Chocolate Kisses

by Judith Arnold

  Maybe it was fun and games to him. maybe he was as phony as his supercilious sister. He was a Wyatt, after all.

  But no matter what she told herself, no matter how much she wanted to protect herself and avoid unnecessary risks, she wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Ned. Not yet.

  Chapter Four

  11:15 a.m.

  “WHAT A PLEAURE! Come in, come in!” Standing in the open front doorway, Ned’s mother clasped her hands together and beamed at Claudia.

  She had never met Mrs. Wyatt before, although she’d certainly heard enough about her. The Glenwood weekly newspaper ran a story about her in practically every edition. But the photographs didn’t do her justice. Like her son and daughter she was handsome, with strong, decisive features and piercing hazel eyes. She had an easy smile and a down-to-earth manner that Claudia found refreshing after her encounter with Melanie.

  “I’m afraid I can’t stay,” she demurred. “I’m just here to drop off Ned and his bicycle.” After introducing Claudia and handing his mother the basket of cookies, he had returned to the parking lot to unload his bike from the rear of the van.

  “Nonsense.” Mrs. Wyatt took Claudia’s arm and practically dragged her into the townhouse in one of Glenwood’s pricier condominium complexes.

  The living room was small, decorated with spare, tasteful pieces with Claudia knew must have cost a fortune. Fresh flowers stood in vases in the foyer and on the polished coffee table. The place looked warm and inviting, elegant yet lacking the aristocratic starchiness of Wyatt Hall.

  “Now,” said Mrs. Wyatt, gleefully eyeing her reluctant guest, “let me fix some tea and then we’ll have some of these scrumptious-looking cookies.”

  “Mrs. Wyatt—”

  “I want to know all about you,” Mrs. Wyatt continued, waltzing into the kitchen with the basket. “Ned never introduces me to his girlfriends. This must mean something.”

  “I’m not his girlfriend,” Claudia corrected her, following her down the hall to a cozy, sunny kitchen. “I’m a caterer. Mrs. Steele hired me to do the food for the Valentine’s Day cotillion tonight.”

  “Be that as it may,” Mrs. Wyatt said vaguely. She placed the basket on the breakfast table and got busy preparing tea. Claudia had to remind herself that this tall silver-haired dynamo in jeans and a baggy old sweater was in fact the town matriarch, a woman who had once presided over Wyatt Hall with an army of servants at her beck and call.

  Sending Claudia another beaming smile, she said, “Ned is in love with you, isn’t he.”

  Claudia blanched. “No! We only met this morning.”

  “Please sit.” Mrs. Wyatt pushed her, with surprising force, into a chair. “So you met this morning and it was love at first sight.”

  “No. It was an accident. I almost ran him over.”

  “I suppose we should all be grateful that you didn’t.” She patted Claudia’s shoulder. “He’s a good man, Claudia—may I call you Claudia? Ned is a little frisky, but that’s part of the fun. Have you set a date yet?”

  No wonder Melanie had been worried when Mrs. Wyatt had moved away from the family estate, Claudia thought. Someone had to keep an eye on her. Dementia was certainly a possibility. “Ned and I are not getting married, Mrs. Wyatt,” she said carefully.

  “Nonsense. The pendulum’s swinging back, my dear. Twenty years ago, eighteen-year-old girls like my granddaughter wouldn’t have sat still for a debutante cotillion. Now we’re seeing the old traditions return, the old rituals being embraced. Living in sin is passé.”

  “I’m trying to tell you, Mrs. Wyatt—your son and I met when my van skidded on some ice and he fell off his bike. We’re not living in sin. We’re not getting married.”

  Mrs. Wyatt poured water into the teapot. “Why not? You don’t love Ned?”

  “I hardly know him.”

  “But what you know, you love,” she said with conviction.

  “Well…he’s very nice,” Claudia conceded, trying not to think of all the other things he was: Forward. Mischievous. Virile. Gorgeous. Tantalizing.

  Wealthy. Upper crust. Patrician.

  “Ned and I come from very different backgrounds,” she said, wishing he would get himself into the kitchen and set his mother straight.

