Falling for Fitz (14 page)

Lunch. Business. Business
Lunch.

He regretfully dropped her hand as he
pushed open the door to his office, letting her precede
him.

“
Wow!” she exclaimed,
walking past the sofa and coffee table and taking soft steps across
the carpet to the floor to ceiling windows. “Wow. Just
wow!”

He grinned, following behind her at a
respectable distance, painfully aware that the woman of his wildest
and best dreams was alone in his office with him.

“
Nice view, Fitz!” she
exclaimed, turning around to face him.

He drank in her pink lips and
delighted smile, the way her blonde bangs feathered lightly across
her forehead.

“
The best view ever,” he
said softly and she blushed. “I’m glad you could make it
today.”

“
It’s not like I have a ton
on my agenda right now,” she said.

“
Are you looking for a
place to live yet?”

“
If I say yes will you
present me with a furnished condo by tomorrow?” she teased,
following him to the small conference table in the un-windowed
corner of the room across from his office door. Two places had been
set with linen placemats and napkins, silverware and two
dome-covered plates.

“
If that’s what you want,”
he answered truthfully.

“
You don’t owe me anything
else, Fitz,” she said, as he pulled her chair away from the table
and she stepped into the void to sit down.

From behind her, he leaned forward
until his lips were almost touching her ear and his breath brushed
her skin like a kiss. “Courtship, not obligation.”

He heard her breath catch mid-inhale
and couldn’t resist pressing his lips to the soft skin of her neck
under her ear. She smelled like soap and shampoo and summertime and
his blood caught on fire, coursing with liquid heat to his groin
which responded by hardening against the front of his suit
pants.

“
Fitz,” she whimpered
softly and he forced himself to step back from her, touching the
backs of her legs with her chair gently.

She sat down and he moved quickly to
the seat across from her to keep himself from touching her again.
Her eyes were liquid and dilated when he looked up at her, and it
made him harder under the table, his erection straining
uncomfortably and making it difficult for him to form a coherent
thought.

“
I’m glad you’re, um,
here,” he said. “We have a lot to sort through today.”

She looked relieved as he started
discussing business, and nodded at him, leaning forward to take the
metal cover off of her plate. “Ooo! Caesar salad. This looks
good.”

“
I didn’t know what you
liked for lunch.”

“
I like everything. I had
to eat a little bit of everything in school, so you can’t really
choose anything I won’t enjoy. This is perfect, Fitz. Thank you for
inviting me.”

He grinned at her, taking the cover
off of his own plate and spreading his napkin on his lap. “Any
second thoughts now that you’ve had some time to think through
everything?”

***

Daisy wasn’t certain if he was asking
her about the bakery or the courtship, but she chose to focus on
business and ignore the possible double entendre in his
question.

“
Nope,” she answered
brightly, spearing a piece of Romaine lettuce and raising it
carefully to her mouth. Daisy didn’t have a lot of business
clothes. She couldn’t afford a big glop of Caesar dressing on her
favorite dress. It was the exact same color as her eyes, and the
few times she’d been asked out on a date in small-town Wilbur after
Glenn left, she’d usually worn it. Unfortunately, none of the dates
had led anywhere especially meaningful. Or maybe fortunately. Yes,
fortunately. Because if any of them
had
worked out, she wouldn’t be
sitting across from Fitz now.

“
Oh! I forgot to ask … can
I get you anything to drink? Wine?”

She shook her head with a grin. “Not
during the day.”

He looked bemused, and she asked
why.

“
Because I can’t remember
you having many rules for yourself that summer.”

“
I had to grow up, didn’t
I?”

“
I guess you did. And how
well you managed it,” he said in a low, seductive voice, flicking
his eyes to the V of her dress, then slowly back up to her eyes,
lingering for a long moment at her lips. “What other rules do you
have for yourself?”

She’d flushed under his inspection and
reached for her ice water now, savoring the cool glass as it cooled
her fiery skin. “I wake up to bake every morning at five. I
work-out every evening.”

“
That’s obvious,” he said,
licking his eyes.

She rolled her eyes, ignoring
him.

He chuckled lightly. “Okay, I’ll stop.
What do you do?”

“
When I can, I bicycle
outdoors and I also have a stationary bike in my
apartment.”

“
Your
apartment? You and Dr. M. don’t …”

“
No,” said Daisy. “We
never—I mean, we don’t live together. We didn’t. In
Oregon.”

Fitz’s face had hardened a little when
he mentioned Dr. M. but now an interesting expression took over.
“Another rule? About living with a man before marriage?”

“
No. Not really. I mean, I
lived with Glenn,” she answered quickly and truthfully, realizing
her mistake a minute too late.

“
But not with your fiancé?”
His furrowed eyebrows and ice water paused in mid-air cued her into
how strange it sounded.

She scrambled to come up with a
possible excuse. “I, um, I get up so early to bake, and um, and he
doesn’t open for business until, um, well, ten o’clock a.m., and so
…”

She dropped her gaze to her salad with
she started attacking with gusto. Damn it, she needed to be careful
or he was going to figure out that she had never been engaged at
all. Would he be angry with her? Probably. He was going out of his
way to “win her” when in truth he didn’t have an existing rival
anywhere on the face of the earth. Would he even be expending this
sort of effort on her if he believed she was free?

When she looked up, he was still
staring at her with those searing, searching blue eyes.

“
Can we not talk about
him?” she asked.

Fitz shrugged, reaching for his glass.
“Sure.”

