Robyn Grady - Unfinished Business - Bought - One Night, One Marriage / Always the Bridesmaid / Confessions of a Millionaire's Mistress

She spent a couple of weeks reacquainting herself with the local town and the surrounding countryside. It should have worked a treat in terms of distraction—except that every time she so much as looked at her car, let alone drove in it, she was reminded of him. She’d sell it as soon as she got back to the city.

She attributed the tiredness to lack of sleep. She worked later and later, hoping to exhaust herself to the point where she’d just collapse in bed and sleep dreamlessly. But as soon as her body hit the sheets she was wide awake and wanting to be back in his bed, not her cold, lonely one. When she finally did sleep it was only to dream—fiery dreams starring Blake and nothing but Blake, buck naked.

Memories tormented her day and night. She could still feel his body covering hers, the brush of hair on his thigh against hers, his arms tight around her waist, the fit of their bodies as they snuggled close to sleep after. All she wanted was him inside her, filling her, giving her that release. My God, she’d never realised that sex could be so addictive, so all-consuming.

Days passed and sleepless nights dragged and she started to feel like a walking wreck. The country escape had failed for the first time and she headed back to town and to work. Only once there the tiredness left her prone to illness.

‘Cally, are you OK?’ Mel called through the bathroom door.

‘Tummy bug.’

‘You shouldn’t be here. You can’t go poisoning all the customers—Health and Safety will shut us down and I’ll lose my job.’

‘What would it matter?’ Right now Cally felt so dreadful she couldn’t care less. ‘Your fiancé is loaded.’

‘It’s important to my sense of security to be financially independent. As your employee I’m ordering you to go home.’

Cally half staggered out the bathroom door and leaned on her table.

Mel looked cheeky and concerned at the same time. ‘See you.’

‘Tomorrow.’

For over a fortnight Blake tried to forget her. And failed. Finally, halfway into the third week, with his body screaming its tension to him, he accepted the fact that he was going to chase and chase hard. There’d been no contact between them since she’d left in such a hurry that Sunday morning. Regrets perhaps? He couldn’t see how anyone could regret sex that good. The only thing to regret was that they hadn’t had more.

She intrigued him—hadn’t been anything like he’d imagined she would. After the auction he’d anticipated some hardened, spoilt society heiress who’d never done a day’s real work in her life, a brat playing at being a businesswoman. But, boy, he’d been wrong. She had a brain, talent, ambition. She was able to admit to her weaknesses, able to laugh. Easy to talk to. Easy to tease.

And when he’d touched her? When she’d touched him?

Her generosity, her genuine response had floored him, fired him—no way was he not having that again.

Only this time he wanted to be better prepared and to have a plan for the future. When considering any kind of business transaction Blake was meticulous about due diligence—he’d get his info together beforehand and work out his acquisition or merger strategy from there. Cally Sinclair was no different from any other company target, she was just a personal target; that was all.

She’d declared her intention not to have a family, a fact which still, irrationally, angered him. This anger was especially stupid considering he had no intention of having a family himself. But anger aside it meant, on the face of it, they’d be a good match for a very adult arrangement—one of mutual pleasure and minimal risk. Now he just had to put the package together in such a way that she’d be unable to resist buying in. And to do that, he needed more knowledge.

He buzzed Judith into his office. She ambled in. Hell, could her belly get any bigger?

‘Sit.’ He pointed to the chair irritably. ‘How much longer are you here?’

‘Just over a month.’

He frowned. ‘Shouldn’t you be decorating the nursery or something?’

‘Or something,’ she agreed affably. ‘What can I do for you?’

Blake gave up. ‘I want to know everything about Cally’s Cuisine.’

‘The soup company?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Cally Sinclair runs it, doesn’t she?’ Her brain was quick as lightning. ‘Didn’t she buy you at the auction?’ She didn’t even try to hide her obscene level of interest.

‘Yeah.’ He watched Judith’s cunning look grow. He sighed. He didn’t want to know what she was thinking. But he needed to know more about Cally. And if anyone could find out the gossip about someone, Judith could.

‘When you say you want to know everything …?’

‘I mean, everything .’

Judith’s smile was wicked now. She rose. ‘Your wish …’

He grunted and told her to shut the door behind her. Then called through the wood. ‘As fast as possible.’

Cally leaned against the refrigerator and sighed. This tiredness was not going away, nor was the sickness. The vomiting had ceased but she still felt queasy. Mel looked at her again and Cally tried to mask the feeling she knew was all over her face.

‘Are you sure you’re well enough to be in here?’

‘I’m sure. You go get your things. I’ll be fine.’

The lunch rush was over—that time from eleven to two when Mel was run off her feet serving customers fresh, hot soup. The quiet spell came between two and three—and then picked up again as people slipped in to get a container to take home for dinner. So this was when Mel took her break and Cally took to the shop floor—if she hadn’t already. She could have one of the kitchen staff do it, but she liked keeping an eye on the customers. Seeing firsthand which soups were most popular. Talking to the customers about what they liked, what they didn’t.

Thankfully today the quiet hour was really quiet and after a few late-lunching customers Cally was able to sit on the stool behind the counter and listlessly flick through the latest addition to Mel’s pile of bridal mags. Over two thousand pages of powder-puff or meringuey dresses to choke over.

She couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Blake. She was getting so bad she’d decided to make a soup in his honour. Something with even more texture and bite—because he certainly had both—and one taste would never be enough. It would be so divine the customers would be beating down the door to get more. If only she could distil and bottle the essence of him she’d be a billionaire businesswoman and not merely a millionaire heiress.

She really needed to stop thinking about him, because she was not going to beat down his door. Not going to be another statistic along his highway of conquests. She’d taken her leave early and wasn’t going back. But, hell, she couldn’t stop the fantasies.

She channelled the desire and debated the bite—chilli, definitely chilli, in a big, thick soup to satisfy the hungriest of appetites. She knew what it was to be hungry and she knew how well he could fill her.

She glanced again at the clock and saw with relief the hands had finally moved and Mel should be back any moment so she could slither to her office, or maybe home. This damn bug was taking for ever to work its way out of her system. Lovesick, she mocked bitterly, that was what she was—or lust-sick.

The door opened and Cally dragged herself to her feet, not wanting to look such a layabout in front of a customer.

The blonde was pretty and as pregnant as it was possible to be. She looked puffy in the face and hot and Cally was amazed she wanted soup at all. She looked at the fridge and gave Cally a conspiratorial grin.

‘Do you have any cold soups?’

‘Like gazpacho?’