She’d crossed her ankles to stop herself taking a step forward, sensing that he wanted space, trying to respect that. Her eyes, though, had seemed desperate to pursue Will Thomas, to roam over the lines and planes of his face, down to where his shirt, crisp and starched and white, was open at the collar.
She’d introduced her starter: a salad of hand-harvested scallops, pan-fried and served with rocket and prosciutto, finished with a dressing it had taken two full evenings to perfect. He’d given it a derisive look and asked her to move on, his fingers twitching on the screen of his phone. Email withdrawal, she assumed. She’d catered for enough business dinners to recognise the symptoms. But the knowledge that he was choosing to check his emails over trying her food made her restless. Her food always spoke for her—what was she meant to do with someone who refused to listen?
On this man those chiselled cheekbones and intriguing silver eyes were entirely resistible.
She closed her mouth and bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from a very unprofessional outburst.
He had to try this dish. She was certain that it would fix their impasse. If he would just give the food a chance she could still win him over. She’d sourced tender duck from a nearby farm and selected only the most beautiful vegetables from her local supplier. The herbs had come from the garden of her cottage in the Cotswolds and the sauce, a delicate balance of wine, red berries and orange, was—as of last night’s final run-though—perfect.
She wanted it to be right, needed it to be perfect, because if she could no longer rely on her food what else did she have to offer?
Taking a step towards him, she brandished the fork.
‘You are going to try this one,’ she repeated with renewed determination.
She tried to paste the smile onto her face again to soften the blow, but there was no disguising the fact that this was an instruction, not a request, and her frustration had made her words short and sharp.
Will met her gaze and seemed to study her; his eyes narrowed while he inspected her features, as if weighing up his opponent. He slipped the smartphone into his pocket and took the fork from her.
‘Do I have a choice?’
Maya couldn’t be certain but a ghost of a smile had seemed to flicker at the corner of his mouth. His eyes left her face only briefly as he forked a mouthful of the meat and dipped it into the sauce. She grew warm under his relentless scrutiny and thought again of that moment when she’d first seen him. His eyes had widened when he’d noticed her standing in the conference room, as if he couldn’t quite take her in, as if he didn’t understand her. She didn’t want to be difficult to understand. She had no interest in being enigmatic. What she needed was for him to like this dish, to restore her belief in her food—in herself.
For a moment as he chewed she thought she’d done it, that her food had broken this man’s icy resolve. He closed his eyes for a moment, and she was sure he was savouring the flavours she’d worked so hard to blend and perfect. His body stilled, his breathing was slow, his fingers were at rest on his phone. The muscles of his face hinted at a smile. But then in an instant it was gone; his eyes snapped open and she saw only indifference.
‘That’s fine.’
Fine? Fine? Perhaps she’d imagined it, she thought. That moment when it had seemed, however briefly, that he had been won round. Or maybe she hadn’t, and he was just determined for some reason not to enjoy her food, whatever she put in front of him. Anger at his uninterest prickled—how could he be so determined not to enjoy something she had poured her joy and happiness into?
This wasn’t going to get any better, she realised then. She just had to find a way to get through this. To protect herself from the barbs of his coldness until she could get out of there. She relaxed her hold on her anger, bringing it to the fore, letting it protect her from his cold indifference.
‘Dessert?’ she asked, dreading the response, dreading the rejection, but wanting to get it over with.
‘I’m sure you’ve got that under control.’
‘Blackberry fool?’ Why not show him how his dismissal hurt? she thought. It wasn’t as if he would even care or notice. And it might make her feel a little better.
His eyes held hers and she felt the heat in her face sink to her belly when he continued to stare at her. She shifted under his scrutiny, trying not to wonder what he was thinking, why he was studying her irises. It seemed that her anger could reach him where her food hadn’t.
Will raised an eyebrow. ‘It sounds like you’ve got the measure of things, Miss...’
‘Maya’s fine,’ she said, her words still terse.
‘Maya,’ he repeated, his voice a little less steady than it had been.
He took a deep breath and she saw a blank mask descend over his face, shutting out whatever it was that had flashed between them in the past few seconds. It was a pattern, she realised. A few seconds when his features flickered with emotion, some pleasure or enjoyment. And then he chased it away, locked his face down hard. His voice too, when he spoke next, was the model of professionalism, his words hard and steady.
‘Thank you for coming, Maya. Leave your quote with my assistant and someone will be in touch.’
Anger fought for room with sorrow and the pain that had haunted her since her childhood. Will had shut her out in a fraction of a second. It had taken him the space of a blink to forget whatever it was that had made him pause and consider her the moment before. And she couldn’t help but remember how her parents had so easily done the same.
He’d reduced everything that she’d created to a string of numbers on a spreadsheet. A simple calculation that took no account of love and passion. She couldn’t meet his eye—didn’t know if he was even trying to as she shook his hand. As he walked out she let her frustration loose as she tossed cutlery and crockery back into bags and boxes and then packed away the barely touched food.
She tried rationalising what had happened to make herself feel a little better. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested in her food, it was just that he only cared about the numbers. Perhaps she should have guessed the moment he’d walked into the room that this was just another business meeting for him.
She’d never been so infuriated by anyone in her life, she thought as she headed out to her car. It wasn’t just his lack of enthusiasm for her food, it was the way that he’d seemed completely unwilling to let himself enjoy it, his determination to see life in columns and cells. He’d only tried one course out of three: her food had never stood a chance of impressing him because he had never been prepared to let it.
That thought drained her anger, sapped the tension from her muscles, as she remembered the last time her passion been faced with pure indifference.
Even if she was offered the job she knew she wouldn’t be seeing him again. She knew that to cook, and cook well, for that man after today’s disaster would be impossible—a complete waste of good food and time, and too close to too many bad memories. She couldn’t do it.
* * *
Will glanced at his watch and then back over his shoulder as he waited for Maya to come to the door. He shouldn’t be here. He’d tried to convince Rachel to do it for him, but she had told him that going against Sir Cuthbert Appleby was more than her job was worth, that he’d have to suck it up and do it himself. So he’d spent his evening crawling through Cotswold villages—time away from the office that he really couldn’t afford—in order to ask for something he desperately didn’t want.
He looked up at the front of the cottage as he waited and cringed. Just like Maya, the house was a riot of colour. Roses crept up the warm sandstone, over the door and up towards the thatch, and window boxes overflowed with bright-coloured flowers.
When she’d walked out of his office two days ago he’d thought—hoped—that