Tempt Me, Taste Me, Touch Me

She waited there, her purse guarding her heart like armor, for him to say something. She was unable to look into his eyes until she heard him softly say her name.

"Rose, I know I have some explaining to do about that woman. About my past. I'm not going to lie to you. I've been with women. A lot of women. But you're special. None of them have even come close to you. Your beauty. Your smile. Your brains. Your guts." Rose swallowed hard, and her trembling legs made her step back into the booth of the person behind them.

"When I say you're gorgeous, I mean it. When I tell you I want to spend the rest of my life with you, I mean it. I love you, Rose. i! And I've only ever loved one woman in thirty-six years, Rose. You. Since you came into my life on Friday, I see everything differently. My whole world has changed. For the better:' Everything inside of her melted at Jack's passionate words. She would stop jumping to conclusions. She would listen calmly to his explanations. She would be bigger than her insecurities. She opened her mouth to say, "I forgive you' but the sudden sadness in his eyes stopped her as surely as being run over by a bus would have.

"I'll always love you, Rose; he said, "but how can you say that it's not about me? About us? I want to be there for you. I want you to be there for me. But if you don't think what we have what we could have-is worth fighting your own demons for, it'll never work between us."

"It will never work between us" was all she could hear. Like a chant in her head, she couldn't get past it, she couldn't get the words to stop repeating.

The bottom fell out of her world, and Rose couldn't see past the tears streaming down her face. She ran as fast as she could, leaving Jack behind in a cloud of dust and sorrow. She had thought that he was everything she'd ever wanted. But now she knew the truth.

Straight from his mouth, to her heart. Like a butcher's knife.

ELEVEN

ROSE HAD MADE HER CHOICE. She didn't want to fight for a life with him. He knew he should start trying to figure out how go on living without her. But damn it, that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to fight for her. Somehow, someway, he'd . Ive to find a way to get through to her.

Sunday morning went from bright and limitless to dark gray. nothing seemed to matter anymore. But he still had his cooking,

is career, so he turned back to the crowd of people waiting for to sign his cookbook.

He wished he could ignore the pity in their eyes as he scrawled his name inside the front cover. Everything Jack , had ever touched had turned to gold.

But not Rose. She'd run from him. Just as he'd been afraid that II she would.

As soon as he signed his last book, he sought refuge in the only ;place where he hoped he could learn to feel whole again. The kitchen in Gerard's. He slipped in the back door and barely looked up as his employees greeted him. He picked up a knife and began to dice carrots. Onions. Anything to take his mind off Rose.

But she'd been in here. They'd chopped parsley together. And it had been one of the most erotic, fulfilling experiences of his life, showing her how to dice herbs.

He dropped the knife onto the cutting board and went to his office. He began to shut the door behind himsomething he never, ever did-but Larry's huge form was blocking the doorway.

"Hey, Boss, trouble in paradise?"

Jack covered his face with his hands. He was going to cry, for God's sake.

"Everything's covered here was all Larry said as he backed up out of the office and closed the door behind him with a soft click, leaving Jack completely, utterly alone.

ROSE NOW KNEW NAPA WELL ENOUGH to find her way back to the hotel, even in her anguished haze. She tripped over a large stick and fell to the ground. Lying on the sidewalk, she'd never felt sorrier for herself than she did right at that moment.

Why couldn't Jack have been her Prince Charming? Was it so much to ask that she find a man to love her, to want to be with her when they were old, surrounded by grandchildren?

She sniffled loudly and shifted her weight to get up. She grasped the windowpane of a nearby store, her eye catching on a real estate flyer's headline.

"Fall in Love with the Wine Country." She couldn't take her eyes away from it. Fall in Love with the Wine Country. He'd said he loved her, hadn't he?

Fall in Love with the Wine Country.

But she'd been busy being self-righteous about some one night fling from six months ago that he'd had every right to she had been busy wallowing in decades old self-hatred she'd been busy hating all the men who'd come before Jack, making him the scapegoat for everyone who'd ever told her she wasn't good And so she hadn't really listened to what Jack had said. But he'd been right. She needed to let him be there for her. Just as she would be for him. Because if he loved her more than she loved herself, their relationship could never work.

She pressed her hand against the windowpane, staring at nothing. Someone from the realty office came out to ask her if sh needed help with something, but she didn't hear them, didn't respond. In two days with Jack, he'd made her feel sexier, more confident than ever before.

She'd wasted her first thirty years falling for the wrong men.

She wasn't going to waste the next thirty by letting the one good guy get away.

But she already knew "sorry" wasn't good enough. She needed to prove it to Jack, had to show him how much she loved him. at she was going to do everything in her power to trust him.

And herself.

Rose was too practical to think that it'd be easy. She knew it was going to be a long, hard road to selfacceptance, to liking her curves. But if Jack was willing to stick by her side, through thick and thin, she knew they'd come out the other end.

Together. In love. Forever.

ROSE TOOK A LONG SHOWER, hoping for inspiration. She wished Vanessa or Carrie were around to help her think up a grand gesture of love, but they weren't in their rooms, at the pool, or in the restaurant. She'd dug her own grave; it was up to her to dig herself out. There was only one really good way to show Jack how much she loved him: food. She'd have to speak his language, but apart from what he'd taught her this weekend, she didn't know how to make anything other than Ramon noodles and instant coffee. No, that wasn't completely true. Didn't everyone say that she made the best Betty Crocker chocolate cake they'd ever tasted?

Throwing on jeans and a tank top, Rose was out at the corner grocery store in a flash. Her heart pounded as she prayed they'd have what she needed.

They did.

She grabbed a box of cake mix and a can of frosting and somehow managed to sweet-talk the hotel's chef into letting her use his kitchen to bake it.

An hour later, she emerged with a lopsided cake. On shaky legs, she headed down the street to Jack's restaurant.