Читать книгу Sweet Persuasions - Rochelle Alers, Rochelle Alers - Страница 10

Xavier stared at Bobby Bell as if he’d taken leave of his senses. What was he talking about? And why did Bobby believe he had a connection to Selena. Today was only the second time they’d been seen with each other. His gaze shifted to Selena, his instincts suddenly on alert. There was something in her eyes that wordlessly communicated not to say anything.

Selena breathed an inaudible sigh when Xavier clamped his jaw. “Did you think I really didn’t have someone, Robert Bell?” she drawled sarcastically.

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Xavier asked.

Bobby crossed massive arms over a broad, deep chest. “I run a restaurant with my dad and uncles, and on Fridays we have date night with a live jazz combo. I’ve been asking Selena to come, but she says she doesn’t go anywhere without her boyfriend. Whenever I ask about her ‘boyfriend’ she always says he’s busy. So after a while I started calling him her mystery man.”

Bobby told Xavier more about Selena Yates in less than sixty seconds than he would’ve learned if he’d continued to come to her patisserie a dozen more times. She was single, wasn’t dating anyone and no doubt a very private person. He took several steps and put his arm around her waist.

“I hope you’re not calling my woman a liar, Bobby.”

“No, no, no, man,” Bobby countered, holding up his hands defensively. “It’s just that I didn’t know you were back in Charleston, that’s all. One of the guys from school told me about you saving three of your men after they’d driven over an IED and—”

“We’ll talk about that later,” Xavier interrupted when he felt Selena’s back go rigid against his arm. He didn’t know if Bobby knew that her brother had served, as well.

Bobby’s boyish round face softened when he winked at Selena. It was apparent Xavier didn’t want to talk about the war in front of her. “I’m going to have to pick up those trays and head back to the restaurant. The kid who usually does all the runs sprained his ankle playing football, so yours truly is standing in as temporary gofer. Am I going to see you two tonight?” he asked Selena.

Xavier stared at Selena, lifting his eyebrows questioningly. “I’ll come, that is if Selena isn’t busy.” He felt conflicting emotions. On the one hand he had hoped she’d be busy, since he’d never liked being manipulated into situations. But on the other hand, he’d hoped she wasn’t busy, and going out with her would satisfy his curiosity.

Selena felt the powerful arm around her waist. She also enjoyed the way Xavier’s body pressed against hers and the tantalizing scent of his cologne. She’d tired of Bobby Bell asking her to come to his family’s restaurant for date night, because there wasn’t any man she’d seen or met since moving to Charleston that she’d wanted to accompany her. It wasn’t that men hadn’t asked her out. But her involvement with a man who’d threatened her life if he couldn’t have her, made her overly cautious when it came to dating. However, there was something about Xavier Eaton that reminded her of her brothers, and there was never a time when they hadn’t protected her.

The boys in her West Virginia town knew if they messed with Selena Yates then they had to not only deal with her father but also her brothers. If their father hadn’t been sheriff, there was little doubt either one or both would’ve spent several nights in the local jail. They’d protected her at home, but they were unable to protect her once she’d moved away.

“What about it, Selena? Do you want to go?” Xavier said when she gave Bobby a blank stare.

“Yes,” she replied as if coming out of a trance. Her eyelids fluttered wildly when she realized what she’d agreed to.

Bobby’s head bobbed up and down. “Good.” He slapped Xavier’s shoulder. “Mama is going to lose it when she sees you.”

Xavier smiled. “Let your mother know that I’m looking forward to seeing her again.”

Selena plastered on a smile. “Bobby, your order is in the back.” She waited until Bobby made his way to the rear of the shop before rounding on Xavier. “Don’t you dare say anything until after he leaves,” she whispered.

Narrowing his eyes, Xavier pushed his face close to Selena’s. “You have a lot of explaining to do, Ms. Yates.”

Bobby emerged from the back, clutching four white shopping bags with Sweet Persuasions and the street address stamped on the sides. “Try to get there before seven, because Ma Bell’s gets real crowded around eight.”

“You named the restaurant Ma Bell’s?”

Bobby laughed, the sound coming from deep within his wide chest. “Ma is short for Emma. We were going to call it Bell’s, but my dad overruled his brothers. He said if his wife was going to cook alongside them, then the place would also bear her name. She cooks on Fridays and Saturdays, while they take over the kitchen from Sunday through Thursday.”

