Pulling out his phone, he pretended to stare at it so he wouldn’t stare at her. She was impeccably put together, as always, dark kohl outlining her singularly shaped eyes, heavy lidded and slanting upward on a curve. Bronze dusted her lids. All the skillful makeup did nothing to hide the exhaustion weighing her down. Her hair was gathered into a bun at her nape. She had hated putting it up. In high school she had either left it down or braided it.

It’s too heavy and I always have this one hair that tugs at my scalp and drives me crazy.

He wondered if it still fell all the way down to her waist, and if the thick blunt ends would still spill across his forearms when she tilted her head back to kiss him.

“Hi.” Finally, she was standing in front of him. Instead of her usual red chef’s jacket she was wearing a maroon silk blouse that put her collarbones on full display.

Her collarbones had a way of mirroring her moods. They stood out in sharp relief when she was screaming at someone at the goal line. The curve was smoother, gentler when she was being determined off the pitch. Two completely different ways in which she could be fierce. Of course, something entirely magical happened to those lines when she was aroused.

She caught him skimming the bones radiating from the perfectly shaped hollow at the base of her throat. Her gaze drank in whatever she saw in his eyes.

“Hi.” He tucked his phone into his pocket. It had sucked as a cover anyway. Moreover, he was a grown man, a world-renowned athlete. Try to remember that, will you?

She gave him a searching look and it had to be the lack of meds because a hungry pit opened up inside him. The camera was watching, so he held out his arm as they were called to the interview area.

There was only a moment of hesitation before she slid a hand into the crook of his elbow. Her hand was ice cold even through the cotton of his shirt.

They walked down a corridor lined with Food Network legends. Cameras clicked, and her fingers tightened on his arm even as she kept a good six inches between their bodies. Which was commendable because the giant magnet between them had gone back into overdrive.

The effort of holding himself at the distance she’d stipulated intensified the pain in his body, and idiot that he was, he overcompensated by trying to appear excessively relaxed and in control.

Jonah led them to another waiting area with stiff-backed chairs and she let go of Rico’s arm, leaving it even colder.

She asked Jonah about his two-month-old and he showed her pictures on his phone before running off to put out some fire with a smile on his face.