Chapter 11 Rowe
Rowe
“Good morning,” I say cheerfully, holding a cup of coffee as a peace offering. “How’d you sleep?”
Pane frowns, which makes a dimple snap, crackle, and pop below the apple of his cheek. “As best I could, considering there was an audience.”
A night of rest did nothing to improve his mood. If he’s this ticked now, he’s really going to be mad once he figures out that half the town knows of his presence.
I gesture toward the old Toyota Tacoma he parked in the drive. “Well, you could always sleep in there.” He takes the coffee with a grunt and sips. “Ready to get to work?”
He gives a curt nod. “I need to look at the P and L statements.”
“The what?”
“Profit and loss.”
“Right. Those’ll be on my mom’s computer. I’ll set you up.”
After getting him logged on to the computer, I start breakfast. The animals have been fed, but you wouldn’t know it by how the piggies are sitting on the back porch, snouts pressed to the screen door as they eye me accusingly.
No doubt they’re wondering why I’ve locked them out and replaced them with a stranger.
After an hour I knock on my mom’s door. Pane glances up from the computer. His third cup of coffee sits neatly atop a coaster beside the laptop. He took his refills by walking in and grunting like the brute he is.
Lucky for him, I speak grunt.
“Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes.”
He drops his gaze to the screen. “Thank you, but I’m good.”
“You sure? The eggs are fresh.”
“From chickens?”
“Actually, from the octopus I keep in an underground aquarium.”
“I’ve actually heard good things about that,” he jokes dryly.
I rest my shoulder on the doorjamb. “I’m only going to make the offer once.”
“Fine.” He drags his eyes from the computer and rises, stretching his arms over his head. This morning he’s wearing a tight burgundy popover shirt, which is a cross between a Henley and a button-down. He’s pairing this fashionable ensemble with pressed jeans and dress shoes.
“You need boots,” I tell him as he approaches. “My dad has an old pair. They might fit you.”
“First, I need a tour of the house. Then breakfast.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine. Boots can wait.”
Said tour takes all of five minutes. I cringe when we reach the living room, which is a carpet of quilts and naked flooring.
He studies it carefully, his gaze scraping over the empty boards, some of which are sun bleached from where antique furniture once sat—as of yesterday, in fact.
But luckily for me, Pane doesn’t comment on the lack of furnishings.
When we reach upstairs, he spots my sticky notes on the bathroom mirror and inspects them with a sharp eye.
“I like your aspirations.”
I sweep past him and rip the notes off the mirror and dump them in the garbage. “They’re not mine.”
He lifts his brows but doesn’t say anything else. As we head to the stairs, Buster the Cat darts out of my bedroom and follows us.
The whole way to the kitchen, Pane types on his phone, barely bothering to look up as he maneuvers steps and turns.
To give the hotel heir a true Southern welcome, I’ve made the breakfast to end all breakfasts—scrambled eggs, bacon, biscuits, and gravy.
While he refills his coffee I build his plate, cracking open a biscuit, slathering it in butter, and drowning it in white sausage gravy.
He stares at the plate when he sits down. “What is that?”
“What?” I lick a splotch of gravy from my thumb. He stares at me for a second before pinning his focus back on the meal. “What’s what?”
“The white stuff.”
“It’s gravy.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Yes, it is. It’s not beef gravy. It’s white sausage gravy.”
“What’s it sitting on?”
My gaze swishes from side to side. Am I on a revamping of the show Punk’d? Is someone going to jump out and tell me that this is a joke?
But when Pane studies me expectantly, I reply slowly, “It’s a biscuit.”
“The white thing is a biscuit.”
“Yes, and that’s sausage gravy on top of it.”
“Is it good?”
“No, it’s awful,” I deadpan. “That’s why I’m feeding it to both of us.”
His eyes narrow before he picks up his fork in his left hand and glances at the spot on his right. “Where’s the knife?”
“The knife?”
He nods, very serious. “Yes, the dinner knife.”
I’ve never used a knife at breakfast, but there’s a first time for everything. “Do you mean a butter knife?”
“No, not a butter knife.”
“A steak knife?”
“No, not a steak knife.” He rises. “Where’s the cutlery?”
I blink, trying to wrap my head around this weird conversation. “The silverware is in that drawer.”
“Thank you.” He drops his napkin on the table, gets the butter knife, and sits back down.
I point to it. “That’s a butter knife.”
“No. It’s called a dinner knife. Butter knives are smaller.”
Well, you learn something new every day.
I watch with fascination as he holds his fork in his left hand, the hilled side pointed toward the ceiling.
Then he cuts the biscuit with the dinner knife (what a peasant I am for not knowing this) in his right hand.
The fork enters his mouth with the wrong side facing up, and I can’t help but be mesmerized by this way of eating.
