She shook her head in both amusement and disbelief just as he placed a steaming mug of coffee in front of her.
“Pour vous…?.”
“No French,” she warned, stirring sugar into her coffee from the bowl in the center of the table.
“Non?”
She cut him a look, which he met with a grin before he walked over to the oven, and with pad-guarded hands removed the red ceramic pan holding the beautifully browned hen.
“Why no French?”
“Because you probably use it all the time.”
He set the pan on the countertop and turned off the oven. “What if I told you the only woman I ever spoke French to in bed was you.”
She choked on her coffee.
He looked over, smiling. “You okay?”
Eyes simmering his way, she coughed a few more times and tried to pull herself together.
“Some things were only for you, Dee.”
The confessions were making it hard to stay focused. “What are we eating?” She needed him to talk about something else in order to keep from succumbing to the memories of him whispering French as he slowly worshipped his way down her body.
He carried over her plate and set it down. “We have for your pleasure this evening, rosemary roasted chicken, potato dumplings with pumpkin, hazelnuts and bacon in a brown butter sauce and because they are your favorite—whole, steamed asparagus spears drizzled with a little bit of olive oil.”
He spoke with the practiced voice of an efficient waiter but the heat in his gaze rivaled the heat from the oven. “Looks delicious,” she managed to reply.
“I think so, too.”
Dina took in a deep breath. Her heart was pounding, her nipples were tight beneath her gray cashmere turtleneck and she couldn’t look away.
“Bon appetit…?.”
“Are you trying to seduce me?”
“Nope. I am seducing you, so eat, you’re going to need your strength before this week is out.” She shook her head. He smiled and went to get himself a plate.
He returned and sat down across the table from her. Dina was so outdone by his outrageous boasting she couldn’t have told anyone what she was eating if her life depended on it, but then, as the flavors registered and her taste buds rejoiced, she forgot all about being seduced by him because his food made love to her first. “This is excellent.”
“Glad there’s something I can do that you still enjoy.”
He was watching her, and as he sipped at his wine, seemed extremely relaxed and confident. She, on the other hand, was trying her best to keep from being overwhelmed by him and was failing miserably.
Morgan knew that Dina had the control of a general on a battlefield. She was all about discipline and no nonsense. Those qualities along with her immense talent and inner drive were some of the reasons she was such a success on stage, however, he knew her better than anybody alive and because he did, he knew that her control was cracking. He saw it in the way her gaze kept running off whenever their eyes met, and in the slight wobble of her glass when she picked it up. She claimed to be over him, but he got the impression that the fire wasn’t completely out.
Dina wanted to concentrate on the food, but thoughts of him kept intruding. She found herself watching his eyes, his lips and the hands that had been so pleasing in bed no other man had ever come close. She tore her mind away from that. “So how’re the restaurants doing?”
“Very well. My partners and I are thinking about opening one here in Detroit.”
“And your television empire?”
He flashed a grin. “Doing good on that front, too.”
Silence settled between them but the fact that they were talking gave Morgan hope. He hadn’t lied about wanting to seduce her and make love to her, but he also wanted to talk to her, share with her, cuddle beneath a blanket and watch a movie with her; do all the things they’d done as a couple, but this time do it right. He noted that she was wearing her hair shorter, which showed off her gamine face and the fine structure of her jaw and chin. The sparkling silver hoops in her ears played nicely against the soft gray sweater. She was a gorgeous woman and he owed her a mountain of apologies. Hurting her the way he had would be something he’d take to his grave, but he wanted to start atoning for his sins by giving her a future filled with love, truth and most of all, fidelity. “So how serious are you and Arthur?”
She looked up from her plate. “Why?”
He forked up some of the dumplings. “Just trying to make conversation.”
“Sounds like you’re fishing,” she tossed back with knowing eyes that made the sparks between them flare a little higher.
“And if I am?”
“You lost that right, four years ago, remember?” She toasted him with her water glass.
“Suppose I want to regain those rights?”
She smiled at him. “You’ll never live that long.”
He felt himself harden in response to the edgy flirting in her eyes. “This is going to be fun.”
“You think so.”
“I do.”
“I’m over you.”
“You keep saying that, but your nipples are saying something else.”
She looked down.
He offered up easily, “Next time put on a thicker bra.”
The hard points of her aroused nipples were showing shamelessly through the soft cashmere. She quickly covered them with her hands.
“Too late,” he chuckled.
Pleased with the way the evening was playing out, he stood. “If you’re finished, I’ll take your plate.”
She countered. “It’s just cold in here, and Aunt Grace taught you better than to tell a lady something like that.”
“Uh-huh.” He took their plates to the sink. “You ready for dessert?”
“No,” she said crossly.
“Stop lying. You’ve never turned down a dessert in your life.”
He noted the grin she tried to hide as she demanded, “Just cut the commentary and bring me some of whatever it is.”
Dina couldn’t believe her body had betrayed her the way it had and that he’d noticed and called her on it. How would she claim to be over him when her body was saying something entirely different?
