The Secret Ingredient (9 page)

Rob shrugged. ‘I was so naïve about mental illness. So wrong. Badly wrong. Things have never been the same. Oh, she can go for a year or eighteen months without a major episode, and then she will fall for some hotshot man and life will be wonderful—until it isn’t. And I have to pick up the pieces and start all over again.’

Lottie hesitated before replying. ‘The other night at the gallery. Was that what you were worried about? That it was all too much for her and she would have a relapse?’

‘No. I was far more worried about what the killer combo of cold remedies and champagne would look like to the real critics who were standing outside with their cameras. A good news story about an artist who has come back after eight years with a wonderful inspirational show does not sell. But give them Rob Beresford’s rehab-refugee mother? Oh, yes. Let’s just say that I was tired of giving them what they want.’

Her fingers slid across the bench and found his. ‘Then Adele is very lucky to have a son like you to protect her.’

‘Is she? I haven’t always been there for her, Lottie. Not by a long way. I had replaced her in my life with Sean’s mother at the very time she needed me as a son. And that sort of guilt does not go away easily.’

‘But you kept that promise. That means a lot in my book.’

Her own eyes pricked with tears, and she laced her fingers between his, forcing apart his fingers, which had tightened into a ball.

Her touch acted like a catalyst, and he ripped his eyes away from the park and focused on her face as his fingers relaxed and squeezed hers back, leaving it to Lottie to break the silence.

Lottie stopped and turned so that she was facing Rob. ‘I have an idea. And you can tell me to mind my own business, but here goes.’

She took a breath. ‘I can see that you want to help your mum become the best she can be. I want to help. She is a remarkable artist and I adore her work. If you like, she can use my studio any time she wants when you are in London together. Room service, accommodation and as much lemon drizzle cake as she can eat, courtesy of the management.’

She clenched her teeth and pretended to duck. ‘What do you think?’

Rob looked into her face for a few seconds, before replying in a low intense voice.

‘You would do that? For us?’

‘In a heartbeat, yes.’

His reply was to take a firmer grip of her hand as he rose slowly to his feet.

‘Thank you, Lottie. Yes. I think that she would like that very much. Although I should warn you, for a skinny artist that woman can eat a hell of a lot of cake.’

Lottie looked up into Rob’s face and what she saw there was like a light in the darkness. He was not used to being shown kindness and was trying to bluff away the depth of his feeling.

Hell, she knew what that was like. She simply had not expected it in him.

And just like that the resentment she had held for the past three years and all of the imagined angst popped like a balloon. Gone. Finished. Over.

Time to start all over again with the Rob she was with right here and now.

Hesitantly at first, then more firmly, she grasped hold of both of Rob’s hands and slowly let him help her up from the bench and back on her feet.

And with that they walked casually, hand in hand, in silence, along the wide path as though it were something they did all of the time.

Rob could never know that her palms weren’t sweating due to the warm breeze, but the gentle way in which his fingertips stroked the tender skin. Her gaze moved over the happy groups of smiling, chatty couples who strolled across the park. Anywhere except Rob. She wanted to look at him so badly it was almost a physical pain.

Except that would mean giving in to the sigh of absolute pleasure that was bursting to escape.

This was what it would be like if she were Rob’s girlfriend. On a regular date.

Except, of course, this wasn’t a date, was it?

This was a kind gesture to his brother’s friend, who had been in the right place at the right time to help him out with somewhere for his mother to stay. That was all it could be. All it was ever going to be.

So, why not enjoy these precious moments and make the best of them while she could? These were the happy memories
she
would hold precious over the coming months when Rob and Adele had gone back to their exciting, busy lives, and she was merely a person they might see at social events with Dee and Sean.

In a few days she would be back in her normal, safe life. Which was just how she wanted it, wasn’t it?

Her brain was so distracted by the unfamiliar thoughts and feelings whirling around inside her head that she didn’t see the sudden break in the paving slab until the toe of her thin-soled evening sandal caught in the stone and she found herself falling forwards, hands outstretched. Into a pair of strong arms.

It was seconds before her brain connected with the fact that she was standing chest to chest with Rob with both of his arms wrapped around her body, her hands flat against his shirt front.

Just for a moment, Lottie closed her eyes and revelled in the warmth and the strength of his embrace. The exquisite aroma of aftershave, antiperspirant and clean pressed linen. Lemon, blended with the musky spice of light perspiration of the warm summer evening, and something else, something unique. Rob. His scent, his heat. And the strange magnetic pull that made her want to edge closer and closer to him every time they met. The pull that was going to make parting from him so very painful.

The overall effect was so totally intoxicating, that suddenly she felt light-headed and bent forward to rest her brow on his chest.

