Not exactly how she wanted to feel seeing Mick tonight, and needing to confront him. She’d go home, drop her things off at the house and go for a long walk to clear her head, then a quick bath before going to his place. Mick Reid, for once, was just going to have to wait.

*   *   *

IT WAS ALMOST nine before she made it to Mick’s place. She’d taken a long walk around her neighborhood, which had done her good, then she’d dallied getting herself put together.

She’d missed him so much it made her chest ache with every breath. Missed him so much she’d spent long spans of time simply looking at the darkening bite marks he’d left all over her skin in the mirror, tracing the shape of his teeth. Missed him so much that she hung on to even this memory of their bodies together, the intimacy they’d shared. And yet, she’d lingered rather than running right over to his place. At this point she didn’t know that she wanted to have this necessary conversation about him pulling away any more than he did. She simply wanted to see him. To make the empty ache go away. She didn’t want to talk.

It had to be done, or they weren’t ever going anywhere. Not together, anyway.

Still, when she rang the bell and heard his footsteps on the stairs, her pulse fluttered with anticipation. When he opened the door, dressed in worn jeans, like her, and a tight white wife-beater, his bare feet making him look sensually naked somehow, her body started to melt into a pool of heat and need right away. The turmoil in her head began to fade.

She kind of hated that his sheer, masculine beauty could make her forget everything else so easily, but it had always been like that with Mick.

“Hey, baby,” he said, leaning over to press a kiss to her forehead, then her mouth. “Come on in.”

He waited for her to start up the stairs before him, and when she got to the top she set her purse down on the living room floor before settling onto the big leather couch. Mick came to sit beside her.

“You okay?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Rough day.”

“You said in your text you needed some time before you came over tonight. Is everything all right?”

“Yes, I guess so. I mean, my life hasn’t actually been changed for it. Which I sort of expected.” She turned to face him. “Does your family still treat you like you’re a kid, Mick?”

“No. They treat me like I’m the bad news teenager. I was, so I guess I can’t blame them. Maybe I still am. They hate my fighting.”

“Well, that totally makes sense,” she muttered. “I’m on the same page with them.”

“Thanks for that.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have come tonight. I’m in a lousy mood.”

“It’s okay, baby. Talk to me. Tell me what happened.”

She pulled a throw pillow into her lap, running her fingertips over the fabric. “Oh, I was dumb enough to think if I presented my business plan to Mama and the aunts in a professional manner they’d take me seriously. But of course they just shot me down. The same way they did when I tried to talk to them fresh out of culinary school. But Jesus, I have years of practical experience now—you’d think that would make a difference.”

“It should. You’ve had some of the best training in the world—all over Europe. From what Marie Dawn and Neal and Jamie have told me over the years, you’ve worked at some of the top restaurants in San Francisco, that you’re a highly sought-after pastry chef there. Did you tell your family all of it?”

“I don’t know. I’ve always kept them up to date about where I’m working.”

“Maybe they don’t understand the prestige of the places you’ve baked for. You know how New Orleans is—we’re convinced nothing else really exists outside the walls of this city. It’s an incestuous culture here, especially for the city’s old-guard citizens, and your family has been here for how many generations? I get it because my family has been, too. They don’t always see the rest of the world. Isn’t your mother’s argument that Dolcetti’s recipes were brought to this city by her great-grandmother from Italy?”

She tossed the pillow aside with a sigh. “And it’s like the art of pastry making just stopped there. Recipes that are a hundred years old. Not that they aren’t fantastic—they are, or the business wouldn’t have survived. But what happens when the old loyal customers are gone? So many new people are moving to the city now that it’s being rebuilt. The old magic always attracts new people. We have to keep up with the times or . . .” She paused, ran her fingers through her hair. “I’m sorry. You seem to know all this already. Guess I’m preaching to the choir.”

“Yes and no. Look, Allie, do you want to go over your presentation and business plan with me? Because it sounds like you have the right idea. I might have some suggestions for you. And the bottom line is, if you believe in this, then you can’t let their stubbornness make you back down. If this is your dream, you have to go for it.”

She had more than one dream.

“Maybe. I don’t know. Right now I’m too tired to think any more about it.”

“Do you need some Travel TV?”

What she needed was for him to take her in his arms and tell her everything would be okay. Her dreams for the family business. Things with him. But even though he seemed to be supportive, thoroughly immersed in the conversation, he was still . . . not quite there with her. That brief kiss when she’d arrived hadn’t been followed up by any further show of affection, and it was making her feel worse. She didn’t know if she should just leave . . . or stay and see if they could manage to find their way to each other tonight.

“I’m . . . not sure what I need,” she lied.

“I have some fresh raspberry sorbet in the freezer. It’s been calling to me for the last few hours.”

“Sure, that sounds good.”

Mick headed into the kitchen, and Allie got up and went to the bookcase against one wall—an old, heavy Spanish-looking piece. On it were a few photographs of his family among the books. She ran her fingers over the spines, peering at the titles. Books on martial arts, which didn’t surprise her, more on shibari rope bondage, which was even less of a surprise. Mixed in were a few fiction titles—thrillers, mostly—a small book of the Tao, which did surprise her, as well as some books on Buddhism by Thich Nhat Hanh. Strange reading for an Irish Catholic, fallen though he may be. But it opened a small window into the man he was today—the man she yearned to know better, and who seemed to be refusing to let her.

Mick returned with the promised sorbet in its carton and two spoons, and she joined him back on the sofa. He handed her one of the spoons.

“I’ve been looking forward to this all day,” he said.

Not looking forward to seeing her.

Was she simply feeling sorry for herself? Or was that a realistic expectation? She hated that she had to doubt herself so much.

They sat eating the sorbet for a few minutes in silence.

“I really do think you need to talk to them again,” Mick said.

“I will. You’re probably right.”

“And I do like to be right.” He grinned at her, but she swore some of his usual natural charm was missing.

“Yes, you do.” She smiled, trying to lighten the moment.

She felt desperate suddenly to find a way back to those intimate moments. To find their connection, despite the unspoken issues hanging in the air—or maybe more so because of them.

She stuck her spoon into the middle of the sorbet left in the carton, pulled Mick’s spoon from between his lips and did the same with it. He watched her, an eyebrow raised in question. She set the carton on the big coffee table, then climbed onto him, straddling his lap.

“Hey, what’s going on here?” he asked softly as she settled her arms around his neck.

He wasn’t touching her, no hands on her waist.

She had to remind herself about Marie Dawn’s stupidity ruling.