Frozen Heart, Melting Kiss

“Thanks.” The word came out breathy, unsure. As she heard her voice she knew she had to do something, and now, if she was going to stop herself getting hurt. This had gone more than far enough already.

“It’s fine now,” she said, trying to pull her hand away. But Will kept a firm hold on it, using it to pull her fractionally closer, until her chest was pressed against him.

And then he froze. He dropped her hand and turned away from her, and she glimpsed his hard-set expression twisting into a grimace.

Relief and disappointment flooded Maya, and she leant back against the sink. She kept her eyes on the floor until she could look up at him with an indifferent expression.

“Let’s carry on,” she managed eventually.

For the first time she could remember she wished she wasn’t in her kitchen. She wished she could escape upstairs, hide away from this man and the dangerous effect he had on her. But she’d committed to help him, and she wouldn’t go back on her word.

Frozen Heart, Melting Kiss

Ellie Darkins

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ELLIE DARKINS spent her formative years as a committed bookworm, devouring romance novels. After completing her English degree (which had Mills & Boon® novels on the syllabus!) she decided to make a living from her love of books. As a writer and freelance editor her work now entails dreaming up romantic proposals, hot dates with alpha males and trips to the past with dashing heroes.

When she’s not working she can usually be found manning the desk or sampling the coffee at her local library, or out for a run—listening to an audiobook, of course.

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For Betty

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EXTRACT

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU ARE GOING to try this one.’

Maya Hartney forced the corners of her mouth up into a professional smile while she waited for Will Thomas to bite. Behind her back she clasped her hands to stop herself chewing at a nail.

She’d tried dozens of combinations of dishes for this tasting, even though squeezing in an extra job next month was pushing her business to its limits. But it had been impossible to say no when Rachel, Will’s assistant, had pleaded with her so earnestly to consider catering for an Appleby and Associates gala dinner.

These moments, waiting for a client to try one of her dishes, were nerve-racking but necessary. Once they’d taken a bite her nerves gave way to sheer pleasure. She loved to watch people enjoy her food. Ever since the first time it had happened, years ago, when she’d first cooked for her university housemates, it had given her a physical thrill. The joy that her food brought showed in the small smile people gave as they closed their eyes and savoured the taste for a moment. Now, ten years later, she lived and worked for that moment.

And she’d never had reason to doubt her food’s capacity for bringing joy. Until now.

Will Thomas had already refused to try her starter, and her flutter of nerves congealed into a lump of dejection as she realised he probably wouldn’t try this course either.

Maya swallowed awkwardly, thinking hard, wondering where she had gone wrong. Her late night last night had seemed worth it, if it meant she had this dish just right, but there must be something that she’d misjudged. She bit her lip for a second as she ran through the possibilities in her mind and her pulse picked up speed as she considered improvements she could make. Maybe the dressing was a little too acidic? But then he hadn’t even tried it, so he wouldn’t know that. It must be the presentation that needed more work. The rest of the meal would have to be perfect to get this pitch back on track.

It had nothing to do with the fact that her mouth had watered the first second she’d seen Will Thomas and he’d met her gaze with steel-grey eyes. It was because she’d felt the chill of his presence since the second he’d arrived, and her whole body had wanted her to resist it. To fill the room with light and colour so that the cold couldn’t take hold of her. She’d fought too hard against it to let it in now.

There wasn’t a splash of colour anywhere in the office: grey walls, grey carpet, glass table and black leather chairs. She’d not experienced a chill like this for ten years, and would be a happy woman if she never felt it again. There was colour in every part of her life these days, displacing cold grey memories; now this room threatened to undo a decade’s positive thinking.

When Will Thomas had walked in the room had suddenly made perfect sense. Charcoal suit, crisp white shirt, black hair with just a few flecks of silver at the temples. Grey eyes that bore an expression as clinical as their surroundings. Despite all this attraction had prickled at her skin, along with a warning, and she’d had to take a breath to steady herself.

His gaze had left his smartphone only briefly, dropped from her face to trace the contours of her curves and finally she’d seen a brief spark of heat in his eyes. The light had been there for just a fraction of a second before he’d caught it, extinguished it, and taken a step away from her, his eyes snapping back to his phone.

She’d crossed her ankles to stop herself taking a step forward, sensing that he wanted space, trying to respect that. Her eyes, though, had seemed desperate to pursue Will Thomas, to roam over the lines and planes of his face, down to where his shirt, crisp and starched and white, was open at the collar.

She’d introduced her starter: a salad of hand-harvested scallops, pan-fried and served with rocket and prosciutto, finished with a dressing it had taken two full evenings to perfect. He’d given it a derisive look and asked her to move on, his fingers twitching on the screen of his phone. Email withdrawal, she assumed. She’d catered for enough business dinners to recognise the symptoms. But the knowledge that he was choosing to check his emails over trying her food made her restless. Her food always spoke for her—what was she meant to do with someone who refused to listen?

