Chapter 16
"Mind if I sit up front?" Jodie asks Mike as she exits the private room.
He looks at her with surprise at first but immediately nods.
"Not at all, sit wherever you want."
The driver closes the back door and opens the passenger's side. Jodie can't get used to this gesture, but no matter how many times she asks him not to do it, Mike is so accustomed that he does it out of habit.
Jodie's knee starts bouncing as soon as the vehicle moves, jerking frantically while she twists her purse between her fingers, searching for a calmness she can't find. While she was in the kitchen, she didn't have time to think, she escaped like she hadn't in a long time, but now that the moment has come to have that conversation with Katherine that today's circumstances have kept postponing, she's a bundle of nerves.
"Is something wrong?" Mike decides to ask, stressed by all the compulsive movement.
Jodie stops her knee and hands to look at him for a long moment.
"Will this stay between us?" she asks, and Mike can't help but let out an amused laugh.
"If you mean Katherine, I won't tell her, unless you confess you're planning to kill her; in that case, I'll open the door and throw you out of the moving car."
The joke makes Jodie laugh and manages to relax her enough to feel comfortable explaining to her boss's right-hand man and now lover the reason for her nervousness.
"Let's say I'm about to have a very important conversation with her, and I'm very nervous because I don't know how it's going to go."
Mike glances at her sideways while nodding. Serious.
"I don't know what it's about and you don't have to tell me, but I wouldn't worry, it'll be fine," he assures with such conviction that Jodie wishes she could believe him.
"Why are you so sure?"
"I don't know, but Katherine is one of the best people I know, I find it hard to imagine anything going wrong when you're around her."
Jodie smiles and remains hypnotized for a few seconds.
"Can I ask how long you've known her?" the cleaner asks with interest.
"Since adolescence, she was the only friend I had in that fancy school."
Jodie raises her eyebrows, not understanding, and Mike smiles.
"I got into an elite school on a sports scholarship, the same one Katherine attended. As you can imagine, a neighborhood kid like me stuck out completely in a place like that, but not to her. The first day I bumped into her in a hallway and almost knocked her down. One of her friends wanted to confront me, suggesting I did it on purpose and encouraging others to pick a fight with me," Mike smiles at the memory. "You should have seen her, she pushed him so hard that he was the one who ended up on the floor. I don't remember the words she said because I was stunned seeing her defending me, and after that, we just became very good friends and still are today."
"Wow," Jodie says, surprised.
Mike looks at her for just a moment and winks, and somehow, she senses that he knows exactly what the conversation will be about and that what he's trying to make clear is that if she's worried about the class difference between her and Katherine, she can relax.
"Good luck," Mike tells her when Jodie gets out of the car.
She returns a sincere smile before closing the door and enters the Mallois hotel trying to contain her nerves.
She decides not to use her card when she reaches the penthouse door, she's not working and it seems like an invasion of Katherine's privacy who, when she opens the door, dressed again in comfortable and casual clothes, makes Jodie tremble from head to toe. The two women stand face to face for a few seconds, looking at each other without knowing how they should greet each other, until Katherine takes control of the situation and stretches out an arm to take Jodie's hand, pull her in and press her against her body.
"I really dislike awkward situations," she says before kissing her, while pushing the door to close it.
"Me too," Jodie responds when they break the kiss.
"Great, then let's avoid them once and for all, okay?" she says and points to the terrace. "I imagine you're tired and hungry. I had dinner sent up here, we can talk while we eat."
Jodie's stomach suddenly growls, but when she follows Katherine to the terrace and finds the table with a couple of candles and a bottle of champagne that clearly indicate that the owner intends for the evening to extend until it ends in her bed, something clicks in Jodie's head and she blurts out what she's thinking without having time to filter it.
"Is something wrong?" Katherine asks, turning to Jodie when she stops abruptly.
"I've been in love with you for two years," she fires point-blank and Katherine's blue eyes intensify when she hears her.
Jodie's heart pounds like a hammer against her chest, but she's already said it and doesn't plan to take it back because she's launched.
"I'm telling you because if what you expect from us is something like what you have with Annie, it's better if we forget what happened and I go home before this becomes more awkward, because I don't want that, Katherine."
Katherine is speechless, so impacted by what she's just heard that, despite being a businesswoman used to handling all kinds of situations, in this one she's gone blank.
