Nothing had changed as she’d gotten older. Except for the fact that she was the one searching for, and essentially interviewing candidates for, the perfect life partner. Who would align with her goals and ambitions. She’d taken control of that plan when her boyfriend her senior year had been frustrated that she’d spent the holiday with his family, talking to one of his uncles about his merger with a company in Istanbul. Her attention hadn’t been on her boyfriend. And that was the last time she gave any man the impression that her time, attention, energy, and resources were going to be about him before herself. She had more influence, money, and power than most of the men in her social circle who were her age. So she’d taken control and decided that she was going to be the one choosing her dates based on what she needed.
Unfortunately, she’d left orgasms off the list.
She’d dated men with great business connections, who had assisted her with networking, who had brainstormed ideas with her, who had understood that they would always be second on her priority list after Carmichael Enterprises. Good-looking men. Men who admired her and wanted to be a part of her world.
But very few of them made her feel jumpy and itchy and like her skin was too tight and too hot when they were around. Like Parker Blake did.
She had sex. She had orgasms. But she’d had to take control of those too a lot of the time.
She didn’t think that would be a problem with Parker.
And that was not the kind of thing she should be thinking when she was going to be alone with him for the next few hours. Or ever. At all. Parker was the guy she was pretending to date. Without him even knowing it. She needed him for his pie skills and that was it. None of his other skills were of any importance.
But why could she not get out of her head the look on his face when he’d seen that she’d spilled soup on her apron? It was as if he’d been…pleased that she’d spilled. And turned on. Which was really crazy. She was hardly the laid-back, burger king of Bliss’s type.
Ava frowned.
When was the last time she’d worried about being someone’s type? She had twelve and a half billion dollars behind her name. That made her a lot of guys’ type.
The fact that she already had a prenup drawn up and just waiting made her sad. And that made her frustrated. Of course she’d have to have a prenup. It was just smart and careful and responsible. All things she’d always taken pride in being.
Romance was fine. Falling in love would be nice. But trust? Twelve billion dollars worth of trust? That was going to be hard to come by.
Frustrated and a little ticked off, she pushed her way into the kitchen. The put-together and completely clean kitchen.
Parker was leaning against the counter on the far side of the room, reading her report.
“Well?” she asked. She’d worked on it for a couple of hours. She’d actually been surprised to find that there was a difference in the pie fillings. Not just in their taste, but in their consistency and even their color.
“This is…very detail oriented,” he said, looking up.
She considered that a compliment. “Thanks.”
He gave a short laugh. “I guess I should have expected this.”
“A very thorough, perfectly presented report?” she asked. She cast a look at the stove. The soup had been put away. Damn.
“Yes.” He closed the report and set it on the counter next to him. He crossed his arms. “Several objective details. Observations. Facts. And not a single typo.”
She smiled.
“Which isn’t what I was going for.”
Her smile dropped and she crossed her arms too. “You said to compare and contrast the fillings.” She’d even made a table.
“Yes,” he agreed with a nod. “And I should have known you’d take that completely to heart.”
“I don’t see the problem.” Except that he was clearly relishing his role as the instructor and her as the student…who had messed up her assignment.
“You just gave me facts.”
“And you wanted me to discuss pie filling philosophically?” she asked.
“Kind of.”
“I have no idea how I would do that.”
“Which one did you like best?”
She shrugged. “None of them.”
“None of them?”
“I don’t really like sweets.”
He looked like he wanted to sigh. “Fine. Apple pie isn’t your favorite food. But there had to be one of these fillings that you liked more than the others.”
She thought about it. “Not really. They were…pie filling. They tasted like apples. And sugar. And cinnamon. One was a lot thicker than the rest. One was sweeter than the rest. One was darker gold than the rest. But in the end, they were all just pie filling.”
Parker did sigh now. “I wanted you to think about how they made you feel. What you liked and didn’t like. What appealed to you as the taster. It doesn’t matter what the color is. And the thick and sweet part only matters if that’s what makes you like it or not like it.”
Ava was surprised by the earnestness in his voice. He really wanted to know what she’d liked about the pie fillings. She made herself think about it. “Okay, I like the one with more cinnamon more than the others, if I have to pick.”
His shoulders actually seemed to relax a little at that. “There we go. Was that the thickest one? Or the sweetest one?”
It was pie filling, for fuck’s sake. She didn’t eat pie. That was one of the many ironies about this whole situation really. She tried to remember how thick the one with the most cinnamon had been. Then she realized that Parker wouldn’t know if that was the thickest one or not.
But as she was about to answer, she did remember something. “The thicker one was tarter than the others. Which I did like more than the sweet ones. But not as much as the one with the most cinnamon.”
He let out a breath, almost as if he was relieved. Wow. She simply never gave food this much thought.
“Why does this matter?” she couldn’t help but ask.
“Because you can’t make something that tastes good to someone else if you don’t think it tastes good. You can’t adjust things that don’t taste good if you don’t know why it doesn’t taste good.”
