The Proposition (The Plus One Chronicles) (5 page)

“I heard about the carjacking.”

Surprise dulled her reaction long enough for him to push past her. Kat swung around, letting the door close. “Heard?”  Once she had loved and trusted Dr. David Burke. Sure, he’d been overbearing and bossy, but that had made her feel cherished. But the brutal mugging had changed all that. Changed her. She wasn’t that trusting girl anymore. “How would you hear, David? I didn’t tell my parents or my brother, so you didn’t hear from them.”

“I have friends at the police station.”

Friends or spies? “Right, because you hang out with cops. Hey maybe you joined a bowling league too.”

“Sarcasm is a low form of humor. But for the sake of argument, having goals and focus doesn’t make me a snob.” David perused the bakery kitchen. “Interesting use for your chemistry degree. Was it really worth giving up any claim to SiriX to run a donut shop?”

She clenched her fists at his snide expression and donut-shop crack. “Yes. My
bakery
is worth it.” And a donut shop would be too, if that had been her dream. But that wasn’t good enough for David or her family. When she left the family company a few years ago, it had caused a bigger rift between her and her parents.

David pushed a hand through his hair, the thinning locks a reminder of the eight year age difference between them. “That was a stupid thing to say. I didn’t come here to fight.”

“Then why?” He never did anything without a reason. She’d learned that working for him at SiriX, and dating him. But David had been very protective of her, so it wasn’t inconceivable that he’d asked a police officer he knew to let him know if Kat was ever hurt or attacked. On the other hand, she’d stopped trusting David’s motives years ago.

“I want to know if you’re okay.” He paused, swallowing. “I worry about you.”

Did he? Never mind, it didn’t matter anymore if she believed him or not. “I’m fine.”

His green eyes honed in on her. “Cops said a bystander stopped the carjacking.”

“Yep.” The back of her neck and jaw began to throb with tension. Did he see this as an opportunity to play hero and get her back? She remembered what he’d told her when she broke up with him, and when she’d refused to take his calls, he left the same message on her voicemail. “David, I know you think
I’ll come limping back to you
.” Those words didn’t sting as much as they used to. “But it’s not going to happen. Now I have work to do.”

Stuffing his hands in his pocket, he rocked back. “I was upset, I didn’t mean it when I said that. I lash out when I’m angry, it’s meaningless.” Sighing, he added, “When it comes to you…” he trailed off, looking away from her. “I lose control. Feel too much.” His green eyes, so raw and honest, hit her. “I don’t think I knew how much I loved you until I lost you.”

An old memory surfaced—Kat had taken David dinner when he was working late as a surprise. She’d interrupted a meeting with a man she hadn’t recognized, and David lost it. He’d grabbed her arm, dragged her out of his office and told her to never do that again. He’d been furious, his left eye twitching and his hand on her arm clammy. Kat had rarely seen that side of David, but even then it had made her uneasy. Later David apologized, telling her the man was a former friend asking for money. David said he didn’t want the guy anywhere near Kat, didn’t trust him. He’d always been protective like that, and yeah, he had tended to get angry when he thought she might be in danger.

“Hey, Katie, you’re zoning out. You okay?” He lifted a hand toward her.

Her heart rate spiked. The sight of his hand coming toward her hit a bone-deep, fear-driven instinct. Maybe it was irrational, but to her, it felt real. She retreated to her worktable and strove for calm. “I go by Kat now.” Grabbing a fresh glove, she pulled it on. “The door locks automatically, so go ahead and let yourself out.”

“You’ll always be Katie to me.”

His softer tone caught her with an unexpected twist of nostalgia. Of longing for the way she’d once felt. Special. For awhile Kat had felt like the woman her parents wanted her to be. Smart enough to get a genius like Dr. Burke to be interested in her.

She shook her head, breaking the spell. She’d been lying to herself, to David and her family—she had tried to be what David wanted.

But she wasn’t. Really never had been. The only difference was that once she had at least tried.

“I’m not that girl anymore, David. Let it go.” She didn’t know how to make it any clearer.

“I’ve tried. But I can’t stop caring. I think about you, wondering if you’re coping.” He leaned on the worktable across from her. “Are you still having nightmares? Any more flashbacks? Or panic attacks?”

His tone was soft and caring, but his eyes behind his glasses were narrowed, focused like when he examined test tubes. Calculating adjustments and fixes.
Don’t recoil. You’re safe.

“What’s going on here? You suddenly show up after years, and ask about my flashbacks?” It didn’t make sense. She clenched her hands over the edge of the table. “Are you really worried about me? Or what I might remember?” Why couldn’t she just believe him? It would be so much easier if she did.

