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His gaze dropped to the espresso in front of him, extra-strong black, just the way he liked it.
She shrugged, but not before he’d seen an answering gleam as if she remembered plenty.
‘My mind has a habit of storing useless information. Don’t take it personally.’
‘I won’t.’
He grinned, noticing an immediate softening around her mouth. She wanted to smile back, he could tell. They’d always been like this: he trying to charm her, she trying her utmost to pretend it wasn’t working before giving in.
‘How about we have this chat over a death by chocolate next door after you lock up?’
Her eyebrows shot up. ‘You like the Chocolate Toad?’
‘What’s not to like? Great chocolate and a big, happy, green guy looking down on us while we talk.’
He leaned forward and crooked his finger at her, pleased when she met him halfway. ‘You’re not the only one who remembers things, you know. I bet chocolate is still your staple food.’
Camryn couldn’t move.
She wanted to. Oh, yes, she wanted to run away as fast as her boots would carry her, far from this man and the power he had over her.
After all she’d been through, after the pain of losing him, she should turn around right this very minute and walk away without a backward glance.
So why was she standing here, mesmerised by the twinkle in his eyes, captivated by his sense of humour, with the word ‘yes’ hovering on her lips?
‘Come on. A girl deserves a good death by chocolate after a hard day’s work. And I really think it’s important you hear what I have to say.’
He leaned forward until their faces were inches apart, his clean, woodsy smell, as natural and outdoorsy as the rest of him, flooding her senses, tempting her to do crazy things as he had all those years ago. ‘You know you want to.’
‘Yes,’ she breathed on a sigh, caught by his powers of persuasion and something more, something scary and indefinable. A soul-deep attraction to a man who set off sparks by simply tilting his head in acknowledgement had made her lose her mind and accept his invitation when nothing he could say would make up for what he’d done to her six years earlier.
‘Great.’
He straightened, breaking the intimate spell woven around them. ‘In that case I better bolt this coffee down, finish up my business and wait for you to close up.’
Business! She snapped her fingers, wondering how she could have forgotten her proposed meeting with the project manager.
‘Actually, I’ve just remembered I’m meeting a project manager about some renovations I’m doing.’
‘Best in the building industry, so I’ve been told.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘You obviously know Dirk and Mike, but I’m surprised the guys have been discussing my plans with you.’
His smile widened, his eyes twinkled, and her heart sank as realisation dawned.
‘Why wouldn’t they? I’m the best project manager around. Ask anybody.’
His reappearance must have really thrown her if she’d missed the connection between him turning up here, knowing the guys and her scheduled meeting. Talk about slow on the uptake, but, somehow, she didn’t care a toss about anything but how let down she felt.
He’d said he’d come here to see her but it was obviously for business reasons. And of course he’d have to mention their shared past, smooth the way if she were to hire him. She’d been such a fool. Again.
‘I know what you’re thinking, but don’t. Just for the record, I came here to see you, to talk to you. As for you needing a project manager, that was my trump card if you’d tried to boot me out the door the minute I set foot in here.’
There he went again, reading her so easily, and she quickly slid an impassive mask into place, knowing it was too late.
Okay, so he wasn’t just here on business, but that didn’t change facts: she’d loved him, he’d walked out on her, and there wasn’t one damn thing he could say to change that.
‘Come on, Cam. Catching up can’t hurt. And if I can help out with your renovations, all the better.’
She still had time to fob him off, to come to her senses, to give him some feeble excuse why she’d rather pick up a sledge hammer and bang the walls down herself than have him involved in her renovations.
But that was the coward’s way out, and if she’d learned anything since she’d arrived in Melbourne as a naïve nineteen-year-old ready to take on the world while mending a broken heart, it was to face things head on.
Besides, she needed the renovations completed sooner rather than later or she’d lose out on the chance at expansion into the apartment next to hers. She’d lived in what she affectionately termed her ‘shoebox’ since she’d opened the café, pouring all her funds into making the Niche great. But with the café doing better and the opportunity to enlarge her living space, she had to strike now. However, she’d been given the run around and time was running out.
