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The incident probably would have gone completely unnoticed if Chelsea had not started shrieking dramatically.
And then he was there, moving the avalanche of boxes gently out of the way to reveal Bree underneath them. He held out a hand to her.
“Miss, are you—”
He stopped. He stared at her.
She blinked where she was lying on the floor, covered in boxes, and remembered. She remembered his eyes, the glorious deep brown of them, warm as dark-roasted coffee. She remembered that very same tilt of his mouth, something faintly sardonic and unconsciously sexy in it.
She remembered the feeling of his gaze on her, and a forbidden warmth unfolded in her that made her feel boneless.
“Bree?” he said, astounded.
She heard Chelsea’s cluck of astonishment.
“Breanna Evans,” he said slowly, softly, his voice a growl of pure sensuality that scraped the nape of her neck. And then his hand, strong and heated, closed around hers and he pulled her to her feet, the cookie boxes, which she had sacrificed her escape to save, scattering. His grasp was unintentionally powerful, and it carried her right into the hard length of him. She had been right. The shirt was silk. For a stunned moment she rested there, feeling his heat and the pure heady male energy of him heating the silk to a warm, liquid glow. Feeling what she had felt all those years ago.
As if the world was full of magical possibilities.
She put both hands on the broadness of his chest, and shoved away from him before he could feel her heart, beating against him, too quickly, like a fallen sparrow held in a hand.
“Brand,” she said, she hoped pleasantly. “How are you?”
He studied her without answering.
She straightened the twisted apron. Where was the beret? It was kind of stuck in the neckline of the apron and she yanked it out, and then shoved it in the oversize front pocket, where it created an unattractive bulge.
“You’re all grown up,” he said, in a way that made her blush crimson.
“Yes,” she said, stiffly, “People do tend to do that. Grow up.”
She ordered herself not to look at his lips. She looked. They were a line of pure sexy. The night of her prom she had hoped for a good-night kiss.
But he hadn’t thought she was grown up then.
Did it mean anything that he saw her as grown up now?
Of course it did not! Chances of her tasting those lips were just as remote now as they had been then. He was a billionaire, looking supersuave and sophisticated, and she was a cookie vendor in a bulging apron. She nearly snorted at the absurdity of it.
And the absurdity that she would still even think of what those lips would taste like.
But she excused her momentary lapse in discipline. There wasn’t a woman in the entire room who wasn’t thinking of that! Chelsea’s interest, from the first moment she had laid eyes on him, had made it clear Brand Wallace’s sex appeal was as potent as ever.
“You know each other?” Chelsea asked, her voice a miffed squeak, as if Bree had kept state secrets from her.
“I was Bree’s first date,” he said softly.
Oh! He could have said anything. He could have said he was a summer student who had worked for her father. But oh, no, he had to bring that up.
“I don’t recall you being my first date,” she said. “I’d had others before you.” Freddy Michelson had bought her a box lunch at a fifth-grade auction. That counted. Why did he think he’d been her first date?
No doubt her well-meaning father had told Brand that his bookish, introverted daughter had not been asked to her senior prom. Or anywhere else for that matter.
She could have felt annoyed at her father spilling her secrets, but no, she felt, as she always did, that stab of loss and longing for the father who had always acted as if she was his princess, and had always tried to order a world for her befitting of that sentiment.
“Your first date?” Chelsea squealed, as if Bree had not just denied that claim.
Bree shot Brand a look. He grinned at her, unrepentant, the university student who had worked for her father during school breaks. The young man on whom she had developed such a bad crush.
She turned quickly to the fallen table, and tried to snap the fallen leg back up. It was obstinate in its refusal to click into place.
“Let me,” Brand said.
“Must I?”
“You must,” Chelsea said, but Bree struggled with the table leg a bit longer, just long enough to pinch her hand in the hinge mechanism. She was careful not to wince, shoving her hand quickly in her apron pocket.
“Here,” he said, an order this time, not an offer. Bree gave in, and stepped back to watch him snap the leg into place with aggravating ease.
“Thanks,” Bree said, hoping her voice was not laced with a bit of resentment. Of course, everything he touched just fell into place. Everything she touched? Not so much.
“Is your hand okay?”
Did he have to notice every little thing?
“Fine.”
“Can I look?”
“No,” Bree said.
“Yes,” Chelsea breathed.
Bree gave Chelsea her very best if-looks-could-kill glare, but Chelsea remained too enamored with this unexpected turn of events to heed Bree’s warning.
“Show him your hand,” she insisted in an undertone.
To refuse now would just prolong the discomfort of the incident, so Bree held out her hand. “See? It’s nothing.”
He took it carefully, and she felt the jolt of his touch for the second time in as many minutes. He examined the pinch mark between her thumb and pointer, and for a stunning moment it felt as if he might lift her tiny wound to his lips.
She held her breath. Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard Chelsea’s sigh of pure delight.
Of course, one of the most powerful men in Vancouver did not lift her hand to his lips. He let it go.
“Quite a welt,” he said. “But I think you’re going to live.”
Feeling a sense of abject emptiness after he’d withdrawn his hand, Bree turned her attention to the boxes of cookies scattered all over the floor, and began to pick them up. He crouched beside her, picking them up, too.
