“Now, this is a chocolate butter cake. It’s used in our chocolate decadence and mocha macadamia cakes.”
Vanessa was busy taking another drink of her water when Jax cut a small piece of the cake onto his fork. Instead of taking it himself, he turned it to her and waited expectantly. Her eyes flicked to the cake. Then up at him. Back to the cake.
Whether she was uncomfortable with acting like a couple in front of Robért or it was something else, he wasn’t sure. But he didn’t back down. He hated that she’d shut him out. He missed seeing the sparkle in her eyes when she looked at him. So if he had to force her to acknowledge him, then that’s what he’d do.
Finally, she leaned forward and took the offered cake as she held his gaze. Absolutely stunning. As she pulled back, he again watched as her lips dragged on the metal tines, and he swore the temperature in the room kicked up at least a dozen degrees. Holy hell.
“Mmm. That’s really good,” she said. “What kind of fillings would be used for this?”
“Ah!” Robért placed two of the small bowls next to the plate of cake. Pointing to the first bowl, he said, “The chocolate macadamia is filled with chocolate ganache, coffee buttercream, and crushed macadamia nut brittle. Very unordinary. And the chocolate decadence is paired with a classic combo of chocolate ganache and rich raspberry.”
This time she made sure she was on point with dipping her own spoon in the creamy ganache so Jax didn’t have the opportunity to feed her again. For posterity’s sake, he did the same and tasted the filling, but he couldn’t have told Robért if it tasted like coconuts or dirt. His focus was on Vanessa.
When she pulled her spoon out of her mouth, a bit of frosting remained on the corner of her lower lip. Reaching out, he used his thumb to clean it off. Again, she seemed to stop breathing for a second. But this time when their eyes met, the desire that had been pushed to the back now shined through.
It took everything Jax had to not tell Robért to pick the damn cake himself and haul her off to their room.
They tasted a few other combinations and ultimately decided on a light coconut cake with haupia coconut custard filling and Italian buttercream icing. Even if Jax hadn’t known Lucie had an affinity for coconut, he’d have known Vanessa made the choice based on Lucie’s likes and not her own. Based on subtle hints he’d picked up on, he was pretty sure that not only was the chocolate decadence her favorite, but that fruit with chocolate in general was something she enjoyed. He made a mental note.
“Thank you so much, Robért,” Vanessa said as she stood. “Please tell the chef they were all wonderful. I appreciate it very much.”
“It was our pleasure, believe me. Now go have some fun and I’ll see you soon!”
Jax rose as well, waited for their hug and double air-kiss to be over, shook Robért’s hand, then started to escort V out of the restaurant.
“Oh, my goodness, I almost forgot!” They turned around to see a distressed Robért following after them. “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
Vanessa gave Jax a concerned look. “What is it?”
“I heard from my friend this morning and he can’t cover the other wedding for me. Something about a last minute vow renewal he got roped into. I’m so sorry, can you forgive me? I wanted to be there so badly.”
Palpable relief relaxed Vanessa’s shoulders as she released a long exhale. Thankfully, to Robért it would just appear as disappointment. “Please don’t give it another thought, Robért. We completely understand, don’t we, Reid?”
Cue terrible acting. “Oh, yeah,” Jax added. “Completely. Man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, right?” Don’t ask him what the hell that was supposed to mean. It was all he could come up with on short notice.
The other two people in the conversation stared him blankly for a few seconds before simultaneously deciding to ignore him and move on with their emotional back and forth. Eventually they wrapped things up and they gave leaving another shot.
They’d no sooner hit the path outside when her cell rang. Sounded like a client, and based on her half of the conversation, she was gearing up for a long night of work.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, he followed after her and smiled to himself. There was no way he’d let her ignore him the rest of the night. Time to formulate a plan.
…
Vanessa stared at the file in her lap and chewed on the end of her pen. It had been a bad habit growing up. All of her pens and pencils looked like rats had gnawed on them. Once she became an attorney, she’d managed to break herself of it. The last thing she wanted was for the opposing counsel to see her chewing on her writing utensils and thinking she was nervous or incompetent.
But here she was, a half hour into working, and the top of her pen looked like a beaver attacked it. Damn it.