Anything but Vanilla(28)

He was teasing her?

She opened her bag. ‘Oh, look,’ she said, producing it. ‘This must be your lucky day.’

‘You think?’

The teasing glint remained, but realising how much trouble Ria was causing him, how much trouble she was causing him, she said, ‘No. I’m sorry.’ Then, because this was business, ‘My cheque for one month’s rent to be refunded off the price if I make an offer for the business?’ she pressed, firmly repressing the whisper of longing that shimmered through her as the suggestion of a smile, lifting one corner of his mouth, deepened a little.

‘To be refunded off the price if you buy the business,’ he agreed and offered her his hand. It was one of the traditional ways to close a deal. A kiss was another.

Kissing him would be fun.

Glorious fun...

For heaven’s sake! This was serious!

She grasped his hand firmly, like a proper business person. It was hard, callused, vibrating with power and this was him with jet lag...

‘I imagine you’ll want that in writing?’ he asked, losing the smile and releasing her so abruptly that she practically fell off her heels.

She took half a step back to regain her balance, physical if not mental. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think you should put some cayenne pepper in that ice cream,’ he said, peeling himself away from the sink.

The air seemed to ripple around him as he moved, lapping against her in soft waves, goosing her flesh. Sorrel shivered a little and glanced after him. Did he have that effect on everyone or was it just her?

He didn’t look back, and, aware that she was standing there in a lustlorn trance, she was grateful. The click of the door as he closed it brought her back to reality, but even then it took a moment for her bones to remember what they were for. What she was here for.

Cayenne pepper? Really?

She crossed the kitchen and opened the cupboard containing the spice and flavourings and there it was. Right at the front.

Could he be right?

In the face of any other ideas it had to be worth a try, but how much was just a touch, exactly? She liked everything cut and dried. Laid out in straight lines. Business, life, gram weights. Give her a recipe and she was fine but this ‘touch’, or ‘pinch’ business—like the sizzle in the air whenever they came within touching distance—left her floundering.

She weighed some of the spice carefully onto the little ‘gram’ scale and then added it to a pint of the mixture in the tiniest amounts, tasting, adding, tasting, adding until suddenly the ice cream sprang to life. Not hot, but with just enough added zing to make it...perfect.

How had he known?

She’d seen Ria do the same thing, instinctively reach for a spice that brought an ice leaping to life on the palate. It was a kind of alchemy. And totally frustrating when you couldn’t do it yourself.

She needed Ria.

She needed Alexander.

No, Ria!

She checked the scales to see how much of the pepper she’d used to the last gram, updated the recipe on her laptop, rounded it up and added the full amount to the churn. Then she checked her phone. No messages.

She started making the Earl Grey granita.

It wasn’t one of their one-off recipes, but a standard they’d used before. Perfecting it was just a matter of timing to get the strength of the tea exactly right. No surprises, just concentration.

* * *

Alexander took a moment to gather his thoughts, concentrate on what he had to do in an attempt to shift the disturbing sense of losing himself.

It didn’t help.

He flexed his hands, still tingling with the electricity of the touch of Sorrel Amery’s fingers, palm against his. Cool, seductively soft, with contrastingly hot nails that exactly matched lips that were putting all kinds of thoughts into his head.

Dangerous thoughts.

It had been made very clear to him that his lifestyle and relationships were mutually exclusive. The era when women sat at home and waited while their men ventured into the unknown for months, years, had disappeared, along with the Victorians with whom Sorrel had compared him.

He’d made his choice and, while the passion for what he did burned bright, he’d live with it.

Alone.

He took a deep breath, then began to tackle the unpaid bills. When he’d placed the last of them in the out tray, he sat back and tried to piece together, from the fragments that had made it through the burble and static of a storm-disrupted uplink, exactly what Ria had said.