“Damn it, Katie.” Defensiveness bulged in his Adam’s apple. “I told you, the police, your family, exactly what happened that night. You’re the only one who doesn’t believe me.”

Flashes of images went off in her mind. There and gone, leaving her panting and terrified. Random words streaked across her brain:

Consequences.

Dr. Burke.

God, stop
!

White noise roared over the memory. Her fingers tingled. Kat refused to do this, to have a panic attack right there in her bakery. Breathing in and out, she regained control. “It doesn’t matter what I believe anymore.”

His weak eye, the one that bugged him when he worked too long, twitched. “Do you know how it makes me feel to be doubted by you? Isn’t it bad enough that I couldn’t protect you and we both got hurt? Do you have to make me feel worse?”

Both got hurt?
Don’t go there.
She repeated the mantra until she tamed the fury in her trying to break loose. None of it mattered now anyway. No one believed her that something even more horrible than a violent mugging happened that night. Something David was covering up.

But how could they believe her? Kat didn’t remember more than an occasional flash, a word, a confusing image. It made no sense, not really. Except she couldn’t trust David again. Ever.

She just wanted him gone. Her kitchen was her safe zone. And she wanted David out of it. “I need you to leave.”

Resignation settled over him. “You’re bound to have a reaction to the carjacking. I want you to know I’m here. I care about you, Katie.” Sadness filled his gaze, magnified by his glasses. “I loved you. I never wanted you hurt.”

She closed her eyes, his words smacking of the truth. It’s what had made her breakup with him so hard. He wasn’t some kind of sociopath who didn’t care. He did. And she knew whatever happened hadn’t been intentional on his part, he hadn’t intended for her to be hurt. David wasn’t squeamish, but when he’d seen her in the hospital, her face a swollen, purple mess, her arm in a cast, and her leg in traction before the surgery, David had turned green. His reaction had been very real. Later, he couldn’t look at her scarred leg.

Swallowing the memory, she stopped herself from asking, again, what had really happened the night of the supposed mugging. She’d get the same answer—that they’d been mugged and she’d suffered a concussion that caused her memories to be confused.

“I want to help you, Katie. I’m here if you need me, if you have any reaction to the carjacking, call me, we’ll talk.” He went to the door and added, “Otherwise I’ll see you at Marshall and Lila’s engagement party.” He left.

Alone in her kitchen, Kat couldn’t find an answer for David’s sudden reappearance in her life. Worry? Or something more?

Chapter Five

Kat gave her customer the change, along with her boxed coffee cake. Quickly she scanned her shop from behind the glass cases and counter. The pecan-colored walls were dressed with blocked canvasses painted with sugar-spun dancers of various colors. On the floor she had fifties-era round chrome tables with white laminated tops surrounded by chairs with candy-apple-red seats. Against the back wall she had a high bar with stools. Most of the tables were full of her loyal, carb-eating, coffee-drinking customers. She served a variety of teas as well.

Everything was in order. Turning, she took her mug of cold coffee and dumped it out. This was the first morning she felt like she could catch her breath. She’d been splitting her time between work and helping Kellen who, since he’d been released, was staying at Diego’s apartment.

While pouring fresh coffee and hoping to actually drink some of it this time, she heard the tinkling of the shop doorbell. Yeah, it was old school, but it worked. “Anna!” She called for her employee.

Anna rushed from the back, as always eager to work. She had her dark blonde hair piled up on her head, wore sleek black glasses and was eternally cute. But Kat liked her anyway.

“Can you take…?” She glanced over her shoulder to see who’d come into the shop. The words died in her throat.

Anna put her hand on Kat’s shoulder. “You okay?”

No. She really wasn’t. Sloane’s sinfully long legs ate up the distance from the door to the case.

Her customers put down their phones, notebooks and newspapers to watch.

“Oh my God,” Anna said.

“Dressed in a charcoal-gray suit,” Kat added, feeling tingles break out.

Everywhere.

What was it about this guy? Sure he was tall and built, but his face was a shade too hard to be handsome. And there was the ridge in his nose. The scars. Yet it all worked together in a spectacularly powerful fashion.

Sloane took a look around the shop, including a quick pass over Anna, then his full regard landed on Kat as he came to a stop by the cash register. “Good morning, Kat.”

“Sloane.” She handed Anna her untouched coffee and walked the few steps to the counter.

His eyebrows lowered in a frown. “You’re still limping. You need to get your leg rechecked.”

That was like a cold shower. An icy reminder. “The limp has nothing to do with that carjacking,” she said firmly, then shifted into her customer-service voice. “What can I help you with?”

He put an arm up on the case. “Do you have time to talk?”