Xavier nodded. “Good choice.” He’d lost track of the number of times he’d sat at Emma Bell’s table devouring everything she’d put in front of him. She was one of the best, if not the best, cook in the low country. He took his arm from around Selena, and opened the door for Bobby. “We’ll see you later.” He closed and locked the door, turned over the sign to Closed in the shop window, then turned to face Selena. “Please tell me why Bobby thinks I’m your mystery man?”

Selena closed her eyes for several seconds. “You don’t have to go with me if you don’t want to.”

He closed the distance between them, grasped her shoulders and steered her over to one of the bistro tables. He pulled out a chair for her, then rounded the small table and sat on the opposite side. “If there is one thing you should know about me, Selena, it’s that I’m not into playing head games. You tell Bobby you’re going with me, and now you say I don’t have to go. What’s it going to be?”

Selena’s hands tightened into fists, her nails biting into the tender flesh on her palms. She welcomed the pain rather than stare at the man glaring at her. “It’s complicated, Xavier.”

“How complicated can it be?” he countered. “Apparently you lied to Bobby about having a boyfriend, or do you really have a boyfriend stashed away somewhere?”

Her gaze swung back to his handsome face. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

Xavier leaned over the table. “You don’t have a boyfriend, yet you told Bobby you did. Why?”

She breathed an audible sigh. “I got tired of him asking me to come to Ma Bell’s for date night, because he said if I didn’t have someone to go with then he would hook me up with someone.” Her delicate jaw tightened. “The last time someone hooked me up with a man it ended in disaster.” What she didn’t tell Xavier was that the relationship had almost cost her her life.

“I don’t like being set up, either,” Xavier said. “How long did you think you’d be able to string Bobby along without him becoming suspicious?”

Xavier’s query elicited a smile from Selena. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“It did until I became your date.”

“You didn’t have to go along with it.”

A hint of a smile tilted the corners of his mouth upward. “But I did because I was curious to see how it would all play out. Now that I have a girlfriend I didn’t know I had when I woke up this morning, perhaps you can tell me a little about yourself.”

Selena felt the invisible wall she’d put up whenever she discovered a man getting too close to her emotionally disappear. “There’s not much to tell.”

Propping his elbow on the table, Xavier rested his chin on the heel of his hand. “Let me be the judge of that.”

“Why are you going along with this, Xavier? I’m certain you’d rather take some other woman with you to Ma Bell’s.”

His impassive expression did not change. “Perhaps you weren’t listening when I told you that I didn’t have a girlfriend—that is until a few minutes ago. Now, baby, please tell me what I need to know about you so we can put on a winning performance for my old college buddy.”

Selena didn’t want to believe he’d called her “baby”. The endearment rolled off his tongue like watered silk. “I’m twenty-six.”

“When will you be twenty-seven?”

“October eighteenth.”

“Are you a native Charlestonian?”

Selena shook her head. “No. I’m originally from West Virginia.”

“Where in West Virginia?” he asked. Xavier had detected a slight accent, but he hadn’t been able to identify where she was from.

“Matewan.”

Lowering his arm, he stared at Selena as a shiver of excitement rushed over him. “I’ve never been to Matewan, although it has been on my list of must-see places.”

“There isn’t a whole lot to see,” Selena replied. “It’s a speck on the map.”

“It’s speck with a lot of history. Isn’t it referred to as ‘a peaceful place with a violent history’?”

Selena sat up straight. “How’d you know that?”

“I teach American history.”

“Where?”

“At the Christopher Munroe Military Academy in North Charleston.”

“Do you like teaching?” she asked, continuing with her questioning.

Xavier smiled, bringing her gaze to linger on his sexy mouth. “I love it. Now, tell me why you left Matewan.”

“I was offered a full academic scholarship to Stanford.”

The seconds ticked as he stared at Selena. Not only was his pretend girlfriend beautiful, but she was also very bright. “What was your major?”

“Drama.”

“You’re an actress?”

Slumping in the chair, Selena stared at a spot over Xavier’s shoulder. Answering his question would open a door to her past she didn’t want to reopen. “No,” she half lied after a pronounced pause. “I’m a pastry chef.”

“But…but why did you major in drama if you wanted to be a pastry chef?”

