Chapter 2
Jess
The quieter corner turns out to be a leather booth near the back, tucked away from the main bar traffic. Less hanging plant aesthetic, more “actual people might have conversations here” energy. Marco slides in across from me, and I’m suddenly very aware that this is happening.
We’re alone.
Intentionally alone.
I wonder if it’s too late to fake a medical emergency?
Definitely too late.
“So,” I say, because someone has to say something and it might as well be me making it weird. “Here we are.”
“Here we are,” Marco echoes, and there’s something in his voice that makes his words sound like... a promise?
Stop it, Jess.
He’s just being polite. Polite and rich and devastatingly handsome and smelling like an Italian bakery had a baby with a cologne ad.
I take a sip of my latest Moscow Mule to give myself something to do with my hands. The copper mug is cold and grounding.
I need grounding right now.
“Can I ask you something?” Marco leans forward slightly, and the movement brings that scent closer.
Mmmmmm.
Bitter orange.
Espresso.
Something so very woodsy underneath.
Yes please.
“You can ask,” I say. “Whether I answer is a different story.”
Oh I’ll answer all right. With my mouth squarely planted on those ever-so-luscious lips of—
Stop!
His mouth quirks. “Fair enough. What’s your favorite meal?”
Of all the questions I was bracing for, that wasn’t one of them. “My favorite meal?”
Did I just feel the sexual tension pop like a balloon?
“Humor me,” he insists.
I think about deflecting with a joke, but something in his expression makes me tell the truth instead. There’s definitely still sexual tension between us. With an emphasis on the sexual.
“Spaghetti with lobster,” I reply. “The good kind, where they crack it tableside and the butter is ridiculous and you don’t care that you’re getting it all over yourself.”
He nods slowly, like he’s filing that information away for future reference. Which is absurd. Why would he need to remember my favorite food?
“I can make a killer spaghetti all’astice,” he says, and it’s not a brag. Just a fact, delivered in that low steady voice.
“Of course you can.” I’m smiling despite myself. “You’re a chef. That’s like saying you can breathe air.”
“Former chef,” he corrects. “Now I mostly just yell at other people who cook for me.”
“Living the dream.”
“Something like that.”
There’s a pause. Not uncomfortable exactly, but weighted. Like we’re both aware that we’re dancing around something bigger.
“Can I ask you something now?” I venture.
“Fair’s fair.”
“How are you?” I immediately want to take it back. Too direct. Too personal. But it’s out there now, hovering between us. “I mean. About your wife. I never... never told you how sorry I was to hear the news.”
Yeah, sorry. But I also did a little tap-dance inside when I originally heard about it some two years ago. Does that make me a bad person?
Yes, it definitely does.
Marco’s expression doesn’t change much, but something shifts behind his eyes. He picks up his beer, takes a drink, sets it down with deliberate care.
“Most people don’t ask that,” he says finally. “They say sorry and then change the subject as fast as possible.”
“I can change the subject if you want.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “No, it’s okay.
The truth is I don’t know how I am. Some days I’m fine.
Some days I’m drowning in logistics and schedules and making sure my daughter doesn’t fall apart.
” He pauses, and when he speaks again his voice is quieter.
Careful. “I thought I was done feeling anything. And then lately I want things again. And it... it feels somehow... wrong.”
My heart does something complicated in my chest. There’s so much in those few sentences. Pain and guilt and something that looks almost like hope, but the kind of hope that scares you.
“What kind of things?” I ask, even though I’m not sure I should.
He looks at me. Really looks at me. And I feel that gaze like a physical touch, traveling over my face, my hair, my mouth. Almost predatory.
And I’m eating up every second of it.
“Things I shouldn’t want,” he says.
Oh.
Oh.
He’s talking about me.
No. He can’t be.
That’s insane.
I’m projecting.
I’m definitely projecting.
He’s probably talking about wanting to feel happiness again or wanting to date or wanting literally anything that isn’t about the curvy ex-influencer sitting across from him making everything awkward.
But the way he’s looking at me suggests maybe I’m not projecting. That maybe...
“I get that,” I hear myself say. My voice sounds weirdly normal considering my brain is currently melting. “Wanting things that feel wrong. Or impossible.”
