Harlequin Desire June 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Katherine Garbera

  Kiss her.

  His gut clenched.

  When she’d paused at the entrance to the hall and looked back, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her—and had struggled to stand firmly in place. When she’d turned to disappear down the hall, he’d felt regret.

  Jillian Rossi was still in his system.

  The first sight of her entering the restaurant in that strapless, almost revealing bustier with the wide-legged pants that emphasized her thick thighs, hips and rounded buttocks had him hungering for her. She was spectacular, and it had taken an Oscar-worthy performance for him to do nothing more than speak her name and move past her with a quickness when he’d first laid eyes on her.

  All night, as his date had clung to him like Velcro, he’d watched Jillian without appearing to do so—something he’d learned during her days working in the family townhouse. He missed nothing. Every smile. Every laugh. Every introduction to a new person. Every handshake.

  His desire and disdain for her battled deep within him.

  “Cole? You okay?”

  Kimber Locke drew his attention. He looked over at the Playboy model sitting beside him. Beautiful woman. Even pleasant to be around. Her role? To annoy his mother.

  His parents had been busy preparing the elaborate meal for the night when he’d arrived. Once they’d stepped from the kitchen, free of their chef coats and in their designer evening wear, Cole had gently guided Kimber by her elbow through the crowd and into the direct line of vision of his parents. His mother’s look had quickly shifted from surprise and pleasure at seeing him to fighting hard not to reveal her disgust at seeing Kimber at his side. Nicolette’s private persona was different from the public one she’d carefully cultivated. For a brief moment, that façade cracked.

  Nicolette Cress hated it when one of her sons paraded a nighttime liaison—especially at a business function.

  “Yeah, I’m good. Thanks,” he said.

  Kimber gave him a conspiratorial wink. She was in on his hijinks. They’d briefly dated a few years ago, and she was well aware that her very presence irked his mother—making the ploy all the more enjoyable for her, as well.

  The night was coming to an end. A decadent meal of French cuisine relished. A dessert of individual fruit tarts with different selections of exotic fruits devoured. His parents’ formal speech given, Gabe and Monica’s engagement announcement celebrated. The annual bonus checks much appreciated.

  But beneath the jovial surface, hell was brewing—and every Cress family member knew it.

  Ding, ding, ding.

  Cole turned his head to eye his parents rise from their seats to his left. He covered his mouth to hide his humor at his mother, fervently avoiding looking in his and Kimber’s direction. Avoidance by Nicolette Cress was top-tier hidden anger.

  “We want to thank you all for joining us tonight and allowing us to cook for you,” Phillip Senior said with a broad smile.

  Cole stared down into his cup of coffee. His father really could charm.

  “Under the guidance of Gabriel and his team and the entire staff at Cress, INC., we thank you for providing the most important element—cooking delicious food,” Phillip Senior continued. “Without your skill and love of food, Cress, INC. would not have had its most successful year to date.”

  Applause filled the air.

  Cole looked up as his mother cast a beautiful smile at her husband. It was filled with love. He eyed his father bend from his tall height to kiss her.

  Scoundrel.

  Cole was angry at his mother for her machinations in his love life, but she was his mother and still deserving of his father’s loyalty.

  “Thank you all again. Have a good night. And safe travels in the morning back to your homes,” Phillip said.

  “If my family could just remain behind for a quick bavardage,” Nicolette added, with an inadvertent glance at Cole before she forced a stiff smile.

  Bavardage. The beautiful French word for chitchat, which she truly meant as “verbal lashing.”

  His parents and Gabe moved to the door to personally say goodbye as the chefs and their dates began to exit. Cole’s eyes immediately went to Jillian as she tucked her clutch under her arm and made her way to the front. She didn’t look at him.

  He clenched his jaw, feeling dismissed and forgotten by her once again.

  “Should I go?” Kimber asked.

  “Definitely not,” Cole said, watching as Jillian shook the hand of his mother and father before leaving.

