Stirring Up Trouble(33)
She gave him a sarcastic smile. “Interesting. You want to tell me why we’re in here while your customers are going fist-over-hand crazy out there?”
He added a pinch of salt to the cream and went into the pantry to find his favorite chocolate. “I love how you mix up your idioms and clichés. Have I ever told you that?”
She stared at him with her hands on her hips.
He handed her the chocolate. “Add this to the pot.”
She hesitated, probably wanting to question him, but she followed his directive without complaint.
He pulled a whisk off the wall and gave it to her. “Now I need you to constantly stir so it doesn’t burn.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She dunked the whisk into the mixture, stirring rather than whisking.
He covered her hand with his own and helped her with the proper motion. “I’m sorry about before. I should have told you how I felt about you rather than take a step back. I can see why you got the wrong idea. If you’re not comfortable with our arrangement, tell me how I can make it better for you.”
She bit her bottom lip and nodded. “The apology is a great start. I never thought I’d hear those words come from your lips.”
He stepped behind her. “So you accept my apology?”
“Yes, of course.”
He placed his hands on her shoulders and massaged them. “How do you feel?”
“Fine,” she said softly. “What’s this about?”
“No time to explain.” He plucked the whisk from Lola’s hand and moved her aside, calling for his chef. “Christopher, I need you to spoon the chocolate fondue into small bowls and give it to all of our guests, especially those who ate the moussaka. Offer it as a complimentary dessert and plate it with some fresh fruit and angel food cake.”
The chef turned from plating the dinners, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Yes, sir. Right away.”
Braden faced Lola again and took her hand. “Can I talk to you in the office?”
She shrugged, but allowed him to take her down the hall to his private space. She entered the room and sat on the edge of his desk.
His cock hardened as he remembered his fantasy of bending her over that desk and making love to her. He took a deep breath and wiped the thought from his mind, moving to stand directly in front of her. “Just be honest with me. Have you had any dreams lately in which you’re sitting on a rock in the ocean and I’m swimming to you? Or how about the one in which Demetrius and Euterpe are to meet on the beach and he—I—show up beaten and bloody, warning you about your father?”
Her face gave away nothing, set as if in stone. Could he have been wrong? She glanced at the floor and swallowed hard. He moved even closer and set his hands on her thighs. “You have, haven’t you?”
She held him off with her warm palms on his chest. “It’s not possible. Because if it is, my mother isn’t crazy and everything I believe to be true is a lie. And if that dream is real then you need to stay as far away from me as you can or something bad will happen.”
“That’s not true.” He cupped her face in his hands. “You don’t even have a father in this life.”
“It doesn’t matter. If you accept the dreams as true then you have to also accept they’re a warning.”
He couldn’t help from sweeping his thumbs over her lips, missing their softness. “Lola, that’s the fear talking. That’s why you started that argument, isn’t it? You were trying to push me away.”
“No—yes—maybe.” She looked up at him. “I don’t know. You did something to me when you distanced yourself the last couple of days. It . . . hurt inside. I’m not used to that. I don’t feel things, Braden, or if I do, I can’t identify them. Your rejection of me felt like you plunged your fist into my chest, and you squeezed my heart so it couldn’t beat. It was painful until I made the decision to cut it off at the kneecaps and stop it dead on the moose tracks.”
He could tell from her smile she’d mixed up those sayings on purpose to make him laugh. But the idea he’d hurt her like that tore him to shreds. “Let me fix it for you. We were good before I messed everything up.”
“Can you promise not to hurt me again?” she whispered.
He wanted to make that promise, but his ex-wife’s tearful eyes flashed in his mind. He shook his head. “No. I can’t make those kind of guarantees. No one can. Can you?”
“No, and most times, I don’t worry about it.” She raised her hand as if she was going to touch his face, but she dropped it back to her side. “But you’re different.”