The taste exploded on Ruby’s tongue, spicy and citrusy and luxuriously fresh.
She hummed with pleasure. ‘It’s an overused phrase, but that seriously is better than sex.’ Or better than the vast majority of the sex she’d had.
Ella laughed and clapped her hands. ‘It’s good, isn’t it?’
‘It’s not good, El. It’s orgasmic. I can taste orange and lemon and maybe a hint of cinnamon, but there’s something else there. What is it?’
Ella touched her nose, her grin widening. ‘That would be telling, but it took me two hours of sampling before I figured it out.’
‘Well, it was worth it. We should add it to the menu right away. It’ll be perfect for summer events. Let’s debut it on the cupcake tower at Angelique Devereaux’s wedding.’ Ruby’s mind raced with the logistics of getting the new recipe maximum exposure.
‘Talking of love and orgasmic sex,’ Ella interrupted, typically uninterested in the details that Ruby was so good at taking care of, ‘I had a very nice chat with the new man in your life an hour ago.’ Ella’s grin turned cheeky. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d lifted your boyfriend embargo? If he looks half as good as that delicious voice sounds I’m guessing you hit the jackpot this time.’
‘What new man?’ Ruby said, her whirring mind grinding to a halt.
‘Callum Westmore, that’s who,’ Ella replied easily, obviously still convinced Ruby was keeping secrets.
Ruby searched her inventory of names. She’d gone out with a few guys in the last six months, just to keep her hand in. But she hadn’t agreed to a second date with any of them—always mindful of her new business-first-romance-last strategy. ‘I don’t know anyone called Callum.’
Ella’s brow creased. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. I may be flighty but I always get a guy’s name before I date him. It’s fairly essential information,’ she finished wryly.
Ella touched her fingers to her lips. ‘Oops.’
‘Why oops?’ Ruby demanded. She didn’t like the guilty look on Ella’s face.
‘I thought you were dating him. He sounded so confident and … Well, he had this amazing voice. A bit posh but not too posh and really deep and purposeful. And he said he needed to see you. Urgently. So I told him we finished at 5:30 p.m.’
‘You gave him the address to the kitchen?’ It was Ruby’s turn to frown. She had a rule, which Ella was very well aware of, not to give casual dates her workplace info, because it only confused things. ‘Oh, Ella, you didn’t.’
And more importantly, who the heck was this guy? He certainly wouldn’t be the first to try and get her details out of Ella. But no one had ever managed it before. Ella was usually a complete Rottweiler when it came to guarding Ruby’s privacy—because she knew just how determined Ruby was to resist temptation, especially since the messy break-up with Johnny.
So how had Callum Westmore, whoever the heck he was, managed to wheedle the information out of Ella with such apparent ease?
The image of Mr Super-Gorgeous popped into her mind. The man she hadn’t been able to get out of her head all afternoon. Despite all her best efforts.
‘What exactly did this Callum Westmore say? In his sexy voice?’ Ruby asked, but she was already fairly certain. He had to be the one. Who else did she know who would be arrogant and confident enough to ring up and brazenly muscle the information he wanted out of her best friend without breaking a sweat?
‘Just that he needed to see you,’ Ella said carefully. ‘In fact, he sort of demanded to see you,’ she added, as if the thought had only now occurred to her. ‘But to be honest, it didn’t even cross my mind to refuse him. He sounded so sure of himself.’
I’ll just bet he did.
Ruby cursed softly under her breath.
Still, at least she had a name, now. Callum Westmore. It sounded like the name of a twelfth-century Scottish warlord. Which fitted him down to a T. Commanding, completely uncompromising and defiantly masculine—and prepared to swoop down and carry off any female who caught his fancy, whether she wanted him to or not.
The frisson of heat at the fanciful, romantic and utterly un-PC image stunned Ruby for a moment. Callum Westmore was about as far from her ideal date as it was possible to get. She should have found his pushy behaviour exceptionally galling. So why was her heart kicking giddily in her chest at the prospect of seeing him again?
The bright trill of the doorbell made them both jump.
She glanced at her watch. Five-thirty precisely.
‘That’s him,’ she muttered. Trust him to be ridiculously prompt. Which was another good reason to dislike the man. Promptness was a skill she’d never quite managed to master herself—as this afternoon’s fiasco with Gregori Mallini proved—and one she found slightly intimidating in other people.
‘Do you want me to tell him you’re not here?’ Ella whispered, as if their uninvited guest could hear through walls.
Ruby considered the offer. For about a second.
‘No. He’s probably spotted my car.’ And even if he hadn’t, she somehow knew Callum Westmore would see straight through the ruse. Ella, with her open, uncomplicated nature and big doe eyes, couldn’t lie worth a damn—and, anyway, Callum Westmore clearly wasn’t the sort of guy who took no for an answer.
‘Don’t worry,’ Ruby said, marching out of the kitchen. ‘I’ll handle this.’
She threw the words over her shoulder as she strode through the reception area to the front door of the business unit.
Okay, maybe her attraction to him was a little surprising … and ever so slightly disconcerting. But she had no doubt at all that she could handle Callum Westmore just fine.
He might have the name and the dominating masculinity of a twelfth-century Scottish warlord, but she was no simpering little virgin.
The prickle of irritation, though, was twinned with the heightened hum of arousal as she spied Westmore’s tall frame silhouetted against the frosted glass of the door. She took a deep breath and turned the knob, secure in the knowledge that no man got to sweep Ruby Delisantro off her feet …
Not unless she wanted him to.
CHAPTER THREE
‘MR WESTMORE, I presume,’ Ruby remarked to broad shoulders—their width accentuated by the perfectly tailored jacket of a dark blue business suit—and the short-cropped hair on the back of his head.
She swallowed as he turned, and those heavy-lidded emerald-green eyes locked on her face.
Damn.
She should have taken the time to put her shoes back on. Without the benefit of the four-inch heels, she was at eye level with his chest, which, even clad in a white shirt and royal-blue silk tie instead of the bicep-hugging T-shirt of earlier in the day, still looked remarkably impressive. She jerked her eyes back to his face, in time to see a slow, distinctly knowing smile curve his lips.
He slung a hand into the pocket of his suit trousers, disarming dimples appearing in his cheeks—which were now clean-shaven, but no less chiselled.
‘Ms Delisantro, I presume,’ he murmured, the husky tone making her pulse points throb.
Her breath escaped from her lungs in a rush.
Her imagination had not exaggerated his attractiveness, or that industrial-strength sex appeal, one bit. He really was Super-Gorgeous. Even in a suit. Which was saying something. She didn’t usually go for the slick, executive type. She’d