“What do you want?” Marco asks, and it sounds like he actually cares about the answer.
What do I want? World peace. Financial security. For the algorithm to love me again. For my thighs to stop touching. For this man to stop looking at me like I’m something he actually sees.
“I want to not feel like a failure,” I say instead, surprised by my own honesty. “I had this whole career. This whole identity built on views and engagement and brand deals. And then it just vanished. The algorithm changed or I changed or the world changed. And suddenly I’m nobody.”
“You’re not nobody.”
“Says the man who owns multiple successful restaurants.” I blink away a sudden rush of tears.
Where the hell did that come from?
He straightens. “No. Says the man who’s been watching you all night trying to be brave when you clearly wanted to run away the second I walked in.”
Busted.
My face goes hot again. “I wasn’t actually going to run away.”
“You were calculating window exits.”
“Ground floor windows,” I mutter. “They barely count.”
Marco laughs. It’s brief but genuine, and I feel absurdly proud of myself for causing it.
“You know what your problem is?” he asks.
“I have multiple problems. You’ll have to be more specific.”
“You think your value is in the metrics. The views, the followers, the external validation.” He leans forward again, elbows on the table. “But that’s not what makes you interesting.”
“Oh really. What makes me interesting then, restaurateur wise guy?”
“You climbed out a window to avoid someone. You AirDropped a meme calling me Mr. Panty-Wetting to half the bar. You Venmo’d me sixty-nine dollars and then died inside.
” His smile is devastating. “You’re beautifully.
.. unscripted... compared to most of the people I usually meet. .. and I find it very endearing.”
I blink at him. “That’s literally just a list of my most embarrassing moments from the last month.”
“Exactly.”
“You have very weird taste in endearing.”
“I have excellent taste in endearing.”
We’re flirting.
Definitely flirting.
Happening in real time.
And I have no idea how to process it because the last time I flirted with someone was probably during the previous presidential administration.
Also, he’s my brother’s best friend.
And a widower.
And, and, and.
My brain helpfully supplies a thousand reasons why this is a terrible idea.
My body supplies exactly zero.
Of course.
“So what’s the plan here?” I ask, trying to sound casual and probably failing. “You’re going to collect my embarrassing moments like baseball cards?”
“Something like that.”
Before I can formulate a response that doesn’t involve climbing him like the tree I mentioned earlier, someone appears next to our table.
A guy. Mid-thirties, finance bro energy, with cologne that positively reeks.
“Hey,” he says, directing this entirely at me and completely ignoring Marco. “I saw you sitting here and I just had to come say hi. You’re gorgeous.”
You have got to be kidding me.
Why now? Why does a guy have to interrupt NOW of all times?
Why couldn’t he interrupt earlier when Marco and Ethan were talking for thirty minutes straight and I was sitting there like a decorative houseplant?
Or any other time during the past five years when I was basically a social outcast making videos all day on my phone?
But no. He has to do it now. Right now when I’m having an actual conversation with an actual human I want to talk to. A devastatingly handsome, unmarried billionaire who thinks my unscripted accidents are endearing.
NOW is when Captain Cologne decides to shoot his shot.
“Thanks,” I say, trying to be polite but also trying to radiate “go away” energy so intense it should be blatantly obvious.
He doesn’t go away.
“Can I buy you a drink?” Finance Bro continues, still acting like Marco doesn’t exist even though the billionaire is sitting right there looking like a Roman statue.
“She’s good,” Marco replies for me, his voice pleasant but with something underneath that makes it clear this is not a suggestion.
Finance Bro finally acknowledges Marco’s existence. “Oh. Are you two together?”
“Yes,” Marco says, at the exact same time I say, “No.”
We look at each other.
Finance Bro glances between us, confused.
“It’s complicated,” I offer weakly.
“We’re talking,” Marco clarifies, and something in his tone makes it sound like a claim. “And we’d like to be alone.”
Finance Bro ignores him and turns to me once more.
Marco rests a hand on his arm.
Finance Bro looks down at it, then at Marco’s face. The billionaire’s eyes have gone very dark.
Finance Bro finally seems to get the message. “Right. Cool. My bad.” He retreats.