On this man those chiselled cheekbones and intriguing silver eyes were entirely resistible.

She closed her mouth and bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from a very unprofessional outburst.

He had to try this dish. She was certain that it would fix their impasse. If he would just give the food a chance she could still win him over. She’d sourced tender duck from a nearby farm and selected only the most beautiful vegetables from her local supplier. The herbs had come from the garden of her cottage in the Cotswolds and the sauce, a delicate balance of wine, red berries and orange, was—as of last night’s final run-though—perfect.

She wanted it to be right, needed it to be perfect, because if she could no longer rely on her food what else did she have to offer?

Taking a step towards him, she brandished the fork.

‘You are going to try this one,’ she repeated with renewed determination.

She tried to paste the smile onto her face again to soften the blow, but there was no disguising the fact that this was an instruction, not a request, and her frustration had made her words short and sharp.

Will met her gaze and seemed to study her; his eyes narrowed while he inspected her features, as if weighing up his opponent. He slipped the smartphone into his pocket and took the fork from her.

‘Do I have a choice?’

Maya couldn’t be certain but a ghost of a smile had seemed to flicker at the corner of his mouth. His eyes left her face only briefly as he forked a mouthful of the meat and dipped it into the sauce. She grew warm under his relentless scrutiny and thought again of that moment when she’d first seen him. His eyes had widened when he’d noticed her standing in the conference room, as if he couldn’t quite take her in, as if he didn’t understand her. She didn’t want to be difficult to understand. She had no interest in being enigmatic. What she needed was for him to like this dish, to restore her belief in her food—in herself.

For a moment as he chewed she thought she’d done it, that her food had broken this man’s icy resolve. He closed his eyes for a moment, and she was sure he was savouring the flavours she’d worked so hard to blend and perfect. His body stilled, his breathing was slow, his fingers were at rest on his phone. The muscles of his face hinted at a smile. But then in an instant it was gone; his eyes snapped open and she saw only indifference.

‘That’s fine.’

Fine? Fine? Perhaps she’d imagined it, she thought. That moment when it had seemed, however briefly, that he had been won round. Or maybe she hadn’t, and he was just determined for some reason not to enjoy her food, whatever she put in front of him. Anger at his uninterest prickled—how could he be so determined not to enjoy something she had poured her joy and happiness into?

This wasn’t going to get any better, she realised then. She just had to find a way to get through this. To protect herself from the barbs of his coldness until she could get out of there. She relaxed her hold on her anger, bringing it to the fore, letting it protect her from his cold indifference.

‘Dessert?’ she asked, dreading the response, dreading the rejection, but wanting to get it over with.

‘I’m sure you’ve got that under control.’

‘Blackberry fool?’ Why not show him how his dismissal hurt? she thought. It wasn’t as if he would even care or notice. And it might make her feel a little better.

His eyes held hers and she felt the heat in her face sink to her belly when he continued to stare at her. She shifted under his scrutiny, trying not to wonder what he was thinking, why he was studying her irises. It seemed that her anger could reach him where her food hadn’t.

Will raised an eyebrow. ‘It sounds like you’ve got the measure of things, Miss...’

‘Maya’s fine,’ she said, her words still terse.

‘Maya,’ he repeated, his voice a little less steady than it had been.

He took a deep breath and she saw a blank mask descend over his face, shutting out whatever it was that had flashed between them in the past few seconds. It was a pattern, she realised. A few seconds when his features flickered with emotion, some pleasure or enjoyment. And then he chased it away, locked his face down hard. His voice too, when he spoke next, was the model of professionalism, his words hard and steady.

‘Thank you for coming, Maya. Leave your quote with my assistant and someone will be in touch.’

Anger fought for room with sorrow and the pain that had haunted her since her childhood. Will had shut her out in a fraction of a second. It had taken him the space of a blink to forget whatever it was that had made him pause and consider her the moment before. And she couldn’t help but remember how her parents had so easily done the same.

He’d reduced everything that she’d created to a string of numbers on a spreadsheet. A simple calculation that took no account of love and passion. She couldn’t meet his eye—didn’t know if he was even trying to as she shook his hand. As he walked out she let her frustration loose as she tossed cutlery and crockery back into bags and boxes and then packed away the barely touched food.

She tried rationalising what had happened to make herself feel a little better. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested in her food, it was just that he only cared about the numbers. Perhaps she should have guessed the moment he’d walked into the room that this was just another business meeting for him.

