15. Açaí Bowl
A?Aí BOWL
*the antioxidants don’t work if you add too much sugar.
I pulled the strap of my bikini back over my shoulder as the whir of the blender woke me up. I’d already been awake for two hours after getting a poor night of sleep.
Good night, sweet Marie , Lucas had said again when we had returned from park. Then he’d snagged three of the macarons I’d made for dessert and adjourned for his corner of the penthouse.
I’d spent my night staring at the ceiling, trying to see something other than those stormy eyes and the hidden depths behind their swirling clouds.
As I’d done the next night.
And the night after that.
All right , I thought as I stopped the blender and scooped out the thick blend of frozen acaí berries, protein powder, and fresh cashew milk into a bowl, where it would be topped with homemade macadamia granola, tropical fruit, and honey.
It was time to approach the matter logically. Address the facts one by one.
Fact one: I was attracted to Lucas Lyons.
There. That wasn’t so bad to admit, was it?
It didn’t matter that his younger brother was my one true love.
Or that he was a full sixteen years older than me.
Or even that he was my boss.
Fact two: Pheromones don’t listen to logic or the heart.
They thought about how Lucas somehow smelled better after he worked out than before.
Or about the way the man filled out a three-piece suit criminally well.
Or about the one lock of hair, tinged with silver, that always seemed to escape his neatly combed hair, like the rebel Lucas secretly wanted to be.
I shivered.
Last night, when we’d shared a plate of tuiles and fresh mango after dinner, it had taken every ounce of willpower not to brush that lock off his forehead.
Or trace that annoyingly sharp jaw with my fingertip.
Or try to make him smile again just to see the scatter of crow’s feet that mysteriously made the man even more beautiful.
No, the laws of attraction had absolutely nothing to do with logic.
On to fact number three: I was an adult, fully in control of my faculties.
I didn’t have to give in to these feelings now any more than I had for the last twenty-five years. Even if it seemed exponentially harder the more time I spent in the company of my brooding employer.
The thought made me spend a little extra time cutting mango, banana, and papaya into perfect roses, if only for something to distract my mind. I had just started the process of making Lucas’s cappuccino when the elevator doors opened.
I glanced at the clock over the stove and frowned. 6:45. Weird. Lucas was nothing if not punctual—never late and certainly never fifteen minutes early. Normally, he returned from his workout at seven, showered, ate, and was out the door by 7:45 for whatever corporate battle awaited him that day.
His footsteps echoed down the hallway, but they seemed slower today, less rushed. I turned toward the refrigerator to grab the bottles of water he always took with him and was bending to reach the water on the bottom shelf when the kitchen door opened behind me.
“Good morning.” His deep voice filled the room. “I finished early with the trainer, so I thought we might have breakfast—oh, Christ .”
The last word came out so quietly I almost missed it, but Lucas’s tone made me freeze, half-bent over with my hand on the refrigerator handle. I straightened slowly and turned to find him motionless in the doorway.
Sweat soaked his gray workout shirt, the fabric clinging like a second skin.
I could see the defined ridges of his abdominal muscles, the powerful breadth of his shoulders, the way his chest rose and fell with his heavy breathing.
His hair was damp with perspiration, a few strands falling across his forehead, making him look younger and less controlled than usual.
Holy crap, Lucas was fit.
He wasn’t looking at his carefully arranged breakfast spread, thought. Those storm-gray eyes were locked on me. And not on my fact. Substantially…lower.
“Marie.” His voice was hoarse, like he’d swallowed something sticky. The muscles in his neck moved like ropes. “What—what are you wearing?”
I looked down. “Oh. Shit.”
In my attempt to distract myself from daydreaming about Lucas, I’d forgotten that instead of my normal chef’s garb, I’d put on swimwear this morning with the intent to leave just after Lucas for a day at Santos Beach.
I had packed none of my own, so Robbie had gone shopping for me yesterday.
Unfortunately, the only thing he’d found in my size was a coral bikini that was far more revealing than anything I would have chosen for myself.
The top was two minuscule triangles, and the bottoms took the concept of “cheeky” to a whole new level.
“It’s Brazil,” Robbie had said with a shrug. “‘Full coverage’ is a relative term here. You should see the Speedo I got for myself.”
“But…this covers like a quarter of my boob.” I held the top over my shirt to measure.