  “Where you come from isn’t as important as where you’re going. Who cares about backgrounds? You haven’t got a criminal record, have you?”

  “No, but—”

  “Well, then, it hardly matters.” With a flourish, she untied the white ribbon atop the basket of cookies, then paused at the sound of Ned’s footsteps in the hallway. “We’re in the kitchen, Neddy!” she called, folding back the red cellophane and inhaling deeply. When Ned entered, she gave him a buoyant hug. “These cookies smell wonderful. I’m glad you didn’t bring me one of those heart-shaped boxes of chocolates this year. That’s so clichéd.”

  “Oh. Well—” he exchanged an amused glance with Claudia “—I thought you might prefer cookies. Claudia baked them.”

  “What a marvelous talent to have! Ned, she’s perfect.”

  Ned exchanged another look with Claudia. If he noticed her puzzlement, he chose to ignore it. “She’s very talented, Mom. Go ahead, dig in.” He offered the basket to his mother, then helped himself to a cookie, took a bite and groaned contentedly. “What is this?”

  “Butterscotch and rum,” Claudia told him.

  “I thought it was going to be vanilla.” A wicked smile traced his mouth as he gazed at her. “I should have known to expect something more complicated. Try one of these, Mom.” He searched the mound of cookies for another butterscotch-rum one and handed it to his mother.

  Claudia pushed back her chair. “I’ve really got to go. I have so much to do—”

  “Oh, please, have a cup of tea first,” Ned’s mother said. “It’s nearly lunchtime, and I’ll bet you’re planning to skip lunch. Am I right?”

  “I usually do eat lunch,” Claudia said, feeling the need to defend herself. “But the cotillion begins in just a few hours, and I have a lot of preparation—”

  “So fuel up. Have a cookie.” The telephone rang and Mrs. Wyatt sighed and rolled her eyes. “It’s been like this all morning. You’d think this party was the biggest event of the season. Then again, I suppose it is.” The phone rang a second time and Mrs. Wyatt put down the teapot. “If you will excuse me…” With a blithe smile, she left the kitchen.

  Claudia turned to Ned. “your mother thinks we’re getting married!”

  Ned didn’t appear at all concerned. “She’s always about ten steps ahead of the rest of us.”

  “Ned! Would you please tell her we’re not ten steps behind her? I tried to explain that I was the caterer, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “She knows who you are. I introduced you and now she’s eating your homemade cookies. They’re almost as good as your chocolate kisses, by the way,” he added, helping himself to a second cookie. “But I don’t think my mother could handle a treat as intense as those kisses.”

  “Forgive me if I sound harsh, but I don’t think your mother can handle reality. She thinks I’m your girlfriend!”

  “My mother is very realistic,” he argued. “Take a look around you, Claudia. This is the way she is. No muss, no fuss. She likes to keep things simple.”

  “Sure. And when she gets sick of the simple life she can buy herself a penthouse in Trump Tower or forty beachfront acres in Greenwich.”

  “That’s not her style,” Ned insisted. “Wyatt Hall was my father’s home. My mother loved him, so she moved in and made a happy life for herself there. And now she’s happy here—in a five-room condo, with a lady who comes in once a week to dust and vacuum. She drives a six-year-old car and buys most of her clothing through a catalog.”

  “Maybe that just proves that she’s off her rocker,” Claudia muttered.

  “Or else it proves,” Ned said, “that she’s a working-class woman who feels most comfortable living normally.”

  “Your mother? The
queen of the Glenwood Historical Society—a working-class woman?”

  “Her father was a union man. He worked on the Bridgeport docks. She won a full scholarship to Pembroke. John edward Wyatt III happened to be the captain of the crew team at Brown. It was love at first sight.”

  So, you met this morning and it was love at first sight. His mother’s words reverberated inside Claudia. Where you come from isn’t as important as where you’re going…. Well, just because things had worked out that way for Ned’s mother and father didn’t mean they would work out that way for Claudia and—

  “You aren’t John Edward Wyatt IV, are you?”

