Savour the Moment: Now the Big Day Has Finally Arrived, It's Time To... by Nora Roberts Page B

not paying me. What the hell is wrong with you?”
    “I just wanted to ...What the hell’s wrong with you?”
    “What the hell’s wrong with me? I’ll tell you what the hell’s wrong with me.” She planted a hand on his chest to push him back a step. “You’re irritating and overbearing and self-righteous and patronizing.”
    “Whoa. All this because I wanted to pay you for a cake I asked you to make? It’s your business, for Christ’s sake. You make cakes, people pay you.”
    “One minute you’re fussing—and yes, the word is fussing—because I’m not eating the kind of dinner you approve of, and the next you’re pulling out your wallet like I’m the hired help.”
    “That’s not what—Goddamn it, Laurel.”
    “How can anybody keep up?” She threw her arms in the air. “Big brother, legal advisor, business associate, motherfucking hen. Why don’t you just pick one?”
    “Because more than one applies.” He didn’t shout as she did, but his tone boiled just as hot. “And I’m nobody’s motherfucking hen.”
    “Then stop trying to manage everyone’s lives.”
    “I don’t hear anyone else complaining, and helping you manage is part of my job.”
    “On the legal end, the business end, not on the personal end. Let me tell you something, and try to get this through that thick skull once and for all. I’m not your pet, I’m not your responsibility, I’m not your sister, I’m not your girl. I’m an adult, and I’m free to do what I want, when I want, without asking your permission or courting your approval.”
    “And I’m not your whipping boy,” he shot back. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but you can either tell me or take it out on somebody else.”
    “You want to know what’s gotten into me?”
    “Yes, I do.”
    “I’ll show you.”
    Maybe it was the champagne. Maybe it was just the mad. Or maybe it was the look of baffled annoyance on his face. But she went with the impulse that had been bubbling inside her for years.
    She grabbed him by the perfect knot of his elegant tie, jerked him down even as she gripped a handful of his hair, and yanked him forward. And she fixed her mouth to his in a hot, sizzling, frustrated kiss, one that gave her heart a jolt even as her mind purred: I knew it!
    She threw him off balance—she meant to—so his hands came to her hips, and his fingers dug in for one gloriously heady moment.
    She threw herself into that moment, to exploit, to savor, to absorb. Tastes and textures, heat and hunger, all there for the taking. She took exactly what she wanted, then shoved him away.
    “There.” She tossed her hair back while he stared at her. “The sky did not fall, the world did not end, neither of us was struck by lightning or beamed straight to hell. I’m not your damn sister, Delaney. That ought to make it clear.”
    She strode out of the kitchen without a backward glance.
    Aroused, astonished, and still considerably annoyed, he stood exactly where he was. “What was that? What the hell was that?”
    He started to go after her, then stopped himself. That wouldn’t end well, or it would end ... He’d better not think of that until he could think, period.
    He frowned at the half glass of champagne. How much had she had before he’d come in? he wondered. Then, because his throat was uncommonly dry, he picked up the flute and downed the rest of the contents.
    He should go, just go home, and set the whole thing aside. Chalk the whole incident up to ... something. He’d figure out what to chalk it up to when his brain regained full function.
    He’d just come for the cake, that’s all, he reminded himself as he carefully closed and secured the lid on the bakery box. She’d picked a fight, then she’d kissed him to prove some sort of point. That’s all there was to it.
    He’d just go home and let her stew over whatever she was stewing over.
    He picked up the box. He’d just go home, he admitted, and take a really long, cold