“Honey, please. You’re perky, and you’ve got the goods. Didn’t anyone ever teach you to show them off?”
He’d gotten me a cover-up too, a pretty crocheted piece that was, yes, technically see-through, but covered me up enough to be decent. By Brazilian standards, I thought I was back to being a nun. That is, until Lucas walked in.
He was glued to the doorway, his steely gaze traveling from my bare feet, up my exposed legs, touching the curve of my hips where the bikini bottoms sat, and finally moving to where the coral fabric barely contained my chest.
For the tenth time, I wondered if anyone in Brazil wore anything bigger than a C-cup.
Lucas’s gaze was so intense and thoroughly appreciative that heat bloomed across my skin everywhere his eyes landed. But I didn’t want to hide. In fact, I straightened.
“Morning. Your breakfast is there. I was just getting ready to go to the beach after you leave for your meetings.”
“You look—” He cleared his throat and tried again, managing to tear his eyes from my body. “You look fine.”
The air between us was charged with something I couldn’t name but felt in every nerve ending.
Absently, he took the bottom of his T-shirt and pulled it up to dab some sweat from his brow. I only saw the flash of his abs, covered with a light pelt of dark hair that narrowed to a trail below his waistband, but it was enough to make my mouth dry.
“Thanks,” I whispered. “You look…fine too.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up. Just a little.
“Thanks,” he repeated softly. Lucas seemed to shake himself out of the strange trance that had captured us both and moved to the counter where I’d laid out his breakfast. “Coffee? This looks fantastic, by the way.”
“Almost done.” I turned back to finish pouring his cappuccino, then plated the coffee on a bamboo tray with a glass of distilled water. “Your lunch is packed. I put extra protein in the bowl. Robbie said your trainer upped your weights this week.”
Lucas grunted as he reached around me to grab a clean dish towel from the rack beside the sink. The movement made his bicep flex next to my face, a drop of sweat lingering on his skin, and my tongue slipped out as if it might somehow catch that tiny taste.
Salty. He would taste like the sea, combined with some delicious umami flavor.
I shivered.
“I’ll just get your lunch.” In a hurry, I turned to the fridge.
And crashed right into him.
Our bodies collided in the narrow space between the island and the refrigerator.
His chest pressed against mine through the thin material of my coverup.
Bricked muscles, still hot from exercise, rubbed against my softer body.
And his heart—oh God, was that his heart I could feel drumming just above the edge of my top? Or was it mine?
When I looked up, Lucas’s face had turned toward the ceiling, eyes squeezed shut as if he were in pain.
“Sorry,” I breathed, but I didn’t step away.
Neither did he, though his head snapped down at the sound of my voice. His eyes found mine, and all at once, his hands rose to take my shoulders as he backed me two steps and pinned me to the fridge, chest to chest, stomach to stomach, leg to—oh my God .
Was that him ?
“I’m…going to need a minute here, Marie.”
It was as much a confession as a statement of fact.
Unable to put words together myself, I simply nodded. And then inhaled.
Mistake.
I only just stopped myself from licking him from collarbone to jaw. He smelled that good .
For a few heartbeats, we remained body to body while he pressed his forehead to the cold metal of the fridge. His breath emitted in labored puffs into my hair.
In a movement so slight I almost thought it didn’t happen, his head rotated so that his mouth grazed the ridge of my ear.
His whole body shuddered.
“Anyone,” he rasped, voice low and shaking, “who has ever said you are invisible…” He took another serrated breath before exhaling slowly. “Has got to be fucking blind .”
The hands on my shoulders squeezed. My common sense had deserted me completely.
He was overcome.
I was overcome.
And yet, I still felt safe. How was it possible to feel small and protected and completely overwhelmed all at once?
Even more confusingly, when Lucas regained composure and released me, I didn’t feel relief. More like something was missing.
“Pardon,” he murmured as he took the dish towel with him to the other side of the kitchen, putting four feet of counter solidly between us.
When I finally managed to turn around, he was eating his breakfast as if nothing had happened, nodding politely when I set his coffee in front of him.
“So,” he said. “The beach, huh?”
I resisted the urge to get some ice and press it to my brow. “Oh. Yes. I decided to take your advice.”
“My advice?” he asked around a bite of acaí and granola. “This is excellent, by the way.”