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“Well, I don’t see the point at all.”
“And I didn’t ask.”
“You never do.”
“The secret to my success.” His tone came out a bit harsher than he intended and Clara’s expression reflected it. “You’ll survive this,” he said drily. “Breaking up is hard to do.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t be. I’m not so breakable. Tell me, any big word on the Japan location go up online while I was busy getting my photo taken?”
“All good. Some of the pictures I’ve been seeing are showing that it’s absolutely slammed. And everything seems to be going over huge.”
“Good. That means the likelihood of expanding further there is good.” He sat down in one of the vacant, linen-covered chairs. They had pink bows. Also Hannah’s choice. He put his hands on the tabletop, moving his mind away from the fiasco of a wedding day and getting it back on business. “How are things going with our designer cupcakes?”
“Um … well, I was pretty busy getting the wedding cake together.” Clara felt like her head was spinning from the abrupt subject change.
Zack was in full business mode, sitting at the trussed up wedding-party table like it was the pared-down bamboo desk he had in his office at Roasted’s corporate headquarters.
“And?”
“I have a few ideas. But these are pretty labor-intensive recipes and they really aren’t practical for the retail line, or even for most of the stores.”
“Cupcakes are labor intensive?”
She shot him a deadly look. “Why don’t you try baking a simple batch and tell me how it goes?”
“No, thanks. I stick to my strengths, and none of them happen to involve baking.”
“Then trust me, they’re labor intensive.”
“That’s fine. My goal is to start doing a few boutique-style shops in some more affluent areas. We’ll have bigger kitchens so that we’ll have the capability to do more on-site baking.”
“That could work. We’ll have to have a more highly trained staff.”
“That’s fine. I’m talking about a few locations in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, London, that sort of thing. It will be more like the flagship store. A bit more personalized.”
“I really like the idea, not that you’d care if I didn’t.”
“I am the boss.”
“I know. I’m just the Vice President of Confections,” she said, bringing up a joke they’d started in the early days of the company.
A smile touched his lips again and her heart expanded. “A big job.”
“It is,” she said. “And you don’t pay me enough.”
“Yes, I do.”
She gave him a look. One she knew was less than scary, but she tried. “Anyway, go on.”
“I had made an appointment to speak to a man who owns a large portion of farmland in Thailand. Small clusters of coffee and tea. All of his plants receive a very high level of care and that’s making for extremely good quality roasts and brews. My goal is to set up a deal with him so we can get some limited-editions blends. We’ll sell them in select locations, and have them available for order online.”
Her mind skipped over all the details he’d just laid out, latching on to just one thing. “Weren’t you going to Thailand on your honeymoon?”
“That was the plan.”
Clara couldn’t stop her mouth from dropping open. “You were going to do business on your honeymoon?”
“Hannah had some work to do, as well. Time doesn’t stop just because you get married.”
“No wonder she left you at the altar.” She regretted the words the moment they left her mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“You did, and that’s fine. Unlike you, Hannah had no romantic illusions, you can trust me on that. Her reasons for not showing up today may very well have had something to do with a Wall Street crisis. There’s actually a good chance she’s at her apartment, in her wedding gown, screaming obscenities at her computer screen watching the cost of grain go down.”
She had to concede that the scenario was almost plausible. Hannah was all icy cool composure, and generally nice and polite, until someone crossed her in the corporate world. Clara had overheard the other woman’s phone conversations become seriously cutthroat in tense business situations. Threats of removal of tender body parts had crossed her lips without hesitation.
She admired her for it. For the the intense way she went after what she wanted. She’d done it with Zack. It had been sort of awe inspiring to watch. Mostly it had been awe-inspiringly depressing. Because Clara wasn’t cutthroat, or intense. And she hadn’t been brave enough to pursue what she really wanted. She’d never been brave enough to pursue Zack.
“I doubt that’s what happened,” Clara said, even though she couldn’t be certain.
“There was a reason I asked how the designer-cupcake thing was going.”
“Oh.” Back to business.
“I was trying to make sure you didn’t feel swamped by the amount of work you have to do.”
“No. Creating recipes is the best part of my job. I’ve been having fun with this one. I’ve actually done most of the experimental baking and tasting with our panel, and I have a few standout favorites, plus some that need to be improved. And then I’ll have to narrow down the selection, because it just won’t be feasible to have too many different kinds on the menu at once.”
“So that was the long, detailed version of you telling me you aren’t too busy at the moment?”
She shot him a deadly look. Jilted or not, he didn’t need to be a jerk. “No, I’m not too busy.”
“Good, because everything was set for me to head to Chiang Mai tonight.”
