And Then He Kissed Me

by Curtis, Melinda

  Aubrey stopped looking at other men and stared at Nino the way she had when he’d first approached her at the bar, as if he wasn’t to be trusted. “Marcos stole my research assistant. He offered him a big salary and moved Eugene to Ecuador. Marcos Alfaro is trying to back door my work…” Her breath caught, and her gaze swept the floor, expression crumbling on the brink of tears. “Correction. He’s trying to steal years of my life.”

  Dr. Summer?

  Nino almost said her name out loud. Or he might have if his mouth hadn’t gone dry.

  Dr. Summer?

  It couldn’t be.

  According to Eugene, Dr. Summer was a dignified, older woman who never emerged from her lab, not a dark-haired beauty who kissed with such abandon.

  Aubrey raised her watery eyes to Nino’s. They were the color of milk chocolate, the color of the source of her family’s fortune.

  Nino hadn’t inherited his fortune. He’d built it the hard way, with ruthless methods his absentee father had used, if only to show the man who’d abandoned him and his mother what an asset he’d left behind.

  “Do you know Marcos?” Aubrey’s hands were fisted at her sides, but her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Is he here?”

  Nino admitted nothing. “What do you plan to do when you find him?” She carried no purse, no knife, no gun. Not even a cell phone to capture a confession of guilt.

  “I’m going to tell him I know what he’s up to.” The determination he’d seen earlier in Aubrey’s spine was back. She wanted her pound of flesh. “I’m going to tell him he’s scum. And if he wheedles any of my proprietary secrets out of Eugene, I’ll know, and I’ll sue.”

  Worse threats than hers had been thrown in his face. Outwardly, Nino didn’t react. But inside his chest his heart beat out of rhythm. There was something about this woman’s spunk and spirit that woke his long-buried conscience.

  Perhaps she’d approached him at the right time. Having finally forced his father out of business, Nino was feeling off-kilter and unfocused. What did a man do after his life goal had been completed?

  He glanced around, searching for something to distract Aubrey. He needed time to decide what to do, what to say. The smart move was to walk away, but the impact of her kiss still lingered between them like the piquant scent of the flowering vines at her shoulder.

  Dotty was dancing on the edge of the crowd with no rhythm whatsoever, a fact she made up for with her enthusiasm. She embodied what the French called joie de vivre.

  Someone bumped the old woman and she stumbled, falling into a chair, blinking as if lost.

  “Your grandmother needs you.” Nino grabbed Aubrey’s arm and towed her inside.

  As soon as Aubrey saw her grandmother, she pushed past Nino and darted through the crowd. Nino followed, not knowing why. It would have been smarter to let her go. The longer he was with Dr. Aubrey Summer without admitting who he was, the worse the truth would become.

  “Bree?” Dotty’s eyes were large and her face pale. Her shoulders were hunched, and her hands placed over her ears. “Where are we?”

  Nino didn’t hear what Aubrey said to her grandmother, but Dotty nodded.

  Aubrey drew the old woman carefully to her feet and turned toward the exit. “Thank you for the drink,” she said to Nino as she moved past him, her grandmother tucked under her arm.

  Nino bid them goodnight and watched them leave.

  He’d done many reckless things in his life, made hard decisions and crossed lines others would have avoided, but he’d made every move with one goal in mind–to earn enough money to ruin his father when the opportunity came.

  Last year, the opportunity had come. Two months ago, he’d handed his father a check for the last business in his tattered portfolio. And then he’d set about the task of rebuilding Caradoc Confections to a level his father could only dream of.

  Aubrey was right. He was trying to take advantage of a competitor’s learnings to ensure the company he’d purchased from his father would become something special. Aubrey’s affront hadn’t deterred him from his path. He should keep his distance the rest of the week.

  And yet…

  He’d kissed Dr. Aubrey Summer, a woman who wasn’t impressed with Marcos Alfaro, who wasn’t after his money, his fame, or his power.

  He wanted to kiss her again.

  Chapter 3

  “Let me tell you about growing old.” Grandma Dotty lay in the single bed next to Aubrey in their hotel room. Hydrated and away from the noise, her head had cleared. “As you age, love gets more confusing and harder to find.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir,” Aubrey quipped, thinking about Nino’s unexpected kiss.

