He meant the kiss to be cursory and brief, and solely for the benefit of the Stormtrooper blonde in the doorway, but the second his lips touched hers, they were in no hurry to leave.

Clarke realized then what he’d actually been hoping for with this kiss was confirmation that the kiss the night of the engagement party had been a fluke and that the addictive sweetness of Audrey’s lips had been his imagination.

This kiss shot that hope to hell. Her lips parted slightly in surprise, and Clarke had to fight the urge to deepen the kiss all the way, to kiss her for real. Strange, that as well as he knew Audrey, as much as he thought he knew everything about her, he hadn’t known this. That her lips would be so soft or feel so… right.

He forced himself to pull back, his point more than proven. Sensing Audrey’s confusion and avoiding her gaze, he turned around and gave the receptionist his cockiest grin. See? I belong to her.

Finally satisfied that Clarke was actually supposed to be here, the blonde gave them both a polite nod. “A team member will be with you as soon as possible to begin the tasting. We’re running just slightly behind schedule. Can I get you anything to drink? Coffee? Tea? Wine?”

The wine was extremely tempting, given how his day was going so far, but he and Audrey both shook their heads. Audrey waited until the receptionist’s clicking heels faded away, then gave him a searching look. “What was that about?”

“What is this, the Fort Knox of bakeries?” he grumbled, hooking the leg of the chair with his shoe and pulling it out so he could sit beside her. “I seriously thought she was going to hit the panic button because my name wasn’t on her approved list.”

“Well, you told me you had a meeting and couldn’t make it, so I told her I was alone.”

“I did have a meeting,” he said, rubbing his temples.

“It got canceled?”

Something like that.

In reality, he’d been so thrown off balance by Liz’s visit and the strange storm of realizations it had wrought, that he’d stomped out of the York office building and was halfway to the cake shop before he remembered the reason he’d declined the tasting appointment in the first place.

He’d thought about turning back around to take the scheduled vendor meeting, but instead had called one of the guys on his team who’d been requesting more responsibility in an unsubtle bid for a promotion and asked him to take the meeting on his behalf.

“You okay?” she asked.