“And you need me to make sure everything is running smoothly at corporate?” That wasn’t usually the role she fulfilled. She wasn’t an administrator, not even close.
“No, I want you to get packed, because you’re coming with me.”
Her stomach honestly felt like it plummeted, squeezing as it made its way down into her toes. “You’re not serious. You’re not actually asking me to come on your honeymoon with you?”
“The trip is booked. I have appointments made. I’m not canceling the honeymoon just because my bride neglected to show up.” He looked at her, like he had thousands of times, but this time felt … It felt different. The inspection seemed closer somehow, his gray eyes more assessing, more intimate. She swallowed hard and tried to ignore the fact that her heart seemed to be trying to claw its way out of her chest. “I think you’ll make a more than fitting replacement.”
CHAPTER TWO
IF he had physically hit her he couldn’t have possibly hurt her worse. A replacement? The consolation prize. The stand-in for tall, lean, angular Hannah who possessed the cheekbones of a goddess. Not that Clara had noticed, or compared.
Well, she had. And in some ways, on some days, the fact they were so different made it easier because there was no question of what the other woman had that she didn’t.
But she had never, never put herself in the position of trying to vie for Zack’s attention, not in that way. Because she’d known that she would be the consolation prize if he ever did decide to look in her direction. And she’d decided that was one thing she couldn’t do to herself. The one thing worse than watching the man who meant the world to her tie himself to another woman. Being the one he’d settled for.
And now Zack was shoving her into that position. It made her want to gag.
“I’m not a replacement for anyone, Zack. And if you’re suggesting I am, then I think we’ve become a little bit too comfortable with each other.”
She turned and walked out of the reception hall. She left the cake. She didn’t care about the cake. The staff of the hotel could have it for an early, sugary breakfast when they came in tomorrow morning.
She breezed through the hall and out the front doors, into the damp, salty air. It had been a cool day, but now, with the sun dipping down below the horizon, the air coming in off of the bay was downright chilly. Which was good, because now, if anyone saw her lip tremble a little bit, she could blame the cold.
She didn’t want to be emotional, not over something that wasn’t even intentional, and with Zack, she knew it wasn’t. Zack wasn’t mean, more than that; he simply wasn’t all that emotional, so he never assumed that anyone else was.
Everything was so surface to Zack. Nothing seemed to get under his skin. Nothing seemed to throw him off, even for a moment. Not even a canceled wedding.
Anyway, she’d had enough intentional digs taken at her in her life to know that things could get far too dramatic if she didn’t make people have to work at hurting her feelings.
But since her feelings for Zack were a constant jumble, her reactions to anything involving him were always strong. Most of the time, though, she managed to keep that fact hidden from Zack. A lot of the time, she kept the extent of her feelings hidden from herself.
“Clara.”
She turned and saw him standing just behind her. She didn’t say anything. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and fixed him with her best glare.
“You’re the second woman to abandon me today.”
Her face flooded with prickly heat. “See, that comparison is not very flattering, considering you’ve already used the word replacement in regards to me.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“That I need someone to come with me, and actually, under the circumstances you’re a better fit than my ex-fiancеe.”
For a full second she could only think of one thing his statement could possibly mean. Images clicked through her mind like close-up still-shots. Tan hands on a pale, bare hip. Masculine lips on a feminine throat. Blood roared through her body, into her cheeks, making her face burn. She was sure they were the color of ripe strawberries, broadcasting her thoughts to anyone who looked at her.
“What?” she asked.
“Hannah’s smart, don’t get me wrong, but she doesn’t know this market quite like you do. Prices on stocks, maybe, but it will be nice to have you on hand to offer an opinion about marketing and flavor.”
Business. He was talking about business. And somehow, to Zack, business was more important than romance and making love on his honeymoon?
At least he was pretending it was. There was something different about his expression, a dark light behind his gray eyes. She’d seen Zack nearly every day for the past seven years. She knew his moods, his expressions as well as she knew her own.
And this was a different Zack. Well, she thought it was. For some reason, the hardness, the intensity, seemed more true than what she thought she knew of him.
Strange. But then, the whole day had been strange. Starting with the interminably long silence after the strains of the Bridal March had faded from the air and the aisle remained vacant.
All right, he’d made her mad. It wasn’t the first time. He was bullheaded and a general pain in the butt sometimes. He was also the smartest man she knew, with a cutting wit that always kept her amused. He was one of the few people who’d never doubted that her ideas were good.
If she didn’t go with him, she would spend her evenings hanging out by herself, reading and experimenting with cupcake recipes and licking the batter off the spatula. Fun, sure, but not the kind of fun she could have in Thailand.