  She wasn’t exactly sure how to behave toward Nino the rest of the week. After their second kiss, he’d become distant, almost business-like. Had those kisses been an invitation to a one-night stand? Had she destroyed the mood by asking about Marcos Alfaro? Had Nino realized Aubrey was just a clueless wallflower when it came to games between men and women, and decided she wasn’t worth his time? He’d probably avoid her the rest of the week.

  Her heart panged in protest.

  Oh, get over it.

  Easier said than done. Kisses like that didn’t come her way every day. Tomorrow, when she checked her work email, she’d search for the scientific impact of kisses. Someone had to have done a study about whether first kisses that came with a wallop were an accurate predictor of long-term relationships.

  “Bree.” Grandma Dotty rolled on her side, facing Aubrey. Beneath the moonlight streaming in the window, her face was a ghostly white, the result of her nighttime facial mask. “When I was younger, men use to fall all over themselves to get my attention. And now, I get bumped aside on the dance floor by my younger competition. I’d love to get swept off my feet just one more time, even if it’s only for one night, even if I get my old heart broken a bit.”

  Aubrey had been swept off her feet by Nino, but it had only been for a moment and it wouldn’t happen again.

  “Do you know whose fault this is?” Grandma Dotty kicked her legs under the covers. “Men. They’re afraid of the grim reaper, so they gravitate toward younger women to make themselves feel immortal. Take Elicio.” Layla’s grandfather. “I threw myself at him tonight and he threw himself at a woman your age.”

  If Aubrey took what Grandma Dotty said as gospel, courtship involved a lot of throwing.

  “I don’t fear death, but I think I’ve been aiming at the wrong demographic.” Her grandmother kicked her feet some more. “You know what? I’m going to throw myself at a younger man. Starting tomorrow.”

  Uh-oh.

  This was a situation best nipped in the bud early. Grandma Dotty could be a bit over-zealous when she set her mind to something.

  “Do you really need another man? Wasn’t Grandpa enough?”

  “Honey, my feet get cold at night.” Loneliness threaded her grandmother’s words.

  Aubrey tossed off her covers and went to the bureau where she’d unpacked her clothes. She dug out a pair of fuzzy socks with no-slip bottoms and put them on Grandma Dotty’s feet. “Socks are less trouble than men.” Aubrey sat on the edge of her grandmother’s bed and rubbed her small feet.

  “You’re only saying that because you’ve lost your nose and can’t smell Nino.”

  “Actually,” Aubrey said patiently. “When I say I lost my nose, I mean my research assistant. The one with the powerful nose that Marcos Alfaro hired away.” She’d explained this to her grandmother before, many times. “Eugene has an amazing sensory palate. He can smell berry notes in a room filled with roses. He can discriminate the flavor of a cocoa bean grown in sandy soil from that grown in clay.”

  “He sounds very passionate.” The tease returned to Grandma Dotty’s tone. “Like a sommelier who loves wine.”

  Passionate was a word Aubrey wouldn’t apply to scientists like herself and Eugene. The word passion brought a picture of Nino to mind.

  Dotty yawned. “Why do
n’t you just get a new sommelier?”

  “First, I need to make sure the old one doesn’t tell Marcos Alfaro what I’ve been doing.”

  “You think you can tell Marcos Alfaro what he can and can’t do?” Grandma Dotty cleared her throat, her normal prep for a lecture. “This is Ecuador. The legal steps you take to defend your work in America most likely mean nothing down here.” She rubbed at the white mask on her cheek. “We used to have a saying in the Florida school yard.”

  “Don’t bring a twig to fight an alligator.” Aubrey knew Dotty’s sayings by heart.

  “Exactly.” Dotty shook her finger at Aubrey. “You need to remember men like Marcos Alfaro are dangerous. Your threats to stop him from stealing your work can’t be idle.”

  “I can file a case in the international courts.” Which upon further reflection was exactly the kind of idle threat Dotty was talking about. By all accounts, Marcos Alfaro was a man who had clawed his way to wealth. Maybe her grandmother was right. “Maybe I’m going about this wrong. Maybe I need to find Eugene and…Maybe I need to hire Eugene back.”

