“It can wait.”
“Are you saying this as my boss?”
“Or—,” he prompted, eyes devouring her face.
“Or what?”
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
“What else would you be?”
He lifted a reusable takeaway cup from the basket, handing it towards her. “It’s just coffee.”
She felt childish and gauche for making such a big deal of things. Her stepsisters would know exactly how to behave around a guy like this. They were beautiful and willowy and tall, and both had attended universities in Europe, drenched in fashion and surrounded by elegant friends. Skye felt way out of her league.
“Fine,” she muttered, reaching for the cup. It was impossible to take it without their fingers brushing. She’d realized that even as she’d reached for it, but nothing could have prepared her for the zing of awareness that would riot through her at the simple touch. She pulled the cup away, resentment in her veins. She’d had boyfriends. Back home in Australia and she’d even dated a guy over the summer. But no one had ever made her feel quite like this, with so little provocation! Matthieu de Garmeaux only had to look at her to set her pulse racing.
“Why are you working so early?”
Until he asked the question, she hadn’t realized that she’d been afraid he was going to give her coffee and leave again, and she could barely acknowledge to herself how badly she didn’t want him to do that. “I like this time of day.”
“It’s barely day.”
“Let me guess. You prefer to sleep in.”
“No, actually. I wake early too. But my choice is generally made out of necessity.”
“What necessity?”
She watched as he reached into the basket and pulled out a red and white checked tea towel. “For you.” He unfurled it, offering her an almond croissant. She looked at it for several seconds then reached down and took a piece, breaking off the top tip.
She bit into it, moaning at the delicious flavor. “This is so good.”
“Just out of the oven.”
“You baked this?”
“No,” he laughed. “I’m useless in the kitchen. But the chef makes them whenever I come to stay.”
Questions fired through her.
“I work across multiple time zones. My companies trade in Japan, Australia, Europe, America.”
“And you oversee all that?”
“I have an excellent board of directors but yes, I like to oversee as much as I can.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” she said, thinking how sad it would be to wake at dawn but miss it, because you were staring at a spreadsheet on a computer.
“Whereas you wake so early because—why?”
She took another bite of the croissant. He’d lied to her. Not directly, but by omission. He knew she hadn’t recognized him and yet he’d let her take him from the vineyard like some criminal.
So why did she feel that same sense of relaxed sharing creeping through her? It was as though she wanted to tell him all her secrets. That made no sense.
“I grew up on a farm.”
“In Australia?”