Free MacAllister's Baby by Julie Cohen Page A

self-confidence and a future. And Elisabeth and Angus were building something else, though she wasn’t sure what it was yet.
    He caught her eye as the tarts went into the oven, and his tongue just touched his lips. She looked away quickly.
    The kids weren’t the only people learning things. Angus had learned that Elisabeth wanted him, and he was apparently eager to capitalise on what he’d learned.
    Elisabeth had learned that she liked Angus. Despite her suspicion of his motives; despite the fact that she’d sworn to stay away from men like him; despite the fact that the last thing she needed was temptation.
    How come it was so easy to make pastry tough and so hard to make herself strong enough to resist Angus MacAllister?
    Angus’s and Jennifer’s tarts were perfect when they came out of the oven. Danny’s didn’t look as good, but he’d experimented with the spices, and it tasted incredible. Elisabeth’s was awful: irregular, sunken in the middle, and charred on the outside.
    Elisabeth was an English teacher. She recognised a symbol when she saw one. The lesson here was: Pay attention to your goal, and don’t get distracted by sexy men who are no good for you.
    ‘You’ll do better next time, Miss Read,’ Jennifer told her.
    Elisabeth glanced at Angus, who was regarding her with a twinkle and a grin, and doubted it.
    As they were cleaning up Angus made a detour to stand beside her with his dishcloth. ‘Thought any more about your plans for this evening, Miss Read?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘I’m eager to discuss the main course, after the appetisers we tasted earlier.’
    ‘Do you always talk this way, or do I bring out the bad metaphors in you?’
    ‘You bring out a lot in me, Elisabeth.’ He subtly flicked his dishcloth in the teenagers’ direction. ‘So I’ll pick you up at six?’
    ‘No, thank you.’ She wiped her hands on a tea towel, picked up her wonky tart, and handed it to him. ‘Take this, though. In case you haven’t satisfied your sweet tooth yet.’

CHAPTER FIVE
    ‘I WANT you to close your eyes,’ said Angus, sitting on top of a table, leaning back on his hands, ‘and remember the best thing you’ve ever eaten. I don’t care it if was the fanciest, or the most expensive—I mean the best.’
    From his perch on the table, he looked at the faces of the three people sitting around him on chairs. They’d closed their eyes. Danny’s brow was furrowed with the intensity of his attempt to remember. Jennifer’s face was slightly pinched. And Elisabeth’s face, as always, was beautiful.
    The most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
    And he knew it, because even though he only saw Elisabeth herself two days a week for two hours at a time, he’d seen her face in his mind for twenty-four hours of every day for the past four weeks. Working at his restaurant, travelling around London, and especially lying in his bed at night.
    He hadn’t been so obsessed with anything since he’d discovered that he could cook. And he hadn’t been this horny since he was a teenager.
    The woman was sexy as hell, even more so because she did her best not to show it. He flirted with her outrageously when the kids weren’t looking and she never once flirted back. And yet the toss of her head, the sway of her hips, the firm line of her lips, the defiant sparkle in her eyes all turned him on more than any superficial flirting could do.
    Except for last Friday, when he’d touched her lips, eaten chocolate from her skin. And that had turned him on more than anything in his life had done.
    Angus let his eyes settle on her face, travel over her delicate eyebrows arched over closed lids, her fine, straight nose, her satin skin. A hint of a smile passed over her lips, and he knew that she had remembered the best thing she’d ever eaten.
    He hoped it had been the chocolate-dipped strawberry he’d fed her. Though there wasn’t much chance of her mentioning it in front of the kids. She was as scrupulously