Delectable Desire

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“So, now that I’ve convinced you to join me for dinner, what would it take to convince you to tell me your last name?”

Her alluring smile lit up her eyes. “My last name? I didn’t know it was such an interesting subject.”

“It wasn’t until it proved so hard to uncover. You only listed your first name on the cake order form. You paid for it in cash. Why the big mystery, Lorraine? Are you in the witness protection program or something?”

“Perhaps I go by a single name, as Madonna and Beyoncé do.”

“So you’re secretly a singer?”

She shook her head and, with a laugh, said, “I can’t sing a note.”

Maybe not, but her laughter was musical. It traveled along his nerve endings, its soothing, melodic effect causing his skin to pebble. Damn, the woman was giving him goose bumps. This kind of stuff did not happen to him.

“I do have a last name,” she finally said, setting her wineglass on the linen tablecloth. “But it comes with, shall we say, baggage?”

“I know how that is,” Carter said with a nod.

She tilted her head to the side, understanding dawning in those sympathetic brown eyes. “Yes, I can see that you do. Being a scion of one of Chicago’s most elite families comes with a lot of responsibility, doesn’t it? And scrutiny.”

“I get my fair share,” Carter said. “And anything I do reflects on the bakery. I won’t deny that there’s pressure there. I’ve got enough negativity that I have to fight in my family. I don’t want to be the one who does something that harms the reputation of Lillian’s.”

“My goodness.” She let out a deep breath. “We’re more alike than I first realized.”

“Does that mean you really do have a last name?” he asked. “Because I know I have one.”

“Would you please stop?” She laughed. “Just Lorraine shall do for now.”

“Fine, I’ll call you Just Lorraine,” he teased. “How did you end up with a name like Lorraine, anyway?” Carter grimaced at the callousness of his question. “I’m sorry. That didn’t sound as rude in my head.”

She laughed again, the sound still musical. “I’m not offended. I know it’s old-fashioned. It’s a family name,” she explained. “My grandmother’s.”

“I think that name may contribute to this illusion that you’re not fun. How about I call you Rainey?”

“My mother would fall away in a dead faint.”

“What? You’ve never had a nickname?”

She shook her head.

“You mean to tell me that when you were five years old and wrote on the walls with crayons, your mother actually called you Lorraine? Not Rainey, or Lainey, or Pumpkin?”

“Pumpkin?” She laughed even harder. “No, it has always been Lorraine. And if Mother was really upset, it was Lorraine Elise.”

“Uh-oh, the first and middle name treatment. I’ve been there. Nearly got myself kicked out of the house a few times.”

Her eyes widened. “Your parents threatened to kick you out of the house?”

“Two households,” Carter said. “Spent half the time with Dad and the other half with Mom, but I wreaked havoc equally on both.”

“I went through a rebellious phase,” Lorraine said, poking at the duck confit with her fork. “I discovered a taste for sneaking out. The coup de grâce occurred when I borrowed one of the cars and went joyriding. The police pulled me over in South Bend, Indiana.”

Carter let out an overly exaggerated, shocked gasp. “The non-fun twin? No way,” he said, grinning at her. “Did that warrant a Lorraine Elise from your mother?”

“Unfortunately not. Instead, Trina and I received one-way tickets to a boarding school in the hinterlands of upstate New York.” She pushed the garnish around her plate. “So much for my play for Mother and Father’s attention.”

The underlying note of sadness in her voice caused something in Carter’s chest to squeeze tight. The two of them really were more alike than either of them had first thought. How many boneheaded things had he done as a kid so he could stand out from the pack of Drayson grandchildren?

“So, have you officially buried that rebel who used to sneak out and steal cars?” he asked her.

“She’s still lurking, but she’s much tamer.”

“That’s too bad,” he said. “Sounds as if I could talk her into doing some pretty wild stuff.”

“I don’t think that would be very difficult. Look how quickly you convinced me to have dinner with you.” She glanced at him from across the table, that blush blossoming on her cheeks again. “I’m not usually this easy.”