My trance breaks when Pane closes his eyes. “Oh my God.”
“What? Is it bad?”
He slowly shakes his head. “What is this amazing meal?”
Really? Is this a trick question? “It’s called a country breakfast. They serve it at Cracker Barrel.”
“Please don’t talk. I need to focus on the food.”
“You just asked me a question.”
“That’s beside the point.”
Okay, Mr. Grumpy. He takes another bite, closing his eyes again and this time, moaning as he chews.
The moan makes a tingle tumble willy-nilly down my spine and straight to my crotch.
I gulp down a bite and keep my eyes on my own breakfast, doing everything in my willpower not to focus on Pane and his orgasmic-sounding eating.
When I dare glance up, he’s inhaled the entire biscuit and gravy. The man releases a satiated sigh, sits back, and studies me. “That’s a biscuit?”
“Have you never had one before?”
“No.”
I nearly fall off my chair. “What?”
“We don’t serve this in the hotels—but my God, that was amazing.” He sits up eagerly, a surprising look of childlike excitement scribbled across his face. “Is there more?”
I push the basket of biscuits toward him. “Help yourself.”
“How do you make it?” he asks, picking up a small one and pulling it open, watching as steam uncurls from the hot dough. “It’s so flaky,” he marvels.
Is he putting me on? Did the shamper full of posters damage his brain?
“Well,” I say slowly, “it’s pretty standard breakfast fare in the Southeast. It’s just flour, salt, fat, and buttermilk.
” I study him, trying to figure out if he’s being serious.
All signs point to yes. “You’ve really never had one? ”
“Never.” He shoves one half in his mouth. “Wow.”
I grab his wrist, and a jolt of lava hits me in the solar plexus. Holy cow. I drop him as quickly as I took hold, chalking the shock up to static electricity.
“Put butter on it. It’s better.”
He scans the table. “Where’s the butter knife?”
“Just use your dinner knife. That’s what us poor people do.”
“Sorry,” he mutters.
I cock my ear toward him. “What was that?”
He gives me a withering look. “Sorry. I’ll use whatever knife you give me.”
Then he slathers the rest of the half in butter and eats it, moaning again. After he swallows, he says, “It’s better with the gravy.”
Which he then pours on his plate and dredges the other half through it, finishing it in two bites.
I think I’ve created a monster.
Pane slurps coffee and swallows before explaining, “We don’t have any hotels in this area; that’s why I don’t know about this food. But this is amazing. May I have another?”
“Have as many as you want.” He takes one and now has his routine in place—butter, gravy, eat. “What do you usually have for breakfast?”
He finishes chewing. “It depends on where I am. In New York, the hotel serves eggs and bacon. In Paris, it’s salmon and caviar. In Tokyo, it’s grilled fish and miso soup.” He shrugs like waking up in Paris or Tokyo is an everyday occurrence, which I suppose it is for him. “Like I said, it depends.”
I frown. “It sounds like you live in a hotel.”
“I do.”
My eyes nearly pop from my head. “Why?”
“So that I can be close to work. Traveling takes time, and I like to start early.” He swipes a napkin over his mouth. “What is it?”
I speak after downing a bite of eggs. “It just doesn’t sound very warm to live in a hotel. Like you’d be surrounded by beauty, but nothing cozy. It would be so sterile.”
Pane shrugs. Who he is, how he presents himself, begins to make sense. I wonder if his lack of warmth is because he grew up in such a cold place. After all, his mother expected him to wear a suit to their meeting, even though his was ruined. Is she cold, too? Just like an antiseptic hotel lobby?
He eats a fourth biscuit, moaning through every bite in a way that snares my attention. It’s impossible to do anything but stare as this beastly man takes pleasure in a biscuit.
A biscuit, y’all.
After voicing his gratification so loudly that a blush rises to my cheeks, Pane wipes his mouth and nods firmly. “Thank you. If you keep feeding me those, I’ll be your servant forever.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
A ghost of a smile graces his full lips. “It’s a joke.”
“Oh.” I laugh. “That’s good, because I was inches away from asking what kind of servant.”
“Not a sex servant, if that’s what you were hoping.”
His knee-quaking green eyes spear me so hard that I can’t breathe. My gaze starts to plummet to my lap from embarrassment, but I stop myself. There’s no way that Pane’s allowed the last word.
“Nope. I wasn’t thinking of that kind of servant at all,” I squeak.
“Good.” He whips his phone from his pocket and opens it. “Now. Let’s talk about the farm. I’ve checked the P and L’s.”
“How were they?” I ask dismally.
He grunts.
“That bad?”
Another grunt. “How many visitors do you get on a daily basis?”
“None. The unicorn farm across the road takes all the business.”