Talk? About what? After he’d dropped her off Saturday, she’d sent him the text he’d demanded and got a
sleep well
in return and then he’d vanished from her world.

But not her thoughts or fantasies, damn it.

Before she could answer, Anna broke in with, “You’re due a break, Kat. Go talk.”

Kat looked over her shoulder at the girl. “Thanks, I wasn’t sure it was allowed.”

Anna grinned, making her nose crinkle and her eyes flash behind her glasses. “See why you hired me?” Then she shifted to Sloane. “What can I get you, sir? I’ll bring it to the table for you.”

“Just coffee, thanks.”

“Sure. But Kat made her special coffee cake this morning. Dried cranberries and almonds. Folks drive for miles on Wednesdays to score her sinful coffeecake.”

“Anna.” Kat’s rebuke turned into a laugh. She couldn’t help it. “Sinful? Really? It’s just coffeecake.”

“I’ll take some,” Sloane said.

Anna winked. “It’s the ‘sinful’ that got you, didn’t it? Tell Kat. I’m trying to jazz up the menu to get her on one of those cooking shows. Gotta have catchy titles, right?”

A grin tugged at the corners of Sloane’s mouth.

A flash of something green and ugly woke up in Kat’s chest, and she hated herself for it. Anna was young, pretty without trying, smart and engaging. In a moment of shame, Kat was jealous. To cover it, she walked around the bakery case, glanced at Sloane and said in the lightest tone she could manage, “Anna is a marketing major.”

He lifted a brow. “She has a point. Kat’s Sinful Cake got my attention.”

She bet it was Anna who got his attention, not her ideas. Furious at herself, she went to an empty table in the corner. If he still wanted to talk, he’d follow. If not, he’d stand there and chat up Anna.

Doing her level best to ignore the sick feeling in her gut, she reached for the back of the chair.

Sloane strode over, stopping so close the heat of him flooded her right side. Warm. Potent. His hand covered hers on the chair back. With the table in front of her, he had her surrounded. Wrapping his larger hand around hers, he pulled out the chair.

For her.

Tilting her head, she got the full impact of his scrutiny focused on her. She hadn’t imagined those amber specks burning in his sizzling brown eyes. Or his soap and male scent that she found herself wanting to inhale.

“Sit,” he growled softly, his fingers on the chair sliding between hers, creating a sensual friction. “Before I forget we’re in public.”

Her stomach fluttered. Jeez, she had it bad, and she didn’t even know him. Trying to regain control, she said, “I’ll need my hand.”

“This hand?” he asked, skating his fingers across the back of her palm. To her wrist. He kept stroking.

Tingles danced over her skin. Need warmed and simmered, threatening to blow off the lid she’d placed on her sex life.

Throat clearing broke the spell.

Anna stood next to the table, wearing an all-too-knowing smirk while holding a tray loaded with two coffees and a plate of coffee cake framed by twin forks.

Sloane slid his hand off hers and held out the chair.

Flustered, she managed to sit without falling. As Sloane went to his seat, Anna passed out the coffees and settled the plate of cake in front of Sloane. “Two forks, in case you’d like to share. Can I get you anything else?”

Embarrassed, Kat reached for one of the forks. “We won’t need this.” She held out the utensil, wondering when Anna had become a determined matchmaker. Trying to force the man to share food with her was extremely pushy.

Sloane caught her hand, pulling it down to the table. “We’re good, Anna.”

“What are you doing?” She didn’t understand. Too much weird stuff was happening. Carjacking, Sloane rescuing her, David showing up in concern after years of rarely seeing each other. Now Sloane was acting like they had an irresistible sexual attraction. What could Sloane really want with her?

Unless it was a pity fuck
.

Don’t.
She would not let David’s voice in her head.

He let go of her hand and curled his fingers around his mug. “You weren’t afraid of me this time.”

She set the fork next to her cup. Either she could pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about, or she could be honest. “I’m rarely afraid in my own shop.” Anymore. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Us.” He scooped up his fork and sank it into the piece of cake.

She leaned back, needing distance. Okay, yeah, she felt the attraction. Maybe he did too. But Kat wasn’t going there. The last time she’d been with a man sexually, five years ago, she’d had a panic attack. “I don’t date.”

He smiled. “Convenient. Neither do I. No time, no interest.”

Then what did he want? She was ready to demand an answer when Sloane lifted the fork laden with coffee cake, parted his full lips and slid the bite into his mouth. Then he pulled the fork out, slowly, as if he couldn’t bear to miss a morsel. His eyes went dusky, deepening from tawny to rich sienna.

“Mmmm.”