“At the time I didn’t know that acting wasn’t for me.”

What she didn’t tell Xavier was that she was a pastry chef with chocolate as her specialty. She prayed Xavier hadn’t watched daytime soap operas or he would’ve recognized her even without the makeup and designer clothes. After she’d graduated, she’d auditioned for a small part on a soap opera and was hired on the spot. Her acting credits included commercials, a made-for-television movie and work in several films. The seven-episode role on the soap opera was expanded, and she was signed to a one-year contract and became a recurring character.

Ratings for the show escalated. Her workdays began at five in the morning and didn’t end until ten at night. After memorizing fifty to sixty-page scripts, she barely had time for socializing. But after about a year and a half she began going out with Derrick Perry.

He’d been the most attentive man she’d ever known, but when his attentiveness bordered on obsession, Selena knew they had to stop seeing so much of each other. It was as if she were being smothered. He’d become unreasonable when she’d told him that she wasn’t able to see him every day, and that they could get together on weekends. He’d fly into a rage, and then resort to a crying jag. She didn’t see Derrick for several weeks, and when he reappeared it was as if nothing had happened. Selena didn’t ask where he’d been and he hadn’t been forthcoming about his disappearance. They’d resumed their weekends-only dating for a month when he disappeared again. This time it was for three months. When he’d shown up at her apartment late one Sunday night she didn’t recognize the man with whom she’d been involved. He’d lost weight, his eyes were sunken, he’d grown a beard and his hair was fashioned into twists. When she’d asked where he’d been, his response was he’d gone away to try and find himself. It was then that he began stalking her and unbeknownst to her, planning to kill her.

“Selena?”

Xavier’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Yes?”

“How often do you do that?”

“Do what?” she asked.

“Zone out.”

Droplets of heat pricked her face. “I’m sorry. What else do you need to know about me?”

“How long have you lived in Charleston?”

“About a year and a half. I opened Sweet Persuasions six months ago. I’ve never been married and you already know I’m not involved with anyone.”

“Is that by choice?”

A soft gasp escaped Selena’s lips. She sat there stunned, unable to believe Xavier had asked her that question. “Of course it’s by choice.”

“Don’t act so put out, Ms. Yates. After all, you were the one who said you didn’t like people hooking you up. Suppose you’d met someone you liked. Would you get involved?”

Resting her elbows on the table, she shortened the small distance separating them. “Are you asking if I would consider seeing you, Mr. Eaton?” There was a hint of laughter in her voice.

Xavier eyes lingered on her parted lips before meeting her amused gaze. “No. I would never be that presumptuous,” he said, unaware that his approval rating had gone up several points with Selena.

She wrinkled her nose. “Now it’s your turn. Give me a quick overview of Xavier Eaton so I don’t embarrass myself when someone asks me about my date.”

“I’m thirty-four, a marine—”

“I thought you were no longer active military.”

He wagged his finger. “Shame on you. Didn’t your brother teach you, Once a Marine Always a Marine?”

“Now, how could I forget that?” Selena said jokingly, as she hit her forehead.

“I don’t know,” Xavier crooned.

She rolled her eyes at him. “I owe you for that one.” Xavier responded with a wink. Suddenly he appeared carefree and boyish, qualities she didn’t think he possessed.

Xavier curbed the urge to run his finger down the length of Selena’s nose. He didn’t know what it was about her utterly adorable nose that captivated him. “I met Bobby Bell when we were cadets at The Citadel. I lived on campus while Bobby commuted. When I didn’t go home to Philadelphia for holidays and school breaks, I could be found at Bobby’s house. I became his unofficial brother. We managed to stay in touch after graduation, but lost contact with each other once he was assigned to the American embassy in Istanbul. After I was deployed to Iraq, and later Afghanistan, I lost touch with everyone I knew at The Citadel.”

The seconds ticked as Selena gave Xavier a long, penetrating stare. “Were you injured in combat?” He nodded, then went completely still as if he’d been carved out of stone. “Why did you decide to return to Charleston?” she asked, changing the topic.

Xavier breathed an audible sigh. He didn’t like talking about the war because the images of what he’d done and seen were indelibly imprinted in his mind. There were times when he woke up struggling to breathe, his heart racing uncontrollably from the nightmares that haunted him once he was no longer on active duty.

“I like this city.”

“You like this city?” Selena said.

