A flash of hurt crossed her face. “What are you doing here? I’m busy.” She started to write furiously and the lead on her pencil snapped. “Shit.”
What was he doing here? Wasn’t it obvious? Then again, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe this wasn’t what she wanted at all. He panicked, looking around for an excuse. “I’m here to try one of your samples, I guess.” He glanced down at the table. Little rounded, iced cakes were set out in pink and blue papers on the table, lined up like buttons. “Do I get one of A and one of B?”
“I’m not sure I want you to have any, but I guess that wouldn’t be fair.” She picked up one of the pink-papered cakes. “Here’s A.”
He leaned forward.
She shoved it into his face, missing his mouth and creaming most of his chin.
“I can’t tell if you meant to do that or if that was just coincidence,” Loch teased, grabbing a napkin off the corner of the table and wiping at his face. He’d act like it didn’t matter if she hated him or not, even though he was dying inside.
“I meant to do that.” She gave him a challenging look. “So there.”
He licked a bit of frosting from his fingers, watching her. She was scowling, but she wasn’t crying. Maybe . . . maybe she didn’t hate him as much as he thought. So he said, “A’s pretty delicious.”
“Want to try B?” Her eyebrows wiggled.
“Only if I can feed it to myself.”
“No deal.”
He gave her a rueful smile and spoke around the aching knot that had reappeared in his throat. “I deserved a cake in the face for how I treated you, but I can’t imagine it’s going to get you many more people here to sample.”
She cocked her head. “So you’re admitting you were a jerk?”
“I was thinking prick might have been a more apt term.”
She nodded slowly. “Yeah, I’m going to agree with you on that one. I do think prick is the better term. I’m glad you’re admitting it.”
“I treated you wrong. I wanted to talk to you because I cocked things up and I regret it.” Loch wanted to take her hand in his but he forced himself to remain still. I love you. Please don’t hate me. I’m rubbish without you. “I miss you.”
Her jaw dropped a little. She was silent for a long moment, then licked her lips. “I . . . wasn’t expecting that.”
Well, she wasn’t telling him to sod off, so this was going well. A tiny bit of hope burst inside his chest. “Can I buy you lunch? We could catch up.” It didn’t matter that he’d just eaten. He’d buy an entire restaurant’s worth of food and not eat a bite as long as he could watch her.
“Catch up?” She took a step backward and nearly knocked her small folding table over.
He caught it before it went careening, the samples sliding off to one side. Only one toppled to the ground, and she scooped it up and dumped it into a garbage bag quickly.
“Well, I say catch up,” he told her, and then rushed ahead, “but I really mean that I want to talk until I get you to forgive me. Until I get you to love me again. I figure it might go best if I ply you with cake and alcohol.”
She blinked at him, startled, and then giggled. “So this is a groveling lunch.”
He smiled back, thrilled by that small laugh. It had made his entire world light up again. “It is, in fact, a groveling lunch.”
She bit her lip, considering her table, then looking over at him. “I’m still mad at you.”
He ached to hear that. “You have every right to be.”
“You were a huge dick to me.”
“I was.”
Taylor put a hand on her hip. “And you could have talked to me.”
“I could have. But I was a prick and thought I knew what was best.” He spread his hands helplessly. “By the time I realized it was a bad idea, it was too late.”
“I’m not sure that means I have to forgive you. I don’t even know if what you did is forgivable.”
“It might not be, but I’m here, determined to try.” To demonstrate, he got down on his knees on the sidewalk and gave her a supplicating look. “Please go to lunch with me, Taylor.”
Another giggle escaped her, which she quickly smothered. She glanced around, then waved at him. “Get up. You’re going to make them think these are pot brownies or something.”
“I’ll get up if you’ll go to lunch with me.” He gestured at the sidewalk. “If not, I’ll roll around on the ground here holding my stomach and pretending your recipes made me sick.”
“Blackmail?” She mock-gasped. “You play rough, sir.” There was a hint of a smile on her face that was encouraging, and the sparkle had returned to her eyes. But then she shook her head. “I won’t let you buy me lunch.”
His spirits sank. His world felt like it was crashing around him. “No?”
“But . . . I will have lunch with you. Once I get done here, that is.”
Thank God. “I’ll take that.” He got to his feet and dusted off his slacks.
She made a flicking gesture at him. “Go wander off that way for a bit. I’m going to be here another hour or so and I can’t work with you hovering.”
He grinned, feeling good enough to tease her. “I shall do as you ask . . . but shouldn’t I try B first?”
She gave him a warning look, but then handed him one of the B cakes. This one, she didn’t crush on his face.
It gave him hope. So much hope. Loch gave the icing a long, sultry lick and noticed her gaze remained on his mouth. “I think I like B.”
“Mmm?” Her gaze flicked back to his face and then she blinked. “What? Oh. B.” She started to write, then frowned at her broken pencil. “What is it about B that decided you?”
“Because it wasn’t smushed on my chin.”
Taylor laughed aloud.
Chapter Fifteen
Oh, god, he was back.
And oh, god, Taylor was still in love with him.
Her heart fluttered wildly as she handed out cake samples and completed survey after survey (luckily she had a second pencil in her backpack) but her thoughts remained squarely on the man who waited, standing about a hundred feet away and watching her with an intense, almost devouring look.
It made her squirm.
She needed to be angry, Taylor reminded herself. He’d used her. Treated her like she didn’t matter. Like she was just another one of his servants hovering around to do his bidding. She’d told herself for the last six weeks that it was good that he was gone, that things should have never gotten past the one-night-stand stage. After all, she didn’t regret the sex. The sex was flat-out amazing. She regretted that she’d risked her heart and gotten it broken.