“Yeah,” she shrugs. “But of course that doesn’t hold the same connotation as I once thought it did.”

“Once?”

She doesn’t answer, but I hear her sigh. Then without rhyme or reason, I reach over and grab the bottle out of her hands, placing it next to mine. “Come on,” I say, climbing to my feet.

“Huh?”

I hold my hand out, waiting expectantly for her to take it. And why wouldn’t she? Strange man under the influence of alcohol telling her to follow him without explanation, late at night?Sounds legit.

Yet, with those crystallized eyes trained on my earnest expression, slowly she places her hand in mine. She’s trusting me without question, though I’ve done nothing to earn such a gift. But like the selfish bastard I am, I take it, pulling her to her feet. My fingers impulsively lace with hers, causing a contradicting mix of alarm and comfort to surge in my veins. I look down at our locked hands as we both pull away.

“Follow me,” I frown, leading her toward the much smaller guesthouse. I’m breaking another one of my rules: Never bring a housewife into my home.

“I don’t think I should be here,” Ally says, yet she steps inside, taking in my living quarters. I know what she sees: Bare, white walls, no photographs, no personal touches. Nothing to show who I really am. “How long have you lived here?”

“About eight years,” I reply, watching her as she tries to school her reaction.

“Oh. It’s so… clean.” She flashes me a sympathetic smile before looking at the floor.

I frown. I know what she really means: cold and sterile. And the fact that she feels the need to feel sorry for me, as if I am beneath her, irritates the shit out of me. Here I thought she and I shared a common thread—that we were both misunderstood souls in this world of the fake and phony—when, in reality, she is one of them. She has been all along. And how fucking stupid of me to have thought otherwise.

I’m about to tell her to take those sad eyes and get the fuck out, when she suddenly looks up at me, a genuinely warm smile on her lips. “Don’t tell anyone,” she says with a chuckle. “But I’m kind of a slob. Seriously. Cleaning is not my strong point. Is Housekeeping part of the syllabus? Because I think I could learn a thing or two from you.”

I release my aggravation in a relieving breath and turn towards the kitchen to hide my own smile. Shit. Why the hell am I grinning like the damn Cheshire cat? And why do I find her confession so goddamn charming? Like the fact that she’s messy makes her sorta… real?

Without a word, I go to the freezer and set a carton on the marble counter. Allison looks at the container, then looks up at me and, for a moment, I swear I see tears swimming in her eyes before she quickly blinks them away, shielding her face with a curtain of crimson.

“You bought me ice cream?” she whispers with a strained voice.

I shrug though she can’t see me, still refusing to meet my gaze. “You weren’t happy with the selection in the kitchen so….” I shrug again.

Finally, she lifts her head to look at me, her face so full of light that it’s almost blinding. “Thank you.”

Her grateful smile and the weight of those two words hit me like a two-ton semi, bringing me back to reality. “Well, we try to provide you all with the niceties of home. That includes non-baby poop-tasting ice cream.” I turn to grab a bowl and a spoon before opening the carton and scooping out silken ribbons of cream and chunks of dark chocolate.

“Oh. Well, still…thank you,” she replies, buying my bullshit excuse. Because that’s exactly what it is: bullshit. What I could’ve and should’vedone was leave the ice cream in the kitchen and let the staff serve it to her when she was craving frozen, sugary goodness. But no…I had to go and complicate shit and bring it back to my house, giving me the opportunity to satisfy her need, as superficial as it may be.

She’d need me. And not for sex or relationship advice to apply to her marriage. For fucking ice cream.

I slide her the bowl and wait for her to take a bite. She looks up at me with the same expectant expression.

“Well?” I ask, tapping a finger.

A frown puckers her forehead and she wriggles her nose, bringing those freckles to life. “What? You’re not going to have any?”

I shake my head. “For you.”

Ally takes a seat and spoons out the first bite, placing it on her tongue. Her eyelids flutter close in ecstasy and a downright orgasmic sound rumbles from her chest. “Oh my God.”

“Good?” I’m smiling, but only because she can’t see me, too wrapped up in a creamy cocoon of mint and chocolate.

“Amazing,” she replies through another mouthful. She finally opens her eyes, and a deep blush paints her cheeks as if she’s just remembered my presence. “Thanks for this. Sure you don’t want any?”

“All yours.”

Ally takes another bite and puts her spoon down, propping an elbow on the counter and placing her chin in her hand. “If you could only eat one flavor of ice cream for the rest of your life, would you pick Rocky Road or Mint Chocolate Chip?”

“Excuse me?” I sit on the stool across from hers, brows raised in question.

“Just humor me. Rocky Road or Mint Chocolate Chip?” She smiles amusingly and digs back into her ice cream.

I’m not even sure what to make of this girl. First she’s calling me an asshole, and now she’s asking me about ice cream flavors? I frown in confusion.

“Please?” she says just above a whisper. “I haven’t had a regular conversation about something other than shoes or handbags, or who our husbands could be sleeping with, in days. I just need to…forget. Just for a little while.”

I nod and let out a breath, my chest suddenly full of some foreign, unnamed emotion. Sympathy? Yes. But something else too. And it has nothing to do with pitying her.

“Well, being that I’ve never had Mint Chocolate Chip, and I vaguely remember trying Rocky Road as a child, I’d have to go with that flavor,” I reply with a shrug.

Ally’s eyes grow wide with playful shock. “You’ve never had Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream?”

I shake my head. “Nope.”

“Then you haven’t lived yet!” She scoops out a small bite and offers it to me, the spoon a mere inch from my lips. “Go ahead; try it.”

Ok, I’ve got two choices. Door number 1: I refuse to play along with her little game and kick her out of my house, offending her and demolishing any ounce of trust she has for me. Or Door number 2: I let her innocently spoon-feed me ice cream and force myself to see the act for what it is—a kind, platonic gesture between two adults.

Yeah right.

I lean forward so that the cold tip of the spoon just grazes my bottom lip. Ally slowly eases it forward, causing me to open wider for her, my tongue reflexively jutting out to taste the first sweet drops of cream. I wrap my lips around the mound of chocolaty mint and suck it off the spoon, letting out my own erotic sounds of agreement.

“Good, right?” Ally beams, nodding her head.

“Hell yeah,” I half-groan against my better judgment. But it’s too late. Allison Elliott-Carr has weakened my defenses with just a spoonful of Haagen-Dazs.

“I told you! Ice cream is the answer for everything. It’s the ultimate cure-all.”

I chuckle as she feeds me another bite, and I devour it hungrily. “You might be onto something there, Ally.”

“I could totally spend the rest of my life eating only this and nothing else.” She places another helping onto her tongue from the same spoon I just made sweet, passionate love to. “I still can’t believe you had never tried it.”

I shrug, instantly feeling like an idiot because I’ve shrugged at least a half a dozen times tonight. But there’s just something about Ally that leaves me…uncertain. Maybe a little flabbergasted. She’s unlike any client I’ve ever worked with and the total opposite of any woman I’ve ever found myself attracted to. But there’s something about her—something so genuine and unexpected—that makes me almost enamored with her. Maybe she’s the riddle that I can’t figure out. Or maybe she’s just so damn perfectly imperfect that it’s endearing. But whatever it is, it’s got me. Fucked up as it sounds, it’s got me.