Chapter 3
THREE
It was only because Leo had been keeping one eye on the bar’s entrance that he saw Amelia sprinting across the lobby toward the front doors. Her purple dress and white-blond hair trailed behind her as she ran, heels clomping on the tile floors so loudly he could hear them over the music and chatter filling the space.
He didn’t even tell the other groomsmen where he was going. He just tore off after her without a word, catching sight of her as she disappeared through the hotel’s revolving doors.
It didn’t make sense to follow her like this. He didn’t even know where she was going. But it was an urge he couldn’t resist; he sprinted around the side of the hotel into the parking lot, catching up to her as she skidded to a stop beside a white four-door sedan.
Amelia’s head snapped up, silver eyes flashing. “What are you doing?”
He circled to the passenger seat. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
They stared at each other across the hood of the car, and Leo could almost sense the annoyance growing in her. It was better than the panic that had filled her gaze a moment ago. Her light brows slashed downward. “Go back inside.”
“No can do.”
Her scowl intensified.
Leo didn’t know why it pleased him so much, but it did. It wasn’t that he wanted Amelia to be annoyed, it was just that her gaze was currently pointed solely at him, and that was a lovely feeling. She planted her hands on her hips, but the effect lost a lot of potency because all he could see of her was her head and the tops of her shoulders.
He tried the door latch. “It’s locked.”
“Of course it’s locked,” she grumped. “Why would I leave my car unlocked?”
“Where are we going?” Leo smiled when her eyes shot fire across the hood of the car.
“ We are not going anywhere. I am going to pick up my sister’s wedding cake.”
“I’ll help.”
She inhaled and opened her mouth as if to protest, then snapped it shut again. Her gaze narrowed, and Leo met it squarely. Finally, Amelia relented. “Fine.” She dug through her purse and found her keys, pressing the button on the fob to unlock the doors.
When they slid inside, Leo caught a hint of her scent, a mixture of notes that weren’t exactly feminine except for the fact that she wore them. He clipped his seatbelt and tried to rein himself in.
What was he doing? Why was he here?
He wasn’t the kind of man who ran after a woman he didn’t know. Or even a woman he did know, for that matter. But he’d seen Amelia sprinting, and he had to follow.
She’d looked at him when they were in the garden taking pictures. It was a contemplative look, sent his way when she’d been surrounded by the other bridesmaids. They were filling her head with stories of him, no doubt. Leo felt the urge to defend himself, to explain that his reputation wasn’t true.
But—it was true. Wasn’t it? He hadn’t had a real relationship since his freshman year in college. He liked keeping things casual, and he wasn’t shy about inviting a woman to warm his bed. Even now, his phone vibrated in his pocket. It was probably a text from someone who had heard he was back in town. Either that, or it was Marlon asking him what the hell had gotten into him.
Leo settled into his seat and let out a long breath. He shouldn’t have chased after her. A woman like Amelia deserved better than he could give her. She was right to be suspicious of him.
But he was here now, and he might as well help her with the cake.
Without a word, she started the car, and it quickly became apparent that Amelia Darcy drove like an absolute raving maniac. They tore out of the parking lot in a squeal of tires and burned rubber. He grabbed the handle above his window and let out a low grunt as she turned onto Main Street and put her foot on the accelerator to get through a yellow light. They drove for five minutes, making their way across the small downtown area, hitting a Stirling-sized snarl of traffic near the clock tower, which finally cleared once they crossed the bridge into the quieter part of town.
Amelia turned onto Hemlock Drive and jumped the curb as she slid into a parking spot outside a bakery called The Sweetest Thing.
Leo let out a huff, glad to be alive. “Remind me never to get in a car with you ever again,” he said as she opened her door.
She lifted a brow at him and sniffed, regal and haughty. “You invited yourself, buddy.”
He laughed, delighted. Following her into the bakery, Leo was assaulted by scents of cinnamon, sugar, and fresh-baked bread. He’d trade it all for the scent of Amelia’s skin any day.
Then Amelia let out a little squeak and bumped into him as she tried to leave the bakery again.
He caught her shoulders and spun her around. “What’s wrong?”
Her face was red. She shook her head. “Nothing.”
Leo leaned over, using a curled finger to tilt her chin up. “Tell me.”
Her snort was short and sharp. She glanced over her shoulder and spun around again, red staining her cheeks. “Ben is working,” she whispered.
Leo frowned, fighting the urge to curl an arm around her shoulders. “Who’s Ben?” he whispered. “The barista? You want me to punch him?”
Amelia looked at him like he was insane. “What? No!”
“I will, you know,” Leo promised.
“Don’t punch him. Don’t punch anyone! Why are we even talking about this?”
“What did he do to you?”
“Nothing!” She huffed, shaking her head. “He doesn’t even know my name.”
“Amelia?” the barista called from behind his hissing espresso machine. “Amelia Darcy? Is that you?”
