Anything but Vanilla(18)

There had to be rules...

‘Praying won’t help,’ he said, even as he offered up a God-help-me on his own account, ‘but the telephone has already been cut off so I suggest you get cracking on your sorbet before the electricity company follows suit.’

His attempt to send her scurrying back to the prep room failed. ‘I’ll go across to the bank and pay it now.’

‘Why would you do that?’ he asked, making the mistake of looking up and discovering that her lips were barely a breath away from his own.

Ripe, red, sweet...

For a moment her eyes, misty green beneath long dark lashes, connected with his and a fizz of heat went straight to his groin as the air filled with pheromones. His reaction must have telegraphed itself to her because, with a tiny hiss of breath, she straightened, took half a step back.

It wasn’t the reaction he had expected. He’d assumed that getting close was part of her plan, but apparently he’d misread her and now he was the one being tormented by X-rated images of those long legs, that hot body and sweet strawberry lips...

‘Because I can? You can deduct it from the rent,’ she said, recovering before him.

‘Nice try, but then the business will owe you money.’

‘As well as ice cream. I know, but I can’t run the business without electricity, Mr West. Or did you really think I was just stringing you along until I’d finished this order?’

‘It had crossed my mind,’ he said abruptly, plucking the invoice from her hand and returning it to the pile.

‘Well, uncross it. I’ve got another business function next week,’ she said, the sharpness of her voice undermined by the faintest wobble on the word ‘function’. Despite her swift move out of the danger zone, the heat had not been all one way. The thought that she might be suffering too went some small way to easing his own discomfort...

‘Another function?’

‘You needn’t sound so surprised,’ she said. ‘A local company holding a gala dinner has commissioned us to provide miniature ice-cream cones late in the evening. When everyone is hot from dancing,’ she added, presumably in case he didn’t get it.

He got it. He was hot...

‘I’ll rephrase that,’ he said. ‘I was hoping that you were stringing me along until you finished this order. That this was a one off.’

‘You didn’t believe I was serious? About making an offer for the business?’

‘Not for a minute.’

Her forehead buckled in the faintest of frowns as if she couldn’t understand why he wasn’t taking her seriously. Maybe he was underestimating her. Judging her on appearance. Or just plain distracted by the flash-over of heat whenever they came within touching distance.

‘I’ve got events booked throughout the summer, Mr West. Weddings, hen parties, business parties. They must be in Ria’s diary.’

‘Ria and her diary are no longer in the ice-cream business so you’d better find another supplier or come up with an offer very quickly,’ he replied.

‘I will. Just as soon as I’ve seen the accounts.’ He waited for her to flounce out of the room. She didn’t. Flounce, bounce or depart with the kind of door-banging pique warranted by the way he’d spoken to her. Instead she continued to regard him with that slightly puzzled frown. ‘You must realise that it’s in your best interests to sell the business as a going concern.’

‘Must I?’

Her throat moved as she swallowed.

She might be sticking to her guns, no matter what he threw at her, but she was nowhere near as composed as she would have him believe. What would she do if he looped his arm around her waist, pulled her down onto his lap and let her feel just how discomposed he was?

‘You could keep Nancy on to run the ice-cream parlour,’ she suggested, when he offered no encouragement. ‘That way money will still be coming in and there’s more likelihood that the creditors will be paid. And the business will be worth more to any buyer.’

‘That it would be in your best interests, I have no doubt,’ he replied as the ground beneath him shifted, sucked him in.

What would she do if he slid his hands beneath that scrap of cloth masquerading as a skirt and lifted her onto the desk?

‘Hardly.’ She leaned back, her bottom propped on the desk, almost as if she could read his mind, were inviting him to run his hand up the inside of her thigh... ‘I could wait until you’re selling up, buy the equipment and freezers at a knock-down price and rent a unit near my office.’