‘I cooked us dinner. It’s not exactly rocket science,’ she drawled.
Why had he never noticed how deliciously sarcastic she could be?
‘What?’ she asked
He blinked. ‘Sorry. I’m not following you.’
‘You were smiling. What did I say that was so funny?’
‘It was the way you said it.’ He paused. ‘Do you have any idea how delectable you are when you’re being sarcastic?’
It was her turn to blink. ‘Sarcasm is sexy?’
‘It is on you.’
She grinned. ‘Well, now. I think tonight has just got a whole lot more interesting. Are you on a sugar rush, Sean?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Working where you do, you have toffee practically on tap. Eat enough of the stuff and you’ll be on a permanent sugar rush. Which, I think, must be the main reason why you’re complimenting me like this tonight.’
No. It was because it was as if he’d just met her for the first time. She wasn’t the girl who’d irritated him for years; she was a woman who intrigued him. But he didn’t want to sound soppy. ‘Honey,’ he drawled, ‘the only sugar I want right now is you.’
She laughed at him. ‘Now you’ve switched to cheese.’
‘No. You’re the one who’s served cheese.’ He indicated the stuffing for the chicken. ‘And very nice it is, too.’
Her mouth quirked. ‘Keep complimenting me like this, and...’
‘Yeah?’ he asked, his voice suddenly lower. What was she going to do? Kiss him? That idea definitely worked for him.
‘Oh, shut up and eat your dinner,’ she said, looking flustered.
‘Chicken,’ he said, knowing that she’d pick up on the double use of the word—and he was seriously enjoying fencing with her. Why had he never noticed before that she was bright and funny, and sexy as hell?
Probably because he’d had this fixed idea of her as a difficult girl who attracted trouble. That was definitely true in the past, but now...Now, she wasn’t who he’d always thought she was. She’d grown up. Changed. And he really liked the woman he was beginning to get to know.
She served pudding next—a seriously rich chocolate ganache teamed with tart raspberries. ‘Come and work for my R and D department,’ he said, ‘because I think you’d have seriously good ideas about flavouring.’
She smiled. ‘I know practically nothing about making toffee, and if I make banoffee pie I always buy a jar of dulce de leche rather than making my own.’
‘That’s a perfectly sensible use of your time,’ he said.
She grinned. ‘It’s not so much that you have to boil a can of condensed milk for a couple of hours and keep an eye on it.’
‘What, then?’
‘I had a friend who tried doing it,’ she explained. ‘The can exploded and totally wrecked her kitchen.’
‘Ouch.’ He grimaced in sympathy, and took another spoonful of pudding. ‘This is a really gorgeous meal, Claire.’
‘I didn’t make the ganache myself—it’s a shop-bought pudding.’
‘I don’t care. It’s still gorgeous. And I appreciate the effort. Though, for future reference, you could’ve ordered in pizza and I would’ve been perfectly happy,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to spend time with you.’
‘Me, too,’ she said softly. ‘But I wanted to—well...’
Prove to him that she wasn’t the flake he’d always thought she was? ‘I know. And you did.’
And how weird it was that he could follow the way she thought. Scary, even. She was the last woman in the world he’d expected to be so in tune with.
Once he’d helped her clear away, she said, ‘I thought we could have coffee in the living room.’
‘Sounds good to me.’
‘OK. You can go through and put on some music, if you like,’ she suggested.
Claire’s living room had clearly been hastily tidied, judging by the edges of the magazines peeking from the side of her sofa—he remembered her telling him that she was addicted to magazines; but the flowers he’d sent her that morning were in a vase on the coffee table, perfectly arranged. Clearly she liked them and hadn’t just been polite when she’d thanked him for them earlier. And, given the pink tones in the room, he’d managed to pick her favourite colours.
Her MP3 player was in a speaker dock. He took it out and skimmed through the tracks. Given what she’d said at lunchtime, he’d expected most of the music to be pop, but he was surprised to see how much of it was from the nineteen-sixties. In the end, he picked a general compilation and switched on the music.
She smiled when she came in. ‘Good choice. I love the Ronettes.’ She sang a snatch of the next line.
‘Aren’t you a bit young to like this stuff?’ he asked.
‘Nope. It’s the sort of stuff my gran listens to, so I grew up with it—singing into hairbrushes, the lot,’ she said with a smile. ‘Best Friday nights ever. Totally girly. Me, Mum, Gran, Aunt Lou and my cousins. Popcorn, waffles, milkshake and music.’
It was the first time she’d talked about her family. ‘So you’re close to your family?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I still clash quite a bit with my dad,’ she said, ‘but that’s hardly tactful to talk about that to you.’
‘Because I’m male?’
‘Because,’ she said softly, ‘I’d guess that, like Ash, you’d give anything to be able to talk to your dad. And here am I grumbling about my remaining parent. Though, to be fair, my dad is nothing like yours was. Yours actually listened.’
Fair point. He did miss his parents. And, when the whole takeover bid had kicked off, Sean would’ve given anything to be able to talk about it to his dad. But at the same time he knew that relationships were complicated. And it was none of his business. Unless Claire wanted to talk about it, he had to leave the subject alone.
She’d brought in a tray with a cafetière, two mugs, a small jug of milk and the box he’d given her earlier. ‘Milk and sugar?’ she asked.
‘Neither, thanks. I like my caffeine unadulterated,’ he said with a smile.
Claire, he noticed, took hers with two sugars and a lot of milk. Revolting. And it also made him worry that she wouldn’t like the samples he’d brought; she probably preferred white chocolate to dark. Then again, he’d been wrong about a lot of things where Claire was concerned.
‘Right. This box of utter yumminess. Whatever else I might have said about you in the past,’ she said, ‘I’ve always said that you make seriously good toffee.’
Honesty compelled him to say, ‘No, my staff do. I’m not really hands-on in the manufacturing department.’
‘Now that surprises me,’ she said. ‘I would’ve pegged you as the kind of manager who did every single job in the factory so you knew exactly what all the issues are.’
‘I have done, over the years,’ he said. ‘Everything from the manufacturing to packing the goods, to carrying the boxes out for delivery. And every single admin role. And, yes, I worked with the cleaning team as well. Nowadays, I have regular meetings with each department and my staff know that I want to know about any problems they have and can’t smooth out on their own.’
‘Attention to detail.’