Page 17 of Her Every Fantasy

She rested her hand on top of the crate, the other on her hip. ‘Not until I get some food inside me. All this trekking around is making me hungry. Are you going to feed me now?’

Her appetite had been one of the many things I loved about her, even though she’d detested it. Most of the women in my family and the women I dated treated food as if it was the necessary evil to be endured and not enjoyed. Savvie had been self-conscious about her weight when we’d met, had still been hung up about it despite my not-too-obvious-because-we-were-only-friends reassurances that she was beautiful regardless of her dress size. Whether she was still hung up about it or not, she’d obviously turned her insecurities to her advantage.

The fact that I didn’t even know for sure rattled.Badly.

Her other insecurities had been a little harder to overcome. My suspicion that it was one of those that had led her to hitch herself to Idiot Dan was one I’d never delved into. I wasn’t sure I wanted to now.

‘That was the deal,’ I replied, shying away from admitting to myself that I was looking forward to dinner. That my irritation was taking a back seat to the need to stay...a little bit longer.

The return journey in the lift was much less strained, although I was still aware of every shift and slide of her body, every rise and fall of her chest.

Outside, she paused, resting her hands on my car’s roof as she stared at me. ‘Where are we going?’

‘What are you in the mood for?’ Fucking hell. Really? I adjusted myself as my body reacted to that suggestive line of questioning.

Her smile was wicked. ‘I get to choose where we eat?’

I stopped my lips from twitching. ‘Within reason.’

The tiniest pout plumped her lips. ‘Well, I had sushi for lunch so anything but Japanese is fine with me.’

I nodded. ‘Get in.’

Her smile widened as she slid into the passenger seat. ‘Are you going to tell me or is it a surprise?’

She loved surprises. And I was getting carried away. ‘We’re going to Tetsuya’s. I’m in the process of poaching their head chef for my restaurant at The Sylph when it opens. He cooks prime steak the way you like it. Unless your tastes have changed?’ I added, reminding myself I was no longer privy to her likes and dislikes. Except maybe how she liked her nipples to be played with. How she liked her pussy licked.

Christ.

Oblivious to my struggles, she hummed happily, not reacting to the fact that I hadn’t forgotten the way she liked her food, whereas I was kicking myself for letting it slip.

‘Nope, I’m still a raging carnivore. Can we order ahead?’ she said impatiently as she adjusted the seat belt between her breasts.

I tried not to stare at the perfection of her full breasts or recall how the dark pink tips had tasted in my mouth. ‘Not without causing grievous offence, having my name scrubbed permanently off the guest list and possibly losing a potential head chef.’

She mock groaned and leaned back against the headrest. ‘Of course, you’d have to pick one ofthoserestaurants.’

I hid another smile. ‘I can just as easily get you a pizza from a street vendor if you prefer?’

She made a cute moue. ‘You’ve dangled Tetsuya’s and the wondrous talents of your soon-to-be chef in front of me. You can’t take it back now.’

Traffic was relatively light and I glanced over when we stopped at a red light on Raffles Avenue. Her eyes were closed but the fingers drumming lightly on her thigh told me she wasn’t asleep. A closer look showed faint signs of strain.

I curbed the concern nudging me. As I’d reminded her several times now, we were no longer the people we used to be. The people we imagined we knew. Best to treat this dinner as good client liaison and place distance between any possibility of rekindling false friendships.

And yet words tripped onto my tongue anyway. ‘Tough day?’

Her long lashes swept up before dark gold eyes locked with mine. ‘You could say that. Opening a new store is a hard work. Multiply that times ten for a flagship store and dealing with demands from investors...’ She shrugged, but the trace of anxiety on her face remained.

A moment later, her gaze shifted and the look disappeared, wiped clean with a hard brush of studied composure.

I focused on the road, ignoring the part of me that hated the barrier she’d put up. ‘It’s not your first flagship opening though, is it?’

‘No, but I have a new set of shareholders who like to poke their noses into how I run things. I miss the days of not answering to anyone but myself.’

The moment the words left her mouth, she tensed. From the corner of my eye I saw her gaze dart to me and, try as I could, I couldn’t stop my teeth from clenching in quiet fury.

She’d once been completely autonomous, the majority shareholder who called the shots in her own business until her money-grabbing ex had pushed her into rapid expansion that had almost cost her everything. Luckily, she’d seen the light in time to avoid major catastrophe. She’d divorced him, but not without parting with a large chunk of what she’d worked so hard for. According to a financial article I’d read a while ago, she was now in a fifty-fifty partnership with a Singaporean consortium.

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