Carrying two small plates he returned to the table and placed one in front of her.
If eyes could salivate hers did. “Oh, my goodness. This looks gorgeous. What is it?” The dessert sat on the plate like dark decadence topped by white elegance, decorated with tempting little chocolate stars.
“A truffle cake I’m testing out for the restaurant in South Beach. I call it, the Black Samba.”
“I like the name.”
“The cake’s made out of dark chocolate. Then there’s white chocolate mousse on top and white chocolate ganache over that. The piped-on stars are chocolate ganache.”
She forked up a small portion. It was chilled like a cheesecake and was sinfully good. “You really are seeking redemption, aren’t you?”
“Whatever will help me get my foot back in the door.”
The seriousness that came over him touched her. Could she tell him how scary that sounded? Or that she never wanted to experience such soul-wrenching pain again? Or about all the nights she’d lain awake wondering if he’d cheated on her because her love hadn’t been enough? Or that even now, a dull ache remained? “I can’t just open the door and say come on in. Life doesn’t work that way. You broke my heart.”
He looked away and his lips tightened as if he, too, were remembering. “I know, and if I could go back and fix that, I would, but I can’t. I’m so sorry, Dee. I truly am.”
“I loved you with every beat of my heart,” she whispered fiercely.
“I know, darling. I know. All I can offer is to be the man now that I should have been before.”
“I thought we were okay.”
“We were. It was all me. All me. I tried to justify it by blaming it on you being in New York and working most of the time, but it was an excus
e.”
Dina wiped at a tear that snuck past her defenses. “I hate crying.”
“I know. It’s okay, I won’t tell anybody.”
A smile curved her lips. For a long moment, she silently assessed the man sitting across from her. For the first time since the breakup she honestly admitted that parts of herself still loved him and probably always would, but she was also a realist. “So, what is it that you want from me, Morgan? Really?”
“A chance at your love again.”
The emotion in his voice moved her more than she thought she was capable of handling, but she had to be truthful once more. “I can’t offer you that, at least not yet. I never want to be in that kind of pain again.”
“Then I’ll wait,” he promised softly.
Dina closed her eyes as warring feelings rose.
“I’ll wait,” he echoed.
Whatever she might have said to that was never expressed because her phone went off. Picking it up from where it lay near her plate, she looked at the number and put the phone against her ear. “Hello, Arthur. Hold on a minute.” Placing her hand over the face of the phone, she said to Morgan, “Excuse me, I need to take this.”
She stood and exited the kitchen saying, “Of course I miss you, honey.”
Morgan wondered, what the hell? He had been keeping up with Dina and her career via the tabloids and magazines, and every time he saw a picture of her with an actor or a famous athlete she was rumored to be in a relationship with, jealousy grabbed him big-time. Just like now. The two of them had been making decent progress in dealing with some of the issues between them until Arthur screwed up the moment.
A few moments later she returned, still on the phone and, to his disbelief, wearing her coat. Picking up her plate and fork, she waved bye at him, not missing a beat of her conversation as she forked up a small portion of his Black Samba and exited the kitchen again. When he heard the front door slam, signaling she’d left the building, he whispered, “Damn it!”
All he could think was: had she played him? Had she let him pour out his soul knowing full well that Arthur meant more to her? Considering his past bad behavior, this could be viewed as karma, payback or whatever, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
CHAPTER 6
Dina was awakened the following morning by the soft bossanova tune that doubled as the alarm on her phone. Groping for it on her nightstand, she turned it off and clicked on the lamp. She pushed on the glasses that she wore in the morning before putting in her contacts, but she didn’t really need them to see the time because she already knew it was three in the morning. It was an ungodly time but it was the day before Thanksgiving, and a normal wake-up time for both the Caldwells and the Todds. As a teen, Dina had absolutely dreaded this day. For catering companies holidays were big money makers, especially if you had a reputation for great food and sterling service, and Gracie Lynne’s had both. Having been in business over twenty years, the company had fed everybody in Detroit from the homeless at the Detroit Rescue Mission to the mayor living in the Manoogian Mansion.
For the Thanksgiving rush, preliminary work always began at four in the morning with the making of the breads and sides. From then on, the rest of the day would be a crazy, nonstop blur. Orders had to be readied for customer pickup and others for delivery to agencies that fed homebound seniors, churches, police precincts, firehouses and families who didn’t want to spend Thanksgiving Day slaving over a hot stove. The crew at Gracie Lynne’s would do the slaving instead.