She needed his skills asap, and, now he was here, she should at least hear what he had to say— regarding business only, that was.
With a resigned sigh, she glanced at her watch. ‘I’ll meet you next door in forty-five minutes,’ she said, half hoping he’d renege once he heard how long he’d have to wait. The other half of her was already doing a mental scrummage through her handbag for lipgloss, pressed powder compact, brush and hair serum, essentials she’d need to make herself halfway presentable for their date.
Date?
Business or otherwise, she’d agreed to go on a date.
With Blane Andrews, the guy who’d left her with a broken heart without a backward glance.
Was she nuts?
‘Forty-five minutes it is.’
He lifted his coffee cup towards her in a toasting action before strolling away, his even-paced strides achingly familiar. Blane in all his laid-back glory never hurried anywhere.
Unless she counted how fast he’d run out on her.
Wincing at the memory, she got busy with the day’s takings, did a final check for tomorrow’s bookings, determinedly avoiding looking at the table where the occasional low rumble of laughter emanated from.
She focused on the booking diary and accompanying table sketches, running her finger down the list of names, matching them to the table numbers, but the figures blurred and danced the harder she stared at them, and, finally relenting, she allowed her gaze to drift upwards.
Either Blane had been staring at her all along or he was doing his mind-reading trick again, for the second she looked up their gazes locked and held, an unexpected rush of heat flooding her body, making her tummy quiver and her legs tremble so hard she had to grip onto the bar for support.
He smiled, a slow, sensual upward curving of his lips, a smile designed solely for her, a smile that was temptation personified.
She didn’t stand a chance.
No matter how often she told herself this was just a quick catch-up supper while they discussed business, no matter how hard she tried to believe she wasn’t doing this because she was curious to hear his excuse for what he’d done, no matter how much she wanted to turn him away, to hurt him as he’d hurt her six years ago, she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Blane Andrews, in all his tempting glory, still intrigued her enough to sit down over her favourite dessert after all this time…with her husband.
CHAPTER TWO
‘WHAT? You’ve seen me eat chocolate before.’
‘Not with such gusto. It’s cute.’
Camryn waved her fork in the air, enjoying this way too much. Not just the death by chocolate sampler platter, which was to die for, but the easygoing camaraderie that had sprung up between her and Blane with little effort.
She’d been determined to discuss business, scoff down her chocolate and bolt out the door. Instead, they’d made desultory small talk over hot mochas, loosened up through sensational almond biscotti and were presently at the comfortable ‘let’s sit back, relax and avoid any potential mine-fields’ stage.
‘So what you’re really saying is I’m a pig.’
He shook his head and dug his fork into a massive wedge of mud cake. ‘You’re trying to get me into trouble.’
‘Am I?’
She sent him her best innocent smile and forked another mouth-watering, melt-on-her-tongue, divine piece of choc-orange mousse cake into her mouth.
‘Oh, yeah.’
He couldn’t take his eyes off her, and, rather than being disconcerted, she was enjoying the attention way too much.
‘From where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re already in trouble.’
Big trouble, the kind of trouble that couldn’t be explained away no matter how hard he tried or what he said.
Yet the longer she sat here, more relaxed than she’d been in ages, she couldn’t summon up the animosity his actions of six years ago deserved.
Shoving more cake into her mouth, she flicked her tongue out to catch a crumb clinging to her top lip, the spark of excitement in his eyes as they riveted to her mouth sending heat streaking through her body in a way she hadn’t experienced since…for ever.
After a long, loaded moment he blinked, his eyes crinkling with the smile never far from his face.
‘Look, I know you want to talk about your renovations and that’s probably the only reason you agreed to meet me here, and I promise you we will talk business later, but now I’ve buttered you up with your favourite food, I want to tell you what this is all about.’
