A Stranger's Touch -- Wattys2015

Chapter Two

Three weeks later...

The last rays of sunlight flickered like flames into her small apartment.

She fished a praline from the open box sitting on her desk. She'd made them yesterday for her maybe newest creation, praline cupcakes. Closing her eyes, she savored the buttery crunchiness while the loud humming of her outdated computer drilled a hole in her head.

But no matter how good her creations, her finances didn't allow for experiments anymore.

Wine in one hand, mouse in the other, she clicked the browser window shut, which had educated her about the maximum sentence for arsonists, and tried not to think about the gasoline canister hidden in the basement.

She wouldn't, couldn't do that...so why was she still thinking about this?

And if tonight's meeting went well, she wouldn't need to follow in Nero's footsteps—not that her conscience would ever let her do it anyway.

After opening her email account, she switched on her laser printer then hit the print button. Lowering her forehead to the desk, she listened as the printer gave an unhealthy cough. The smell of paper burning wafted.

She jerked her head up. The display flashed red, and no matter how hard she tugged, the e-invitation to tonight's entrepreneur meeting was stuck. Counting to ten, she resisted hurling the printer out the window.

Violence was never the answer.

One floor below, the sound of a doorbell rang and carried over fifteen crooked steps and through the two paper-thin doors that separated her shoebox apartment from her shop.

The day had gone by without anyone buying a single anything, so she jumped to her feet and made her way down the staircase to greet her first, hopefully buying customer of the day.

Placing her wine glass carefully next to the register and smoothing down her hair, she made an effort to smile as she stepped into the storefront that held all her hopes. And lots of unsold cupcakes.

Instead of the face of a paying customer, she stared right into the barrel of a gun.

"Don't scream."

Her stomach did a somersault, but she kept her mouth shut. Baffled, she glanced along the cold, glinting metal and up an arm, over a broad chest under a navy shirt, and then found the face behind the gun.

Like a sudden sugar rush, delirious pleasure spread through her.

"You?" she whispered, her heart beating in her throat as she gave him another quick once-over. He was fetching in a hard, square-jawed, dark-eyed brooding way. Hard was the operative word, she thought—and was thinking it not for the first time. But he looked dead on his feet, with dark circles under his eyes.

"You," she said again, balling her fists, ignoring how lust welled in her body.

Recognition sparked in his dark gaze. He lowered the gun and murmured a curse, a vein throbbing in his temple.

Yes, he remembered her all right.

Probably even remembered how he had dumped her, even though he was a step ahead, because he knew why he had dumped her in the middle of a sort of date.

"Ben, wasn't it?" she asked, knowing damn well his name and ignoring that he still held a gun in his hand. "Should I call the police or will you leave on your own?"She couldn't even begin to guess what went on inside him, but then his features smoothed into a poker face.

"You mistake me for someone else."

"Ha, right." Bet he hadn't figured on bumping into someone who knew him while he... What exactly was he doing?