Delectable Desire

“Is that good or bad?” he managed to ask, despite the tightness in his throat.

“Probably both.”

“How so?”

In a slightly lower, slightly awe-filled whisper, she said, “You make me want to do things I’d never before considered doing on a first date.”

There was no mistaking the look in her eyes. He’d seen it in the eyes of countless other women, but Lorraine looked even hungrier than most. Carter felt light-headed. “Are you ready for the check?”

“Yes,” Lorraine quickly answered.

The extremely attentive waitstaff at Les Nomades had their plates cleared in no time, and five minutes later, Carter had taken care of the check. He rounded the table and pulled out her seat, then settled his hand at the small of her back as he guided Lorraine out of the restaurant.

Les Nomades was within walking distance of the bakery, so he’d left his car parked in his usual spot. But Lorraine had driven here. As they waited underneath the awning for the valet to bring her car around, Carter told himself to slow down.

But he couldn’t. He had to taste her.

He leaned forward, his heart pounding in anticipation of the way Lorraine’s lips would feel against his.

Just then, a flash of lightning streaked across her face. Wait. That wasn’t lightning. It was a camera flash.

“Oh, goodness. No.” Lorraine held her purse in front of her face.

“Hey, what the hell?” Carter tried to stiff-arm the guy with the camera, but he got in one more shot before taking off.

Lorraine looked up at him with wild, frightened eyes.

“It’s okay,” Carter said, capturing her forearms and giving them a squeeze.

“No. No, it’s not.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

The valet picked that moment to pull up with her car. Before Carter could fully comprehend what was happening, she handed the valet a twenty-dollar bill, slipped behind the wheel and was gone.

Chapter 4

Lorraine pulled into her designated parking spot and grimaced when she spotted her brother’s car. She loved him, but she had no desire to listen to Stuart and her father lament over inventory or diamond cuts or any other business-speak tonight. She grabbed her clutch from the passenger seat before getting out of the car, then shut the door and leaned against it. Lorraine closed her eyes, sucking in a deep, cleansing breath.

What had she almost done?

She would have slept with Carter Drayson tonight. There was no doubt in her mind. If she’d allowed him to get in the car with her, she would have fallen into bed with a man she’d met a little over twenty-four hours ago. She wasn’t so sure they would even have made it to a bed. Lorraine feared she would have demanded he pull over into a dark alley so they could go at it right in the car.

“What’s gotten into you?” she said aloud as she pushed away from the car.

She was not this type of person anymore—some stupid, impulsive girl who disregarded all common sense because a good-looking man showed her a bit of attention.

She needed to take a step back, away from the spell Carter Drayson had woven around her. Even though everything inside her was telling her that Carter was being true, she just didn’t know enough about him to make a sound judgment call. Hadn’t she learned anything from her past mistakes?

Another man with a charming smile flashed in front of her eyes, and Lorraine’s stomach roiled. She’d tried to eradicate Broderick Collins from her psyche, but, apparently, five years was not long enough to purge such ugliness. She’d been down that road before; she wasn’t about to make a return trip.

She boarded the elevator that took her up to her family’s penthouse. Lorraine heard the muted, but distinctive voices of her father and her brother as soon as she entered the apartment. She attempted to be as quiet as possible as she slipped past the sitting room where the two of them were having a drink.

“Lorraine, I need to see you,” her father said.

Her chin dropped to her chest. She was not up for this tonight. Whatever this was.

She turned and walked into the sitting room that served more as an informal office for her father. He had a real office on his and her mother’s side of the penthouse, but he usually entertained business associates in this room.

Her father and her brother both sat in leather wingback chairs, holding highball glasses filled with amber-colored liquid. Her father held a sheaf of papers in one of his hands.

Arnold Hawthorne-Hayes was a huge man. Not fat. Never fat. But he had always been larger than life, with broad shoulders and an even broader countenance. Even though she’d lived with him for nearly all of her twenty-five years, Lorraine couldn’t say she knew the man all that well. He’d always been too busy building his empire; he didn’t have time to bother with something as trivial as being fatherly to his children.

“It’s just after ten o’clock,” Lorraine said. “I still have two more hours before my curfew.” She inwardly cringed. She would gain nothing by intentionally antagonizing her father.

“I don’t care what time you come home, Lorraine. What I care about is this.” Her father held up the papers. “Why are you trying to get a fellowship?”

She stared at the documents, her mouth falling open in disbelief. “How do you even know about that?”

“Because Warner Mitchell is one of the trustees responsible for making the decision,” Stuart piped in. “We were having lunch at the country club today and he wanted to know why my sister would need to apply for an artist fellowship, when the Hawthorne-Hayes Foundation already funds dozens of scholarships. I want to know the same thing.”

“It wasn’t about the money,” Lorraine said. She’d donated five times what the fellowship was worth to the school. This particular fellowship wasn’t just a need-based award. It was also talent-based.

“Do you know how embarrassing it was to have Warner ask me that question in front of everyone?” Stuart asked.

“Forgive me, Stuart—I didn’t know my art was such an embarrassment.”

“I’m tired of this, Lorraine,” her father stated. “I allowed you to pursue your art degree when you should have studied business as your brother and sister did, but I refuse to allow you to bring shame on this family’s name by soliciting fellowship money.”

He ripped the application in half.

Lorraine stared in disbelief at the tattered pages her father tossed onto the glass table between his and Stuart’s chair.

“This had nothing to do with the family name. I didn’t want the family’s name to have any influence over the selection committee.”

“You are a Hawthorne-Hayes,” her father said. “That name will always have influence.” He gave her a pointed look. “Forget the fellowship. This family gives to charity—it doesn’t take it.”