FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, I was wrapped in his arms, both of us lying on the counter. He’d covered us with his leather jacket, but all the warmth I needed came from the heat of his body next to mine.

He was silent, though he tilted his head down every so often to kiss me on the forehead or bury his nose in my hair.

At last, he spoke. “That was amazing,” he murmured. “Maybe the Midwest isn’t so bad after all.”

I laughed lightly, still snuggled in his arms. I wished I could stay in his embrace forever, but already, the thought of him leaving kept flickering through my mind. Maybe if I just closed my eyes, I could pretend that would never happen. And besides … as wonderful as it was being in his arms, lying on the stainless steel was not the most comfortable thing ever. “You know, some people actually have sex on soft surfaces. Like mattresses.”

“Those are just poor saps who’ve never figured out the erotic possibilities of a kitchen. Still, you have a point,” he said, finally sitting up. He jumped off the counter and picked up his jeans. I straightened up too, staring at him shamelessly, trying to memorize every detail before he disappeared again. He came back toward me, something in his hand, but my eyes were focused on other body parts until he was right in front of me.

“Here,” he said, pressing a white plastic card into my hand.

I looked at it in confusion—there wasn’t any writing on it, just a picture of a stately building. “What’s this?”

“I’ve got a suite at the Sorello. All weekend. I thought you might want to stop by.”

“Really?” I said, everything inside me lighting up all at once. But then just as quickly, that light went out again. He was just doing this because I’d mentioned mattresses. He must have thought I’d been fishing for an invitation.

“Really.” His smile made my heart ache with longing.

I turned the keycard over and over in my hand, wishing I could take it. Wishing I could use it. Unsure of what to say, I stalled with the only thing that sprang to mind. “Don’t you need this?”

“I got two,” he said. “I told them my personal chef might be joining me for the weekend.” He cupped my chin in his hand, tilting my face up so that he could stare into my eyes. “I told them I hoped my personal chef would be joining me for the weekend.”

“Oh,” I said, incoherently. Relief, joy, and renewed arousal were battling for supremacy in my body. “Then … then I guess she will.”

He leaned in and kissed me, taking his time, doing it thoroughly. It felt heavenly. It felt amazing. I never wanted it to end. I moaned as he moved back, out of my reach. And that tiny loss reminded me of how bad it was going to feel once he was gone again. And after that unpleasant thought entered my brain, I couldn’t make it leave.

“Callum?”

He smiled down at me, his hands on mine. I wondered how many people ever called him by his given name.

“What happens after? After this weekend, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Any chance you could come out to California for a while?”

I wished I could say yes, but I couldn’t. The restaurant had only been open for three months. There was no way I could leave right now. I shook my head.

He nodded, and I couldn’t tell if there was disappointment in his eyes. “And I’m going to be pretty busy, too. I’m looking to open another restaurant, so I’ll be scoping out spaces, meeting with builders, hiring the staff, that kind of thing.”

“But I thought you found an existing restaurant you wanted to buy out? That one you mentioned in San Francisco.”

“That deal fell through. Not that I minded. I think you’re legally unable to open a restaurant there without serving clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, and that’s never been my style. No, I was thinking of branching out a bit. Seeing if I could make a go of it in one of the flyover states. Maybe a medium-sized city out here in the land of milk and honey. Got any suggestions, honey?”

My breath caught in my throat. He couldn’t mean—did he seriously mean—? “Here?” I asked, hardly daring to believe.

“I’ve been thinking about it.”

He had? Excitement and hope bubbled up inside me like the champagne earlier. He really might open a restaurant out here? “And you’d be here? To set it up and to oversee things?”

“I would. That’s what I do, love. And I think I’d probably be here a lot. Gotta keep track of the competition.”

That made me giggle. The thought of me competing against someone like him was absurd, but that was okay. Fantabulous aimed at a different clientele than his restaurants did. “Competing with you is pretty exciting, from what I’ve seen.”

“Agreed,” he said. The he reached underneath me, somehow scooping me up in his strong arms. “Ready to go back to the hotel, love?”

Laughing, I clung to his neck, enjoying the feeling of my bare skin against his. “Shouldn’t we put some clothes on?”

“We can do whatever we want,” he said with a growl, and his lips descended on my throat, making me giggle and moan at the same time. But he was right. We could do whatever we wanted. He’d found a way to close the physical distance between us, and maybe the rest of our differences didn’t matter so much. Yes, he was rich, famous, and incredibly handsome. But at the core, he was a chef, and so was I. And at the core, he was a good, kind, smart person. And dammit, so was I.

So maybe the idea of the two of us together wasn’t as impossible as I’d always thought. The man I’d loved for so long was in my world now. In my life. And I was in his arms. That was the best birthday present I could have ever received.

Sometimes, dreams really did come true.