“Is Amelia here?” a woman’s voice called out from the back of the bakery. She appeared a moment later, her red hair gathered beneath a hair net. She smiled at the back of Amelia’s head. “Oh, good! I was just about to call you.”
Slowly, Amelia turned, and Leo dropped his hands from her shoulders. She lifted her chin and smiled at the woman. “Hey, Camilla.” She turned to the barista. “Hi, Ben.”
The barista gave her a nod, then glanced at Leo for a beat. He turned back to Amelia. “Hey. Coffee?”
“Um, we don’t really h-have t-time…”
Stammering? Amelia? The woman made of fire and brimstone? Leo frowned at her, then at Ben the barista. Now he really wanted to punch him.
An uncomfortable feeling passed through Leo’s gut, and when Ben stared at Amelia for a few seconds too long, the feeling intensified. Then Amelia smiled at the barista, and Leo wanted to flip the nearest table.
Which was…odd.
Leo didn’t have strong feelings about women. He didn’t care about women, unless they happened to be beneath him. He knew exactly what he could provide to a woman: a few fun hours and an entertaining story to tell her friends when it was all over. A woman like Amelia deserved a lot more than that.
But he still didn’t want her blushing and smiling at another man.
“You’re here for the cake,” Camilla guessed. She was a tall woman with a wide smile and kind blue eyes. “It’s boxed up and ready. I’ll grab it for you.”
“Thanks,” Amelia said, drifting closer to the counter.
Camilla hesitated, eyeing Amelia, then Leo. Her shrewd gaze shifted back to Amelia again. “When’s the last time you ate? Did you have breakfast?”
“Cam,” Amelia huffed. “I’m fine.”
“You forgot breakfast, didn’t you?” Her gaze met Leo’s once more. “Has she eaten?”
“How would he know?” Amelia asked, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder at him.
Camilla’s eyes narrowed. “Amelia, I love you, but you will not deflect this question. Have you eaten anything today?”
Amelia’s jaw hardened for a moment, then her shoulders slumped. “No,” she admitted.
Camilla harrumphed, sounding like an eighty-year-old man. She disappeared for a moment, reappearing with a steaming-hot cinnamon bun dripping with gooey icing. Sliding the plate across the counter, she slapped a couple of napkins beside it and crossed her arms. “Eat.”
“I need to get back to the wedding,” Amelia said, but her eyes were on the cinnamon bun.
“ Eat . I’m not giving you the cake until you eat something.”
Amelia’s scowl was back, and she lifted her gaze from the bun to glare at Camilla. Leo grabbed the plate and drew her gaze back to the steaming confection. He walked over to a table, set the plate down, and pulled a chair. Amelia glanced at him, then at Camilla, and threw up her hands in defeat. “Fine! I’ll eat!”
“Make her a coffee before you leave for the day,” Camilla said to Ben. “You.” She pointed to Leo. “Make sure she eats the whole thing.”
“It’s as big as my head!”
“Half of it at least.”
Amelia grumbled, but she slid into the chair and ripped off a piece of cinnamon bun. When the soft, steaming dough hit her tongue, she let out a noise that made Leo’s groin tighten. Her eyelashes fluttered closed, and she slumped in her seat, chewing with such bliss on her face that Leo suspected she’d temporarily left their current plane of existence.
Leo moved slowly, sitting down across from her, watching the way her cheeks flushed pink as she swallowed. He tried to ignore the blood rushing south, tried to tear his gaze away from the look of ecstasy on Amelia’s face. Eyes still closed, Amelia licked the tips of her fingers one by one, then finally opened her eyes and reached for the cinnamon bun again.
Heart pounding, Leo watched her bring the dough to her mouth again, that same orgasmic expression spreading over her features as she swallowed another bite. He wanted to put that look on her face himself. Craved it. He wanted to eat her like she was a confection placed on the table before him. He wanted to peel that dress she hated so much off her body and taste every hidden corner of her skin.
“It’s so good,” Amelia said in a dreamy voice he’d never heard before. Then she blinked and seemed to come back to herself, meeting Leo’s gaze. She cleared her throat and straightened, pushing the plate toward him. “You should taste it. No one bakes as well as Camilla.”
Leo didn’t want to take even a crumb of that cinnamon bun away from Amelia, because that meant one less bite that she could eat with that pleasure-drunk expression on her face.
A cup clattered as it landed on the table in front of her. Amelia jumped, her face growing red. “Thanks, Ben.”
“Want anything else?”
She shook her head, then watched him walk back toward his espresso machine. Leo frowned, then tore a piece of cinnamon bun off for himself. When that drew Amelia’s gaze back to him, he felt a dirty, shameful bit of satisfaction. That’s right , he thought. Keep your eyes on me. Not him.
She watched him take a bite, arching her brows expectantly.
Cinnamon, sugar, butter, and soft dough filled his mouth with the taste of heaven. He let out a surprised grunt, which made Amelia grin. She looked like a mischievous sprite with that expression on her face, a fairy that had convinced him to partake in a forbidden feast. He was already doomed.
