Sweet Surrender, Baby Surprise / The Secretary's Bossman Bargain. Kate Carlisle

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СКАЧАТЬ me feel like one of their properties. I know they loved me, so I blame it on the lawyers. It’s just how they used to write these things. The bottom line was, neither of my parents had siblings so there were no relatives who could take me in.”

      “Be thankful you weren’t put into the foster care system.”

      “Oh, I am,” she said in a rush. “My nanny, Rosemary, was great. She was like a mother to me.”

      “You were lucky to have her.”

      “Yes, I was.” Julia fortified herself with another sip of wine. “But two years later, she died suddenly. Cancer. It was overwhelming. I cried for weeks.”

      “I’m sorry.” He squeezed her hand lightly.

      She nodded. “The trustees hired another nanny but she didn’t do much. I was too old by then.”

      “You were only twelve.”

      “I always felt like a grown-up,” she said, smiling as she broke a breadstick in half and munched on it. “My parents traveled quite a lot for their foundation so I was used to spending time alone. It was okay. I was a self-sufficient kid.”

      Cameron sipped his wine. “You were lonely.”

      “Oh, please,” she said, waving the comment away. “Don’t make me sound like some poor little rich girl.”

      “Why not?” Cameron’s tone was so compassionate that Julia felt her eyes sting. Good grief, would she burst into tears merely because someone showed kindness to her?

      “Because no one cares,” she said. “Boo-hoo, all the money in the world but no one to love her. It’s such a cliché.”

      “Clichés are true for a reason.” Cameron put down his wineglass. “Some things are more important than money, Julia.”

      Did he mean love was more important? Julia wondered, but wasn’t about to ask him out loud. Instead she said, “I agree, but it’s easy for people with money to say it’s not important. So rather than annoy my friends, I keep it simple and don’t talk about myself.”

      “Except to me,” Cameron said, and his lips twisted in a grin.

      She frowned as though she’d just realized the same thing. “So it would seem.”

      ***

      The baby was asleep in his bed when they returned to the suite. Sally and her friends assured them they’d had the time of their lives and wanted to do it again. Then they said good-night.

      “Would you like a nightcap?” Cameron asked, as he headed for the dining room liquor cabinet.

      “I have a long day tomorrow,” she said, tossing her sweater over the dining room chair. “But I wouldn’t turn down a cup of hot chocolate.”

      “That’s not quite what I had in mind, but okay.” He shut the cabinet and followed her into the kitchen. “I’m not sure we have all the ingredients.”

      “We do.” She pulled a slab of chocolate down from the cupboard and began to break it into chunks.

      “Where did that come from?”

      “I brought it with me,” she said.

      “You always travel with your own supply of chocolate?”

      She looked at him as though he were a dimwit. “Of course.”

      “Oh, right, guess you never know when you’ll be called on to make dessert.”

      “That’s right.” She placed the chunks in a small saucepan, added a touch of water and put it on the stove.

      “That’s it?” he said, his tone dubious. She pointed to the pan, then the fire. “Chocolate. Hot. Equals hot chocolate.” “It seems like cheating.”

      She rested her fist on her hip. “You think I should carry cocoa beans and grind them to dust first?”

      “Something like that.”

      She laughed. “This skips a step or two.”

      He gave her another skeptical look, then stared at the pan. “I’m not sure about this.”

      She stirred the mixture slowly. “Because you’ve always made it with cold milk and chocolate syrup.”

      “Well, yeah,” he said, biting back a grin as he leaned against the bar. “Anything else is just un-American.”

      “Don’t judge until you’ve tried it,” she said mildly, adding some more drops of water as she continued to stir.

      “It’s starting to smell good.”

      “Here, you stir,” she said, handing him the spoon as she turned down the fire slightly. “I need to make whipped cream.”

      “I suppose you brought that with you, too.”

      “Always.” She pulled a container from the fridge.

      He couldn’t hold back his smile. “I like the way you travel.”

      She reached into a drawer and pulled out her own hand mixer, poured cream into a bowl, threw in a heaping spoonful of sugar, and began to mix it up. Less than four minutes later, she had a bowl of thick, pillowy whipped cream. She poured the creamy chocolate into two small coffee cups, added a dollop of whipped cream on top, and handed one to Cameron.

      “Sip the chocolate through the cream,” she instructed. “That way, you get the hot with the cold, but you don’t dilute either.”

      She stood inches away, watching him as he tried the concoction. He watched her, too, as he sipped the hot, creamy chocolate through the cool, soft whipped cream. It was possibly the most sweetly decadent thing he’d ever eaten.

      “Well?” she said.

      He stared at her and wondered what the chocolate and whipped cream might taste like when licked off her breasts.

      “It’s almost immoral, it’s so good,” he said, his voice husky.

      Her cheeks began to turn pink again and he found he enjoyed making her blush. He also savored watching her realize the direction his thoughts were traveling.

      She coughed to clear her throat. “So, you like it?”

      “Like it?” He took another long sip and emptied the cup. “Yeah. I’d suggest you package it, but I’m afraid it might be banned in thirty or forty states.”

      “I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said demurely, and placed her cup on the counter. “Thank you.”

      “No, thank you. It was delicious.” He put down his cup and reached for her. “I want to taste it on your tongue.”

      Before she could utter a word of protest, his mouth consumed hers.

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