“Well, that’s encouraging,” he said, settling back in his chair and smiling over the rim of his wineglass as he took another sip.

Carter still wasn’t sure just what it was about her that had ensnared him, but he couldn’t deny that Lorraine had him in her clutches. Maybe it was that adorable shyness, or her prim and proper speech. More than likely it was that spark of rebelliousness peeking out from underneath the surface. No doubt that hint of naughtiness he’d observed in her eyes appealed to him. He was looking forward to peeling back the many layers of the woman sitting across from him.

The waiter arrived with the single dessert Carter had ordered for the two of them to share.

“Okay,” he said, holding out a spoonful of ginger crème brûlée. “I have a confession to make. Even though this really is one of my favorite restaurants in the city, I had an ulterior motive in bringing you here. The head pastry chef was my chief rival back in culinary school,” Carter explained. “You sampled my desserts earlier today. I want you to tell me which is better.”

Her eyes held a glimmer of mischievous humor. “Are you looking for an honest opinion or an ego stroking?”

“Honest opinion,” he said.

She leaned forward slightly and parted her lips. For several moments all Carter could do was stare at her delicate pink tongue and think about all the ways he could enjoy it. Shaking off the rush of instant lust, he pulled in a deep breath and slid the spoon inside her mouth.

Lorraine closed her eyes and let out a soft moan.

“It’s horrible. So bad that I won’t subject you to it,” she said, reaching for the shallow, oblong dish.

“Nice try.” Carter laughed as he scooped up a spoonful of the custard and ate it. “Dammit, it’s amazing.”

“I’m certain that if you made a crème brûlée it would be as good or better.”

He shook his head. “Mine is okay, but it can’t compare to this.”

“Forgive my table manners, but that looks too delicious.” Lorraine reached over and scooped up a helping of the Chantilly cream used to garnish the dessert, and sucked it from her finger. “Mmm...it’s glorious,” she said.

Carter’s chest constricted as every bit of blood in his body headed straight for his groin. He quickly scooped up some of the cream and held his finger out to her.

“Please do that again.” His voice held a miserable plea, but he didn’t care.

Lorraine hesitated for a moment, uncertainty flashing across her face, but then she obliged. Her eyes never leaving his, she parted her lips and closed them around his finger.

“Mmm,” she said. “I was right about you. You’re a dangerous man, Carter Drayson.”

“Is that good or bad?” he managed to ask, despite the tightness in his throat.

“Probably both.”

“How so?”

In a slightly lower, slightly awe-filled whisper, she said, “You make me want to do things I’d never before considered doing on a first date.”

There was no mistaking the look in her eyes. He’d seen it in the eyes of countless other women, but Lorraine looked even hungrier than most. Carter felt light-headed. “Are you ready for the check?”

“Yes,” Lorraine quickly answered.

The extremely attentive waitstaff at Les Nomades had their plates cleared in no time, and five minutes later, Carter had taken care of the check. He rounded the table and pulled out her seat, then settled his hand at the small of her back as he guided Lorraine out of the restaurant.

Les Nomades was within walking distance of the bakery, so he’d left his car parked in his usual spot. But Lorraine had driven here. As they waited underneath the awning for the valet to bring her car around, Carter told himself to slow down.

But he couldn’t. He had to taste her.

He leaned forward, his heart pounding in anticipation of the way Lorraine’s lips would feel against his.

Just then, a flash of lightning streaked across her face. Wait. That wasn’t lightning. It was a camera flash.

“Oh, goodness. No.” Lorraine held her purse in front of her face.

“Hey, what the hell?” Carter tried to stiff-arm the guy with the camera, but he got in one more shot before taking off.

Lorraine looked up at him with wild, frightened eyes.

“It’s okay,” Carter said, capturing her forearms and giving them a squeeze.

“No. No, it’s not.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

The valet picked that moment to pull up with her car. Before Carter could fully comprehend what was happening, she handed the valet a twenty-dollar bill, slipped behind the wheel and was gone.

