Sweet Persuasions

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“Is that by choice?”

A soft gasp escaped Selena’s lips. She sat there stunned, unable to believe Xavier had asked her that question. “Of course it’s by choice.”

“Don’t act so put out, Ms. Yates. After all, you were the one who said you didn’t like people hooking you up. Suppose you’d met someone you liked. Would you get involved?”

Resting her elbows on the table, she shortened the small distance separating them. “Are you asking if I would consider seeing you, Mr. Eaton?” There was a hint of laughter in her voice.

Xavier eyes lingered on her parted lips before meeting her amused gaze. “No. I would never be that presumptuous,” he said, unaware that his approval rating had gone up several points with Selena.

She wrinkled her nose. “Now it’s your turn. Give me a quick overview of Xavier Eaton so I don’t embarrass myself when someone asks me about my date.”

“I’m thirty-four, a marine—”

“I thought you were no longer active military.”

He wagged his finger. “Shame on you. Didn’t your brother teach you, Once a Marine Always a Marine?”

“Now, how could I forget that?” Selena said jokingly, as she hit her forehead.

“I don’t know,” Xavier crooned.

She rolled her eyes at him. “I owe you for that one.” Xavier responded with a wink. Suddenly he appeared carefree and boyish, qualities she didn’t think he possessed.

Xavier curbed the urge to run his finger down the length of Selena’s nose. He didn’t know what it was about her utterly adorable nose that captivated him. “I met Bobby Bell when we were cadets at The Citadel. I lived on campus while Bobby commuted. When I didn’t go home to Philadelphia for holidays and school breaks, I could be found at Bobby’s house. I became his unofficial brother. We managed to stay in touch after graduation, but lost contact with each other once he was assigned to the American embassy in Istanbul. After I was deployed to Iraq, and later Afghanistan, I lost touch with everyone I knew at The Citadel.”

The seconds ticked as Selena gave Xavier a long, penetrating stare. “Were you injured in combat?” He nodded, then went completely still as if he’d been carved out of stone. “Why did you decide to return to Charleston?” she asked, changing the topic.

Xavier breathed an audible sigh. He didn’t like talking about the war because the images of what he’d done and seen were indelibly imprinted in his mind. There were times when he woke up struggling to breathe, his heart racing uncontrollably from the nightmares that haunted him once he was no longer on active duty.

“I like this city.”

“You like this city?” Selena said.

“Isn’t that enough?” Xavier said. “You moved from West Virginia to California to go to school, but instead of returning home you decided to put down roots in South Carolina.”

“There’s a reason why I didn’t go back to West Virginia.” She knew she sounded defensive, but Selena wasn’t about to spill her guts to a man who she was just pretending to date.

Xavier crossed his injured right leg over his left knee. He was able to get around without a cane now, but there were times when the dull ache was a reminder of how close he’d come to losing the limb. “Were you running away from an old boyfriend?”

Years of acting training kicked in when Selena’s face belied the tension of the knot that had formed in her stomach. She didn’t and couldn’t tell Xavier how close he was to the truth. “I didn’t have a boyfriend when I lived in Matewan.”

“Did you have one when you lived in California?”

“I thought we were talking about you?” she retorted, unable to hide her annoyance.

Folding his arms across his chest, Xavier angled his head and studied the woman who’d become more of an enigma with each passing minute. Initially she was open and friendly, willing to talk about anything. But, whenever he mentioned her involvement with a man she always managed to change the subject. He wondered if she’d had a bad relationship. She was an attractive, intelligent and talented twenty-six-year-old who probably had a steady stream of men coming into Sweet Persuasions just to catch a glimpse of her. Most women would revel in the attention, but for Selena it seemed to be just the opposite.

“I’m sorry if I hit a nerve.”

“You didn’t hit a nerve, Xavier. You were prying. After all, I didn’t ask you about the women in your life.”

A hint of a smile softened his mouth. “There are only two women in my life at the moment—my mother and sister.”

It was Selena’s turn to smile. “Is that your way of telling me that you’re not involved with anyone?”

“I thought I was being subtle.”

Her smile became a full-on grin. “I don’t think so.”

“Damn!” he drawled. “Is there anything else you need to know about me?”

“No.”

There was a lot more Selena wanted to know about Xavier Eaton, but only if she’d been interested in becoming involved with him.

Xavier stood up. Their cross-examination had ended. He believed he’d garnered enough information about Selena to feel comfortable pretending to be her boyfriend. “I’d better give you that mailing information for the cheesecake and pretzels. When do you think they’ll be shipped out?”

“That depends on if you want them delivered Sunday or Monday.”

“I’d like a Sunday delivery.” He completed the shipping form, handing it to Selena, who’d stood up. “How long will it take to get to Ma Bell’s from here?”

“It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.” Selena gave him the address.

Xavier didn’t tell her the restaurant was less than a quarter mile from his house. Although he’d moved back to Charleston, he hadn’t had the time to get acquainted with his adopted city. After he’d received his appointment to Munroe, he’d purchased a house in Charleston’s historic district that needed extensive renovations. Before he relocated however, he used to drive from Philadelphia to Charleston every two weeks to look at the progress and confer with the contractor.

It wasn’t until the first week of August that he moved into his house, which was known as a Charleston single house. It was representative of the city’s nineteenth-century period architecture, in which many houses were one-room wide for cross-ventilation, with each room opening into the next, fronting the street, with a full-length veranda on the side, often with a two-story porch overlooking a garden. Many of the rooms in Xavier’s house were empty. Some were awaiting delivery of furniture, while others would remain empty until he decided how he wanted to decorate them. As long as he had something to sit on, eat on and a place to sleep, Xavier didn’t feel the need to fill up his first home with things that didn’t fit in.