  Just outside the door, she paused and looked back over her bared shoulders. Their eyes met.

  She gave him a hesitant smile, and his body betrayed him by desiring her in a rush.

  His mother closed the door, breaking the connection. He eyed her, not doubting she had done it purposely.

  Monte Carlo is calling my name.

  Phillip Senior walked over to the bar and poured himself a Scotch.

  His mother leaned against the door, released a heavy breath, and finally landed her cobalt eyes on him. Hard and intense.

  They matched his own.

  Her unspoken message to her son was clear. Send her away or I will obliterate her.

  His mother’s anger was nuclear and he knew Kimber’s feelings would suffer collateral damage.

  Cole leaned over. “Thanks for tonight. I owe you,” he whispered near her ear.

  Kimber smiled at him and pressed her hands to his cheeks as she tilted her head to kiss him. Deeply. And with a loud moan.

  Cole fought not to laugh as she broke the kiss. She cleaned his mouth of her gloss with her thumb and then rose to walk away with sultry stride meant to annoy his mother.

  Nicolette looked like she could spit bullets as she crossed her arms at her chest and moved away from the door with angry steps that sent her rose-gold evening gown fluttering behind her.

  “I’ll be waiting up for you, Cole,” Kimber said with a wink and another blown kiss.

  Nicolette released a cry and turned quickly to steer Kimber out the door before closing it.

  He covered his mouth with his hand as he looked around the restaurant at his family members’ expressions.

  Phillip Junior looked pleased though his wife cast him an annoyed glare.

  Sean had joined their father at the bar.

  Gabe and Monica shared a look—she was clearly surprised by her first inclusion behind the Cress family veil.

  Lucas was eyeing the fruit tart he’d ignored earlier.

  Nobody wanted to be there.

  “Bienvenue, Coleman. Je vois que tu as eu le temps de ramasser les poubelles,” Nicolette said coldly in her native tongue.

  Welcome back, Coleman. I see you had time to pick up the trash. He shook his head at her judgment.

  “Kimber is not trash,” he said, reaching for the anger that sent him away from his family for months. “And neither was Jillian.”

  Nicolette stiffened. “What do you mean?”

  Cole rose to his full height. “I was at Jillian’s that night. In the bathroom. I heard everything. I know what you did,” he said, enjoying the widening of her eyes with each word he spoke.

  Silence reigned.

  “What’s going on?” Phillip Senior asked from behind him.

  “Jillian?” Lucas asked. “Nice, Cole. Real nice.”

  Cole ignored his brother’s praise as he came to stand in front of his mother and look down at her. “The last thing I needed was for you to interfere in my life,” he said. “It was a side of you I had never seen before, and I never want to see again. You judged Monica. You judged Jillian. It’s time you sit down before a mirror and take a long hard look at yourself.”

  Nicolette’s eyes filled with tears. “Cole,” she whispered.

  He shook his head, his eyes ablaze and his jaw firm. “What you did was wrong and deplo
rable—”

  “That’s enough, Cole,” his father said, moving to wrap his arm around his wife’s shoulders.

  He ignored him. “We are your sons. We’re grown men. We can decide on our own without you pulling strings like Geppetto,” he continued.

  “I only want what’s best for you.” Nicolette extended her arm to reach for his hand.

  He pulled back from her touch. “Who says you know what’s best?” he asked. “You don’t even know what’s best for you.”

  Nicolette’s forehead wrinkled in confusion.

  Cole shook his head and shifted past her to open the front door to the restaurant. “Kimber is waiting for me,” he lied, leaving them all to ponder just what he’d meant.

  * * *

  Jillian looked at the two wedding photos she held. In both, she was so young.

  And so naïve.

  “Hey, you.”

  She looked up at her father standing in the doorway in T-shirt and pajama bottoms. They both looked over at Ionie, still asleep in her bed. “I wanted to be near her since I leave in the morning,” Jillian admitted from where she sat on the rocking chair. She set the photos on her lap to reach over and lightly stroke her grandmother’s soft silver curls.

