Jagger (The Sterling Club #2)

1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Jagger

Ididn’t care about the food.

The main floor was set up with a long table down the center, white linen, way too many forks.

Caleb was across from me eating a duck confit tartlet like it had personally pissed him off.

Danny was at the far end with Anna tucked against his side, stealing food off his plate while he watched her with a look that, six weeks ago, would never have fucking happened.

Danny Sterling. Smiling. Sharing food.

The man who fired a bartender over the wrong ice cube was now letting a woman eat off his plate and looking pleased about it.

Good for him. Truly. Deeply unsettling, but good for him.

Courses came and went. Seared scallop, excellent.

Braised short rib, very good. I did my thing — compliments, eye contact, the right question about the vinaigrette that made the sous chef’s whole week.

Easy. Automatic. I’ve been running this program since I was fifteen.

Charm is the family business. My mother had it, my father had it, and I got both doses.

Then the chocolate soufflé arrived.

I took a bite and stopped talking.

I have eaten a lot of food in my life. Michelin restaurants across four countries.

An omakase in Tokyo that cost me eighteen hours of travel and was worth every minute.

A tasting menu at Jean-Georges where I spent more time with the dessert course than with the woman sitting across from me, and she was a Sports Illustrated model, so that should tell you where chocolate ranks for me.

This was different.

The soufflé was barely set. Almost liquid at the center — a dangerous cook.

Most pastry chefs won’t risk it because the margin between perfect and ruined is about ten seconds.

This chef had hit it dead fucking center.

And there was sea salt. Flaked, barely there, just enough to cut the sweetness and make the chocolate feel like something honest instead of something pretty.

I looked at the empty ramekin, then looked at the kitchen doors.

I picked up the ramekin and headed for the kitchen, which I have never done. Not once. I don’t carry dishes through service hallways. That’s not how I operate.

Stainless steel, steam, the head chef barking about a reduction. I scanned the room looking for someone who matched what I’d just eaten. Older, serious, probably intimidating.

Instead there was a woman in a chef’s coat with a messy bun that was about three minutes from total collapse, a smear of flour across her left cheek, and a laugh that was filling the entire kitchen.

This was a full-bodied, head back, completely unconcerned with how it looked, laugh.

She was laughing at something a line cook had said, and her hands were still moving while she did it, wiping down a surface without looking at it, muscle memory.

Mid-twenties. Small hands, short nails, and a faded burn scar on the inside of her wrist. She had golden brown hair, and the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. She moved through the kitchen like it belonged to her.

She turned and saw me in the doorway. Suit, empty ramekin, probably looking like a man who’d wandered away from his own party.

The laugh stopped. The smile didn’t.

“Can I help you, sir?”

Sir. Fucking hell.

“You made this soufflé?” I said.

“Yeah, that was me.”

“It’s the best fucking thing I’ve put in my mouth this year. Possibly any year.” I set the ramekin on her counter. “The center was barely set. That’s a ten-second window and you hit it perfectly. And the salt — cutting the sweetness so the chocolate stays honest.”

She shrugged and folded a towel over her shoulder, looking at me like I was a mildly interesting puzzle. “It’s not revolutionary. It’s a soufflé — chocolate, butter, eggs, a little salt. I didn’t invent any of it.” A beat. “You got all that from one bite?”

“Three bites. I ate it fast. Couldn’t help myself.” I smiled at her as I held out my hand, because I couldn’t help that either. “I’m Jagger Cross.”

“I know who you are.”

“Then I’m at a disadvantage. You know my name and I don’t know yours, and I just said very intense things about your chocolate.”

That got me half a grin. Progress. “Willa Grace.”

She put her hand in mine to shake it, and it felt like I'd won.

“Willa.” I said it a second time because I wanted to. “How long have you been here, Willa?”

“Three weeks.”

“Three weeks and nobody’s told me about you. I’m going to have words with the entire staff.”

“I think the staff’s been busy.”

“They’d better have been, for their sake.” I leaned against the counter. Her counter. Her space. I was aware of that — aware that I was planting myself in a kitchen I had no business being in and making no effort to leave. “What else do you make?”

“What else do you want to eat?”

I looked at her. She looked right back. Steady and direct, not a trace of the flutter I was used to getting from women when I turned up this particular dial.

She wasn’t immune — I caught the way her eyes dropped to my mouth for half a second before she pulled them back — but she wasn’t going to let me see it.

I liked that. I liked it a lot.

“Everything,” I said. “Whatever you’ll let me try.”

“Well, tonight’s tasting is finished, so.” She picked up the ramekin and held it out to me. “You should probably go back to your table before someone sends a search party.”

“They won’t. They’re used to me disappearing.”

“I bet they are.”

The way she said it — dry and knowing — made me laugh.

I took the ramekin. Let my fingers find hers on the ceramic and stay there a beat too long. Long enough for her to notice, which she did. Long enough for me to feel how warm her hands were, flour-dusted at the fingertips.

She pulled back first. Tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“Nice to meet you, Jagger Cross.”

“You too, Willa Grace.”

She turned back to her station. Dismissed. Politely, with a smile that said she knew exactly what I was doing and was choosing not to be impressed by it. I couldn’t remember the last time a woman had turned her back on me mid-conversation. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d enjoyed it this much.

I walked back to the table and picked up my bourbon.

Caleb looked at me. “You were gone seven minutes.”

“Was I?”

“You went to the kitchen.”

“I went to compliment the chef. Common courtesy.”

“You never go to the kitchen.”

“I’m expanding my horizons.”

He processed that in whatever way Caleb processed things — somewhere between a threat assessment and a philosophical inquiry — and went back to his drink.

Across the table, Anna was watching me over the rim of her wine glass with an expression that said she’d already figured out everything I hadn’t admitted yet.

I shook my head.

Don’t start, I mouthed.

She mouthed something at me which looked a lot like what’s her name?

I ignored her and finished my bourbon. I spent the rest of the evening doing what I always did — working the room, making people laugh, being the version of Jagger Cross that everyone expected and no one thought too hard about.

That was the trick. I gave people the best night of their week and they never noticed I’d left the building hours ago.

Women especially. I was great with women.

Attentive, generous, fun. I remembered birthdays, noticed haircuts, knew exactly when to text and when to leave alone.

Every woman I’d been with would tell you I was wonderful.

They’d also tell you I was here for a good time, not a long time.

I got home, pulled up the Sterling Club’s event calendar and scrolled until I found her name.

Willa Grace. Members’ dinner. Friday.

I opened my own calendar. Friday was a portfolio review with the Nakamura fund. Three months of legwork with a significant amount of money on the line.

Suddenly, I was very available on Friday.