Scandalizing the CEO by Katherine Garbera

her own fears, was going to stop her from having him.
    She thought he’d ask for the check so they could leave, but instead he took her hand in his under the table and placed it on his thigh. She felt the muscled hardness of his legs and let her fingers caress him.
     
    Steven took a sip of his espresso and kept his hands off Ainsley. It was a struggle because she kept moving her fingers up and down his thigh. He’d taken a gamble by putting her hand there. But her earlier fears had told him that she wasn’t sure of her appeal.
    And he wondered how a woman as sexy and smart as Ainsley could doubt herself. She had declined dessert, but he’d never known a woman not to want sweets, so he had ordered a seven-layer chocolate cake for them both and offered her a bite.
    She shook her head, but he kept the fork extended. “Please take it away, Steven.”
    He took the bite for himself. “Why?”
    Pulling her hand from his leg, she wrapped it around her own waist. “I…I guess this is a good time to tell you. I used to be fat.”
    Women were always obsessing over five or ten pounds. But Ainsley was perfect. Beautiful, curvy, everything a woman should be.
    “I find that very hard to believe.”
    “Well, it’s the truth. Men rarely noticed me when I was in a room.”
    Again he didn’t believe her. “Maybe that was your perception, but I promise you they did.”
    “No, they didn’t.”
    “Well, then they were fools because I would never have forgotten you,” he said.
    “But you did,” she said. “I interviewed you five years ago. And you don’t even remember me.”
    Steven tried to recall…the girl with the pretty violet eyes? She had been big, he remembered, but more than that she’d been almost invisible when she hadn’t been interviewing him. “I remember now. Weren’t you A.J. then? You were so shy when the interview was over. Almost as if you wanted to fade into the background.”
    She flushed. “I did. But you didn’t remember me, did you?”
    “Not because of the size of your body,” he said. “Because you made yourself unremarkable. You’ve changed. I don’t think it’s just weight loss. I think it has to do with your personality.”
    She took a sip of her espresso and then joined her hands together on the table. “A man would see it that way.”
    “Anyone would,” he argued. “You used to make yourself invisible. Maybe you felt more comfortable that way. But the woman you are right now is who I’m attracted to, and it wouldn’t matter what size she was.”
    He saw her blink and turn away. “Now I want you to try a bite of this dessert. It’s delicious.”
    “I can’t, Steven. One bite will turn into the entire cake. You have no idea what a struggle it is for me to keep from overeating.”
    She was too disciplined now to overeat. He could tell by the way she held herself that she wouldn’t let her control slip. She just wasn’t that sure of herself. He vowed that she would be. That he would show her that she was so much more than unfulfilled wanting.
    “Trust me.”
    She looked over at him and he felt like this had become about something more than dessert. The moment sharpened until he knew this would change the course of their relationship. Either she would trust him and it would move forward or she wouldn’t and he’d sleep with her and they’d never see each other again.
    He wasn’t sure which scenario he preferred. Because if she started to trust him, that meant he had the burden of continuing to be worthy of her trust—something he wasn’t sure he could do. He’d been dead inside for so long. He’d settled for one-night stands and short-term affairs.
    But as the fork was suspended between them and he watched Ainsley move slowly toward it, he knew that things were changing. Not just for her, but for him as well.
    She was the first woman he’d wanted physically who had tempted him emotionally. And that scared him. He’d always been alone and he didn’t want to depend on