I wait until he’s out of earshot before I say to Marco: “You scared him.”
And me.
His eyes instantly lighten. “Sometimes you have to scare people.”
I suppose he’s right. “So, we’re talking, you told him?”
“We are talking,” Marco points out reasonably. “Literally. Right now.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
“You made it sound like we’re together.”
“Would that be so bad?”
My heart does a complicated little somersault thing.
Oh, don’t do this to me, Marco.
“You don’t even know me,” I say, which is a terrible argument but it’s the only one my brain can produce on such short notice.
“I know enough.” He shifts, and suddenly we’re leaning in closer, without either of us actually moving.
Magic. “I know you’re funny. Smart. Self-deprecating to a fault.
I know you hide when you’re scared but you showed up tonight anyway.
I know you smell like lavender and something, a bit like lemons.
I know I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since Vegas. ”
Oh God.
Oh no.
He doesn’t know what his words are doing to me. He doesn’t know how badly I want him right now.
“That was five years ago,” I protest. “We were drugged.”
“I know. I thought it was just the GHB. But then... I couldn’t stop.
Even after... even after I married... my wife.
” He pauses, and there’s something raw in his expression.
Guilt, mixed with... unimaginable desire.
“I’m not good at this. I’m out of practice.
But I’m trying... trying to be honest with you. ”
Honest. He wants to be honest.
I should be honest, too.
I should tell him I’ve thought about Vegas approximately eight thousand times.
I should tell him I’ve been avoiding Ethan’s invitations specifically because I was terrified of seeing Marco again.
I should tell him that sitting here with him feels like coming home and jumping off a cliff at the same time.
Instead I say, “You’re doing fine.”
“Am I?”
“You made a guy leave without being aggressive. You’re not domineering. You complimented me because I’m... unscripted. That’s at least a B-plus.”
Because humor is my coping mechanism.
His smile melts me inside. “I’ll take a B-plus.”
The bartender comes by to check if we need anything. We shake our heads. The bar is starting to empty out. I check my phone. Almost midnight.
How did that happen? How did so much time pass without me noticing?
“I should probably go,” I say, not moving.
“Probably,” Marco agrees, also not moving.
We sit there in our booth, neither of us leaving. The air between us feels heavy with unspoken regrets.
“Come over,” Marco says suddenly. “Just for one night. So I can forget everything. And so I can remember. What could have been.”
My brain does that thing where it just stops braining.
What could have been.
Come over.
One night.
I wish he wasn’t so hot.
I wish he was less attractive, less charming, less the whole package.
Single dad, billionaire chef, with sad eyes and sexy hands.
I want to say yes so badly it’s physically painful.
But also... reality check.
Billionaire chef?
With someone like me?
Has to be beer goggles.
Or desperation.
The same kind of drug-induced insanity that happened in Vegas.
And also, what about that whole, brother’s best friend thing? Ethan wouldn’t be very happy with either of us if I took Marco and climbed his tree.
Mmm.. but I bet his tree tastes so good.
Stop!
“What about your kid?” I ask, because I need a reason to slam on the brakes before I do something stupid.
He shrugs. “Taken care of. The nanny’s there. Different floor.”
I grunt before I can stop myself. “Like I want to meet the nanny.”
Where did that come from?
Jealousy?
Over a nanny?
Get it together, Jess.
But something about the idea of going to his place and having some other woman be there, even if she’s just an employee on a different floor, feels weird and complicated and I don’t want to deal with it.
“You know what,” I say, making a decision that’s probably going to haunt me. “No.”
Disappointment washes over him. It’s almost heart-breaking, considering I’m not finished.
“You come over,” I blurt out. “My place instead. One night.”
Marco blinks.
I’ve surprised him.
Good.
I’ve surprised myself, too.
“Your place,” he repeats.
“Yeah. My tiny, probably messy apartment where you’ll have to sit on my IKEA furniture and pretend it’s comfortable. Where there’s no staff and no nanny and no...” I gesture vaguely. “No billionaire infrastructure. Just... me.”
He studies me for a long moment. Then he nods. “You are all I need. Deal.”
Deal.
We just made a deal.
I’m taking Marco Fiore back to my apartment.
Tonight.
This is actually happening.