Sabela shook her head. “It’s like it’s a different world here.”
Colin reached across the table and took her hand, setting off a cascade of pleasurable pinpricks up his arm. “It is a different world than what you’re used to. And it has many things well worth exploring.”
From her expression, he knew she didn’t miss the innuendo. He was mesmerized by her face. Everything that she was thinking and feeling was right there on the surface for him to read, transparent and honest. An open book the likes of which he had never before read, Sabela was a story he couldn’t get enough of.
Why did she have to be a Vaughn?
The sommelier brought the wine and poured it for them. Sabela watched him closely, taking in everything.
When they had their glasses, Colin raised his. “To unexpected beginnings and fortune in the unfortunate.”
“I’ll toast to that,” Sabela said.
Their glasses clinked. Sabela sipped and sighed in obvious pleasure, which pleased Colin.
“You know, I have a lot of questions I’ve been wanting to ask you, but it seems like I never get a chance,” she said.
“No time like the present. Ask away.”
“What do you do? For a living, I mean. You obviously have a ton of money. If it’s not too personal, what did you do to get it? Have you always been rich?”
“I’m in the hospitality industry, like François,” Colin replied, fine with disclosing a few, vague details. Sabela couldn’t know too much more. “I inherited a bar from my uncle and turned it into an international chain.”
“Did you know anything about that kind of business when you started?” Sabela asked.
“Not much. I’d been employed by my uncle for a while, but I mostly learned on the fly. You do what you have to do, as you know so well.”
Without schooling or any degrees to speak of, Colin had learned it all on his own, and he was proud of that. Business came to him naturally, and he exploited those talents to guarantee his future.
“What did you do before you inherited the bar?” Sabela asked.
“I was young, so unless you count a paper route and some fry cook work, I hadn’t done much.”
“You worked as a fry cook?” Sabela’s mouth fell open.
Colin couldn’t help but grin. “For a while, just to pay some bills. Eventually everything came together for me all at once, and I made some investments that paid off handsomely. Before I truly realized what I was doing, I’d made my first million. I’m happy to say I have a better idea of what I’m doing these days.”
“I can’t believe it.” She shook her head. “I can’t see you all greasy in a cap and a uniform. It’s just not you.”
“I vastly prefer suits, but it’s a uniform all the same.”
“I guess so, when you put it that way. Am I asking too many questions?”
“I’m actually glad you’re doing it,” he said.
They chatted amiably and munched on the crusty bread and crudités that had been delivered. Before too long, the waiter arrived with the hors-d’oeuvres, one of Colin’s favorites, Coquilles Saint-Jacques, scallops and mushrooms in a cream sauce and topped with Gruyere cheese. As Colin expected, it was delectable.
But the delicate skin of Sabela’s thigh was even more wonderful. He traced the skin of her knee and moved the hem of her dress carefully up her thigh just a couple of inches. He studied her wide-eyed expression and the slow way she swallowed as if to calm herself. She didn’t try to stop him from touching her.
She pulled off a hunk of the crunchy bread with trembling fingers. “It’s delicious,” she said, and nibbled daintily.
Colin watched her plump lips and felt a twinge down low when her pink tongue flicked out to lick off the flaky crumbs the bread had left behind. It was getting warm, he thought. Best to cool himself down. He took his hand off her thigh and reached for the wine.
“So,” he said, “do you have any other questions for me right now?”
She cut off a tiny bit of scallop. “I’m surprised you’re encouraging me to be nosy.”
“It’s a good thing. Like I said before, I’m glad of it.”
“Why?” She took a bite of the scallop then moaned and closed her eyes in seeming bliss. He wondered if she knew what she was doing to him, the temptress.
He cleared his throat. “Er, we’ll have company at the chalet soon. The more you understand and know about me, the better you’ll come across as my girlfriend,” he said.
“You’re going to introduce me to some of your business associates?”
