Marvin came trotting up from behind a bush in the backyard and she smiled at him as she scratched his big, furry head.

“You were such a great shopping companion yesterday. What do you say we head out this morning and do it again?”

Marvin wagged his tail in response. It was all the encouragement she needed.

By lunchtime, Emma planned on being an entirely new woman.

Or, at the very least, looking like one.

“How’d it go last night with the hot ex?” Rocco said, as he helped himself to a large serving of white truffle frittata.

Every Monday morning, Jason and Rocco met to discuss the previous week at Cravings and to plan the following week’s menu.

Without giving Jason a chance to reply, Rocco answered his own question. “Must not have been that good, or else I would have expected you to blow me off this morning. Lord knew, if I had a hot babe in bed with me, you’d be yesterday’s news.”

Jason glared at his crass friend. “Call Emma a hot babe one more time and I’ll make sure you are blowing me off. In a hospital bed.”

Rocco blew out a low whistle. “So that’s how it is, huh? I can take a hint, boss. I know when things are serious with you.”

“Nothing’s serious,” Jason growled, then added, “And lay off that boss stuff. Before I make you.”

Rocco grinned, clearly enjoying getting under Jason’s skin. “You pay the bills, I call you boss. Deal with it. But if you’re sure you don’t want to talk about…Emma. Nice name. Classy.”

What was there to say? Jason thought darkly. She’d been waiting for him in the barest of lingerie and he’d pounced on her without a second thought. Even let her sleep in his bed.

Rocco took Jason’s silence as leave to ask more annoying questions. “I was thinking about that revenge plan you’ve got going. I don’t know. I think it’s gonna get messy.”

“Everything’s under control,” Jason said, quickly changing the subject by sliding last week’s numbers and a new review across the table, straight into the Tabasco sauce dripping from Rocco’s eggs. Rocco dropped his eyes to the figures on the page, leaving Jason alone with his thoughts again.

He knew he was completely full of shit. Nothing was under control where Emma was concerned. And that was exactly his problem.

Truth be told, he’d never felt like he held the reins of control less than he did right now.

One look at her, one taste of her, and he lost hold of his senses. Control over his own mind. Control over his cock. She was driving him insane.

And the problem was, a large part of him would rather be crazy with her than have things make sense without her.

Which meant that he was royally f**ked.

Somehow, some way, he needed to take back the reins and not let go. The only way he could think of doing it was to continue to push her sexual boundaries as far she would let him. Farther, even.

Hopefully, he’d succeed in pushing her all the way out of his life. Because he wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to let her go. She needed to make the decision to leave him on her own. And he was going to have to help her do that by being the kind of kinky, ultra-inventive lover she could never handle in a million years.

Emma strolled down Main Street with Marvin trotting happily behind her leaving drool spots every few feet on the sidewalk. It really was wonderful having a companion who was so cheerful, who didn’t want anything from her but to go for a walk and get pet on the head every so often.

What a contrast today was to all those years with Steven when she’d felt so cold. Her house had been cold, her bed had been downright frigid, her heart had been frozen solid. But two nights with Jason, this warm wine country sunshine, and a big silly dog were melting her frigidity away in sheets.

Her brand-new, very expensive pink-and-white print sundress floated around her thighs. She felt pretty, truly pretty, for the first since freshman year in college when Jason had kissed her. She felt unbearably sad at the realization that she’d spent more than ten years being unpretty, unwomanly, and unsexy.

She truly had been living in an igloo.

Two kids skipped by with enormous ice cream cones dripping down their arms and suddenly, desperately, Emma wanted one. Yes, all her life she’d watched her weight fanatically, but what was the point of being bony and dried-up? The Playboy Bunny hanging on her ex’s arm at the reunion certainly hadn’t been a stick.

Plus, a little voice in Emma’s head told her, “Maybe Jason will want you even more if he’s got something soft to hold on to.”

And that’s what this was all about, wasn’t it? Making Jason want her. It was all the push she needed to get the ice cream she hungered after. That she’d hungered for her whole life.

Tying Marvin’s leash onto a pole outside the old-fashioned ice cream parlor on Main Street, Emma purposefully walked inside and spoke before she could wimp out and change her mind.

“I’d like a scoop of vanilla.”

But that wasn’t nearly decadent enough, was it? It was something the old Emma would have taken one spoonful of then thrown the rest away, vowing to work out twice as long on the elliptical trainer the next evening at the gym.

“No, make that chocolate fudge brownie.”

“Single or double?” the young man behind the counter asked her.

Emma could have sworn he was looking appreciatively down the low-cut top of her new dress. Feeling bolder than ever, trying desperately not to calculate fat and carbs, she said, “Double.”

“Cone or cup?”

“Cup,” was her automatic response. Who needed to waste calories on a cone? She caught herself just in time. God, for the first time she actually felt like her constant need to diet was a sickness. One she wanted to conquer, if nothing else, to prove to her mother that Emma, and Emma alone, was in charge of her body.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Jason certainly had a heck of a lot of control of her body. No one could make her feel as good as he did. No one.

“Excuse me,” she said as the boy reached for a cup. “Could you change that to a cone please?”

“We make our own waffle cones,” he said, and she knew getting the enormous homemade, sugar-laden cone was her only option. It was what a secure, happy woman would have done, one who was more

worried about her own pleasure than in making everyone else happy.

“Then a waffle cone is what I’d like to have. Thanks so much.”

A few minutes later, Emma walked out of the parlor with the world’s largest ice cream cone. She laughed out loud at the sight of herself in the window, an extremely slim woman grasping a huge dessert. Bringing the decadent treat to her lips, she licked the chocolate fudge into her mouth. Her eyes closed on a groan.