CHAPTER FIVE
“I’ve never tasted anything this good.” Alec had whipped up a glorious vegetable dish that made Cordelia’s mouth water even as she shoveled it in like it was her last supper. “I’d ask you how you made this, but I’d only end up setting my kitchen on fire if I tried it.” She pointed to the fire extinguisher in the corner of the room. “It’s happened before.”
Even the green salad he’d made was amazing. Though she loved the greens she grew, she’d never known they could taste like this. Not wanting to get in his way in the kitchen, especially after he’d abruptly shut off the music—looking almost as if he’d seen a ghost, though she couldn’t understand why—she’d disappeared to wash up and change out of her dirt-stained clothes. When she’d returned a short while later, he was blasting heavy metal as he slipped dessert into the oven and then got ready to plate their mains.
“If the fruit pie you’ve got baking is anywhere near this good, you really should open a restaurant,” she told him. “It’s only right to share your gift with the world.”
Sitting back with the glass of wine she’d poured for him, he let her babble. It was just that he was so easy to talk to. He shouldn’t have been—the billionaire who was, no pun intended, in the highest-flying circles should have been the last person she could sit comfortably with at her old kitchen table. Although maybe comfortable wasn’t the right word for it, considering that part of the reason she was babbling was because it was a better use of her mouth than drooling.
Honestly, she should be used to the way he looked by now. His chiseled jaw, his broad shoulders, his big, strong hands—she’d always hated it when men objectified women, so she shouldn’t be doing it to him. It was just so darned hard not to wonder what it would be like to be dragged into his arms and kissed, Hollywood style.
Just one kiss, so she’d know if it was as good as he made it look like it would be.
“I’m glad you enjoyed dinner.” He was surprisingly modest for someone who could easily win Iron Chef. “Should we get our business out of the way before dessert?”
She popped the last snap pea on her plate into her mouth, then nodded. Of course she wanted to resolve the inheritance situation, but at the same time, she couldn’t help feeling a little sad that her time with Alec would be over after tonight. Maybe, she found herself hoping, he’d drop in to buy a houseplant sometime. Probably not, though. Once he returned to his glittering world, he’d likely forget she ever existed.
She already knew she wouldn’t forget him.
He refilled her glass, then said, “Yesterday, you made it clear that you don’t want anything from Gordon, but I couldn’t sleep at night if I didn’t offer you market value on your fifty percent of S&W Aviation.” The sum he named had the wine she’d just sipped go down the wrong pipe, and she almost spat it out all over the table.
“That’s twice as much money as I thought you were going to offer.” And the number she’d come up with had already been way too much. “How am I going to manage all of that? What if I screw up and give it to scam charities instead of ones that really need it? After paying off my parents’ mortgage and buying them a new car and sending them on a great vacation, I have no idea how to pick the best foundations to donate to. All the money Gordon gave me—I know it’s a gift. And I want to do right by it, by him. By you too, for all the work you put into building your business. But every time I think about it, I freak out about everything I don’t know about investing and charities and foundations.”
“There are people who can help you with all of that. Wealth advisors and donor consultants. With their help, you could start by seeking out groups that need help in things you’re passionate about. Like garden programs in schools, and community gardens. I know it seems overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Especially if you’ll let me connect you with a few people who can help.”
“Please, connect away. I can’t do this on my own.”
“You could, easily. But you don’t have to.” She wondered if this was the wisdom that came from being a part of a big, close family as he said, “I’ll give you the name and number of my investment advisor. You can start there, and if you don’t like her, I can find other names for you.”
“Do you trust her?”
“I do. And I trust my donation advisor too, who happens to be her husband.”
“I like that,” Cordelia said, “a husband-and-wife team where she grows your money so that he can give it away.”
“So, do we have a deal?”
“Only if you agree to deduct fifty dollars for the hours you put in at my store today and this dinner.”
“Surely dinner is worth at least a hundred.” She could see he was teasing, but when he smiled at her like that, all of her girl parts started sizzling, melting with lust. “Seriously, though, you don’t owe me anything for today or tonight. You didn’t ask for any of this to happen, Cordelia. I get that the whole situation is strange and stressful.”
She was glad when the timer dinged on the oven and he took out the fruit pie. It would give her a few seconds to try to settle herself down. She brought their wine glasses over to the living room table. “I know I should be grateful to become so rich overnight…”
He moved to sit with her on the couch, the pie cooling on a brightly painted porcelain trivet he’d unearthed from the cupboard. “You were happy with your life the way it was. And now you know that no matter how much you want to keep things from changing, they’re going to.”
Relieved that he understood, and feeling somewhat mellowed out by a full belly and the merlot, she found herself saying, “All day, all night, you’ve been so nice to me. So kind.”
“Nice. Kind.” He said the words as though they were in a foreign language. “Women don’t usually say those things about me.”