Daisy sighed in relief, crunching on a
crouton, hating that all of the flirtatious comfort between them
had been stamped out so quickly.

“
No, wait,” said Fitz. “I
have another question.”

Daisy placed her fork on the side of
her plate and faced him, waiting.

“
Did you call him last
night?”

He was referring to his short speech
last night about not crossing a line with her until she was free to
be touched and taken. She shook her head slowly and he flinched
before dropping her eyes.

“
Then I guess we should get
down to business.”

***

When Daisy left almost three hours
later, Fitz felt satisfied that they’d hammered out the orders for
the equipment she needed, and that they’d come up with a good plan
for her opening in six weeks. She told him she wanted to manage the
necessary construction: the two rooms in the back of the shop would
be combined to create one large kitchen with glass that looked out
into the café area.

Again, he was impressed with her
knowledge and clear-thinking. Daisy had lots of ideas about the
kind of oven she wanted, letting Fitz convince her to get her first
choice—a top of the line Bongard Cervap industrial oven with four
decks, which meant that instead of ten separate batches, she’d be
able to do a whole day’s worth of baking in two, and that included
stock for the shop and all of her on-line orders.

Fitz had also urged Daisy to consider
hiring a staff of three: two people to work the counter at the
shop, and another baker to assist Daisy in the kitchen. He said
that one of the two people working at the counter could also be
responsible for packing up the on-line orders, and he encouraged
her to think about automating her client list and opening a Fedex
account so that she didn’t have to go to the post office every day.
They’d come to her and pick up the boxes at the same time every
afternoon, eliminating another task from her long
docket.

By three o’clock they were sitting
side-by-side on his couch looking at his laptop, shoulder to
shoulder, their heads practically touching as he asked her what
kinds of bistro tables and chairs she wanted.

Daisy sat back, propping her bare feet
on his coffee table, and leaning her head against the back of the
couch. She turned her neck to look at him.

“
No more decisions for
today. My head is swimming.”

He placed the laptop on the coffee
table next to her feet and leaned back beside her, putting his arm
around her and pulling her closer, up against the side of his body.
When she bent her neck and let her blonde head fall on his
shoulder, his heart thumped painfully with love for her, with hopes
that they could find their way through the past and make a life
together in the present.

Her forehead was nestled into the
curve of his neck and he leaned over and pressed his lips to her
head, listening to her inhale deeply then exhale beside him, her
swelling chest brushing into his side.

“
This is nice,” she said
softly. “I’m so tired. I didn’t … I didn’t sleep well last night. I
hadn’t slept in Emily’s room for a long time. Lots of
memories.”

“
Any about me?”

“
Mmm,” she sighed.
“Lots.”

“
Good or bad?” he asked,
his lips still grazing the straight soft yellow strands of her
hair.

“
A little of each,” she
said.

“
Tell me some bad,” he said
gently.

“
There wasn’t much bad
about you. I don’t know if you remember, but my parents were
divorcing that summer and I’d stare up at the ceiling listening
Emily’s breathing and just wish I didn’t have to go home. My mother
and father’s families had been best friends their whole lives, and
I don’t know why they’d chosen each other. In a weird way it must
have been like marrying a sibling or cousin. They fought like
siblings. They weren’t happy. My mother was moving to California
and I wanted to stay with my Dad in New Jersey for my senior year.
It was so depressing to think of going home.”

He listened, putting their summer into
a different context. He’d known, of course, that her parents were
going through a separation, but she’d been so carefree, so full of
fun and life, he hadn’t given it much thought. Now he remembered
the look on her face that night when she said “It’s all we have
left.” He was headed to London for an exciting year of study and
travel abroad. She was going back to a fractured home and the
pressure of her senior year. Possibly pregnant. And he somehow
thought giving her his high school ring would soften things for
her? How stupid and naïve and self-centered he’d been. She hadn’t
needed a ring. She’d needed him, and he’d been thousands of miles
away.

“
I’m sorry,” he murmured,
pressing his lips to her head again and lingering there as his
fingers tightened on her shoulder and his other hand reached for
the one closest to him. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you
went home.”

“
We didn’t know if I
was—”

“
I don’t mean only that.
You were going home to a heartbreaking situation. I could
have—”

“
No, Fitz,” she said
gently, squeezing his hand. “You were a kid, just like me. A
student heading off to study abroad. We hadn’t made each other any
promises. I didn’t expect that of you.”

“
But, I should’ve been more
aware of what was happening in your life.”

“
I didn’t want that. I
wanted to escape from my life that summer. You gave me that. You
helped me not focus on it or let it own me. With you I wasn’t
someone whose parents were divorcing. I was just myself. You let me
be myself.”

“
Tell me some good,” he
said quietly, lacing his fingers through hers.

“
I already did.
You
were the good. I
loved my uncle and aunt and Emily. But, that summer? It was you.
You were the good, Fitz.”

His hand on his shoulder moved up to
caress her cheek as he shifted his body slightly to face her
better. She kept her eyes down, but he let go of her hand to push
up gently on her chin. Her eyes swam with tears as she looked back
at him. His eyes flicked to her lips as his breathing became
heavier, then he looked back up into her beautiful eyes which were
dark and focused, searching his.

She clenched her jaw and swallowed. “I
have to go.”

He leaned back from her, nodding,
still mesmerized by her beauty, by her generosity, by the way she
made him feel like all of the mistakes he’d made that summer were
somehow okay. Letting his hand slip reluctantly from her face, he’d
picked up her hand again and kissed it, whispering, “Whatever it
takes”