  Harry walked into the room and came to stand at the other side of the bed. “Yeah, I check on her every night before we go to bed,” he admitted, talking low so as not to interrupt his mother’s sleep.

  Jillian gave him a soft smile. Her father was an only child raised by a single mother. His love for Ionie was boundless. She knew it was hard for him to see some of her spark fade.

  “How was your party?” he asked, coming around the bed to pick up the photos from her lap.

  Confusing.

  “It was fun,” she said instead.

  “And the reason for the trip down memory lane?” he asked, sitting on the side of the bed.

  “I was wondering the same thing,” Ionie said, opening her eyes.

  Their gazes went to her as she softly smiled. “All closed eyes ain’t sleep,” she said. “Besides, who could rest with all this company in my bedroom?”

  “I didn’t mean to keep you awake,” Jillian said, reaching to hold her hand.

  “I was just enjoying you being near me, like when you would spend the weekend with your granddaddy and me,” Ionie said, her eyes twinkling with the moonlight streaming into the room. “We would wake up and find you sleep at the foot of the bed, on the bench, or on that cold floor. Like you couldn’t stand not being near us. I loved it then and I love it now, Jillie.”

  That all was so true.

  “Mama, you need anything?” Harry asked.

  “For Jillie to tell us what’s on her mind.”

  Jillian thought about admitting to her father that she’d had a no-strings-attached relationship and then ended it by accepting her executive chef position.

  Hard pass.

  “I was dating someone and we ended things,” she said, skirting the full truth. “I saw him tonight—”

  “At the gala?” her father asked as he scratched his full silver-flecked beard.

  She nodded. “Seeing him again made me feel like I care for him more than I realized,” she said.

  “Do you love him?” Ionie asked, patting Jillian’s hand with her own.

  Jillian closed her eyes and bit down on her bottom lip as emotion swelled in her chest for Cole. “Yes,” she admitted in a whisper.

  “Does he love you?” Harry asked with the protectiveness of a father.

  She shook her head, remembering Cole’s anger with her that night. And tonight.

  “What?” Harry snapped, rising.

  “I broke things off,” she said to ease his annoyance.

  “Can you fix it?” Ionie asked.

  Jillian looked out the window. “I don’t want to. I’m not looking for love. Look where it got me before. Twice,” she said, her voice soft. “I’ve always wanted what you and Mom had, Dad. That love story you can tell your kids about thirty years later. But it’s just not in the cards for me.”

  “Life is like a library,” Harry said. “It contains so many books because there are many different stories to be told. Each one unique. And special. And needed. Your story may not look like ours, Jillian. Create your own.”

  She gave her father a teasing smile. “Oh, Bear,” she said, ribbing him with her mother’s loving nickname.

  Ionie chuckled. “Leave my son alone,” she playfully admonished. “Because before he was Bear, he was my Sugar Toes.”

  Harry gave them both a withering look.

  “Sugar Toes,” Jillian teased. “Oh my.”

  “I’m going where I’m appreciated,” he said over his shoulder as he left the room.

  “Might as well, because what she got for you, your Mama and daughter sure can’t give you,” Ionie called out.

  Jillian chuckled as she leaned over to press a kiss to her grandmother’s soft cheek. “I love you, Gram,” she sighed, lowering her head to rest against her arm.

  Ionie reached over with her free hand and rubbed Jillian’s loose curls. She hummed them both to sleep with Jillian’s heart and thoughts filled with Cole.

  * * *

  “Leave the bustier on.”

  At Cole’s command, Jillian stood before him and unbuttoned her pants before letting the material fall to her feet in a satin puddle. She arched one of her brows and slowly slid her fingers under the rim of her lace panties with the skill of a burlesque dancer. She used tiny rolls of her hips to ease the flimsy lace down around her hips and buttocks.