  Ned grimaced. “My dirty secret is out. Promise you won’t hold it against me.”

  “I really have to go.” She stood and crossed to the door, feeling the need to clear out before Ned’s mother’s perspective started to make sense to her. She didn’t care if Mrs. Wyatt was the daughter of a union man. She’d gone on to give birth to a son with a multimillion-dollar name.

  And with the most mesmerizing eyes and the sexiest smile. And the most arousing kisses.

  “I’ve really got to go,” she repeated, feeling as if she were pleading for her life.

  He rose, too. His gaze softened, as if he recognized her apprehension and understood it. Taking her elbow, he ushered her out of the kitchen.

  His mother was descending the stairs. “Was I that long on the phone?” she asked apologetically.

  “Claudia has to leave,” Ned explained. “She’s got a lot to prepare for the party tonight. For some reason, she thinks if everything isn’t perfect Melanie will give her a hard time.”

  “Melanie will give her a hard time,” Mrs. Wyatt said with a long-suffering smile. “Giving people a hard time is what Melanie does best. Claudia, dear, I’m so glad we had this chance to meet. I assume I’ll be seeing you tonight.”

  “Yes,” said Claudia. “So nice meeting you, too.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Ned told his mother before escorting Claudia outside.

  She assured herself he was only showing good manners by walking her to her van. In a matter of minutes she would be rid of him. He was going to stay and visit with his mother, and she would be free.

  Free to return to her house alone, to bustle around her kitchen by herself, without any interference from a man who thought there was nothing unseemly about glazing his finger with chocolate and stroking it across her tongue.

  Merely thinking about the time she’d spent with Ned in her kitchen sent a ripple of heat through her. She didn’t want to go home alone. She wanted him to come with her, to help her make more kisses, to taste and nibble and share the devilishly complicated flavor of them with her. She wanted to gaze into his eyes and feel his arms around her and his mouth on hers again. She wanted to believe in love at first sight.

  But she didn’t. And when Ned drew to a halt beside her van and dipped his head to hers, she turned her face.

  Denied her lips, he nipped the sensitive edge of her earlobe. Fresh shivers of arousal filtered through her, gathering in the cradle of her hips. “Your hair is the prettiest color,” he whispered.

  “Only when the sun hits it,” she mumbled, wishing she had the willpower to pull away.

  He grazed the skin below her ear and she reflexively tilted her head so he could kiss her throat. “Are you going to be working all afternoon? I could stop by later.”

  To help her? Or for something else? “I’ll be working,” she said, wondering if he heard the breathless wavering in her voice. “I mean, really working. It would be better if you didn’t stop by.”

  “Better for whom?” He slid his lips up to her chin, then higher, to her mouth. Her pulse roared in her ears as he thrust his tongue past her teeth, as he tightened his arms around her exactly as she’d hoped he would, as he pulled her to himself and let her feel his response to her. His hips surged, pressed, rocked against her in a way that left her giddy and gasping, eager for more.

  “Don’t,” she moaned, hiding her face in the hollow of his neck.

  Sighing, he loosened his hold slightly but refused to let go. “I want you.”

  She knew that without his having to say it. “You scare me.”

  He chuckled. “Why? Because I’m John Edward Wyatt IV? Because you think my mother’s nuts? Because you think I’ll get in the way of your catering the perfect cotillion?”

  “All of the above,” she admitted with a faint smile.

  “Or maybe you’re scared because you know damned well we make better kisses together than you can make by yourself.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  He traced the edge of her jaw with his fingertips. She imagined his touch elsewhere, on her arms, her belly, her breasts. She imagined making kisses with him in every possible way and her pulse grew even louder, faster, sending its throbbing heat through her body.

  “You want me, too,” he guessed.

  Of course she wanted him, more than she’d ever wanted a man before. And that scared her most of all.

  “Tell your mother this isn’t love at first sight,” she said, easing out of his embrace and opening the door of the van. “Desire isn’t the same thing as love. Anyway, I don’t have time for love. I have to focus all my energies on Fantasy Feasts right now. I’m barely treading water. If I don’t do a perfect job with this cotillion, my company might go under. I don’t even have time to stand here talking to you.”