“I’m not just here in Switzerland for the skiing,” Colin said. “I generally have more than one agenda with everything I do.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Why? What’s wrong with keeping things simple?”
“Simple never made a fortune.”
She appeared to consider that for a moment, then shrugged. “I guess you’d know better than I do. I’ll have to take your word for it.”
Their conversation was interrupted when a large, boisterous man in a white chef’s coat appeared beside the table and threw his arms in the air. Colin smiled at him.
“So this is the demanding customer who requires food that isn’t on the menu?” François Beaudoin snapped, his dark, unruly hair sticking out wildly from under his chef’s hat. “What am I going to do with you? I should have you thrown out onto the street.”
Colin laughed and stood up as he embraced his friend.
“François, it has been too long.”
“Well, yes, especially since you are jet-setting all over the world. You forget about those of us back here at home.”
Colin saw his friend’s gaze dart to Sabela. There was no better time for a test run than the present. If Sabela could come across as his girlfriend to a friend, she’d do just fine when presented to the suits Colin would be entertaining.
“François, this is Sabela Vaughn. Sabela, this is Chef François Beaudoin.”
Colin suppressed a flair of jealousy when François bent to kiss Sabela’s hand. It was how things were done, but he still didn’t like it.
Her skin was for him and him alone to touch.
Sabela would end the evening in his bed. He would make sure of it.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
SABELA LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF her dinner with Colin. He was an entertaining conversationalist and had her laughing at his stories of all the strange things he had encountered traveling the world.
The delicious food had been the cherry on top. Chef Beaudoin was a genius. Rich and delectable, every bite of the eccentric man’s food was beyond delightful. Half the time Sabela didn’t know what she was eating, but she did know that whatever it was, it was fantastic.
The meal concluded with heavenly, airy cream puffs and a chocolate sauce that put Marie’s awesome hot chocolate to shame. The puffs and sauce were the perfect sweetness, and Sabela probably could have eaten a dozen of them.
Colin’s hand on her thigh through the course of the evening sweetened matters even more.
Underneath the table, he stroked her knee and grazed the skin of her inner thigh. He pushed her dress up a couple of inches, both tantalizing and worrying her. But he didn’t go any further, both relieving and disappointing her.
That’s how it was with Colin, always six of one and half dozen of another.
Sabela was acutely aware of how close his fingers were to that intimate center between her legs.
He acted as if he wasn’t aware of what he was doing to her, but she knew better. He kept talking, and there were several times that she had stuttered or missed the flow of conversation because she was so hyper aware of what he was doing to her underneath the table.
A few times, she had caught him smirking to himself when she grew too flustered to continue.
Flustered wasn’t the right word. More like aroused, achingly aroused. His teasing was driving her mad.
After dessert, François came back out from the kitchen and caught them at coat check.
Both she and Colin embraced him before they left.
Sabela liked the easy-going chef. He seemed an interesting counter to Colin’s usually cool aloofness. If a man like that was such good friends with Colin that he could tease him one moment and come out and hug him goodbye the next, she believed her theory wasn’t all that far from the truth.
Somewhere, a thorn was pricking at Colin and making him bearish. It was up to her to find it and extract it.
By the time they were in the car and headed back to the chalet, snow had begun to fall. The partition was raised between themselves and Bruno.
“More fresh powder,” Colin said. “Don’t worry about the pass. Bruno is a master at driving in these conditions.”
Sabela wasn’t nervous about the road. Colin, on the other hand, and her attraction to him … that was another matter.
“I’ve been thinking about having a drink when we get back to the chalet,” Colin said, words spoken in a low, husky tone. “What would you think about joining me for a little scotch?”
And there it was. An unmistakable proposition. Sabela’s mind instantly returned to the last time they’d shared a scotch, and she knew exactly what that would entail tonight. She recalled his hands on her body and how they made her feel. Little shivers raced over her skin at the memory.
She wanted him.