“Isn’t that enough?” Xavier said. “You moved from West Virginia to California to go to school, but instead of returning home you decided to put down roots in South Carolina.”

“There’s a reason why I didn’t go back to West Virginia.” She knew she sounded defensive, but Selena wasn’t about to spill her guts to a man who she was just pretending to date.

Xavier crossed his injured right leg over his left knee. He was able to get around without a cane now, but there were times when the dull ache was a reminder of how close he’d come to losing the limb. “Were you running away from an old boyfriend?”

Years of acting training kicked in when Selena’s face belied the tension of the knot that had formed in her stomach. She didn’t and couldn’t tell Xavier how close he was to the truth. “I didn’t have a boyfriend when I lived in Matewan.”

“Did you have one when you lived in California?”

“I thought we were talking about you?” she retorted, unable to hide her annoyance.

Folding his arms across his chest, Xavier angled his head and studied the woman who’d become more of an enigma with each passing minute. Initially she was open and friendly, willing to talk about anything. But, whenever he mentioned her involvement with a man she always managed to change the subject. He wondered if she’d had a bad relationship. She was an attractive, intelligent and talented twenty-six-year-old who probably had a steady stream of men coming into Sweet Persuasions just to catch a glimpse of her. Most women would revel in the attention, but for Selena it seemed to be just the opposite.

“I’m sorry if I hit a nerve.”

“You didn’t hit a nerve, Xavier. You were prying. After all, I didn’t ask you about the women in your life.”

A hint of a smile softened his mouth. “There are only two women in my life at the moment—my mother and sister.”

It was Selena’s turn to smile. “Is that your way of telling me that you’re not involved with anyone?”

“I thought I was being subtle.”

Her smile became a full-on grin. “I don’t think so.”

“Damn!” he drawled. “Is there anything else you need to know about me?”

“No.”

There was a lot more Selena wanted to know about Xavier Eaton, but only if she’d been interested in becoming involved with him.

Xavier stood up. Their cross-examination had ended. He believed he’d garnered enough information about Selena to feel comfortable pretending to be her boyfriend. “I’d better give you that mailing information for the cheesecake and pretzels. When do you think they’ll be shipped out?”

“That depends on if you want them delivered Sunday or Monday.”

“I’d like a Sunday delivery.” He completed the shipping form, handing it to Selena, who’d stood up. “How long will it take to get to Ma Bell’s from here?”

“It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.” Selena gave him the address.

Xavier didn’t tell her the restaurant was less than a quarter mile from his house. Although he’d moved back to Charleston, he hadn’t had the time to get acquainted with his adopted city. After he’d received his appointment to Munroe, he’d purchased a house in Charleston’s historic district that needed extensive renovations. Before he relocated however, he used to drive from Philadelphia to Charleston every two weeks to look at the progress and confer with the contractor.

It wasn’t until the first week of August that he moved into his house, which was known as a Charleston single house. It was representative of the city’s nineteenth-century period architecture, in which many houses were one-room wide for cross-ventilation, with each room opening into the next, fronting the street, with a full-length veranda on the side, often with a two-story porch overlooking a garden. Many of the rooms in Xavier’s house were empty. Some were awaiting delivery of furniture, while others would remain empty until he decided how he wanted to decorate them. As long as he had something to sit on, eat on and a place to sleep, Xavier didn’t feel the need to fill up his first home with things that didn’t fit in.

“If I pick you up at six-thirty, will that give you enough time to get ready?”

Selena glanced at the wall clock. It was minutes after five. That meant she had a little more than an hour to get ready for her date. “It’s enough time.”

Reaching into the pocket of his slacks, Xavier removed his credit card. “Where shall I pick you up?”

“I’ll meet you on the block behind the shop. I live upstairs,” she explained when seeing his puzzled expression.

“Now that’s what I call a sweet setup. You never have to worry about the weather or getting tied up in traffic to get to work.”

“It’s nice. Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I come down and bake.” Selena waved away the card. “You’re going to have to pay me later, after they restore telephone service.”

Xavier returned the card to the case. “Are you always this trusting?”

“Don’t play yourself, Xavier P. Eaton. Remember I have your credit card information on file. And if you try to stiff me, I’ll bill your account for three times the amount.”

“You wouldn’t,” he deadpanned.