Jodie keeps looking at her feeling her ears buzzing louder and louder, after a confession like this, there are only two possible answers Katherine can give her, and given her silence, Jodie is clear about her decision and suddenly feels something like a stone falling on her head and sinking her into the ground until she disappears.
"I figured as much," she says, pressing her lips together. "See you tomorrow."
Jodie turns around ready to leave, but before taking a step, Katherine grabs her arm and stops her.
"Wait..."
Jodie turns and finds the Mallois owner pinching the bridge of her nose for a moment.
"Don't go, Jodie," she asks after sighing deeply. "I guess I didn't react the way you would have liked, but I wasn't expecting such a confession. Give me a break, okay? Stay and have dinner with me, let's relax and when we're both calmer, we'll talk about this, what do you say?"
Katherine's fingers intertwine with Jodie's in a casual, involuntary gesture. And Jodie nods.
Dinner proceeds with a tranquility that neither would have expected after the tense moment they just experienced. Katherine has asked her to talk about her day as a cook and Jodie feels in another world doing so, one she hasn't returned to in a long time and that makes her eyes shine in a way that hypnotizes Katherine even more. She talks about everything she's done and not just that, she also gives some advice on what could have been improved in that kitchen to be more efficient, plus a ton of menu ideas for events of that type.
"I know it hurts you to talk about your family and I'd be lying if I said I haven't asked around and heard some rumors about why you closed the restaurant, but I'd like you to tell me yourself, Jodie," Katherine says, fixing that blue gaze on her that the cleaner is sure she could get lost in forever.
And Jodie tells her, absorbed, as if the story wasn't about her and had happened to someone else. And Katherine listens, attentive, observing every movement of her lover, every change of expression on her face and especially that way of losing shine in her gaze when she talks about the subject.
"I'm sorry all that happened to you, Jodie, especially to you," Katherine says.
Jodie makes a grimace trying to smile, but doesn't succeed.
"You know what's the worst part of it all?" Jodie asks. Katherine shakes her head. "That sometimes I feel like a horrible person because I have the feeling that what I miss most from that time is being able to cook every day for indecent amounts of people, not my brother or my father, but the kitchen, and I don't know what that makes me."
"Human, I suppose," says Katherine, who gets up and drags her chair to sit next to her. "You're passionate about cooking, it helps you escape and now you can't do it. It's normal that that's what you need most, and it doesn't mean you love your father or brother any less, it's just that the kitchen was more fun than them."
Katherine winks at her and the flutter Jodie feels in her chest makes everything around her stop, cutting off her breath. The cleaner leans forward softly and seeks the hotel owner's lips. The kiss is soft and short, but it's loaded with something that makes Katherine shiver, something intense that has warmed her heart and not her groin as usually happens, and she doesn't want to stop feeling that.
"Let's go inside, it's cold out here," she suggests and stands up, extending a hand to Jodie.
She invites her to sit on the couch after closing the terrace door and sits next to her after preparing two glasses of white wine.
"I like you a lot, Jodie," Katherine fires, who has no intention of beating around the bush. "From the beginning there was something about you that caught my attention and I had trouble identifying what it was, but now I'm very clear about it and if you agree, I want to try it."
Jodie is perplexed, pinching her leg to make sure she's not dreaming.
"I'm not going to swear eternal love because I'm more about living in the present, but what I feel for you keeps growing and I'm not going to ignore it. I know you said you've been in love with me for two years," Katherine pauses, still processing that information, "but that doesn't give you an advantage because you don't really know me, and I don't know you either, so if you'd like, we can start there, going slow to get to know each other better."
"And Annie?" Jodie asks before giving an answer.
Katherine tilts one of those smiles that melt hearts.
"What about her?" she decides to tease a bit.
"You know what I mean, if you want us to try something, it won't be while you and she, you know..."
Jodie didn't want to be crude and Katherine won't be either, although she'd like to because sometimes using that kind of language seems like a seduction game to her.
"Forget about Annie, from now on it's just you and me," declares the Mallois owner. "Let's get to know each other and see where this thing we feel leads us. Deal?"
"Deal," Jodie accepts, trying not to show her euphoria. "I suppose I should leave now, it's late," she says looking at her watch.
Katherine raises an eyebrow.
"Wouldn't you prefer to stay here tonight?" she asks in a seductive tone that Jodie can't resist.
The cleaner stands up and stops in front of Katherine, looking at her fixedly until, as her only response, she sits on top of her, straddling her.