“That makes no sense,” she said. “I should be able to follow a recipe and have it turn out. That’s what a recipe is for. It’s the instructions. Sugar tastes like sugar, whether I like it or not.”
“Do you taste the food as you make it?” he asked. “Did you taste the pie fillings you were trying to make?”
She widened her eyes. “I. Don’t. Like. Pie.”
“So that’s a no.”
“That is a no. But I followed the recipes to the letter. You can’t tell me that chefs don’t ever make food that they don’t personally like.”
Parker braced his hands on the counter behind him, the action drawing his shirt more firmly against his chest and shoulders, and for an instant Ava lost her train of thought.
But then he said, “A true chef enjoys food and can appreciate the taste combinations and make adjustments to improve those combinations even if it’s not their favorite.”
She thought about that. “If that’s true, we’re in big trouble. I’m just not that into food in general.”
He looked at her for a moment. Then he pushed away from the counter and went to the fridge. He started pulling out ingredients.
“What are you doing?” she asked, now more aware of the bunching of all of his muscles under his plain blue T-shirt. His back. His shoulders. The way his body moved. How big his hands were. The way his biceps bulged as he cradled jars and containers in the crook of his arm.
“Proving you wrong.”
That brought her back to what he was actually doing with all those muscles. Proving her wrong. Well, that seemed very in character. “You said yesterday that today was about me,” she reminded him. She didn’t know exactly what he’d meant by that even yesterday, but she was pretty sure that so far th
is hadn’t been about her.
“It is.”
“I thought we were making pie.”
He set everything on the center island and shook his head. “I didn’t say that.”
The ingredients he’d set out included Dijon mustard, some kind of meat, a vegetable she couldn’t name, and shredded cheese. He was, clearly, cooking. “This is because I said I’m not into food?”
He nodded. He turned on the stove under a skillet and added butter, then began slicing the vegetable.
“You’re going to make me like food?” she asked.
“I’m going to help you find food you like,” he returned.
“You know, it’s okay not to like food,” she said. “I mean, I eat, obviously. But my relationship with food is more of an as-needed thing than a true-love thing.”
He looked up. “Everyone deserves true love.”
She had a hard time swallowing for a second. “I, um…it’s…better to not be obsessed with food,” she finally managed. “It’s healthy to only eat when you’re hungry.”
He set down his knife, braced his hands on the island, and pinned her with a look. “Ava,” he said, his voice low and rumbly in a way that made her stomach dance. “If I thought you truly just didn’t care about food, that would be one thing. People get pleasure from lots of things. Many times it is food, but there are other things—music, nature, art. The thing is, I don’t think you get pleasure from anything. I think you’re too busy, too distracted, too focused on perfection to ever lose yourself to something as simple and selfish as pure pleasure.”
The difficulty with swallowing happened again. There was really something about how this man said the word pleasure. Not to mention his seemingly intent focus on making sure she actually got some of that.
And there was something else. He thought she was not selfish? That was a new one. Many people she knew thought that she was enamored with being rich and powerful and yes, all about herself. That Parker thought differently made something that felt like those sharp prickles of sensation he usually caused to trip up and down her arms. But this time it was far more pleasant.
“I enjoy spinning,” she finally said, because she had to say something.
“Spinning? Like with a spinning wheel?” he asked, looking at her like she was a little crazy.
“No, spinning. On a bike. It’s an exercise routine.”
“You bike?” He seemed surprised. He gathered the sliced vegetable in his hands and deposited the pieces into the hot pan on the stove. He salted and peppered them and stirred them around in the butter.
“Well, it’s a stationary bike,” she said, watching him stir and keeping her eyes from wandering to his ass. Even though, with him facing away from her, it was hardly her fault that she noticed it. The cooking thing was kind of nice, if she were into ogling hot guys’ asses. There was lots of bending and reaching with the fridge and cupboards.
“Ah,” he said. “A stationary bike. In some upscale gym in New York, no doubt.”
She didn’t answer. Because the answer would have been yes and she had a feeling he wouldn’t approve.
And why his approval mattered, she had no idea. It was ridiculous to think that she cared about Parker Blake’s assessment of her exercise program.
“What do you like about it?” he asked, turning back to the counter. He began slicing the meat.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Mortadella. It’s an Italian sausage. Like bologna, but better. This one has pistachios in it.”
He didn’t ask if she’d had it before—she hadn’t, that she knew of. He didn’t ask if she wanted it—she wasn’t sure. He just continued preparing it, regardless.
“What do you like about the spinning class?” he asked again. He pushed a box of puff pastry sheets toward her. “Here, roll these out.”
She looked from the pastry to him. “Isn’t this cheating?”
“I could make the pastry,” he said, lifting his gaze to hers. “If that’s what you’re asking. But this will save a little time.”
She slid the pastry sheets from the box and unrolled one. Then looked up at him.
