She turned and held out the filled baggie. “For your breakfast tomorrow.”
He took the scones with a heavy-lidded look. “I’d rather have you for breakfast.” That sent more than mere shivers racing through her. She was about to shush him when he continued, “But there’s always the dressing room at Saks.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” She choked on a laugh as she headed for the door.
He caught her wrist to stop her. There was no teasing in his voice or his face as he looked down at her. “When it comes to you, I’ll dare many things.”
The intensity of his gaze sent a tiny thrill of excitement and panic ricocheting around inside her rib cage. She stared up at him, feeling like a rabbit caught in the hypnotic spell of a snake.
“Keep that in mind,” he said, releasing her wrist and waving her through the kitchen door in front of him.
Somehow she got through the polite good-byes. Nathan gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek at the front door before he headed for the car, his long strides making their modest walkway seem even shorter.
She stood watching as the Rolls glided into motion, noting with relief that the windows were as opaque as Nathan had promised.
As she came back into the living room, where her grandmother sat in her favorite chair, Grandmillie raised her hand in a warding-off gesture. “I wanted to see him for myself, so don’t chew me out.”
Chloe put her hands on her hips. “You might have warned me.”
“What would you have done differently if I had?”
Chloe looked around at the immaculate living room, and her indignation sputtered out. “I would have helped you clean the downstairs and set the table. You must be exhausted.”
“I got Lynda to help me with the cleaning in exchange for some scones.”
“I’m confused.” Chloe sat on the couch. “I thought you wanted me to marry him, but it sounded like you were trying to scare him away with all that talk about evil corporations.”
Her grandmother spun the neck of her cane between her palms. “He’s not what I expected.”
“Better or worse?”
Grandmillie stared down at her rotating cane for a long moment before looking at Chloe. “He’s not like your father’s friends. They were all brilliant scientists, but they were—what’s that word the teenagers use?—nerds. Easy for a smart woman to manage. Your Nathan”—Grandmillie shook her head—“he’s not the manageable sort.”
That surprised a snort out of Chloe. “That’s an understatement.”
“Sweetie, I was hoping he would be someone who would cherish you and take good care of you, but that man could hurt you.” Grandmillie seemed to brace herself. “I could tell what you’d been doing in the car, and I can’t find it in myself to blame you. He’s a hottie too.”
Chloe would have laughed at the second example of teenage slang coming so easily from her grandmother’s lips, but she was too distressed by what Grandmillie was trying to tell her. “He’s out of my league. I told you that at the beginning.”
The cane hit the floor with a bang. “No one is out of your league, Chloe! But he’s got a powerful personality that could break you in half.”
“I’ve had some practice dealing with strong personalities,” Chloe said. But Grandmillie’s words had burrowed inside her mind to reinforce her own belief that she and Nathan were not equals.
Grandmillie harrumphed, but her tone was soft. “It’s not your backbone I’m worried about, it’s your heart.”
How did she tell her grandmother this was just about sex? “My heart isn’t involved.”
Her grandmother leveled a stare at her. “You’re not the sort to be intimate with a man without feeling something for him.”
Chloe cringed at the knowledge that Grandmillie was right. Nathan had gotten to her, so she felt more than she wanted to. Serious physical attraction. Admiration. Pity.
That last one was the most dangerous. She felt sorry for the man because he did so much out of a sense of duty and so little out of a sense of fun. In fact, the only time he really let loose was when they made love; he could be almost playful. And that was the chink in her armor. “It won’t last long enough for me to get emotionally involved.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that. He looked pretty smitten.”
Chloe pushed up from the cushions and walked over to give her grandmother a kiss. “I’m going to clean up the dishes. Your scones were fantastic.”
Grandmillie thumped her cane again but made no comment.
Chloe carried a load of dishes into the kitchen and placed them gently in the sink. Then she cut loose with a shimmy across the kitchen floor.
Grandmillie thought Nathan had looked smitten!