Chapter 4

Lorraine pulled into her designated parking spot and grimaced when she spotted her brother’s car. She loved him, but she had no desire to listen to Stuart and her father lament over inventory or diamond cuts or any other business-speak tonight. She grabbed her clutch from the passenger seat before getting out of the car, then shut the door and leaned against it. Lorraine closed her eyes, sucking in a deep, cleansing breath.

What had she almost done?

She would have slept with Carter Drayson tonight. There was no doubt in her mind. If she’d allowed him to get in the car with her, she would have fallen into bed with a man she’d met a little over twenty-four hours ago. She wasn’t so sure they would even have made it to a bed. Lorraine feared she would have demanded he pull over into a dark alley so they could go at it right in the car.

“What’s gotten into you?” she said aloud as she pushed away from the car.

She was not this type of person anymore—some stupid, impulsive girl who disregarded all common sense because a good-looking man showed her a bit of attention.

She needed to take a step back, away from the spell Carter Drayson had woven around her. Even though everything inside her was telling her that Carter was being true, she just didn’t know enough about him to make a sound judgment call. Hadn’t she learned anything from her past mistakes?

Another man with a charming smile flashed in front of her eyes, and Lorraine’s stomach roiled. She’d tried to eradicate Broderick Collins from her psyche, but, apparently, five years was not long enough to purge such ugliness. She’d been down that road before; she wasn’t about to make a return trip.

She boarded the elevator that took her up to her family’s penthouse. Lorraine heard the muted, but distinctive voices of her father and her brother as soon as she entered the apartment. She attempted to be as quiet as possible as she slipped past the sitting room where the two of them were having a drink.

“Lorraine, I need to see you,” her father said.

Her chin dropped to her chest. She was not up for this tonight. Whatever this was.

She turned and walked into the sitting room that served more as an informal office for her father. He had a real office on his and her mother’s side of the penthouse, but he usually entertained business associates in this room.

Her father and her brother both sat in leather wingback chairs, holding highball glasses filled with amber-colored liquid. Her father held a sheaf of papers in one of his hands.

Arnold Hawthorne-Hayes was a huge man. Not fat. Never fat. But he had always been larger than life, with broad shoulders and an even broader countenance. Even though she’d lived with him for nearly all of her twenty-five years, Lorraine couldn’t say she knew the man all that well. He’d always been too busy building his empire; he didn’t have time to bother with something as trivial as being fatherly to his children.

“It’s just after ten o’clock,” Lorraine said. “I still have two more hours before my curfew.” She inwardly cringed. She would gain nothing by intentionally antagonizing her father.

“I don’t care what time you come home, Lorraine. What I care about is this.” Her father held up the papers. “Why are you trying to get a fellowship?”

She stared at the documents, her mouth falling open in disbelief. “How do you even know about that?”

“Because Warner Mitchell is one of the trustees responsible for making the decision,” Stuart piped in. “We were having lunch at the country club today and he wanted to know why my sister would need to apply for an artist fellowship, when the Hawthorne-Hayes Foundation already funds dozens of scholarships. I want to know the same thing.”

“It wasn’t about the money,” Lorraine said. She’d donated five times what the fellowship was worth to the school. This particular fellowship wasn’t just a need-based award. It was also talent-based.

“Do you know how embarrassing it was to have Warner ask me that question in front of everyone?” Stuart asked.

“Forgive me, Stuart—I didn’t know my art was such an embarrassment.”

“I’m tired of this, Lorraine,” her father stated. “I allowed you to pursue your art degree when you should have studied business as your brother and sister did, but I refuse to allow you to bring shame on this family’s name by soliciting fellowship money.”

He ripped the application in half.

Lorraine stared in disbelief at the tattered pages her father tossed onto the glass table between his and Stuart’s chair.

“This had nothing to do with the family name. I didn’t want the family’s name to have any influence over the selection committee.”

“You are a Hawthorne-Hayes,” her father said. “That name will always have influence.” He gave her a pointed look. “Forget the fellowship. This family gives to charity—it doesn’t take it.”