  Cole sat on the bench, leaning back against the foot of the bed as he watched her by the light of the fireplace. She tempted and tantalized him with her slow, sensual movements as they locked eyes. His inches hardened, and stood erect as he ached for her.

  Still in her heels, she twirled the flimsy lace on her finger before looping the panties around the tip of his hardness. She smiled and moved forward to stand between his open legs then playfully took a bow that lowered her head near his lap. With her teeth, she nipped her panties and removed them to drop to the floor, leaving the tip of his inches free to be covered with her lips.

  Cole arched his hips off the bench at the feel of her tongue tasting him intimately. “Jillian,” he gasped as he pressed his hands to her cheeks and raised her head, afraid he would burst. He wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her forward to sit on his lap. He kissed her deeply, his tongue slowly thrusting in her mouth the same way he wished he could stand his inches doing so.

  “Give it to me, Cole,” she pleaded against his mouth, taking his hardness into her hand to grasp and stroke.

  “It’s yours,” he told her.

  Jillian rose from his lap to lower her core onto him as she gripped the back of his head and licked at his mouth.

  “All mine?” she asked, gripping him with her walls.

  With one hard upward thrust, he planted all of himself inside her—

  * * *

  Cole awakened from his dream with a start. “Damn,” he swore, sitting upright and looking down at his erection.

  Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.

  Another dream about Jillian.

  Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.

  He swore, ignoring his cell phone vibrating on the nightstand with calls from his family. It had awakened him. And now his waking thoughts were filled with Jillian.

  That damn bustier of hers is torturing me.

  With deep breaths and a wildly pounding heart, he looked around at his hotel suite. And then at his erection. With a grimace, he grabbed a pillow and pressed it against his hardness as he fell back on the bed, unsure if he was more frustrated at still wanting Jillian or at the interruption of his erotic dream of her.

  FIVE

  Two weeks later

  Jillian used th
e handle of the pan to rotate it atop the fiery gas range. She grabbed the tall, slender glass of extra-virgin olive oil with her free hand to add it to the root vegetables she was sautéing. Quickly she set it down and grabbed a large pinch of pink salt to sprinkle across the baby carrots, sliced parsnips, leeks and matchstick-sliced rutabagas.

  “Three-root-vegetable soup ready, chef,” her sous chef called over to her.

  She nodded as she turned and used tongs to divide the veggies atop three bowls of puréed soup carefully layered with the flavors of garlic, onion, chicken broth, butter and turmeric. “Run the dish,” she ordered, wiping her hands with the dishtowel tucked into the pocket of her monogrammed chef’s coat.

  “Yes, chef!”

  She turned back to the stove and wasn’t sure who had obeyed her order as she’d turned it off. Their night at CRESS III was over. Now it was about cleanup and minor prep for the next evening. She allowed herself a smile and a deep exhale of breath, more than ready for a glass of red wine as she sat on her balcony and enjoyed the view.

  And try not to think about Cole.

  Better said than done.

  Against the odds, she had fallen in love over her year of lascivious encounters with Cole. She hadn’t planned it. Hadn’t even fathomed it possible. She had been wrong. With each passing day now, she knew she loved him, but equally knew that she would keep her distance and allow the love to fade with time.

  Between his anger at her and her reluctance for a serious relationship, loving him was futile.

  And so very foolish.

  “Chef, may I have a word with you?”

  Jillian stiffened at the sound of Clark Newsom’s voice behind her. She turned. His tone was filled with the same arrogance as the tilt of his chin and the slight lift of his left eyebrow.

  “Sure,” she said, aware of the furtive looks of her staff.

  With a stiff smile, she followed the short and slender man in his three-piece suit to his office at the rear of the restaurant. She allowed herself a playful moment as she wrinkled her nose at him. “What’s this about, Clark?” she asked the restaurant’s manager once she entered the office and he’d closed the door to move past her to take a seat behind his desk.