“If you’re always like this, cooking and lugging soil and making deals that are way better for the other person than they are for you, how could they not?”
“Because I’m not like this with other women. I’m never like this.”
The air in the room felt different now. No longer comfortable. She should have gotten up, should have made an excuse to put some space between them. Instead, she found herself asking, “What are you normally like?”
“Counting the seconds until I can leave. Until I can head back to my own space and do my own thing. But with you—”
He lifted his hand to her cheek, and when he touched her, something inside of her came alive. Something she hadn’t even known was there, lying dormant.
Heated sparks.
Desperate desire.
And a soul-deep longing to know what it would be like to be wanted by Alec Sullivan, a brilliant, gorgeous, incredibly sexy man who could have anyone.
“You do something to me, Cordelia,” he said in that deep voice that made her shiver and heat up all at the same time, “and I keep trying to find reasons to stay longer.”
His eyes lowered to her mouth, and her lips started to tingle from nothing more than his intense gaze. No one had ever looked at her like this, with such hunger. And she’d never felt so greedy for a man’s kiss in her life.
But if they kissed, what would happen next? Would he actually want to come back to her little garden cottage next week, and the week after that, to woo her? Because she would never fit into his fancy world of jetsetters and dealmakers and supermodels.
Cold, hard reality was the only reason she was able to draw back. “I’ll bet the pie is cool enough to cut into now.” She stood on shaky legs to get out the pie cutter and did her best to act like they hadn’t been just about to devour each other.
The act of putting slices on plates helped in her effort to slow her galloping heart. “It looks delicious,” she said as she handed him pie, silently praising herself for how normal her voice sounded.
She’d thought she would be too nervous to eat now, but one bite of his pie almost made her forget about the tension thrumming between them. “Ohmygoshthisissogood.” She’d shoved too much into her mouth as she spoke for the words to come out clearly. She made herself swallow before saying, “I can’t believe you made the crust from scratch from nuts and graham crackers. You’re amazing!”
But he hadn’t taken a bite yet, hadn’t shown any interest whatsoever in the pie. “Women don’t usually sprint away when I’m about to kiss them.”
Her fork clattered to her plate. She’d thought they’d both ignore the almost-kiss and that would be that. But Alec Sullivan truly wasn’t like any other man she’d ever met. Which meant that they couldn’t just leave the big elephant in the room.
“You and I come from different worlds, Alec. We never even would have met if not for…” She sighed, her stomach churning enough that she put the delicious pie down on the coffee table in front of the couch. “For my surprise inheritance.”
“So this is what it’s like to be on the other side of the brush-off.” He didn’t sound at all happy about it. In fact, his tone was downright grumpy as he added, “My sister and female cousins would love to be a bunch of flies on the wall right now.”
How was it that the most gorgeous man in the world was the one sitting on her couch feeling like he’d just been kicked in the gut…by her? “It’s not that I didn’t want to kiss you,” she explained before she could think better of what she was saying. “It’s just that I don’t think it’s smart to kiss you.”
“The other guys you’ve kissed, did those turn out to be smart decisions?”
Okay, so maybe she shouldn’t have put it quite like that. “Obviously not, since none of them are here right now,” she admitted. “But you and I, we’re like chalk and cheese.”
“Can you even tell me what that phrase means?”
She bit her lip, realizing she didn’t actually know much about the phrase, only that she was pretty sure it was of British origin. “We’re like apples and oranges, then.”
“Both fruit.”
Why was he making this so hard? “Round pegs and square holes!”
His eyebrows went up at that, the corner of his mouth lifting ever so slightly. “I’m trying to decide if I should let the peg/hole thing go or not.”
Her face flamed even hotter as visions hit her of the two of them doing something very different than talking on her couch. “I don’t get it. Why do you want to kiss me—some small-town gardener who isn’t in any way connected to your world?” But before she let him answer, she had to ask, “Are you just curious about something you’ve never had before? Or, maybe, do you hate the thought of not getting something you think you want, even if you don’t really want it?”
“I won’t deny one and two are a part of it. But there’s also three—you’re beautiful.”
She was completely caught off guard by his compliment. She looked down at her jeans, her T-shirt, ran a hand over the end of her ponytail. She’d showered and changed, but it hadn’t made much difference. “I’m a mess.”
“You are.” He smiled, letting wicked intent shine through. “But you’re a beautiful mess. Four, you always say exactly what’s on your mind.”
“The circumstances have been so strange that I have to be totally honest with you.”
“Five, you like my cooking.”
“Anyone would like your cooking!”
“And six…I keep wondering if this was Gordon’s hope all along. For the two of us to meet.”
She didn’t have a quick comeback to that. Not when a part of her had been wondering the same thing—if this was some strange master plan her birth father had for the two of them. Matchmaking from the grave.