“Please don’t,” she said.
“Thank you for your help,” Chelsea said firmly, clearly coaching her boss how to behave around an extraordinary man.
“I can get them,” Bree said.
But Brand stayed on the floor beside her, reading the labels out loud with deep amusement. His shoulder was nearly brushing hers. An intoxicating scent, like the forest after rain, tingled her nostrils.
“‘Little Surprises,’” he said, reading the boxes. “‘Love Bites. Devilishly Decadent. Spells Gone Wrong.’ These are priceless,” he said.
His appreciation seemed genuine, but she now felt the same about her cookie names as she had just felt about the apron and the beret. She felt cute rather than clever. She wished she had come up with an organic makeup line, like the woman at the booth set up across the foyer from her.
“Bree, are these your creations?”
“Yes, Kookies is my company.”
“I like it all. The packaging. The names. I’m glad you ended up doing something unusual. I always wondered if it would come true.”
The fact that he had wondered about her, at all, knocked down her defenses a bit.
She stared at him. “If what would come true?”
“That night, at your prom. Don’t you remember?”
She remembered all kinds of things about that night. She remembered how his hand felt on her elbow, and how his same forest-fresh scent had enveloped her, and how every time he threw back his head and laughed her heart skipped a beat. She remembered dancing a slow dance with him. And she remembered that she, school bookworm and official geek, had been the envy of every other girl in the room. She remembered, when the evening had ended, leaning toward him, her lips puckered, her eyes closed, and him putting her away.
“Do I remember what?” she asked, her voice far more choked than she would have liked it to be!
“They gave out all those titles in a little mock ceremony partway through the dance. Most likely to succeed. Mostly likely to become prime minister. You don’t remember that?”
“No.”
“Most likely to become a rodeo clown, most likely to win the Golden Armpit for bad acting.”
“Those weren’t categories!”
“Just checking to make sure you were paying attention.”
As if anyone would not pay attention to him. His grin widened, making him seem less billionaire and more charming boy from her past.
She remembered this about him, too—an ability to put people at ease. That night of the prom, gauche and starstruck, she had wondered if it was possible to die from pure nerves. He had teased her lightly, engaged her, made himself an easy person to be with.
Which was probably why she had screwed up the nerve to humiliate herself by offering him her lips at the end of the evening.
“Now that I’ve jarred your memory, do you remember what your title was?”
“I hardly remember anything about that night.” This was not a lie. She remembered everything about him, but the other details of the night? Her dress and the snacks and the band and anyone else she had danced with had never really registered.
“Most likely to live happily ever after. That was the title they bestowed on you.”
The worst possible thing happened. Not only was she here on the floor, picking up her mess with the most devastatingly attractive man she had ever met, in a silly apron, with her hair scraped back in a dumb bun and granny glasses perched on her nose, but now she was also going to disgrace herself by bursting into tears.
CHAPTER TWO (#u34effac5-3676-551f-8ab6-dba33b344547)
NO!
Bree Evans was not going to cry in front of Brand Wallace. She had a broken dream or two, but so what? Who didn’t?
She bit the inside of her cheek, hard. She made herself smile.
“Of course they did,” she said. “Happily-Ever-After. Look. Here’s the proof.” She bought a moment away from the intense gaze of his eyes on her face. She picked through the boxes of cookies.
There they were, the favorite kooky cookie for when she supplied weddings. She opened a box and pulled a cookie from its wrapping.
Shortbread infused with strawberries and champagne.
She passed it to him, and he took a quizzical bite.
“There you go,” Bree said, and hoped he could not hear the tight, close-to-tears note in her voice. “Happily-Ever-After.”
She watched as his eyes closed with pleasure. He was distracted, as she had hoped.
When he opened his eyes again, he smiled at her. “That is one of the oddest—and tastiest—combinations of flavors I’ve ever experienced. Ambrosia.”
“Thank you. I’ll tuck that away for a new cookie name.”
But then she saw she might not have distracted him quite as completely as she hoped, because he was watching her way too closely. She felt as if his eyes locked on the faint quiver of her lip.
“My company has an event coming up, a charity ball in support of this same goal, to raise funds for the new wing of Children’s. Do you think I could get you to supply some of these?”
Bree’s mouth fell open.
“Of course,” Chelsea said smoothly.
“I’m sure they will be planning some kind of midnight snack or party favor,” Brand said. “Have you a card? I’ll give it to my event planner, and she’ll be in touch.”
Being around him was a roller-coaster ride, Bree thought, as she turned, flustered, to get him her business card. For a stunning moment she had thought he was showing interest in her. He’d quickly doused that by saying his event planner would be in touch.
This kind of opportunity was exactly why she was at this event, Bree reminded herself firmly, turning with a bright, hopefully professional, smile to give him the card.
He slipped the card into his inside jacket pocket, and popped the rest of the cookie into his mouth. It drew her attention, unfortunately, to the rather sensuous curve of his lips as he chewed.
“Do you want to go for a quick coffee?” he asked her.
A roller-coaster ride!
The invitation seemed to take him by surprise as much as it did her.
“R-right now?” she stammered. “Things are just about to begin. See? People are going through to the auditorium. The program said Crystal Silvers is going to sing first.”