This was her dream, her fantasy. For a few precious seconds she could pretend that she was just like any other girl out for a stroll with her boyfriend. Pretend that this man cared about her, had chosen her, wanted to be with her.

A strong bicep flexed next to the thin fabric of her dress, and her eyes closed in pleasure. It had been so long since she had been held like this!

Drat Rob. Drat. She couldn’t do this. Why had she agreed to walk with him? He would be flying back to his real world, and she would be back to square one. On her own, holding it together.

‘Are you okay?’ Rob asked, with enough concern in his voice to bring a lump to her throat again.

His hands slid down as she pulled back and smiled up into his face, but instead of stepping away he simply linked his hands behind her back, holding her in place as she recovered.

‘Yes. I think so.’ She glanced down at her shoe. ‘How clumsy of me. Thanks for stopping me from falling flat on my face.’

Lottie leant back so that she could focus only to find him smiling down at her, his eyes scanning her face from side to side, as though looking for something before speaking.

His lips curved back into a wide, open-mouthed smile, so warm, so caring that she was blinded by it. The warm fingers of one hand slid up her back as he dropped his head forward and nuzzled his chin against her hair. ‘I’m pleased that I was here at the right time.’

Some part of her brain registered that she should make a response, and she forced herself to lift her chin.

Bad mistake.

Because at that precise moment Rob shifted his position and as she whispered, ‘Thank you,’ she felt the heat of his breath on her cheek. Lottie dared to slowly slide the palms of her hands up onto his chest. She could feel the hard planes and ridges of his body beneath her fingers. Emanating enough heat to warm deep inside her, melting away the last remnants of icy resistance that might have lingered there.

A young couple walked by, then a cyclist, but Lottie could hear nothing except the sound of Rob’s breathing as his lips pressed against her temple, and the stubble on his chin rasping against her cheek for a second before he released his grip on her waist and slowly, slowly, slid his hand up inside his jacket, and onto the bare skin of her back above her dress

The sensation was so unexpected, so delicious that she inhaled sharply, gasping in air.

It was as though she had given him a signal of approval.

As his fingertips stroked her skin his soft, sensuous mouth slid slowly and tenderly against her upper lip in the sweetest, most gentle of kisses. It was so brief that Lottie had only seconds to close her eyes and enjoy it before he pulled away from her, his fingers sliding down from the small of her back.

Leaving her feeling bereft.

‘Would you like some coffee? I know the perfect place.’

EIGHT

‘I could never
get tired of this view,’ Lottie murmured as she looked out from the patio outside the luxurious apartment over the rooftops of London in the fading dusk.

‘Remarkable.’

Lottie looked over her shoulder at Rob, who was leaning on the kitchen-area worktop. Staring at her as though she were the most fascinating thing in the room instead of the view from the patio. Taunting her with one glance. How did he do that? She had met international bankers who could take lessons on how to make people squirm from Rob Beresford.

She felt like rolling back her shoulders and squaring up to him but somehow she suspected he would enjoy seeing how uncomfortable his ogling was making her feel.

The look he was giving her at that second could be classified as a fire risk.

For the first time since she walked out of the hotel elevator a quiver of alarm crossed Lottie’s mind, making her breath catch in her throat.

What was she doing here?

She had worked with predatory sharks in banking and through her family most of her life and was well used to their tactics of luring the little fish into a shallow pool where they could not possibly escape.

This time she was the one who had voluntarily decided to enter the shark’s territory with nothing more than her brain and her wit as protection. To do...what, exactly? Had she completely lost her mind?

Blinking away the butterflies of doubt and something close to alarm, Lottie watched as Rob broke his stare and strode over to the open-plan living space and shrugged off his dinner jacket, casually draping it on the back of a sofa.

The muscles underneath the fine fabric of his dinner shirt strained taut against the tug and flexed enough to make the hairs on her arms perk up.

And just like that the attraction she had felt towards him in the park sizzled and caught flame, making her inhale sharply and turn back to the patio.

By turning into the gentle breeze Lottie could feel the cool air calming the heat of her skin, and, reaching back, she lifted her long hair from her neck and let it fall onto her shoulders.

‘Have you always lived in London?’ Rob asked as he joined her at the metal railing, so close that their elbows touched for a second before he braced himself.

The heady muskiness of his aftershave blended with the coffee aromas and something on his skin that was so uniquely Rob to create a fragrance that was so addictive it should be banned. Lottie’s chest lifted and fell as she indulged in the pleasure before she managed to pull together a reply.

‘I spent some time in management school in America but apart from that, yes, I suppose I have.’ Her gaze scanned the lights laid out before her. ‘I love this city. I always have.’