“No,” she finally said, desperate to deny this instinctive attraction to Alec the same way she wanted to deny the money that had landed in her lap. “He couldn’t have wanted that. Couldn’t have known he’d die at just the right time for you and I to get together and fall in love.”
Alec jumped off the couch at the word love. “He should have known better than to think I had that in me. I’m the worst possible guy in the world for you.” Suddenly Alec cursed, low and frustrated. “He must have thought you could reform me. Make me believe in fairy tales and happily ever afters.”
She snorted and actually sounded like a farm animal in front of the veritable Greek god in her living room. Well, that was one good way to make sure he wouldn’t want to kiss her again. “He didn’t even know me.”
“And that was his loss,” Alec said, his words warming her in a way few things had in the past forty-eight hours. “But what he must have seen of your life from the outside was probably enough for him to paint a fantasy.” Alec looked around her cottage, then out the window to the lush gardens beyond. “A fantasy I never realized until now that he must have wanted for himself.” He shook his head. “I never asked too many questions about his past. He never wanted me to. And I didn’t want him to ask about mine either.”
“You’re guys, so that’s normal, isn’t it? Not to talk.”
“Sure, it’s normal. Until one of them turns up a secret daughter and tries to present her to you on a silver platter.”
“Oh my God, that’s totally what he did, isn’t it?” She stood now too, and stared at him in horror. “Good thing we figured it out before we fell for it.”
But instead of nodding, Alec said, “It doesn’t change the fact that you’re beautiful.” He moved closer, close enough for her heart to beat a little too fast. “Or that you have the softest-looking skin.” His fingertips skimmed across her cheek. “Skin that feels even softer than it looks.” His words were hushed now. “Or that your mouth was made for kissing.” His thumb moved like a breath over her lower lip, and her knees went weak.
If he tried to kiss her again now, she wouldn’t be able to walk away, wouldn’t be able to think of some excuse to put distance between them. She’d simply give in to it. Give in to the desire curling in her belly. Give in to the near desperate urge to reach out and touch his hard muscles. Give in to letting herself be held in his strong arms, if only for one short night.
But this time, he was the one taking a step back. “But I’m never going to be reformed, never going to believe in fairy tales or happily ever afters for myself. So if that’s what he was after—and the more I think about it, it had to be—you’re right, kissing each other wouldn’t be smart.”
She should have been happy he’d finally agreed with her. And she swore she was happy that they’d just sidestepped a potential minefield, somewhere deep beneath the roiling need coursing through her veins.
“I’ve taken up enough of your time today,” he said in the same tone in which he might have concluded a business meeting. “Do you want me to help you clean up the kitchen?”
“No. Thanks. You were nice enough to cook, I can easily take care of cleanup.” It suddenly felt like they were strangers—which they were, for all intents and purposes. But it still didn’t sit quite right with her. Not when, from the start, they hadn’t talked to each other like strangers. As she’d said earlier, the strange circumstances in which they’d been thrown together meant that they hadn’t been able to start off in any normal way.
She’d always been comfortable with normal. Perfectly happy with easy and smooth. But on the precipice of watching Alec Sullivan walk out of her life, for the first time ever she wondered if she’d actually been missing out on something her entire life. Something big that she couldn’t define, something difficult and yet still worth it. Like the weeds that just kept growing no matter how you tried to block their path, but then turned out to have the prettiest flowers in the entire garden—more hardy and colorful and unexpectedly beautiful than any of the fancy plants that she was supposed to like more.
“Thanks for making this easy for me,” she said, “and for buying me out so generously.”
“Anyone would have.”
But she knew that other powerful businessmen would have enjoyed toying with the little gardening bumpkin. Either that, or used their lawyers to rip her and her sudden ownership of their company to shreds.
“So,” she said as she walked him to the door, “I guess this is it. The part where we tell each other to have a nice life and go our separate ways.” She made herself smile even though she felt inexplicably sad. “I hope you have a nice life, Alec.” On impulse, she grabbed a potted orchid from a side table. “For your office. It will do great with all that light coming in through the big windows.”
He looked down at the plant she’d shoved into his hands. “It’s going to die if I take it.”
“It won’t.” Her smile shifted into a real one. “You were a natural in the garden today. And not just because my customers couldn’t stop drooling over you. Something tells me you’ve got a greener thumb than you think.”
He looked up from the orchid and pinned her again with his intense gaze. “And something tells me that you’re tougher than you give yourself credit for.” He paused, before hitting her with, “Gordon’s funeral is this Saturday, seven p.m., at the Westchester Country Club. You wouldn’t have to tell anyone who you are, if you didn’t want to. We could just say you came with me.”
He didn’t wait for her to reply. Didn’t give her a chance to protest that going to her birth father’s funeral was the very last thing she wanted to do. He simply leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, lingering for a moment too long. A moment she couldn’t help but cherish, even if the smart part of her knew better.