“I couldn’t agree with you more.” Ryder looked just as surprised as she was at the bountiful fare. Then he nudged a dish toward her. “I guess we’d better get started before the food gets cold. Bon appetit.”
“Back atchya.” She’d skipped lunch and was hungry as a horse so she needed no further encouragement.
They both began to help themselves to the various dishes and Blake was tickled when Ryder took the serving spoon from her and began to ladle the catfish onto her plate. “Hey, I’m a big girl,” she teased. “I can help myself.”
“Just relax and enjoy. Let me spoil you tonight.”
The words were innocent enough but the way he said them sent tingles up Blake’s spine. God, he sounded sexy. And the flickering light from the candles that cast a golden glow over his skin wasn’t helping her blood pressure, either.
She cleared her throat. “I might just do that.” And, almost in synchrony with his tone, the words came out in a low, throaty whisper. Not that she’d meant for them to come out that way.
After that, the electricity in the air eased up a bit, enough for Blake to tuck into her meal and actually enjoy it. She was liking the light banter, too, as Ryder filled her in on the goings-on while she’d been away. She couldn’t help but laugh when he told her how the ladies of the sewing circle had corralled him for an entire afternoon. By the time they’d let him go he’d learned the cross-stitch, the hemming stitch and how to embroider.
They were halfway through the meal when Ryder found yet another surprise of Peggy’s. “Look at that,” he said, tilting his chin toward the sideboard. “Would you believe it? She left us a bottle of wine.”
Blake followed his gaze and saw that he was right. A shiny silver ice bucket sat there, reflecting the light from the candles, and in it was a bottle of wine. They’d been so caught up with the food they hadn’t even noticed.
When Ryder brought it over and poured her a glass she took a small sip and then another, more generous one. The wine was delicious, rich and aromatic, the perfect complement to a perfect meal. With Ryder there with her there was no other word to describe the evening except…perfect.
The perfect wine didn’t just titillate her taste buds, though. With each sip she took, the tension that had made her sit up straight in her chair now flowed out of her and in its place came a mood so mellow that she didn’t even flinch when, out of the blue, Ryder asked her a question about Jerome.
“So how did you end up in business with a man like your partner, someone who would betray you like that?” He wasn’t just looking curious. He actually looked puzzled.
She took another sip of wine to fortify herself then gave him a wan smile. “It’s a long story,” she said. “Got the time?”
He cocked his head to one side. “I’m all ears.”
Blake drew in a shallow breath and then she began. “I met Jerome at a cocktail party. One of those meet-and-greet affairs. You know, you’re in business, trying to network, so you show your face at these events.”
“Sure, that’s part of doing business.”
“ Jerome was at one of those events and he walked up to me and said he was a huge admirer of my work.” She gave him a rueful smile. “He started laying it on real thick and I guess after a while I began to believe a little bit of what he was saying.” She shook her head. “Silly me, but you live and you learn.”
Ryder’s gaze narrowed. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, it went from that simple conversation to a meeting at my office to an invitation to go out on a date.” She grimaced. “It turned out that he wasn’t so much interested in my work as he was in me. At least, at first.” She bit her lip and then she spoke again. “Jerome was a real charmer, going out of his way to surprise me with gifts and doing cute little things, unexpected things, things that made me begin to like him.” She gave a hollow laugh. “One time he even made me leave the office to go out with him for the afternoon for a picnic and a ride in a hot air balloon. He was so spontaneous.” She glanced over at Ryder but in the dimness of the room she could read nothing in his eyes. And he wasn’t saying anything. He was quiet and he was watching her, waiting for her to go on.
She let out her breath. “To cut a long story short, it took only a few months before I fell in love with him and when he asked me to marry him I said yes.” Her lips tightened. “Soon after that he started paying close interest in my business and then one day, out of the blue, he said we were a couple now so it would only make sense for us to be business partners.”
“You were okay with that?”
She shrugged. “After I got over the initial shock I said yes.” She gave a soft snort. “Little did I know it was the worst decision of my life.” She grimaced. “Well, maybe the second worst. Agreeing to marry him would probably take that prize.”
Ryder raised an eyebrow. “Your second worst decision, because?”
“Because although he said we should be partners I was the one undertaking most of the risk. His financial contribution was sort of…sparse, to put it generously. He said his main contribution would be his vast network of clients, both private and corporate.” She sighed. “It was more a promise than anything tangible but I guess by that time I was too involved to object. I talked myself into it, telling myself that clients were the key success factor in any real estate business.” She reached for her wine again. After a slow sip she continued. “But that, I could have lived with. What killed me was when I found out, three months after we’d formed the partnership, that he’d begun writing checks to a company I’d never heard of, called Evergreen Enterprises. When I checked into it, it was to find out that he was the owner.”
By this time, no matter that the lighting was weak, Blake could see that Ryder’s face had darkened into a scowl. “The bastard. You reported him to the police, right?”
Blake looked down at her hands then she shook her head. She opened her mouth to speak but she couldn’t. A huge lump had formed in her throat. It took several seconds before the words could come out. “I didn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t believe what he’d done.” She raised her gaze to Ryder’s face. “This was the man I was going to marry. I found this out a week before our wedding day.” Despite herself, her mouth began to tremble and she bit down on her bottom lip. When she spoke again there was a tremor in her voice. “That was why I just left. I had to get away. I found out I couldn’t trust Jerome, the man who swore he loved me so much he couldn’t live without me. After what he did to me…he’s made it hard for me to trust any man again.”