‘Then that is something else we have in common.’

Lottie let go of the railing and half turned to face him. The light from the living room created a mosaic of shadows on his face, which added to the hard planes she knew were there.

London?

‘I thought that you couldn’t wait to get out of this city and your business was based in California? Your mother was telling me all about her wonderful studio home on the beach and...’

Understanding flooded in to replace disbelief and Lottie turned back to face the panorama in silence.

Now she was getting a clearer picture of this man. Remarkable award-winning chef moves to California to be close to his mother when she needs him. And in the process starts a new career in TV. Still a player. Still someone interested in what was in it for him...but...

‘She seems very happy there.’

‘She is. The exhibition is a hit and my mum is heading back to California as soon as it closes and the next lucky artist takes over. Which means that it is back to work for both of us. I probably won’t be back in London for a good few months.’

‘Wow. Do you have a home of your own to go back to?’

‘If you mean bricks and mortar and a welcome mat? Not exactly. I’ve claimed the penthouse in the Beresford Plaza and my mum has a loft packed with boxes of my old stuff. Is decaf okay for you?’

‘Perfect. Thank you.’

Rob strolled back into the kitchen, topped up his elaborate coffee maker with water, and added two large scoops of ground coffee from a canister, before pressing several buttons.

‘Well, I can see your barista skills are just fine, but do you still find time to cook, Rob? You must miss running your own kitchen.’

His hands stilled on the worktop. ‘Cooking as in chopping veg and making stock? Not for years.’ Then he grinned. ‘I have the fun of bringing new chefs into the hotels and seeing them learn and grow and do amazing things. Every one of them is so desperate to impress me they give us their all. Now that
is
magical.’

Lottie strolled back into the apartment as he spoke and every word seemed to penetrate her heart and touch something very deep inside her. This was the closest she had come to the real Rob Beresford. No pretence. Just Rob standing in a kitchen waiting for coffee to brew after a night at a function where he played a clever version of the persona he had created for the outside world to see.

And yet here she was. Alone with him. And suddenly that very idea became so heady with the rush that she deliberately stepped back one step so that she could look at him from the side.

Desperate to keep just out of the effective range of his devastating power of attraction that was sucking her closer and closer by the minute.

‘So you understood what I was trying to do tonight? Raise funds to make that dream possible?’

Rob swirled one hand into the air around his head. ‘Of course I understood. Lottie, the fairy godmother, wants to make sure that she has the support in place before she makes commitments that could change someone’s life. No false promises. That makes sense to me.’

‘Fairy godmother? I bet you say that to all the girls.’

Lottie gave a mini curtsey. This was a mistake.

Because at that precise moment Rob raised his arms to lift a tray from the shelf, and in the process his shirt rose high enough above the waistband of his low-rise smart trousers to reveal a couple of inches of toned, flat stomach.

Why was it that she had always been attracted to the athletic type?

Just when she thought that he could not be more gorgeous, he had to hit her with this. The irony of it all made her sigh out loud.

Bad head.

Bad heart.

Bad need for contact with his man.

Bad, full stop.

‘What? Was it something I said? Or have you found a new hobby down there?’

Lottie hesitated before replying, desperate to avoid the harsh truth, so she started gabbling instead of ogling.

‘I love my bakery so much it’s hard to imagine living in hotel rooms full time, no matter how splendid the view.’

Rob chuckled. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m used to living out of a suitcase.’

For a moment she wanted to run into Rob’s arms, feel the strength of his body against hers, and tell him how attracted she was to him.

But she wouldn’t. Because he was leaving and she was staying, and that was a recipe for disaster in anyone’s cookbook.

No. She had to control herself, and fight this powerful attraction. She just had to. His life was in the fast lane of the cities she had left behind her.

Time to put the mask back on, drink her coffee, and swallow down her feelings.
And get the hell out of there before she did something stupid. Like pounce on him.

Lottie watched in silence as Rob poured the coffee.

‘That smells divine.’

‘Special import from one of the hotel’s best coffee roasters. Oh, if you’re hungry for dessert you’ll find some soft amaretto biscuits in that tin. My Italian pastry chef claimed he made them himself, but I know your standards are pretty high so I await the expert opinion.’

Rob watched as Lottie flicked open the clasp on the steel canister and brought it up to her face, inhaling deeply.

‘Oh, this is heaven. Did Dee tell you that I adore Italian food? Or did you have a premonition?’

‘Serendipity. It seems that we share at least some of the same passions, Miss Rosemount,’ Rob whispered as Lottie slowly closed her lips around a piece of the soft round almond-and-apricot biscuit and groaned in pleasure, her eyelids flickering as her face twisted in delight.

It was the sexiest thing Rob had ever seen in his life.

