As I set the pancakes in front of him, he stopped writing in his notepad.

He had a textbook in front of him, which surprised me because I hadn't taken him for the studious type, what with his bad boy reputation.

I guess I shouldn't have judged him, but everyone had preconceptions about individuals they saw.

'I made sure to add extra honey,' I said, smiling down at him.

'Oh.' He took a sip from his espresso and his eyes gleamed with humour as he processed what I'd just said. 'Could I expect anything less from Candy?'

I was willing to be civil to him because he was a familiar face. Nothing more, nothing less.

I made sure to laugh politely at his compliment. Maybe he was making an effort to be nice to me after what had happened earlier at the counter with Jonny and Boobgate.

'Thanks for saying so, Zachary. I appreciate it. I'm glad you think so well of my waitressing.'

Zachary grunted, without looking up from his textbook and I took the opportunity to glance at one of the pages he was on. It looked like he'd been staring at a complicated diagram of a plane and it had this weird science language which I couldn't make head or tail of.

'Has this got blueberries in it?' Zachary was picking apart the pancake with his cutlery.

'Of course.'

I'd followed his instructions to a Tee, making sure that all the fruit was inside the pancake along with drizzling it with milk chocolate sauce.

The honey seemed a bit too much for me, but whatever the customer wanted, he got.

He took a forkful of the pancake and ate it. I couldn't tell if he enjoyed it or not, because he was concentrating on reading the textbook.

'What course do you study?' I asked, curious to know. Just for research purposes, of course.

When I'd googled him, it hadn't mentioned what university he was currently attending. It felt like I was stalking him, but his dad was a billionaire so some information about his family was easy to come by online.

He didn't reply immediately, but set his cutlery down and took a sip from his ginger beer.

I'd been tempted to ask him if he wanted some Malone's, but that would have made it seem like I'd been interested enough to google him, and I didn't want to seem like some gold digger, when I didn't even like him in that way.

'Aeronautical Engineering at Imperial.'

My jaw dropped.

'Don't look so surprised.' He snorted. I could tell that he found my shock amusing.

'So you're a science geek,' I said, without thinking. 'I thought you said you hated school.'

'Doesn't mean that I wasn't good at some subjects.' Zachary began to pour some of the honey on his pancakes, the golden liquid oozed out, as though relieved that it was finally going to be sampled. There was chocolate on his chin and a small part of me wondered what he'd do if I decided to lick it off him.

Probably, he wouldn't care anyway... and return the favour.

'My science teacher was a cool guy. We smoked a few joints in his room and talked about soaps on TV,' he said, with a laugh. 'Good times for a fifteen year old.'

'What kind of a science teacher was he?' I was appalled. Dorothy was right about him being a wild child, all right, and whatever shit he'd got up to in his teenage years was bound to be outrageous.

'The mad kind.' He was smiling; his eyes were distant as he remembered something about his school days. 'A great help when it came to persuading the headmaster Dr Oppenheimer to allow me to stay in the school after a certain incident involving a prank in one of the Headboy's rooms, but Phil couldn't do anything when my housemaster caught me shagging Oppenheimer's daughter in my dorm.'

'Damn...' I wished that I hadn't asked him about his school days then, but another part of me wanted to learn what had been the headmaster's reaction, presumably he would have been furious about his daughter being another notch on Zachary's bedpost.

'So you got kicked out of school?'

'Yeah, I'd placed a bet with my mates that I could get her in my bed. They thought she was a stone cold bitch. Went on the charm offensive and managed to defrost her in two days. Piece of cake.' He chuckled, mopping up the honey with a piece of his pancake, and stuffing it in his mouth, allowing his expression reverting to a brief flash of joy as he savoured the last mouthful. 'Yum.'

He smacked his lips, and looked directly at me, making me feel slightly flushed and repulsed by what he'd told me about his conquest.

'You must be so proud.'

My tone was dripping with contempt for him, but he didn't seem bothered in the least and shrugged his shoulders.

'Yep. Proud as pie.' He settled back in his seat, taking a slug of his beer.

'Were your parents angry with you?'

'They were, but I was getting tired of that school. Unfortunately, I got sent to a military academy in Massachusetts, so my luck had run out. Now that was like hell.' He winced as a particularly unpleasant memory.

'Why?' I collected his plate.

'Because I had to scrub a lot of toilets,' he said. 'And one of my instructors made me go on endless drills. He suspected that I wasn't following the academy's honour code, and I couldn't do anything right with him, so he decided to turn me into his hate figure."

'I like that guy.' I grinned as I reached out for his crumpled napkin, but I gasped when I felt his palm on the back of my thigh, squeezing it, and my face burned up. Zachary began to stroke the soft skin there, moving his thumb in circular direction just above knee.

'You know what I missed the most while I was in the academy?' he said calmly, as though he wasn't touching me in the corner of the bakery. It was a good thing that there was no one else sitting around this part or that Jonny couldn't see us from the counter.

'What?' I straightened up, trying to keep my voice steady.

'The freedom to do whatever I pleased.' His warm hand slid up my thigh, toying with the cotton fabric of my dress, fingers bunching it between his fingers. 'There weren't many opportunities for that.'

Zachary was acting like it was completely normal to treat a server with such intimacy. 'So, it was a relief to come back to London. I consider it my home because each year we used to stay here in the summer...'

'Okay...' I pushed his hand away firmly. 'But you've got chocolate on your chin, creep.'

What else was I supposed to say? I wanted his hands off me, because I was feeling a funny feeling between my legs as his daring fingers made a voyage along my skin.

Based on the gleam of his eye, I kind of guessed that he was having fun ruffling my feathers.

Zachary stared at me for a few seconds, laughing as though he was surprised what I'd said.

He cocked his head to one side, regarding me. 'Well, I've been called worse...' he replied.

I watched as he grinned roguishly and rubbed his fingertips against his chin, searching for the spot, but failing to find it.

He saw me staring at him and tilted his head back. 'Want to lick it off me, Candice?' he said, with a hint of flirtatiousness.

I shook my head, exhaling, as I watched him close his eyes. I was tempted to throw his glass of water in his face, and walk away, but I decided to play him at his own game instead.

If he thought I was just going to let him mess around with me, he was going to be disappointed.

Before I had a chance to change my mind, I glanced around and realised that what I was about to do would go undetected.

He still had his eyes closed, as though he was resting his eyes, but his lips were twitching as though he was enjoying a private joke or fantasy.

I bent down over him, ran my tongue over my lips and licked the chocolate streak of his chin swiftly before planting a small peck on his cheek. Zachary's eyes immediately snapped open as he stared into my laughing eyes.

His eyes raised in surprise as though he hadn't expected me to exhibit such cheeky behaviour towards him. 'All gone.' I patted his cheek and began to walk off, but he grabbed my wrist. 'You missed a spot.' He motioned to his lips. 'Let's go out, so we can rectify the situation.'

His direct approach shouldn't have stunned me since that was the type of guy he was, but even so, I was at a loss for words.

With a sinking heart, I knew that I shouldn't have bothered with that stunt because he'd taken it as an invitation to ask me out.

I shuffled my feet and looked down at my boots. 'I have a date. Sorry.'

'Okay,' he said slowly. Then considered my response with faux contemplation before an idea struck him. 'Can you stand him up?'

I don't know what era he was from, but I had to stop with assuming that he was entitled to having everything delivered on a silver platter to him.

Despite myself, I laughed at the ruthlessness in his tone. 'No. That's mean. Besides, I'm serious about my commitments,' I snatched my hand away from him and rushed away to the counter, trying to get a handle on my laughter, as I heard him grumbling about silly girls who played hard to get.