“Oh, yes, I would. Remember, I come from coal-mining stock. There aren’t too many folks tougher or more resilient than coal miners.”

“One of these days I’d like to hear about it.”

Selena shook her head. “I don’t think that’s going to happen, Xavier.”

“Why, Selena?” His voice sounded low and seductive.

“That would mean another date.”

He took a step, bringing them less than a foot apart. Everything that was Selena Yates swept over him, pulling him in and refusing to let him go. He’d tried to remain unaffected but he’d failed miserably. Somehow fate had stepped in when Robert Bell walked into Sweet Persuasions to find him with the owner of the patisserie. If his friend had assumed he and Selena were a couple, then he had no intention of correcting the mistake—especially not when he was given the opportunity to take her to dinner without having to work up the nerve to ask her out on a date. It wasn’t his style to come on heavy with a woman, and it usually took several encounters before he would make his move. But Selena was different—just how different he had yet to discover.

“Would that be so horrible?”

Putting her hands on his rock-solid chest, Selena tried to put some space between them. She felt the warmth of his body through the fabric of his shirt. “No, it wouldn’t, but why don’t we just wait and see if we can tolerate each other enough to go out again.”

Grabbing her wrists, Xavier held her captive. “Don’t you think tolerate is too strong a word?”

Lowering her eyes, Selena peered up at him through her lashes. “I can’t count the number of times I’m forced to tolerate dealing with someone—and that includes some of my customers.”

“Is yours truly included in that group?”

“You will if you don’t let me close up and get ready for my date night.”

“I hear you loud and clear, Ms. Yates.” Xavier released her wrists, lowered his head, brushing his mouth over hers in a kiss that was so light she thought she’d imagined it. “I’ll see you later.”

Selena barely had time to react before she registered the chiming of the bell that signaled Xavier had unlocked the door and left. On unsteady legs, she walked over to the door and locked it behind him.

She didn’t know how it had happened, but within the span of half an hour she’d agreed to go to Ma Bell’s for date night with a stranger—a handsome stranger, nonetheless—who until a few days ago she didn’t even know existed. Pressing her back to the door, Selena closed her eyes. What, she mused, was there about Xavier Eaton that made her do and feel things that were totally out of character for practical, level-headed Selena Liliana Yates?

Grandma Lily had called her a hummingbird, forever in motion and her mind flitting from one thing to the other. When her grandfather, who was a carpenter, built her the grandest dollhouse she had ever seen, she’d announced she was going to decorate the rooms using scraps of leftover fabric from her grandmother’s quilting and needlecraft projects. Hand-sewn curtains, crocheted rugs and wallpaper made from colorful adhesive-backed drawer liners were the envy of the girls who came to see what Selena had been bragging about. It had taken years for her to furnish the dollhouse with carefully chosen wood-looking tables and chairs, and appliances made from scrap metal. By the time she’d celebrated her fifteenth birthday she’d lost interest in decorating when she appeared on stage in a school play. The acting bug had bitten her—hard. The dollhouse, which was put in a room where her parents stored old cradles, cribs and other pieces of furniture made by her grandfather and great-grandfather, had been relegated to her childhood.

Never in her wildest dreams could Selena have predicted that she would walk away from acting. She’d barely tasted success when her world fell apart because a man who’d professed his love to her tried to hurt her. She shook her head as if to shake off the memory of Derrick. Working quickly, she transferred trays from the showcase to the walk-in freezer, turned off the lights, punched in the code to the alarm and locked the door behind her.

Selena unlocked the rear door to the staircase that led up to her apartment. Monica had picked up Trisha from school and driven up to Goose Creek to spend the weekend with her parents. Since her neighbor wasn’t around she avoided having to explain why she was going out on a Friday night. As she opened the door to her apartment, she felt a flutter of excitement in the pit of her stomach much like she’d experienced when she had a crush on a boy who was her brother’s friend. Each time he came to the house she scurried away like a frightened mouse, spending the entire time in her bedroom while she’d fantasized about kissing him. It was only when he began dating a girl Selena disliked intensely, that she decided not only was he ugly but he also had ears that stuck out too far.

But there was nothing wrong with Xavier Eaton—at least not on the surface. She had to be careful—very, very careful to look for the signs that he wasn’t what he seemed to be. After what she’d experienced with Derrick, Selena had sworn it would never happen again.