Again, those images, erotic and explicit, assaulted her. No, that wasn’t the kind of fun she would be having in Thailand. Zack had never looked twice at her in that way and for the most part, she was fine with that. She’d had a crush on him at first, but even then she hadn’t expected anything to come of it.
And, yes, Hannah had come in and stirred up some strange feelings. Because as long as Zack had simply been there, at work every day, and available for dinner meetings and a lot of other things, it had been comfortable. Zack was in every space in her life, at work and home.
But then along came Hannah, and she took up his time, and, Clara had assumed, that he loved her. And having to share Zack’s emotion with someone else had felt. It had felt awful. And it had made her jealous, which didn’t make sense because she’d never even tried to cross the boundaries of friendship with Zack. So it wasn’t like Hannah had been encroaching on her territory or anything. But she’d been so jealous looking at Zack and Hannah she’d felt like her stomach was turning inside out, and she knew, that even if she could never have Zack, she didn’t want anyone else to have him, either.
Which was just stupid and childish. About as stupid as going with a man on his honeymoon, platonically, in place of his bride, to conduct business with him. Platonically.
She needed her head checked. She needed some sanity. Maybe the problem was that Zack did take up all the spaces in her life. Maybe it would have to change.
Just the thought of that, of pushing him away, sent a sharp dose of pain through her system. She was addicted to him.
“All right. I’ll go. Because I would rather have a paid vacation in Thailand than spend the week hanging out in the office and orchestrating the return of all your wedding presents.”
“I’m not returning my wedding presents.”
“You can’t keep them, Zack.”
“Of course I can. I might need a food processor someday. What does a food processor do?”
“I’ll teach you sometime. Anyway, yes, I’ll go with you.”
The corner of his lip curved up into a wicked smile that made her stomach tighten in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. “Excellent. Looks like I won’t be spending my wedding night alone, after all.”
It probably wasn’t nice of him to tease Clara. But he liked the way her cheeks turned pink when he slipped an innuendo into the conversation. And frankly, he was in need of amusement after the day he’d had.
But amusement hadn’t been his primary goal when he’d given her the wedding-night line out in front of the hotel. He’d been trying to atone for his ill-spoken remark about her being a replacement. In truth, he had more fun with Clara than he did with Hannah. It wasn’t as though he disliked Hannah; quite the opposite. But he hadn’t been marrying Hannah for the company.
She’d needed a husband to help her climb the corporate ladder, a little testosterone to help her out in a male-dominated field. And a wife … well, a wife like her was a convenience for a lot of reasons.
But Clara was not his wife. In a lot of ways, she was better. And he hadn’t intended to hurt her feelings. She’d been quiet on the ride from the hotel back to her town house by the bay, and once they’d gotten inside to her place she’d dashed into her bedroom to pack a few things “real quick” which, in his experience with women meant … not quick at all.
He sat in her white leather chair, the one that faced her tiny television. Not state of the art at all, nothing like his place. The home theater had been one of his first major purchases when Roasted had become solvent. Clara’s had been an industrial-grade mixer for her kitchen. That was where all her high-tech gear was. She had a stove with more settings than his stereo system.
“Ready.” He looked up and his stomach clenched.
Clara was standing at the end of the hallway, large, pink leather bag draped over her shoulder, dark jeans conforming to the curve of her hips, and a black knit top outlining the contours of her very generous breasts. He hadn’t gotten married today, so he was going to allow himself a longer look than he ever did. He’d noticed her body before, but he’d never allowed himself to really look at her as a man looked at a woman. He didn’t know why he was letting himself do it now. A treat in exchange for the day, maybe. Or exhaustion making him sloppy with his rules.
Clara was an employee. Clara was a friend. Clara was not a possible lover, and normally that meant no looking at her like she could be.
But tonight wasn’t normal. Not by a long stretch.
“Good.” He stood up and tried to keep his interest in her body sublimated. But he was just a man. A man who had been celibate for a very long time. A man who had been expecting a reprieve on that and had been sadly disappointed.
“Are we taking the company jet?” She smiled, her perfectly shaped brow raised.
She really was beautiful, and not just her curves. He didn’t stop to notice her looks very often. She was like … not furniture, but a fixture for sure. Someone who was always there, every day, no matter what. And when someone was always there, you didn’t stop and look at them very often.
But he was looking at her now. Her face was a little bit round, her skin pale and soft. Her eyes, dark brown and wide, were fringed with dark lashes, surprising given her auburn hair color. And her lips … full and soft looking, a very delicate shade of pink.
