“And here I thought I was waiting patiently.”
She turned around, her ponytail flicking over her shoulder. She held out a hand as if displaying the pie on the counter. “May I present my newest creation? Toasted-hazelnut graham cracker crust. Dark chocolate pudding. Toasted-marshmallow meringue topping. I’m calling it s’more pie.”
He faked a groan of anguish. “And I have to wait until the shop opens to try it.”
She grinned, stepping aside to reveal a second, tiny pie. “You know I’d never serve a pie at the shop that I hadn’t tested. Just give me a second to toast the—”
But he didn’t give her a second. He’d waited long enough. He strode across the room, slipped his hands under the hem of her nightgown to cup her—hello!—bare ass. Her flesh was firm and warm in his hands and he only had to lift her a few inches off the ground for the apex of her thighs to graze against his throbbing erection. She arched, rubbing herself against him. Then he lifted her higher and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He backed her up half a step and let her ass rest on the counter behind her.
When he kissed her she tasted like sinful dark chocolate and meringue so sweet it was almost too much.
That was Meg all over. An irresistible combination of sinful and sweet. And always, almost too much.
Her hands found his zipper and eased it down, slipping into his jeans to free him. She wrapped nimble fingers around him and gave first one then a second long slow tug before she positioned him right between her lips. She rubbed herself against him, stroking the folds of her sensitive flesh first with the head of his penis and then—as she eased herself down his length—with her own fingers. She was desperate and needy and came almost before he did.
That was Meg all over. She was the sexiest woman he’d ever seen and she met him, passion for passion. She was almost too good to be true.
He wondered if she thought the same about him.
* * *
Later—a hot shower and a warm pie later—they were back in bed. She was almost drifting off to sleep as he traced the bared arc of her back, when he asked, “Why s’more pie?”
She sighed, nuzzled closer and muttered, “Because those are all the ingredients of s’mores, dummy.”
“No. I meant what made you think of s’mores?”
She was quiet for a minute, and her breathing became so even and relaxed, he thought she’d probably fallen back asleep, when she said, “I don’t know. Something about this—this thing between us—it feels like being at summer camp, don’t you think?”
He chuckled. “Trust me. I did not do this at summer camp.”
She gave his arm a swat. “No, silly. I mean it feels perfect but ephemeral. Like the last days of summer camp.”
He sucked in a breath and held it, waiting to see what else she’d say. Because that was it, right there. The perfect moment. The moment he’d been angling for these past few weeks. It doesn’t have to be ephemeral. Come back to Houston with me. Marry me.
It would have worked. She’d have fallen for it, just as she’d fallen for him.
But he didn’t say it. He couldn’t force the words out.
A moment later she said, “My grandpa used to make the best s’mores.”
“I thought all s’mores were the same.”
She seemed not to notice how stiff and formal he sounded.
“No, silly. The perfect s’more depends on the perfect toasted marshmallow. And Grandpa could roast ’em with the best. He was so patient.” She was silent for several beats, and then added, “I wish you could have met him. You’d have loved him.” And then came the kicker. “And he’d have loved you.”
“I doubt that.” He muttered the words, but she still heard them.
She pushed herself up on her elbow and looked down at him, her gaze still sleepy but firm. “No. He would have loved you. You’re a good man, Grant Sheppard.”
She pressed a kiss to his lips before settling back onto his shoulder.
An hour later, once she was deeply asleep, he got dressed and slipped out of her house. As he drove through Victoria for the last time, he could still taste her kisses and her pie on his lips.
Yeah, she believed he was a good guy. That had been his plan all along: find Hollister Cain’s missing daughter, make her fall in love with him, marry her and gain control of just enough of Cain Enterprises to drive the company into the ground.
It wasn’t the plan of a nice guy. It was the plan of an asshole bent on personal revenge at any cost. Yeah, he could live with that. He was a bastard. He knew it.
The problem wasn’t even that she didn’t know it. The problem was, when she looked at him like that, he wanted her to be right. He wanted to be the man she thought he was. And that kind of weakness was completely unacceptable.
As he drove out of town, he started working on a new plan.
Just over two years later
Meg Lathem sat in her dusty, beat-up Chevy, cursing the blazing Texas sun, the crowded streets of downtown Houston and her tiny bladder.
She should have stopped at that Dairy Queen in Bay City to pee. Yes, she’d still be nervous as hell about seeing Grant Sheppard again after all this time, but at least she’d have a Dilly Bar to soothe the pain.
Instead, all she had was dry mouth and the beginning stages of an ulcer.
She chewed on her lip for a second. Then dug around in her purse for her lip balm. Instead, she found her cherry bomb lipstick, which she wore to finish up extra-long days when she needed a bit of sass and sex appeal to coast until the bakery closed. Today, she needed neither sass nor sex appeal. She needed sensibility and reason.
She shoved the lipstick back in her purse, slung the strap over her shoulder and was climbing from the car just as her phone rang.
If it had been any number other than her friend Janine’s she would have let it roll over to voice mail. However, Janine—who usually helped manage the bakery—was watching Meg’s daughter, Pearl, while Meg took this little jaunt to Houston, so she slid back into the car and shut out the noise of Houston traffic. She answered it with, “Is Pearl okay?”
“Pearl’s fine, honey. She’s happier than the cherry on a hot-fudge sundae.”
The knot of anxiety in her chest loosened a smidge. “Then why are you calling?”
“You done it yet?”
“It’s a two-hour drive from Victoria. No, I haven’t done it yet. I just got here.”
“Liar. You never met a speed limit sign you didn’t love to mock. I bet you made it there thirty minutes ago and have been sitting outside his office making calf eyes at the words Sheppard Bank and Trust scrawled above the door.”
“Am not.” Meg glanced at her watch. She’d only been here for twenty-two minutes. And the words Sheppard Bank and Trust were not above the door. They were slapped on the outside of the building near the forty-second floor in ten-foot-tall letters. And she hadn’t been making calf eyes at them so much as scowling. “I do not feel that way about Grant Sheppard anymore and you know it. That man is a lying, cheating sack of—”
“You don’t have to do this,” Janine said quietly.
“I know.” She brought her hand up to her forehead and rubbed, pressing her thumb near the crest of her eye socket where the tension seemed to