Free Her Secret Thrill by Donna Kauffman

shaky hands, then put it back down again. She wasn’t sure she was ready to hear his voice. Even recorded. She didn’t know what she’d expected. A note at the lobby desk? She wondered if he’d wondered why she hadn’t called him directly. Oh, this was ridiculous . “Just pick it up and get his message already.”
    She stared at the blinking phone. What if he turned her down? Or worse, what if he sounded like a total dork or a jerk, and now she’d have to have coffee with him? Maybe it had been the night and the party and thewine she’d had that had made him seem so sexy and wonderful.
    â€œGet over yourself and do this.” She could always cancel, saying her flight had been moved up. Okay, she was ready now. Escape hatch firmly in place. Palms…and other parts damp, she picked up the receiver and punched in the numbers to get her messages. There was only one. She pushed the button to hear it.
    â€œNatalie.”
    â€œOh God.” The first word, and she’d already clenched so hard she almost came right then. This was not a good sign.
    â€œI’ve been thinking about you, hoping you’d find the nerve to call me.”
    She bristled. Both at the amused little note in his voice and the nerve he had in even suggesting, after what she’d done with him after only knowing him mere hours, that she lacked nerve of any kind. She conveniently ignored the fact that it had taken her two full days here to finally send the note at all.
    â€œThere’s a little place off Melrose that makes the most incredible oatmeal.”
    â€œOatmeal?” She laughed. “So much for a repeat of our last romantic rendezvous.” Not that she’d wanted one, she quickly added. But oatmeal? No one planned a seduction with an invitation for oatmeal. She should be relieved. Despite his teasing, he’d apparently drawn the same conclusion she had. Once had been wild and crazy, twice would only be asking for trouble.
    â€œI have a ten-thirty meeting, so if you don’t mind an early hour, meet me at Aunt Sue’s at eight. Just leave a message at the hotel if you can’t make it.”
    There was a pause, and Natalie had her finger onthe erase button…well, maybe it was hovering over the replay button—damn his voice was just as sexy as she remembered—but then he said something else and her hand fell limply back to her lap.
    â€œIf you have to turn me down, could you please leave a voice message?” A short pause followed by a self-deprecating chuckle, then, “I just want to know for sure if you sound as good as I remember.”
    Natalie sighed. The man gave good phone message, no doubt about it. Oatmeal and all.
    â€œDon’t chicken out.”
    She was still huffing in disbelief as the click ended the call and the message. Chicken out? She’d never once thought it. Her escape plan had strictly been protection against discovering that her memory of him had been tainted by passion.
    It hadn’t been tainted.
    â€œChicken out,” she grumbled. “I’m a Holcomb. We never chicken out.”
    Â 
    A UNT S UE’S turned out to be a really tiny little restaurant crammed in between a bunch of tony shops just off Melrose. It was all white clapboard and gingerbread trim, but somehow managed to fit in. Very “Hansel and Gretel Do L.A.,” she decided, then took a deep breath and went inside.
    She had no idea if the storybook decor on the outside matched the inside. In fact, if asked her name that very moment, she’d likely have drawn a blank. There he is was all she could think. Only the back of his head was visible to her, but she knew that head. Intimately.
    â€œOkay, no thinking about…you know,” she schooledherself, as she had all the way there. It hadn’t worked then and it sure as hell wasn’t working now.
    As if he sensed her arrival, he turned and saw her just as she…well, she certainly