That sound, low and vibrating, speared through her. Tension tugged at her belly and chased out her ability to breathe. Sloane eased the fork back into his mouth as if he couldn’t bear to stop tasting the treat, his stare consumed her with the same ardor he applied to eating her cake.

She pressed forward, wrapping her hands around her coffee, desperate to touch…something. God, for years her desire had been mostly dormant, and she’d poured her passion into baking.

But this man, Sloane, was destroying her with one touch of his hand and one bite of her coffeecake. Jesus. She clamped her jaw, refusing to ask him if he liked it.

He lowered his fork to his plate and leaned in.

It took every speck of muscle control she had to keep from tilting toward him.

Then he said, low and slow, “Like tasting sin.”

Wet heat slid down her belly until she shifted in her chair. She had to get control of this situation. Making herself sit back and stop acting like she was in search of an orgasm, she said, “Why are you here, Sloane? Stop playing, I don’t have the time for games.”

“I want to see you, Kat.”

She sucked in a breath. “You just said you don’t date.”

“I don’t.” He took a sip of his coffee. “I plus-one.”

She was familiar with the concept of plus-one, but not his context. “That differs from dating how?”

“I’m busy. I don’t have time for complicated relationships and expectations.” His voice was pure business, then downshifted into a husky note. “But I like sex.”

“Huh, who would have guessed?” He oozed sex and danger like other men sweat.

“But I do have a lot of social obligations. It’s simpler to find a woman I have chemistry with and make her an offer. She’ll attend functions with me as needed. In return, I’ll give her something she wants. And we have sex.”

He wanted to have sex with her. For a second, she pictured him over her, all bare skin and hard muscles as he thrust into her. The image was erotically seductive, until she remembered why sex was a bad idea. Frustrated that her libido so easily forgot, she pitched her voice low for only his ears. “How can a man who made eating cake look like he’s going down on a woman he’s starved to taste manage to turn sex into a business proposition?” She took a sip of her coffee.

His eyes flared with fire. “Once we have the expectations and obligations clear, then we can discuss me going down on you.”

Kat nearly choked. Setting the cup down, she pushed that image out of her head. His dark head bent… No. “Not interested.”

He sat back, studying her. “I Googled you, Kat.”

All her interest and wanton excitement chilled into a lump of dread and anger. “You’re just full of mad skills.” What was she to him, a curiosity? Did he get off on freak shows?

“It was a fairly vague newspaper account of the attack you went through years ago. Cops found you unconscious. Never found your attackers. Since your limp didn’t come from the carjacking attempt, I’m assuming it’s from that attack.” He shifted and went on, “As well as the panic attacks. The reason you were afraid of me.”

She disconnected, pulled away. It was one of her techniques to cope and protect herself. She focused over his shoulder at the painting of a dancer’s form done in bright yellow. “As impressive as all your research is, this isn’t going to work, Sloane.” She laid her hands flat on the table.

He covered one with his warm fingers. “I have something, besides sex, that I can give you.”

His touch seared her, not with the sexual vibrations of earlier, but with some need she couldn’t name. She yanked her hand away, clutching it in her lap. Keeping focus on the picture over his shoulder, she said, “And what would that be?”

“I can teach you to fight and defend yourself.”

Those nine words slammed into her and stirred her very soul. Roused a drive in her, a deep longing, she hadn’t even known she possessed. She turned her entire being to him. For one second, one blip in time, Kat imagined herself whole again. Strong.

The kind of woman a man like Sloane Michaels would want.

But the ache in her leg, and her memories, told her otherwise.

Trying to regain her composure, she honed in on the yellow dancer’s form on the wall and told him the flat truth. “You don’t get it. I’m fine in my shop, or when I’m working. But otherwise, stressful situations can cause panic attacks.” She glanced at him. “Sex causes panic attacks, or it did last time I tried it. So this deal? Not happening.”

She shoved to her feet, turned and walked away.

Anna looked up from the tray of fresh cookies she was arranging. Her eyes widened behind her glasses.

Kat just shook her head and went through the swinging door to her kitchen.

Her safe zone.

Cold industrial steel and the warm scents of baking surrounded her. Familiar and comforting. She put her hands on the end of her long stainless-steel work table in the center of the room. She lowered her head and dragged in a breath.

Safe. It took her a year of working back here, pouring herself into baking, decorating, learning the difference between all the fancy classes she’d taken and the real world of running a bakery. A year before she’d finally been able to go out that swinging door to the front of the shop without panicking.

The air in the room changed. Shifted.

Charged with crackling tension.

She should have known. Anna was no match for the will, the force, of Sloane.

She kept her gaze on the scrupulously clean table beneath her hands. “You’re not used to being told no, are you?”

“I’ve grown accustomed to getting what I want.”