Not that she didn’t want to change out of the brown slacks and tan pin-tucked blouse she’d worn to work. She just couldn’t let herself. This wasn’t a date and she needed not to forget that.
But she told herself that it was purely for her own comfort that she unleashed her hair from the ponytail it had been in all day, brushed it out and let it fall loose and full into its naturally curly mass.
And when it came to refreshing her blush and adding a neutral eye shadow, some eyeliner and more mascara, it was merely to look at the top of her game in order to warn him that he’d better not try to put one over on her.
Arriving at the bakery five minutes early, she spotted Derek Camden through the storefront windows as she pulled her sedan into a parking spot.
He was also still in work clothes, although he’d taken off his tie and suit jacket. He was wearing gray-blue suit pants and a pale blue dress shirt, and Gia’s first thought was that no one should look that good after a full day.
But there was just the hint of scruff to his sculpted jawline, and his dark hair was the ideal amount of disheveled; combined with the perfectly tailored shirt and pants, it formed a very sexy contrast.
A split second after the thought occurred to Gia, she reprimanded herself for it.
Handsome and sexy did not make the man. Handsome and sexy could, however, provide camouflage for something very ugly under the surface or behind the scenes.
It was a fact of life that she’d learned well and wouldn’t let herself forget.
It would have been easy to, though, because when she went into the bakery and Derek noticed her, he smiled a smile that said he liked what he saw. And it made her heart beat a little faster.
“Hi, thanks for coming,” he greeted her.
“Hi,” Gia responded simply.
“Excuse me just a minute.”
For a moment his attention turned back to the woman behind the counter. “So I can pick up the cake tomorrow at one—that’s great, just what I need.” Then, with a nod toward Gia, he said, “Let me add what we have now to the tab and I’ll settle up with you later?”
When the woman agreed, he said to Gia, “I don’t know if you’ve been here before, but you can’t go wrong with anything—”
“Lava cake, Bea,” Gia said to the woman, who was already taking one from the case and putting it on a plate.
“Heated with an extra dollop of hot fudge on top,” the woman recited her order from memory.
Derek laughed. “Ah, I see I’m not introducing you to anything new.”
“She’s our favorite chocoholic,” the owner of the bakery informed him.
He ordered lemon-meringue pie, and they both asked for iced tea. Then, while the shop owner got everything ready, Derek led Gia to one of the small café tables.
“We order all of our office celebration cakes here,” he explained. “Tomorrow I’m surprising my assistant with a little engagement party.”
A head-honcho Camden was ordering the cake himself? Her ex-husband and the rest of his family would never have bothered.
“How about you? How do you know this place?” he asked.
“I work around the corner and come at least once a day.”
Derek Camden’s well-shaped eyebrows rose. “Every day?” he said, taking a quick glance at her body as if wondering where the calories went.
“Sometimes it’s the only thing I eat all day,” she confessed.
“Chocolate every time?”
Her shrug confirmed it.
He laughed. “You are a chocoholic.”
Gia didn’t deny it.
“What do you do around the corner?”
“I’m a botanist. I work for a company that makes herbal supplements and medicines.”
The eyebrows went up again. “Really?”
“My ex said I’m just a glorified gardener.”
“Well, I’m just an accountant, so it sounds more impressive than that.”
He was being humble. Gia knew he was the chief financial officer of Camden Incorporated. But she preferred humility to arrogance. Elliot had been all arrogance.
Not that she preferred Derek Camden, she amended in her thoughts. The only way she wanted to compare him with her ex was in terms of their similarities—like the fact that they both came from big, powerful, rich families willing to do dishonest, shifty, devious and deceitful things.
“How did you get my cell phone number?” she asked then, continuing the vein of small talk while they waited for their desserts.
“My grandmother is friends with Jean Paulie—I believe she was one of the church members at your meeting last night—”
“She was.”
“Jean is one of the people who brought the Bronsons to our attention—her and the guy who cuts my hair because he had a donation jar in his shop. Anyway, I asked my grandmother if Jean had your number and she did.”
Gia nodded.
“My turn—how did you know who I was last night?” he asked.
“My best friend is Tyson Biggs. You dated his cousin and I saw a picture of you with her.” Gia didn’t add that the image had stuck with her because he was so terrific looking. Or that now that she’d seen him in person she couldn’t shake his image from her mind at all....
He grinned. “Sharon. Dragon nails, always in stilettos, carried a purse that was also a fish tank—complete with her goldfish in it—claimed to be psychic...”
“That would be Sharon,” Gia confirmed.
He smiled conspiratorially, in a way that was much too engaging. “Did she ever get a reading for you right?”
“I’ve never had her do one of her actual readings. She’s offered, but on the two times I’ve met her she told me out of the blue—”
“To prove her powers—she likes to do that,” he said as if it amused him.
“Well, the first time she told me I was pregnant and I wasn’t. The second time she said to watch out because I was going to lose my job. Luckily, that didn’t happen, either.”
“Yeah, she’s never gotten anything right that I know of. She isn’t even good at guessing,” he concluded with a laugh that wasn’t at all disparaging or unkind. “I haven’t seen Sharon in...I’m not even sure how long.”
“So long that you’ve had time to get married and settle down?” she asked because she was curious. She’d heard about Sharon and about her friends that he’d dated later—also all wackjobs, according to Tyson. But Gia didn’t know anything about Derek Camden beyond that, and she reasoned that if he’d married and settled down he might be more trustworthy in the Bronsons’ eyes.
But the question that shouldn’t have been difficult to answer instead seemed to puzzle him.
“Huh...” he said, rubbing the back of his neck and suddenly making a face that conveyed discomfort and confusion. “I was going to jump in and say no, never married. But then I remembered that that isn’t exactly true anymore. Is annulled a marital status?”
“Annulled... I don’t know, I’ve never met anyone who was annulled.”
“Yeah, me, neither...” he said