“Told you it was amazing,” she said, then tore off a piece of dough for herself.
“I’m heading out!” Ben waved at Camilla behind the desk, then shifted his gaze to Amelia. “See ya, ‘Melia.”
Amelia waved, chewing, her cheeks turning pink again. Leo scowled. Why was some scrawny coffee slinger making her blush so much?
The bell above the door jingled, and Leo leaned back in his chair. “You like him, or something?”
“What?” Amelia kept her eyes on the cinnamon bun.
“That guy. Ben.”
Amelia finally glanced up at him and rolled her eyes. “What do you care?”
That meant yes, which made jealousy blast through him in a wave of heat. Curling his fists against the onslaught, Leo took a controlled breath. Then he loosened his limbs and shrugged. She was right; what did he care? It wasn’t like he could chase after Maggie Darcy’s little sister. Emory would kill him, if Maggie didn’t do it first.
Leo knew the kind of man he was, and he knew he’d never outrun the reputation he’d earned. Amelia Darcy was far, far too good for him.
“Why haven’t you asked him out?”
Amelia snorted. “Please.”
“What?”
She clicked her tongue. “Right. Because that would go over well.”
Confusion momentarily overshadowed Leo’s jealousy. “What’s that supposed to mean? Why wouldn’t it go over well?”
“Um, hello? Look at me?”
He did. He still didn’t get why that would stop a guy like Ben from being interested, because from where Leo was sitting, Amelia looked like a goddess. He especially liked the grumpy little frown that tugged at her brows. “You look fine to me,” he grated.
“How flattering,” she deadpanned. “I, like every woman, aspire to be called ‘fine.’”
Then, eyes dropping back to the cinnamon bun, her expression cleared. Amelia gave him a look of pure mischief and grabbed a knife and fork from the container at the edge of the table. “I’m going to commit a cardinal sin,” she admitted, eyes dancing, “and I don’t want to hear you give me any shit for it.”
Leo watched as she carefully cut through most of the swirls of the cinnamon bun, peeling it open with her utensils like she was a surgeon performing a triple bypass. The gooey center of the bun offered itself up to her, and she used the fork to pluck the middle swirl out of its nest.
“This is the best part,” she explained, then popped the whole thing in her mouth. Icing dropped onto the corner of her lips, but Amelia was too deep in her own personal cinnamon-flavored heaven to notice. Leo listened to the little moans that emanated from her throat and sat, rapt, unable to tear his gaze away from her.
She was a woman incapable of hiding her feelings. Annoyance, anger, ecstasy—it was all written right there on her face. She couldn’t hide her thoughts if she tried. For a man like Leo, who hid behind a mask every hour of the day, the sight was almost irresistible. A tug pulled at his gut, drawing him ever closer. He wanted her to open her eyes. He wanted to see something other than animosity written on her face when she looked at him. He wanted to make her laugh.
That little smear of white icing on the corner of her lips called to him. Before he could stop himself, his hand moved up, fingers sliding over the soft silkiness of her cheek. Startled eyes fluttered open at the touch, but Leo was in too deep to care. His thumb brushed the frosting off her lip, giving Leo the barest hint of how pillowy-soft Amelia’s lips would be to kiss.
When he brought his thumb to his own mouth, she stared at him, wide-eyed, and it wasn’t anger or annoyance heating her gaze; it was lust as violent and raging as his own.
And that’s when he heard the jingling of the bakery door’s bells, a mere second before a booming male voice reached his ears.
“St. James!” his boss, Fred Goodhew, bellowed behind him. “You can’t hide her from us any longer.” A gregarious laugh. A slap on Leo’s back, followed by a tight grip on his shoulders. Fred shook Leo as he squeezed his shoulder, cackling delightedly.
Leo dropped his thumb from his mouth, the sweet taste of cinnamon and icing turning sickly on his tongue. He glanced up at the middle-aged man standing beside his table. Fred Goodhew was built like a retired linebacker: solid, but softened with age. His salt-and-pepper hair was receding slightly at the temples, and his clean-shaven complexion looked slightly battered by years of sun and wind and hard living. He was dressed immaculately, as was befitting of a billionaire in charge of a luxury party planning empire.
The man was all smiles, but he suffered no fools. And Leo was a very, very big fool.
Fred was staring at Amelia, who looked like a deer about to go splat against the hood of an oncoming car. Beside Fred, a younger woman clung onto his thick arm and smiled down at Leo and Amelia. Her chestnut-brown hair was pulled back from her face in a high bun, and she wore her designer dress like it had been made for her, which, knowing whose arm she clung to, it probably had. Her left arm was in a bright-pink cast that matched her purse exactly, held in a sling of the same color.
Another clap on the back from his boss sent Leo rocking forward.
“Well?” Fred prodded. “Aren’t you going to introduce us to your fiancée?”