She’d never been so infuriated by anyone in her life, she thought as she headed out to her car. It wasn’t just his lack of enthusiasm for her food, it was the way that he’d seemed completely unwilling to let himself enjoy it, his determination to see life in columns and cells. He’d only tried one course out of three: her food had never stood a chance of impressing him because he had never been prepared to let it.

That thought drained her anger, sapped the tension from her muscles, as she remembered the last time her passion been faced with pure indifference.

Even if she was offered the job she knew she wouldn’t be seeing him again. She knew that to cook, and cook well, for that man after today’s disaster would be impossible—a complete waste of good food and time, and too close to too many bad memories. She couldn’t do it.

* * *

Will glanced at his watch and then back over his shoulder as he waited for Maya to come to the door. He shouldn’t be here. He’d tried to convince Rachel to do it for him, but she had told him that going against Sir Cuthbert Appleby was more than her job was worth, that he’d have to suck it up and do it himself. So he’d spent his evening crawling through Cotswold villages—time away from the office that he really couldn’t afford—in order to ask for something he desperately didn’t want.

He looked up at the front of the cottage as he waited and cringed. Just like Maya, the house was a riot of colour. Roses crept up the warm sandstone, over the door and up towards the thatch, and window boxes overflowed with bright-coloured flowers.

When she’d walked out of his office two days ago he’d thought—hoped—that he would never have to see her again. Even the thought of it had made his skin prickle. There was something about her that disturbed him, something that he couldn’t ignore no matter how much he might want to. In those moments when he’d dared to look her straight in the eye he’d seen her every emotion flash across her face. She’d worn her love for her food openly and extravagantly. He’d flinched away from it, intimidated in the face of such an outpouring of emotion, fearful of its effect on his iron self-control.

If he’d had any other choice he’d have stayed as far away from Maya Hartney as he could. What did he care who they hired anyway? He wouldn’t even have been doing the tastings if Rachel hadn’t sneaked them into his calendar. But then Sir Cuthbert—the senior partner in his firm, the man who held Will’s career in his hands—had spotted Maya as she’d been on her way out of the building and Will had been forced into a corner.

Sir Cuthbert had arrived unannounced in Will’s office.

‘What have you done to Maya Hartney?’

No greetings, no small talk.

‘What have I done to her?’ Will had asked carefully. ‘Nothing. Why? What did she say?’

By the time Will had admitted he hadn’t tried even half the dishes Maya had brought with her he’d known that he was in trouble. Sir Cuthbert had had that look in his eye. The one that told Will he wouldn’t want to hear what was coming next.

‘I’m worried about you, Will.’

Not what he’d expected. And his concern wasn’t necessary in the slightest.

‘There’s no need, Sir Cuthbert,’ he’d said, relieved that he wasn’t about to lose his job. ‘I admit I was a little preoccupied in that meeting, and I’ll make amends with Maya Hartney if I need to.’ He made a mental note to have Rachel send her something.

‘It’s more than that, Will,’ Sir Cuthbert had persisted. ‘You don’t take your holiday. You’re always the last to leave the office. Some mornings I wonder whether you’ve been home at all.’ He glanced down to the smartphone in Will’s hand. ‘You can’t be parted from that thing for more than a minute. There’s more to life and to business than the numbers, Will. It’s about people too. You need to take some time off or you’re going to burn out.’

Will had suppressed a groan, impatient to get back to work, not interested in cod psychology from his boss. ‘I’m grateful for your concern, Sir Cuthbert, really. But there isn’t a problem. I don’t need time off.’

‘This isn’t a request, Will.’

The older man crossed his arms and widened his stance, and for the first time Will realised he was serious. The man had no reason to question his commitment to his job. He put in twelve-, fourteen-, eighteen-hour days. Whatever it took to get the job done. He was more at home in his office than he was...well...at home. When he was there he was focussed. He tuned the world out, saw only his projects, the numbers. And now he was being reprimanded for spending too much time here.

‘I mean it. If you don’t take some time off I’m going to have some difficult choices to make about your role here. The pro bono work you’re taking on, for example.’

‘You can’t make me drop the Julia House project, Cuthbert.’ A swift shot of panic hit Will in the belly, but he pushed it away, determined to think this through logically, rationally. He smoothed back the sharp emotion until he couldn’t feel it any longer; he didn’t want to examine it or need to understand it. He just knew that ensuring the success of Julia House was an imperative. He had to make this work, so he focussed on fixing the problem.

‘I don’t want to, Will. I know it’s a good cause, and I know it means a lot to you. But you’re stressed and you’re tired and today you took it out on Maya Hartney. Make it up to her. Fix the problem and take a few days to recharge, get some perspective. Or I’ll have no choice but to cut back your non-essential work.’