  His fingers reached her temple and twirled through the hair there. “It’s hard to believe a woman can’t find a little time for love on Valentine’s Day.”

  Ned was more polite than Jimmy McNeill had been, but the message was the same: if Claudia put her professional survival ahead of her love life, she had something wrong with her. When Jimmy had left her she’d been sad but not devastated. If Ned left her—

  Left her? What was she thinking? They’d known each other less than three hours. For her to climb into her van and drive home would hardly constitute the end of a torrid romance.

  Yet as long as he kept weaving his fingers through her hair, as long as he kept gazing at her with his hypnotic, jewel-like eyes, as long as she remembered the heat and texture of his mouth on hers, his tongue dueling with hers, his body pressed to hers…

  Torrid certainly seemed like the right word.

  “I’m going,” she said with as much firmness as she could muster.

  Ned kept his hand on her arm until she was settled behind the wheel. “I’ll be by,” he promised.

  “I’ll be working.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” He took a step back and started to close the door. “We’ve had kisses and cookies and we’ve had shrimp—the sweets and the horse d’oeuvres.” A sly smile curved his mouth. “It won’t be long, Claudia, before you and I have the main course.”

  Chapter Five

  1:03 p.m.

  NED BIKED HOME from his mother’s place, enjoying the sunshine and the hint of spring’s fragrance released into the air by the thawing earth. At his mother’s insistence, he’d eaten half a sandwich before he’d left. At his insistence, his mother had refrained from interrogating him about Claudia.

  He wasn’t sure he subscribed to her faith in love at first sight. However, he couldn’t deny that throughout his twelve lively years of postgraduate bachelorhood, he had never felt anything like the imperative craving he experienced every time he thought of Claudia Mulcahey

  There was something tough and determined about her, something strong and self-aware and extremely appealing to a strong, self-aware man like Ned. Claudia knew what she wanted and she went after it, and she wasn’t looking for anyone to make things easy for her.

  He could make things easier. Along with the sensual pleasure of their final kiss, he was haunted by her words, her concern that if the Valentine’s Day cotillion was a flop Fantasy Feasts might go out of business.

  He didn’t want her business to fail. He couldn’t bear the notion that Claudia would have to fold up her tent and go back
to working in a diner—not when she had so much talent. He’d tasted her chocolate kisses. He knew what a culinary genius she was.

  And to think the fate of her business rested in the hands of his bitchy older sister…

  Ned prayed that the cotillion would be a success and that Melanie would sing the praises of Claudia’s catering to all her snooty, snobby friends, and that Claudia would find herself besieged with contracts for her services. But even a success tonight wouldn’t be enough.

  She needed a larger work space, assistants, storage facilities…. She needed the proper capital. Ned could put together a suitable package of financing for her if she let him.

  He headed down the stairs to the den. His condo was in a complex across town from his mother’s. It was a nice enough place, and his one-year lease included an option to buy. It would be a bit small for two people, though.

  “Cripes,” he said aloud, then laughed. He wasn’t about to invite Claudia to move in with him, was he?

  The light on his answering machine was flashing. He punched the button and listened.

  “Neddy?” Melanie’s voice roared out of the speaker. “I was just wondering if you could do me a great big favor and bring Ramona Warner to the cotillion with you tonight. Since she isn’t related to any of the debutantes, she can attend only as someone’s guest. Could you please bring her as your guest? It would be so much fun for both of you. I know it’s last-minutes, but she really would love to come and she’s very fond of you.”

  Melanie did matchmaking the way she did everything else—without subtlety. Her attempt to hook Ned up with Ramona Warner was last-minute because she’d only just seen him with Claudia that morning. Evidently Melanie was prepared to do whatever was necessary to keep him from fraternizing with the help.

  Shaking his head, he pulled out the telephone directory and looked up Fantasy Feasts. The phone rang four times and then Claudia’s machine clicked on: Hi, you’ve reached Fantasy Feasts. Please leave your name and number and let us cater to you.