  Which would be the perfect solution if Eugene wasn’t…Well…Eugene. The word humble wasn’t in his dictionary. Mr. Alfaro was in for a rude awakening when he tried to manage Eugene.

  That thought made Aubrey smile.

  The hotel phone rang. Aubrey picked it up.

  “I couldn’t sleep without knowing if all was right with your grandmother.” Nino’s voice was deeply magnetic and bedroom smooth.

  While reassuring him Dotty was fine, Aubrey yanked up her jammies. She bet a man like Nino could tell if she was lying in bed with exposed cleavage, just by the uptight tone of her voice.

  “Family is important to you,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Is that Nino?” Grandma Dotty perked up. “Ask him for his room number. I promise not to judge your walk of shame.”

  Nino chuckled.

  Aubrey was grateful he couldn’t see her blush, a condition which wasn’t limited to heating her face.

  “Mi cielo, I can’t stop thinking about– ”

  “It’s very kind of you to check on us,” Aubrey blurted.

  “ –how you’d feel in my arms– ”

  Eep.

  “ –on the dance floor.”

  Aubrey couldn’t breathe. He said on the dance floor like other men said in my bed. She clutched the hem of her jammies above her cleavage. He was too much man for a botanist.

  “Mi cielo?”

  Aubrey hung up.

  Mortified, she picked up the receiver, but the damage had been done.

  I’m such a dork.

  “Don’t say you’re throwing Nino back.” Grandma Dotty cleared her throat again, shifting into lecture mode. “That Nino is the complete package and– ”

  “I’m not his type.” She couldn’t flirt on the phone much less engage in casual kisses. Kisses… “Besides, Nino wouldn’t pass Kitty’s Kissing Test.”

  Kitty’s test involved one sister trying to kiss another sister’s beau to test his affection for a Summer girl versus a Summer fortune.

  “Who cares about test results?” Grandma Dotty sighed. “Every woman needs at least one heartbreaker in her life, Bree. It’s a rule.”

  “It’s not a rule.” And if it was, it was one Aubrey planned on breaking. “When I fall in love, it’s going to be with a nice, boring man. One who’d never cheat.” Unlike her philandering father.

  Grandma Dotty tsked. “Boring is for second marriages. You can’t avoid the heartbreaker rule. Look what happened to your sister Maggie.”

  “Is that fair?” Aubrey huffed. “Her fiancé didn’t pass Kitty’s Kissing Test.”

  Maggie had been minutes away from marrying Beck when Kitty had decided to institute the Kissing Test. Any groom who accepted mouth-to-mouth from a woman not his bride-to-be on his wedding day didn’t really love his bride-to-be. Of course, everyone in the Summer family had been shocked when the wedding was cancelled. And now Maggie and Kitty weren’t talking.

  “We should get some sleep. The wedding party has a nine o’clock tee time.”

  Would Nino be there? Would he laugh at her cowardice?

  Aubrey tossed and turned for hours, wondering…and wishing.

  *

  “Mr. Alfaro?”

  Nino lowered his morning newspaper and stared at his latest hire–Eugene Malcom.

  He’d been reading the stock market report, although none of the numbers had been sinking in. His mind kept drifting to an image of Aubrey’s face right before he’d kissed her–such a pleasant memory–and then jolting forward to the vulnerability she’d shown when admitting she feared her work was about to be stolen. And then there was the way she’d hung up on him last night when he’d tried flirting with her. He assumed she’d lost her patience with him. In hindsight, she didn’t seem like the type to put up with a man’s flowery seduction. But those blushes…

  She’d kept him tossing and turning last night, questioning his future plans. Was he the villain Aubrey painted if he used her scientific discoveries? To his way of thinking, if he built upon her findings–improving his chocolate, increasing his sales–the entire chocolate industry would be better for it.

  Sometime close to sunrise he’d come to a conclusion–his revenge against his father wouldn’t be complete without Caradoc becoming a success in the chocolate industry. He had a goal again. He’d pursue Bon Bon Chocolate’s field principles by any means, including romancing the secrets out of Aubrey.

