“I could have ruined all that.”
“With one review?” He gave a harsh laugh. “Yes, actually, you could have.”
“What happened? I still don’t understand why the meals were so awful.”
“Two of my sous-chefs sabotaged me before they jumped ship.” He shuddered, his big body moving against hers in an unconsciously sexy dance. She snuggled closer into his arms, the hair on his chest tickling her cheek. “Cinnamon in mashed potato!’
She laughed and he cinched her close, pressing her breasts against his chest, gazing down at her with blatant adoration. She realised for the first time in ages how fraught and worried her job had made her. “I like food, but I started to hate criticising it. I didn’t want to do that, make or break. But somehow people started to listen.”
“Because you always tell the truth,” he said. “The public could trust you.”
“All over now. Not telling the truth,” she amended hastily, ‘But doing the reviews. I thought I’d better stop before I got an ulcer.”
He kissed her forehead, then her mouth, making it long and luscious, so it was some time until he spoke again. “So what will you do now?”
He hadn’t said anything about a future with her. Just that he loved her, and for tonight, that was enough. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”
He kissed her again. “All I could think was that I’d lost you through my own stupidity, putting my career first. I don’t want that to happen again, ever.”
With the swift, decisive movements so typical of him, Remy got out of bed. She loved the way the light from the dim bedside lamps played over his big body, the way his muscles shifted, flowing in perfect harmony. Just as they had ten minutes earlier, before he climaxed and collapsed next to her, holding her tight, refusing to let her go, covering her with passionate kisses.
He left the room, shooting a “Wait there,” order. She smiled, thinking she’d have to teach him to say ‘please’ more often. He returned with a small gold box, the restaurant’s fancy takeaway armour.
After climbing back into bed, he unfolded the box to reveal the two amuse-bouches he’d presented to her with her apology. “I planned to have you eat one of these in the restaurant, but I lost my nerve. That and wanting you so badly.” He gazed at her, the expression in his steel-grey eyes as soft as a cloud, but the lightning bolt of desire lighting them to silver. He shook his head. “So do you want to taste your treat now?”
Confused, she sat up next to him, and pushed her tousled hair away from her face. “Food?”
“A taste, that’s all. I’ve created something quite new here and I’d appreciate your opinion.” He flashed a smile. “Your last review, my love.”
He’d created what looked like perfect spheres of chocolate. While clever, that was hardly new. One had a crystallised rose on top, the other bore a violet. “Okay.” Still not sure, she took the dessert fork he offered her, and broke into the sphere with the rose.
The scent of vanilla and a fortified wine—Madeira—broke over her, washing her senses with promises of decadence. “Oh, my. How do you keep the aroma in?”
He grinned. “Part of the secret.”
The sphere broke into shards of chocolate, revealing another sphere, which seemed to be fondant, but with an outer shell that stopped it from melting over the container. “Clever.”
“A new consistency I’m experimenting with.”
“Like marshmallow,” she said, prodding it. Foam-filled, but without the gelatinous consistency. She took a tiny bite of the white froth. “As delicious as I knew it would be.” It held a hint of something citrus, preventing the concoction from becoming too sweet. With her second forkful, she felt something hard, and probed further, dragging out something with the gleam of gold and the glitter of diamond. One diamond, large, perfect, scintillating.
He took the gold box and put it aside before dipping the ring into the glass of water by his bed and drying it with the napkin. When he turned back to her, he kissed the third finger of her left hand. “That’s where I want to put this. Elise, I can’t live without you. Don’t want to. You said you didn’t know what you wanted to do next. So will you marry me, move in, be my love and my partner for as long as we both shall live?”
The echo of the marriage ceremony made her shiver. Suddenly everything seemed so easy. “Remy, I love you too. But are you sure?”
He leaned forward and kissed her. “Never surer. I’d have sold the business and not looked back if that was what you wanted.”
So asking for her plans hadn’t been a casual enquiry. “I love you, Remy. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
“I don’t deserve you.” They shared a kiss of true mutual love, their first, which threatened to turn into something else when he caressed her, and bent to deliver a kiss on the slope of one breast. He smiled at her, his eyes twinkling with happiness. “So wasn’t that the best amuse-bouche you ever tasted?”
Lynne Connolly writes romances in the paranormal, contemporary and historical genres, and can never decide which one she likes the best! Her multi-award winning bestsellers include the Richard and Rose series, Pure Wildfire and STORM books.
She lives in the UK with her family, and visits the US as often as she can.
Look out for more Lynne Connolly books!
Contact Lynne at
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Her website is at
www.lynneconnolly.com
Her blog is at
http://lynneconnolly.blogspot.co.uk/