The teen draped her skinny arm over Reilly’s shoulders and gave a squeeze. Reilly briefly leaned into her and smiled. “Not only did you hit it dead-on, you delivered a TKO.”
“So it sucked being…chubby, huh?”
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “It sucked being designated as the class fat girl. The occasional taunts I could handle. The pig noises I could have done without.”
“Pig noises? Oh, how rank.”
Reilly smiled. “Yeah.”
It had been a while since Reilly had thought about that time. Really thought about it. Sure, she’d constantly watched her calories lest she began to regain any of that hard-lost weight. But it had been a good, long while since she’d remembered what it was like to feel uncomfortable in your own skin.
Of course, she also realized that Efi’s question wasn’t all that had brought back the memories. For some reason her awkward exchange with Ben Kane that morning had made her feel like that fat girl all over again. She’d remembered with horror how the captain of the football team had asked her to the prom in her junior year, and she’d gushingly accepted…only to find out later that day that it had all been a cruel joke. On her.
And Ben Kane represented everything that was that football captain. He was tall and handsome and dated all the best girls in class…in the city. What could he possibly want with her? Her love life wasn’t just slow, it was nonexistent. Sure, when she’d first dropped the weight, she’d given her new body a trial run. But the men she’d dated weren’t really worth mentioning and made her rethink the casual sex thing since she wasn’t really getting anything out of it anyway. Especially once she’d explored her body while in the privacy of her own room and turned herself on more than any of the men she’d dated combined.
But Ben…
God, just looking at him made her want to buy new batteries for her vibrator.
“And that’s exactly the reason you should stay away from him,” she whispered.
“What was that, Aunt Rei?”
“Hmm? Oh, nothing, Ef. I was just talking to myself.”
Out front a horn blared.
“That would be your sister,” Reilly said with relief.
“Right on time.” She kissed Reilly on the cheek. “You sure you don’t want me to stay and help finish this up? I could crash upstairs with you tonight.”
Reilly smiled. “Thanks, but I think I can manage. Tell your Mom thanks from me.”
“Thanks for what?”
“For talking about my Chubby Chuddy days.”
Efi laughed. “I will.”
She watched her niece go, pinching off a sloppy end from one of the strips of dough. Then she systematically transferred the lined baking sheets to the industrial-size refrigerator, her mind going over everything that had happened that day, and wandering, as it had almost every five minutes, back to Ben Kane and his tempting offer.
“Get real, Chubby Chuddy. Ben Kane is a calorie-packed double, double chocolate cheesecake and you’re on a diet.”
But nothing she said could stop her from hungering for him anyway.
3
MIDNIGHT. BEN’S RESTAURANT was closed. The infamous L.A. traffic had slowed to a trickle. The city’s residential streets were deserted. And Sugar ’n’ Spice still looked inviting, even with the lights dimmed and the tables empty.
Ben reached for the food he’d brought along with him then climbed from his black low-slung BMW convertible roadster. There was no sign of life inside the pastry shop, but having worked in a restaurant for a good deal of his life, he knew that didn’t necessarily mean someone wasn’t working away in the kitchen. He glanced through the sparkling glass toward the kitchen window. Sure enough, he saw a telltale light shining brightly behind the round pane.
Pure, physical want shot through him at the thought of Reilly being but a short distance away from him. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his head all night, no matter how busy and hectic it had gotten at the restaurant. And it had been a good, long while since a woman had had that effect on him. Oh, he might be attracted to a woman, know that at some point he would get together with her, but he had always easily shelved thoughts of her while he attended to work.
But Reilly…
He absently rubbed the back of his neck. His attraction to Reilly seemed to fly in the face of everything he thought he knew about himself. She wasn’t six-foot-something with model good looks and a sexual prowess he usually found attractive. In fact, she’d tried to dismantle his interest in her, throw up a roadblock in his pursuit of her, completely unimpressed that he owned one of the hottest eateries in L.A., catering to the hottest celebrities and the who’s who of the movie industry.
Of course, he didn’t flatter himself that all the women he dated were interested in him and him alone. He was aware of those who gravitated toward him because of the indirect Hollywood connections he had. The people he could introduce them to. The newspapers they could get their pictures in just by attending an event with him. While there were stars that garnered international attention for the roles they played and the salaries they raked in, within Hollywood itself was another form of celebrity status. And Ben prided himself on being a part of it.
No, greater America might not know who he was, but the people that greater America did recognize? They recognized him. And that power drew some intriguing people his way.
It was worlds away from the gray life he’d led growing up, working in the back of his father’s hot-dog stand down on Sunset, where mingling with the customers was not only prohibited, but undesirable. After all, there were only so many things a person could say about a hot dog. And a limited time in which to talk about it as the customers either took the food with them, or wolfed it down right on the spot.
Then his father had had a massive heart attack when Ben was twenty. He’d survived but had decided to retire, and had passed on the three stands he owned to Ben, fully expecting his only child to follow in his footsteps.
Instead, a few years later, Ben had sold the stands and used the cash to open Benardo’s Hideaway. And while the menu may have changed over the years, the restaurant’s motto didn’t. Essentially, everyone who walked through the doors of his place was treated like a star and the real stars who came were anonymous. No photographers, no journalists, no press and no fawning fans allowed.
There was at least one major drawback to his switch in gears, though. His father had never forgiven him for not spending his life handing steamed hot dogs out to rushed customers and had yet to even come to Benardo’s Hideaway. The last time Ben had visited him, Jerry Kane had said he wouldn’t fit in with the hoity-toity crowd his son catered to and would rather eat a frozen dinner at home—hot dogs being out because of his constant battle against cholesterol.
Ben hadn’t even realized the door to Sugar ’n’ Spice’s kitchen had opened until he blinked and found Reilly standing staring at him through the other side of the glass.
He grinned, her appearance reaffirming everything he remembered about this morning. Her warm blond hair. Her large hazel eyes. Her curvy, hot body.
Metal scratched as she methodically unlocked the front door then pulled it open.
“Ben,” her breath seemed to rush out of her sexy, unpainted mouth on a sigh.
“Reilly.” He lifted the bags he held. “Turns out the last of my staff left before I could have them deliver this so I had to make the delivery myself.”
The twinkle in her eyes told him she didn’t buy the line. And he liked that. In that one instant they connected in a silent, knowing way that didn’t need words.
Reilly looked at her watch.