  “Mr. Alfaro?” Eugene asked again, scratching his rather large nose. “You wanted to see me before work this morning?”

  Disheveled hair, wrinkled shirt, the shoulder strap on his laptop bag frayed. The young man who stood before Nino at the small outdoor café a block from the Brighton Hotel could have passed as a penniless college student. Did the young man he’d hired away from Aubrey have no pride to go along with those principles of his? He looked as if he’d just rolled out of bed, not as if he’d shown up for an early morning meeting with his billionaire boss.

  “Sit down, Eugene.” Nino folded his newspaper and set it to the side, gesturing to the waiter to bring coffee for his newest employee. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me this morning. How are you finding life in Ecuador?”

  “It’s fine.” Wariness radiated from Eugene’s pale blue eyes behind his round lenses. They hadn’t ended things well between them yesterday. “I’ve been too busy updating your lab and testing your cocoa inventory to go out at night.” Eugene sat across from Nino, removed his glasses, and cleaned them with his shirt-tail. “That is, after all, what you brought me here for, not to hang out at bars and dance with beautiful women.” He nodded to the newspaper, which showed a picture of Layla in the midst of a crowd of dancers at the Brighton. Nino was in the corner of the photograph.

  Anger made Nino grip his coffee cup. This little bobalicón had the nerve to imply Nino wasn’t a hard worker?

  “We’ll have to trash the entire inventory.” Eugene put his glasses back on, so confident of his value to Nino that he dared cast shade. “The moisture content in most of your unprocessed cocoa is too high, and the rest is germinating, making it worthless.” He looked pleased at his findings. “I can’t tell if your cocoa came in to the factory that way or if it’s because your storage containers are primitive and dirty.”

  “Worthless?” Nino hadn’t expected this. His anger found a new target. His father. Surely, his father had known this and hadn’t divulged the information during the sale. A call to his lawyer was in order. “The entire crop?”

  “Yes.” The skinny scientist nodded. “You’ve been sold a bad bill of goods.”

  In more ways than one. In his rush to best his father, Nino hadn’t consulted an expert on the raw inventory Caradoc Confections had in its supply pipeline. Likewise, he hadn’t fully vetted the annoying scientist Aubrey had relied on.

  An image of his father’s face, laughing at Nino’s expense, tumbled through his head li
ke a three-second gif set on repeat. A series of curses rolled around his mouth. He swallowed them back, refusing to let even a memory of his father best his control.

  The easiest thing to do would be to refit the plant with modern equipment and fire Eugene. But there might be some value in the old equipment and the skinny man yet. “Tell me about Dr. Summer. I neglected to ask you about her yesterday.” He’d need more information about Aubrey if he was to woo Bon Bon trade secrets from her.

  “Dr. Summer? Why…She’s brilliant.” Eugene blushed.

  Blushed!

  Nino had never been that young or that foolish. Blushing over his boss? Ridiculous!

  “Obviously, I can’t talk about her work, which I was a great contributor to.” Squaring his skinny shoulders, Eugene recovered the stick up his behind.

  “I’m not asking about her work.” Words spewed from Nino’s mouth in short, impatient syllables. “I’m asking about her. What’s she like? Where does she go on vacation? Does she take cream in her coffee?”

  Does she date?

  Her personal life should have been of no importance to Nino. But he refused to retract the question.

  Eugene blinked. “Dr. Summer is older and practically lives in the lab. And when she does take vacation, she combines it with something work related. Her dedication and brilliance are why I agreed to work with her.”

  Somehow, Eugene managed to turn every comment back to his own personal importance. Why hadn’t Nino noticed this when he’d interviewed him in New York?

  “And…” Nino’s employee was either cagey or obtuse. Either way, he was infuriating.

  “And?” Eugene echoed, playing the obtuse card.

  You’re fired.

  Nino was in no position to take such action. He struggled to hold his temper. “What about charities?” Did Aubrey still want to save the whales? “Causes she cares about?”

  Men she cares about.

  Eugene’s forehead wrinkled. “Dr. Summer supports animal rescue, I think.”