Morgan’s face slid across Dina’s mind and momentarily distracted from her grousing. She’d had an interesting time with him last night, but was glad Arthur’s call cut the evening short. Their dinner together had given her the opportunity to express some of her feelings, and him the opportunity to offer his apologies and regrets. She’d appreciated both. However, the jury was still out on letting him back into her life. He was a sexy charismatic man and he’d definitely matured since their breakup. The Morgan of old would never have opened his feelings to her that way. He’d said he wanted to be the man for her he should’ve been when they were together, and that alone was enough to turn a girl’s head. As for the seduction he’d mentioned, she wasn’t too concerned about that, but, if her body’s reaction were any indication, she was still susceptible to his charms. Just the tone of his voice and the heated invitation in his eyes had been more than enough to make her remember what being in bed with him had been like, and Arthur’s call had saved her from that, as well. The sobering knowledge that Morgan could still touch her in places he had no business being able to meant she needed to keep him at arm’s length for the remainder of the stay. Yes, he was tempting, and being loved again by him was tempting, too, but because she didn’t know if he could be trusted with her heart again, she stopped thinking of him and left the bed to get ready for the long day ahead.
Dina caught a ride over to the shop with Jas, the bridesmaids and the groom-to-be Rick. He seemed way too excited for four in the morning.
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” he told Jas.
“And when Mama and Aunt Lynne get done with you, you’ll never want to do it again.”
“It can’t be that bad. You just hate mornings.”
“And I’ll be hating turkey when the day’s over, too.”
From her spot on the backseat, Dina sipped coffee and could tell that Rick didn’t believe Jas, but she knew Jas was speaking truth. Rick and everyone else working at the shop that day weren’t going to want to see another turkey dinner until next year.
The shop was fairly quiet when they rolled in. Over the years the business had grown from a cramped, leased storefront to the large facility it occupied now. Grace and Lynne had six full-time employees who did everything from the up-front counter work, to the cooking, to driving the signature blue van, but in order to handle the day’s increased volume of business, family members and a small army of hired temps were required to make sure everything got done.
The bridesmaids Valencia and Terry were put to work at the front counter to help take orders, and Rick was given the cushy job of riding around in the van with Tony to help with deliveries.
Because it had been her job since she was fourteen, Dina suited up in her white chef coat and hairnet and grabbed a flatbed aluminum cart to transport all the flour and cornmeal from the storage area to the kitchen. With the help of one of the industrial-size mixers, she’d be preparing enough batter to fill the first fifty pans of cornbread and make more as needed.
It had been a while since she’d helped out and it took her a minute to get oriented in the newly constructed storage facility built onto the back of the building. She saw Jas go by with a cart stacked high with crates of eggs.
“Where’s the flour and meal?”
“Two rows down. To the left on the bottom,” Jas replied hurrying on. Her eggs would be needed for bread, the dressings and Tony’s award-winning lemon meringue pie, one of the variety of pies being offered to the customers for dessert.
Thanking her, Dina quickly pushed her cart to the spot indicated. The flour and meal were in fifty-pound bags. When she was younger and before Gracie Lynne’s got so big the bags were much smaller. There was no way she was going to be able to drag them onto the cart without help.
“You need some help?”
Dina looked up to see Morgan going by with a cart holding sacks of yams.
“Yes.”
“How many?”
She told him, and he loaded her up. “Thanks,” she said gratefully.
“So, how’s Arthur?”
“Fine. He’s back in Manhattan.”
“You two serious?”
“That isn’t any of your business.”
“I tell you what’s in my heart and you can’t answer a simple question?”
“I appreciate what you had to say last night, but my personal life has nothing to do with that.”
“I think I deserve to know.”
“And I told you you’
d lost that right. Nothing’s changed just because you finally apologized.”
“I’ve been trying to apologize for years but you wouldn’t take my calls, remember?”
“Yeah, I do, but you seem to forget why. Like I said, this is real life, Morgan, and you don’t get to just waltz back into a woman’s heart after treating her like crap. You certainly don’t get to know about her private life, or talk about seducing her.”
“No?” he asked softly.
“No.”
“So, if I kissed you, you’d feel nothing?”
“Nothing,” she tossed back. “Shall I prove it?”
“Yeah.”
She blinked. In her anger she’d tossed out the challenge without thought. Now she had to put up, or risk having him hold it over her head if she tried to squirm out of it. Not wanting to give him that, she stepped out from behind the cart. “Okay, let’s get this over with. I have batter to make.”
He crossed his arms and assessed her silently before saying, “Tell you what. I’ll get that kiss later after we’re done working.” And before she could protest, he pushed off and left her standing there feeling frustrated and wanting to break something, preferably over his handsome head.
When Dina got back to the kitchen Jas was at a station nearby, cracking eggs into a bowl. The silly grin on her face made Dina ask crossly, “What?”
“Can I watch?”
“Watch what?”
“The kissing contest between you and my brother.”
Dina stilled.
“Hate to tell you this, but there are security cameras and mics in the storage room, and they’re on 24/7. The video and sound play through to a monitor in the office. Me, Uncle Tony and the mamas saw everything.”
Dina blew out a breath of irritation. “What’d they have to say?”
“Basically, that it’s about time you two kissed and made up.”
Dina snarled and began shoveling flour and meal into the large floor-model mixer.
“I think it’s cute.”
She cut Jas a look. Muttering about folks being in her business while wanting to toast Morgan under a broiler, she went to work.
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