“It’s no trick, Mr. Kelly. It’s love. Love of food and the desire to show people how much they can love it too.”

They start to talk business, but again I’m distracted by Delilah’s food. With the oysters, I’m at the shore, swimming in the heat of the day. She serves us baby cream biscuits and smoked peach butter that taste exactly like those we’d eat around her mother’s table during a Sunday dinner, only better, tweaked in a way that makes me want to taste it again and again. Buttermilk panna cotta with spot prawns and spring vegetables pulls me right into lazy picnics in Delilah’s backyard, when we’d gorge on plump peas, sweet tomatoes, crisp cucumbers. The tender shrimp and tart buttermilk—all of this is our childhood on a plate.

I never wanted to look too closely at that time, but it’s slapping me right in the face. Oddly, it doesn’t hurt. Not this version. It feels fragile and rare, like I should be protecting it, like I should be proud of where we come from and who we are.

And then the menu changes on me. The servers bring out what Delilah says is butter-poached cod with potato galette and shellfish emulsion dotted with petals of mango and peach. It is the clean taste of the sea; it is buttery velvet along my tongue, bright bursts of juicy fruit. Underneath it all is a crisp, airy version of what is essentially a gourmet tater tot.

The taste is erotic. Heat and lust wash over me in a wave that has my balls clenching and my cock stiffening. I can’t figure out why. Then it hits me like a kick to the chest. This dish is us. Frantic kissing on the beach, eating juicy mangos at the market, peaches and tater tots. She’s created us. A compilation of all she holds dear.

A laugh bursts out of me, and everyone glances my way.

North looks at me like I’m nuts. Delilah quirks a brow but doesn’t say a word. I have no idea what was said while I was lost in her food. Hell.

“Sorry. Spontaneous laughter.” I clear my throat, feeling like a grade A ass. “I do that when I’m enjoying my food.”

The silence is deafening. Ronan smothers a laugh with a cough. Delilah’s eyes narrow just the tiniest bit. I stare back, all innocence. But in my head, I’m thinking about what she’s done. And all that lust and need rise up again, hard, needy, but tempered with something I don’t want to name just yet. But it is real, and it’s demanding.

I don’t know what she sees in my eyes, but she shakes her head and laughs lightly. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”