His chef was going to have to hire extra staff to cope with all of the takeaway orders coming to this apartment, because there was no way he was going to sit opposite this woman in a restaurant if she was going to act out a movie scene with her food.

He froze, stunned, as he tried in vain to control his breathing...and various other parts of his anatomy that seemed to have woken up to the fact that he was within arm’s reach of an amazing woman, and they were alone in this apartment.

Once they recognised him as the chef who they had seen on the TV, women tended to either get stuck into the whole celebrity lifestyle and the second-hand fame that came with being photographed hanging on to his arm, or hit on him straight away for the extra points on the famous name scoresheet.

He gave them what they wanted and they gave him what he wanted. Simple, straightforward. No grey areas; always black and white.

Lottie was as multicoloured as a rainbow. She was totally unfazed by his star ratings and had challenged him from the first moment they met in the gallery.

He admired her for making him change his routine and cut out his usual public performance.

In fact, he liked that more than was good for him.

Maybe it was going back to the Beresford hotel and then the catering college, but the fact that she had crept under his guard tonight to the point where he had blurted out his life story rankled him deeply.

He never told his story. Not to the press and certainly not to strangers. It was way too risky and likely to end up in a tell-all story in some sleazy newspaper, which Sally would have to pay to suppress.

So what did that say about Lottie?

Could he trust her? Dee was a special girl and his brother adored her, but Lottie was very different. Clever, witty, and on the surface an excellent businesswoman.

After a lifetime in the hotel business he prided himself on being able to judge people and every instinct in his body was screaming at that moment that she was someone who had no guile or hidden agendas. And yet there was something sad lingering under that very lovely surface.

Hell. He knew all about that. But it was strange to see the sadness and regret so openly on Lottie’s face when she thought he wasn’t looking.

Even stranger, it made him all the more attracted to her.

His heart was racing, hard and fast, as he stepped across to the refrigerator to bring out the milk, and took a breath of cool air, fighting to regain his composure. This was getting out of hand, and all he was doing was looking at Lottie!

It had been a very long time since he had wanted to be with a woman as much as he did at that moment.

Lottie chewed and hummed gently to herself as he pretended to move the meagre contents of his huge refrigerator around.

Was this what it would be like to have someone who loved you, and wanted to be with you, not just for an afternoon between international flights, but seven days a week? He had only met this woman a few days ago, and the connection was... What was it? A crush? Because it was a lot more than physical attraction, that was for sure.

In a few days he would go back to his normal life across the Atlantic. This apartment would be rented out, and his time here would be a memory. Left to his imagination.

If this was what Lottie did with biscuits, what would she be like in his bed? Naked, with his hands running over the soft skin of her stunning body, giving her pleasure.

Suddenly Rob found an excellent reason to plunge his head inside the chiller.

‘I have white wine if you would like some,’ he asked, casually waving the sealed bottle the sommelier had sent up. ‘Or perhaps a twenty-year-old tawny port?’

‘Thank you, but I have to be up early tomorrow morning and I am already starting with a headache. This has been a long day.’

He closed the door and looked at her, slack jawed. ‘You’re serious. You are actually going back to work on a Sunday?’

‘Of course. One of my very special customers at the bakery is celebrating her fiftieth wedding anniversary tomorrow and I promised that I would bake a very special decorated cake and deliver it in time for their tea party.’ And without asking or waiting for a reply she dunked an amaretto biscuit in the hot coffee, slid off the stool, and held a piece of it in front of his mouth so quickly that without thinking he leant forward and closed his lips around her fingertips.

Sweet, warm, intensely flavoured almond exploded onto his taste buds. It was superb.

It was one of those special moments when the food and the company and the location came together and he knew that the next time he tasted that biscuit anywhere in the world he would remember how Lottie looked at that moment. Her face was flushed with excitement and sparkling energy, her lips warm and plump and soft, and those stunning eyes were focused completely on his face.

The silence between them opened up.

Then the coffee machine pinged to tell him the milk was hot and he swallowed, suddenly desperate to keep Lottie close to him as long as he could stretch out the precious time they had left together. ‘I am going to have to give that man a raise. But tell me more about this cake of yours. Why is it so important to you?’

‘Why? Oh, that’s easy. Lily used to be our housekeeper and the woman who taught me how to bake. I owe my entire career to the one person who made my childhood bearable. I think that’s worth a cake. Don’t you? And these biscuits really are so good.’

She turned her back on him, scrabbling to open the spring lid on the canister, only her trembling fingers let her down and the biscuit fell to the floor.

Before Lottie could reach down to scoop it up, Rob stepped forwards and slid his fingers onto each side of her waist, holding her firm. Secure.