He stood watching her as if she’d confused him. Then he turned, opened a drawer, and handed her a rolling pin. “Flour is in the big canister over there.” He pointed over her shoulder. “Roll it out thin, to about 14 inches in size.”
Okay, she’d watched an online video about rolling out crusts on a floured surface.
“I need to go get my apron.” She started for the door, but his voice stopped her after only one step.
“Ava.”
She turned back.
“Just…get a little messy.”
She glanced at the flour canister, then back to him. Why did she get the impression he wasn’t talking about the flour? Or just the flour, anyway? Messy wasn’t really in her wheelhouse.
“I—” she started. Her mind flashed back to the look in his eyes when he’d noticed the drop of soup on her apron. She didn’t know what it meant, exactly, but she wouldn’t mind seeing it again. That was…also outside of her wheelhouse.
This whole damned town and pie shop and everything here was outside of her wheelhouse.
And she was pretty sure that was exactly what her father had been going for in insisting she and her sisters come here.
She didn’t say anything more, but retrieved the flour canister, sprinkled some on her side of the island, and began rolling the dough out thinner.
They didn’t speak for a few minutes as Parker finished slicing the meat, put a metal baking sheet into the oven, turned the oven on, and beat an egg in a bowl with a little water.
“Well, for one thing, spinning class is fast-paced,” she said, finally answering his question from before. “And we listen to music. And there’s sweating.”
“You like to sweat?” His tone dripped with disbelief.
She looked up. “I like to sweat when it’s appropriate and I’m dressed for it.”
“Meaning, you like it when you’re working out, but not so much when you’re rolling out dough in a hot kitchen.”
“Something like that.” She set the rolling pin aside and stepped back. “There.”
“And, you like the fast pace and the noise of the workout?” He pinched off a piece of the crust and held it up to her.
She frowned and he held it higher. She took it from his fingers and tasted it. It tasted like dough. She shrugged. “Yeah,” she said, answering his question about her workout.
“And sweating during your workout makes you feel like you’ve done something. Accomplished something.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Even though you haven’t gone anywhere and all you’ve really done is sit and pedal and stare at some other girl’s ass for an hour.”
She frowned. “I’ve burned calories, worked off my stress, and gotten my heart rate up.”
“I’m not saying that staring at a girl’s ass for an hour is bad, I’m just clarifying,” Parker said. He covered a wooden cutting board with parchment paper and then reached for the dough, carefully transferring it to the paper.
“I’m not staring at another girl’s ass for an hour,” Ava said, even though she knew he was just pushing her buttons. “I use the time to decompress. I think. I relax. I’m hardly aware of the other people.”
“So what you like about it is that you can get away from your desk and think about something besides work.”
She watched as he covered half the dough with meat, then cheese, then the vegetable from the skillet, then more cheese.
He held up a raw piece of the vegetable.
“What is that?”
“Fennel.”
She took the piece and bit into it. It was crunchy and fresh tasting. And reminded her of black licorice. She wrinkled her nose.
He smiled slightly and crossed to the pan. He lifted a piece of the cooked fennel out and brought it to her. She took the bite, trying to actually think about what she was tasting. It was def
initely better that way.
“Butter makes nearly everything better,” he said, reading her expression.
He held up a bit of the meat next. It tasted a bit like fatty, spicy bologna. With pistachios in it. The texture was similar too. And again she wrinkled her nose.
Parker looked amused. “The cheese is fontina.”
Ah. She’d had only a slight idea what fennel was, but cheese she knew. She took a pinch between her finger and thumb and tasted it as well. “That’s my favorite part. If you’re wondering.”
He didn’t confirm or deny that he’d been wondering.
“And I come up with some of my best ideas while spinning,” she said.
He brushed the dough with the egg and then folded it over, crimping the edges. He brushed the whole thing with the rest of the egg and then salted and peppered it. He cut a few small slits in the top and then carried the dough pocket to the oven, sliding it in on top of the pan inside. He shut the door and turned to face her.
“So my assessment stands,” he said.
“Which assessment?”
“That you really don’t do anything for pure pleasure.”
As tingles slid down her spine as his voice got that tone in it again on those last two words, a few ideas flashed through her mind. But they didn’t involve bicycles. “I don’t think that’s totally accurate.”
“Well, we already established that you don’t eat for pleasure.”
“Right.”
“Walks in the park?” he asked.
She had to shake her head.
“Movies? Where you don’t also have files and paperwork in your lap and you’re not checking your email on your phone?”
Movies were just sitting… She shook her head.
“Bubble baths?”
She swallowed. That sexy tone was back as he said it. Almost as if he was imagining a bubble bath. With her in it. But again, she had to shake her head. Baths seemed so…long. It took a while to fill the tub up and then it was just sitting again…drove her crazy.
“Sex toys?” he asked, almost sounding a bit exasperated. “Do you at least have orgasms just…to have them?”
High Heels and Haystacks: Billionaires in Blue Jeans, book two Page 10