Just like that, the smooth chocolate mousse solidified into an indigestible lump in her stomach.
What was she doing, play-acting as if everything was fine and she was on some kind of date?
Blane was her husband.
Who she hadn’t seen in six long years.
She should be grilling him, not noticing the sexy new grooves bracketing his mouth, the laugh-lines that had multiplied around those striking eyes, and his penchant for rubbing the back of his neck when she put him on the spot.
‘If you’ve softened me up with chocolate, what you have to say must be pretty bad.’
It had better be, for she’d accept nothing less than a catastrophe on the scale of Melbourne City Council shutting down every café in the Docklands as an excuse for what he’d done to her.
He held his hand out, and it wavered in a so-so gesture. ‘Considering I’ve spent the last six years thinking about you, wondering if I did the right thing, wishing there’d been some other way, I don’t think it’s all bad.’
‘Let me be the judge of that.’
She sat back and folded her arms, resisting the urge to hug them around her middle for what scant comfort she could get.
His smile faded, and, crazily, irrationally, she missed it. He’d rarely been serious when they’d first met, making her laugh every chance he’d got, and it looked as if nothing had changed. Ever since he’d waltzed into the café a few hours ago he’d been smiling, which explained why she could barely think straight.
His smile had been her undoing in the past— that and his boyish charm, his sensitivity, his warmth, his passion…
Gulping a healthy lungful of air to ease the pain in her chest, she tried to focus before she did something crazy—like tell him it didn’t matter where he’d been or why as long as he’d come back.
‘Go ahead, tell me. Give it to me straight, I’m a big girl, I can take it.’
Regret clouded his eyes as he reached across and held out his hand, silently imploring her to take it. But she couldn’t. Not if she wanted to remain detached long enough to hear him out and put an end to this unwise evening.
‘I need you to understand why I left.’
‘So you can ease your conscience?’
He withdrew his hand, folding his arms in a posture mirroring hers, sadness ageing him beyond his twenty-seven years.
‘This isn’t about making me feel better.’
‘Then what’s it about?’
He pinned her with a direct stare, his eyes steely pewter in the soft candlelight from a corny red-heart tea-light burning low in the centre of the table.
‘Us.’
Camryn swallowed the lump of emotion lodged in her throat. How could one tiny word hold so much pain, so many memories?
Us.
Cam and Blane against the world.
Young, impetuous, with the world at their feet, dreams to follow, places to be. Fun to be had, life to be lived to the fullest, the two of them egging each other on, the exhilarating surge of love a maelstrom that propelled them straight into marriage before they could catch their breath.
Whether sharing a quiet cappuccino at the end of a working day, streaking towards the creek to see who’d jump in first, or hiking to the top of nearby Rainbow Mountain for some private canoodling time or dashing after the first daisy he’d plucked for her as it swirled away on a warm summer’s breeze, it had been the two of them, laughing so hard they could barely catch their breath, loving so fiercely and vividly and profoundly.
It had been like that right from the very beginning, the impetuous, precipitous, thrilling rush of loving this man.
The breathtaking high of being a couple ready to take on the world together, to the lowest of lows as she’d plummeted into the depths of despair when he’d left.
Blinking to stave off the sting of tears, she focused on a single crumb lying rather pathetically in her lap, all on its own. Just like her.
Great. Now she was comparing herself to cake crumbs.
This wasn’t a good idea. She needed to get out of here before she broke down in front of him, showing him exactly how much he still affected her.
He must have anticipated her urge to bolt because he rushed on. ‘Those three months in Rainbow Creek were the best of my life. You were the best thing to ever happen to me.’
Her gaze snapped up to his, harsh and accusatory. ‘Then why did you leave?’
He had the grace to look aggrieved. ‘Because we were too young. Because we would’ve changed and grown apart. Because I wondered if you really loved me or were using me as an escape route out of town and a way to rebel against your parents. But mostly because you would’ve put your dreams on hold for mine and I couldn’t live with that. You deserved better.’