“If I pick you up at six-thirty, will that give you enough time to get ready?”

Selena glanced at the wall clock. It was minutes after five. That meant she had a little more than an hour to get ready for her date. “It’s enough time.”

Reaching into the pocket of his slacks, Xavier removed his credit card. “Where shall I pick you up?”

“I’ll meet you on the block behind the shop. I live upstairs,” she explained when seeing his puzzled expression.

“Now that’s what I call a sweet setup. You never have to worry about the weather or getting tied up in traffic to get to work.”

“It’s nice. Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I come down and bake.” Selena waved away the card. “You’re going to have to pay me later, after they restore telephone service.”

Xavier returned the card to the case. “Are you always this trusting?”

“Don’t play yourself, Xavier P. Eaton. Remember I have your credit card information on file. And if you try to stiff me, I’ll bill your account for three times the amount.”

“You wouldn’t,” he deadpanned.

“Oh, yes, I would. Remember, I come from coal-mining stock. There aren’t too many folks tougher or more resilient than coal miners.”

“One of these days I’d like to hear about it.”

Selena shook her head. “I don’t think that’s going to happen, Xavier.”

“Why, Selena?” His voice sounded low and seductive.

“That would mean another date.”

He took a step, bringing them less than a foot apart. Everything that was Selena Yates swept over him, pulling him in and refusing to let him go. He’d tried to remain unaffected but he’d failed miserably. Somehow fate had stepped in when Robert Bell walked into Sweet Persuasions to find him with the owner of the patisserie. If his friend had assumed he and Selena were a couple, then he had no intention of correcting the mistake—especially not when he was given the opportunity to take her to dinner without having to work up the nerve to ask her out on a date. It wasn’t his style to come on heavy with a woman, and it usually took several encounters before he would make his move. But Selena was different—just how different he had yet to discover.

“Would that be so horrible?”

Putting her hands on his rock-solid chest, Selena tried to put some space between them. She felt the warmth of his body through the fabric of his shirt. “No, it wouldn’t, but why don’t we just wait and see if we can tolerate each other enough to go out again.”

Grabbing her wrists, Xavier held her captive. “Don’t you think tolerate is too strong a word?”

Lowering her eyes, Selena peered up at him through her lashes. “I can’t count the number of times I’m forced to tolerate dealing with someone—and that includes some of my customers.”

“Is yours truly included in that group?”

“You will if you don’t let me close up and get ready for my date night.”

“I hear you loud and clear, Ms. Yates.” Xavier released her wrists, lowered his head, brushing his mouth over hers in a kiss that was so light she thought she’d imagined it. “I’ll see you later.”

Selena barely had time to react before she registered the chiming of the bell that signaled Xavier had unlocked the door and left. On unsteady legs, she walked over to the door and locked it behind him.

She didn’t know how it had happened, but within the span of half an hour she’d agreed to go to Ma Bell’s for date night with a stranger—a handsome stranger, nonetheless—who until a few days ago she didn’t even know existed. Pressing her back to the door, Selena closed her eyes. What, she mused, was there about Xavier Eaton that made her do and feel things that were totally out of character for practical, level-headed Selena Liliana Yates?

Grandma Lily had called her a hummingbird, forever in motion and her mind flitting from one thing to the other. When her grandfather, who was a carpenter, built her the grandest dollhouse she had ever seen, she’d announced she was going to decorate the rooms using scraps of leftover fabric from her grandmother’s quilting and needlecraft projects. Hand-sewn curtains, crocheted rugs and wallpaper made from colorful adhesive-backed drawer liners were the envy of the girls who came to see what Selena had been bragging about. It had taken years for her to furnish the dollhouse with carefully chosen wood-looking tables and chairs, and appliances made from scrap metal. By the time she’d celebrated her fifteenth birthday she’d lost interest in decorating when she appeared on stage in a school play. The acting bug had bitten her—hard. The dollhouse, which was put in a room where her parents stored old cradles, cribs and other pieces of furniture made by her grandfather and great-grandfather, had been relegated to her childhood.

Never in her wildest dreams could Selena have predicted that she would walk away from acting. She’d barely tasted success when her world fell apart because a man who’d professed his love to her tried to hurt her. She shook her head as if to shake off the memory of Derrick. Working quickly, she transferred trays from the showcase to the walk-in freezer, turned off the lights, punched in the code to the alarm and locked the door behind her.

Selena unlocked the rear door to the staircase that led up to her apartment. Monica had picked up Trisha from school and driven up to Goose Creek to spend the weekend with her parents. Since her neighbor wasn’t around she avoided having to explain why she was going out on a Friday night. As she opened the door to her apartment, she felt a flutter of excitement in the pit of her stomach much like she’d experienced when she had a crush on a boy who was her brother’s friend. Each time he came to the house she scurried away like a frightened mouse, spending the entire time in her bedroom while she’d fantasized about kissing him. It was only when he began dating a girl Selena disliked intensely, that she decided not only was he ugly but he also had ears that stuck out too far.

But there was nothing wrong with Xavier Eaton—at least not on the surface. She had to be careful—very, very careful to look for the signs that he wasn’t what he seemed to be. After what she’d experienced with Derrick, Selena had sworn it would never happen again.