mouth say things before her brain had the chance to process it? She was normally the think first, ask questions, plan out the consequences woman. This leaping before she looked was not her.
However, his answering smile made her heart flip and did very hot things to her insides. She’d almost forgotten what attraction felt like, but that smile. Totally illegal.
Kamari leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. Shocked, she closed her eyes and breathed in sharply. He smelled of the crisp outdoors and the warm restaurant and a light, musky cologne she couldn’t name.
Just as quickly it was over; he pulled back. That was it. A quick press of his lips to hers. Nothing more.
Laura blinked across the table at him. With the small part of her brain still capable of higher function, she decided she couldn’t call him Kamari any longer. Couldn’t go around calling him by his last name after kissing him.
Pushing that inane thought away, she drew in a deep breath. Then he grinned at her and lifted his own wine glass for a drink, and what higher thought functions she’d managed to retain, vanished. Seriously. What was wrong with her tonight?
Laura shifted in the chair and picked up her own glass. She absolutely did not watch how his throat worked as he swallowed. Or how his long fingers wrapped around the stem of the glass. Nope. She absolutely did not and was quite unable to tear her gaze away.
Thankfully, Sally, their smiling server in a Santa hat with her name stitched across it, returned.
Laura embraced the interruption with both hands and smiled brightly up at Sally. She could do this…this…date thing. How hard could it be? It was a date. She remembered what that was like—barely. And this was just talking. Plus, they had a lot to talk about, what with the chef’s table and the Christmas decorations and…music and such.
If she happened to slip in a couple work-related things here and there, well, her hotel was Christmas related, too.
Somehow the hours slipped by. Laura hadn’t once looked at her watch, but suddenly they were drinking after-dinner coffee and debating dessert and deciding against it. Sally left their check with another grin, and Laura wondered where the time had gone.
Outside of her projects, she’d never lost track of time. Time had gone so fast during dinner, she’d had so much fun and never once had she tried to use work as an excuse to get away. She didn’t need an out, not with Tyler.
Outside in the cold December air, she tugged her gloves back on. Kamari stood next to her, one hand on the small of her back and, oh, Laura wished she could feel his hand on her skin and not through several layers of clothing.
Wow, how much wine had she had? And where had that thought come from?
Boy had she jumped from the frying pan, being standoffish and not wanting even tonight’s date, into the fire and wanting him to touch her. She needed to stop, pull back, and take a deep breath.
“Back to the hotel?” Kamari asked as the car pulled up. And it was the wine’s fault her mind jumped from going back to the hotel to going back to her room.
“Or”—he gestured toward the bakery still brightly lighted a few stores down from Clyde’s—“we can get dessert there.”
By the Fire beckoned her, and Laura immediately agreed. Not only because she knew the bakery was delicious, though it was one of the few off-site bakeries the hotel used, but because she simply wasn’t ready to end their night.
She waited on the sidewalk while Kamari spoke to the driver. When he returned, he took her hand in his gloved one. Laura tried not to read too much into that gesture, but was desperately afraid she’d already read more into tonight’s date than she wanted to. Or meant to.
Her head was spinning and she knew, she just knew, things were going to end badly. He held open the door for her and ushered her into the warmly lighted bakery that was still partly packed even now.
Suddenly conscious of her weight, Laura hesitated over the selection. Her favorite, the éclairs, came in two sizes—the delicious large one and a smaller one. Normally, she’d simply order a half dozen of the larger ones, and stash the rest in her room.
Tonight, she very carefully ordered two of the smaller ones. After all, dinner had been delicious and she’d eaten quite a lot.
Boys won’t like you if you’re too round. Here, have a carrot, pass on the éclair. Damn. And she’d been doing so good during dinner, ignoring that stupid little voice.
Kamari ordered a cinnamon swirl puff pastry and two hot chocolates for them. They walked along the antique-looking pavers in silence while Laura carefully avoided diving into her éclairs. She’d had a really wonderful time tonight and didn’t want to ruin it with a reminder of her weight.
“Did you really come to Vermont to hang out with me?” Laura asked as they continued to slowly walk. The night had taken a colder turn, but she didn’t want to return to the hotel just yet.
“Guilty.” Kamari smiled over the rim of his paper to-go cup. He carried their bag of pastries, but didn’t seem in a rush to do anything other than walk with her.
A flush of warmth spread through Laura that had nothing to do with the hot chocolate.
“Even though,” he added with a grin that made her stomach swoop, “you turned me down every time—my invitations to dinner, coffee, movies, concerts. I had to give it another try, Laura.” He shrugged, but that smile remained. “I don’t normally ask more than once, but with you it’s so different.”
The honesty in his voice moved through her, and Laura felt a piece of her resistance shatter. He wore his heart on his sleeve, entirely open and for her to see, and wasn’t ashamed in the least. It surprised her. More than that, it showed his confidence.
Showed how much he wanted her, she realized—finally. It unsettled her; she hadn’t expected such sincerity. Sure, a holiday fling was one thing, but Kamari seemed to truly want her.
“Why?” she asked and was unable to keep the disbelief from her tone. “You must meet women all the time who’d jump at the chance to go to dinner with you.”
Laura shook her head. Her previous boyfriends and lovers had not looked anything like Kamari and certainly hadn’t treated her as their sole focus during dinner as he had. “And,” she added as the car he’d hired came back into sight, “who don’t say no at every turn.”
He stopped and looked down at her. That same feeling of being in the center of his world enveloped Laura, and she tried to remember how to breathe. She needed to patent that look, she absently thought as she looked into his blue gaze, oddly shadowed in the streetlight. She’d make a mint.
“Remember that night we stayed late at the office working on the Miami additions?” Kamari asked, his voice low and intense, as if he wondered if she remembered something from almost six months ago.
She did, of course she did, but Laura only nodded.
“I told you about how my parents left South Africa for New York, what with my mother being white and my dad…” He trailed off and pointed to his face. “Not so white.” He said it with a humor that spoke of being so well adjusted, Laura, now as then, barely registered it as important. “It would’ve been illegal for them to marry at the time.”
“I remember,” Laura whispered, pastries, hot chocolate, cold December nights, and her earlier fears gone in the face of his openness and absolute attention.
“You said you respected how they made their own path in the world.” He nodded as if that had solidified something for him. “Most people comment on how scary that must have been or ask about apartheid or some such. You didn’t.” This time, his smile was slow and warm and still had the ability to steal her breath.
“You had the same reaction I did, that my sister did, when we were old enough to understand exactly what they’d done. Really understand. And that just made me want to date you even more. And the fact that you are absolutely gorgeous…well.”
Kamari shrugged and winked, and Laura laughed. His words wound through her, and she released a breath she hadn’t realized she held. No, she could no longer go on calling him Kamari. He was most definitely Tyler now.
“Too superficial?” Tyler asked with a smile.
“No,” she whispered and leaned into him. With her free hand, she softly touched his face and wished she hadn’t worn gloves, despite the cold night. She looked into his eyes and caught herself. Blushing, she pulled back.
“Oh,” she managed and looked away from him.
Tyler took her hand and brought it to his lips. “You can touch me all you want.”