How could he tell Sir Cuthbert that he hadn’t been rude because he was stressed, or tired? He felt neither of those things. Throughout his life he’d trained himself to feel nothing. To manage his emotions—keep them at bay. He’d been rude to Maya because she had unsettled him, scared him, and putting distance between them had seemed the safest thing to do. Now he found himself standing on her doorstep, half hoping she wouldn’t answer the door, worried about what it could lead to if she did.

Will wasn’t sure what it was about her that had heated his blood and demanded his attention, but he’d had to force his eyes to his smartphone for the whole of their meeting just to keep any semblance of peace in his head. It had been years—more than a decade—since he’d last had to fight so hard to keep his cool.

He was used to meeting beautiful women. He was even used to taking beautiful women to bed. But he’d been blindsided by Maya’s bright colours, her wild hair and the vulnerable anger in her eyes. He didn’t want her in his head, and the gnawing feeling in his belly that had started when they met was disturbing. He was used to control. To taking what he wanted, giving what was desired and walking away with no one getting hurt. There was no reason to cede control here. She was just a little unusual. That was all. It was taking his brain a little longer to learn how to keep her at the same distance it did everything else.

Finally Maya came to the door. Back in the office he hadn’t let himself really notice her appearance. But there it had been easier to stop himself, to pull his eyes back to his smartphone or the safe grey of the walls. Now he truly opened his eyes to appreciate her. The first thing he noticed, of course, were the colours. She was wearing all of them. He was far from an expert in these things, but was it normal to wear orange and pink together? Did one normally add yellow to that mix?

There was more to see than colour, though. His eyes followed the curves of her body, noticing the way her skirt spilt over her generous hips, swinging gently as she shifted her weight to one leg and waited for his gaze to reach her eyes. He knew that he should be looking away, shouldn’t be indulging himself, allowing his guard to slip. But she fascinated him. Her very presence brought light and heat and energy. And, as much as he wanted those sensations gone, he couldn’t help but pander to his curiosity.

When his gaze reached her face she raised an eyebrow. His appraisal hadn’t gone unnoticed. And it seemed that the attention was not appreciated. Good. He dragged his mind back to his work, back to Julia House. This was business and nothing else. There was no way that he could let Cuthbert pull his project. He had given his word that he would secure funding without fail, and if that meant persuading an errant chef to get back onside, regardless of the unsettling effect that she had on him, then that was what he would do.

He firmed his stance and squared his shoulders. He would make this right.

Maya opened the door wide, and as soon as she clocked him her face dropped into a scowl. Her hands rested on her hips, one of them wrapped tight around a wooden spoon. She was not expecting his visit, and he wasn’t a welcome surprise. Well, good. He wasn’t exactly thrilled to be here either.

Will braced himself. He had the horrible feeling that this was going to get messy. And he didn’t do messy. Ever. He did cold and rational and detached, and he did it better than anyone else in the city. It was the only way to find any sense of peace. Looked as if she was going to make him grovel. And if he didn’t he would have to deal with Rachel’s disapproving silence in the office tomorrow. When she’d heard Sir Cuthbert demand that he take time off she’d appeared in the doorway of his office with a flyer and a plan.

‘Mr Thomas, I wasn’t expecting you.’ Maya brushed a smudge of flour from her cheek as she spoke.

‘You wouldn’t answer my emails, and we need to talk.’ He knew that he sounded brusque—terse, even—but he wanted to stay focussed. Regardless of the constant threat of distraction, he needed to think strictly business to get this deal done.

Maya squared her shoulders, mirroring his confrontational stance, but then a beeping sound came from inside the cottage. She hesitated for a second, still eyeballing him, before turning and walking across the hallway.

‘We can talk, if you insist,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘but I’m not going to change my mind and I’m not going to stop. I’ve got a sauce on the stove that won’t wait.’

‘Fine, fine.’

This hostile reaction had him on the back foot. He’d not expected this—not after her polite smiles in his office. But perhaps he’d underestimated the impact of his detachment. Perhaps she’d found those smiles harder to fake than he’d realised. He almost smiled himself—it would be so much easier to keep her at a distance when she was obviously keen to do the same. But he didn’t like the thought that he might have hurt her. That he was the cause of that fine line of distress between her eyebrows.

He hated that she had him concerned, and thought that he might have exposed a vulnerability. A chink in her bright flowered armour. Because that would mean a connection between them—something they shared. Something that couldn’t be undone or ignored.

He followed her through to the kitchen, his eyes drawn again to the shift of her skirt over her hips, the fabric clinging slightly to the curves of supple skin. He shook his head to clear his thoughts—again. This wasn’t him. He was in his suit, working, and normally that was a guarantee that nothing distracted him. But this attraction was more than just an unwelcome distraction; it was a threat to his control and to the detachment that allowed him to function.