Page 111 of The Nanny and the Hothead
“Take a sip of water,” Mitch said, concern clouding his expression as he handed her the bottle. “I think you’re still reeling.”
“Reeling?” she repeated, then downed a giant gulp.
“From what just happened—from interacting with those jerks,” he finished.
And that’s right! The universe had thrown her a whammy with the Cliff Sutton Bryan one-two punch.
“Yeah, that’s got to be it,” she replied, then took another sip.
“And the photography,” Mitch added.
The photography?
“What?” she eked out.
“You’ve been taking pictures all day. Any time I caught a glimpse of you, you were so focused, so engrossed in your work. I know what that’s like. It’s exhilarating but exhausting.”
Her pounding heart slowed a fraction. There was no way he could have seen the email—and no way he could understand the gravity of what she’d been offered. Should she tell him about London? She could show him the email, and like two grown adults, they could discuss the prospect of her leaving for a couple of weeks. She released a slow breath. “Mitch, I—” she began as he started talking as well.
“Sorry! Go ahead,” he said, his cheeks growing pink. A verynon-hotheadedreaction. It was boyish—sweet and endearing. A heady buzz traveled through her body. And it was because of this man—a man she’d never expected to like. Every day, no, more like every hour, another layer peeled away, and she saw more of him—the truest version of him. The man in the old photographs, looking as if he were on top of the world.
“No, you go first,” she said, unable to look away, wrapped in an invisible cocoon made of pure swoon. “You were saying?”
“I need to tell you something, Charlotte,” he began, his words infused with tenderness. And the swoon-factor intensified.
“Okay,” she breathed.
Between him telling off the creeps in her life, that charming blush, and his gentle tone, he could have started reading the phone book out loud, and she would have been utterly beguiled. But it was more than that. There was something different about him. The sound of her name flowing from his lips made her head spin. Here, alone in the truck, it sounded like poetry.
“You can tell me anything, Mitch.”
He smiled—and God, that smile! She was left breathless, staring at his beautiful face.
He looked around the truck. “This was a good day. This was the right place to start.”
“Absolutely,” she agreed. “You fed a lot of people, got some great press, and I didn’t hear you yell at anyone.” She suppressed a grin. “You did threaten Sutton Bryan with bodily harm and let Cliff have it, but they don’t really count.”
“But you do, Charlotte,” he said, his voice a low, husky rasp. “You count, and I have you to thank for this.”
There it was—the signature Mitch Elliott intensity. He radiated this magnetism that rendered her near speechless. But she couldn’t take the credit for today. Mitch, Sergio, and Erick had cooked their asses off. And it was Ralph and Louise Dagby who’d allowed them to park there. She might have been a part of the action, but she hadn’t made this day a success.
She shook her head. “You’re wrong. This is all you, Mitch. You started Say Cheese, Louise. You’re the chef. You got yourself on TV. You worked to build a successful career. And you’ll get it back. Whatever you’re looking for, whatever you lost. If anyone can get that back, it’s you.”
She meant every word.
His career might have detoured. But after today, she’d seen what everyone must have seen in the guy the first time he’d cooked inside Say Cheese, Louise.
“But you’re the reason I went back to the beginning—the real beginning,” he countered. “You were the one who suggested the food truck reboot.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Suggested?” she teased, needing to tamp down the intensity. It was almost too much to have him staring at her like that. Like he wanted her body and soul.
Her comment landed as she’d thought it would, and his lips curled into a sly smirk. “I know it’s not like me, but I was trying to be polite. The correct description is more like youambushedme in front of my publisher and publicist with the idea. But it was the push I needed,” he finished, his expression growing earnest.
“You would have figured out a way forward with the book,” she replied.
He took a step toward her. His observant eyes positively smoldered as he gripped the counter, one hand on each side of her. Pinned by his towering, muscular body, her breaths came hard and fast. It was just like when he’d done the same thing against the side of the RV.
“We both know that’s not true. I was stuck. I’ve been stuck for a very long time,” he confessed, as his very presence seemed to fill the entire space.
