Page 43 of 7 Days and 7 Nights

Her nerve endings jangled as he whispered in her ear. “My finger’s fine, but other parts of me could use some attention.”

Olivia licked her lips, but her mouth was too dry to swallow. Something hard and insistent had sprung up between them. “You don’t say.”

Matt nuzzled at her neck and brought his lips up to nibble on the lobe of her ear. “I’m in love with the butter idea, Livvy. Why don’t we put dinner on hold and adjourn to my room for some first aid?”

Olivia swallowed.

“We can sit down at the table, eat our spaghetti, and maintain this charade. Or we can skip dinner and get right down to dessert.”

His look left no doubt who would be consuming whom.

Desire coursed through her as she stared up into Matt’s eyes and tried to comprehend his effect on her. She could have been locked in a room half this size with her ex-husband and have no difficulty avoiding intimacy. Even being on the same planet with Matt felt intimate.

And what of Matt? Was this his standard reaction to an available member of the opposite sex? Or a convenient means of embarrassing her in front of her audience? How far would he go to do away with her as a competitor?

When Olivia finally found her voice, she kept her words even and her tone light. It cost her, but she did it. “I wouldn’t miss your spaghetti for anything.”

Turning away from him, she picked up their dinner plates. “Why don’t you bring the salads? And the rest of the wine, too. I think I need a drink.”

Without a word, Matt followed her to the table. It took him a moment or two to seat himself, but once settled he raised his glass and clinked the rim of it against hers. "To calmer heads prevailing.”

She tilted her head in acknowledgment and swept away a tiny shard of disappointment. Then she took a bite of her spaghetti and chewed as calmly as she could, trying to enjoy the perfect blending of flavors on her tongue.

Only when she had herself completely under control did she allow herself to make eye contact. “Tell me how you started cooking, Matt.”

For a moment she thought he was going to refuse to follow her lead, but finally his lips quirked up at the corner and he said, “Desperation. Hunger. The usual things that drive a person into a kitchen. Sometimes a man just has to learn to fend for himself."

“I’d hardly call this fending.”

“Thanks.”

“Was your mother a good cook?”

Matt’s smile disappeared and his body stiffened. “She was at one time.”

She could tell he didn’t want to pursue the subject, but in her line of work that usually signaled the ideal time to forge ahead. “But...”

“But when I was thirteen, we had a family crisis and she stopped.”

“Cooking?”

“Everything.”

She saw Matt’s flash of regret at the honesty of his answer. He picked up his fork and started on his meal while she watched him from across the table. Funny that she had considered herself in love with him, yet knew so little about him.

“What kind of crisis made her stop cooking?”

He stopped eating, and she knew that if there’d been anywhere for him to go, he would have found an excuse to leave. He set his fork on the edge of his plate and looked at her. “We had a death in the family.”

His eyes warned her not to trespass further.

“Who died, Matt?”

“I don’t need your two hundred bucks’ worth tonight, Olivia. Why don’t you just do the dishes when we’re finished, and leave my past alone?”

"Not until you tell me who died.”

He sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. It didn’t take a trained psychologist to read the body language. But she was glad she had the background all the same.