Chapter 26
AVA
After breakfast, which Desmond had ordered in from a local bakery, he went to his walk-in closet while I got dressed and wandered into his bedroom in search of my phone.
I found my phone on his dresser.
“What are you doing?” he asked while he got dressed.
I checked the train schedule for the nearest subway station.
He looked over my shoulder and groaned. “You’re not taking a train to work. Not when I’m headed the same way myself.”
I shook my head and reached for my shirt. “I’m not going to work in the same car as you. We can’t get caught the very morning after we spent the night together.”
Desmond pulled me to him, my back against his torso, and planted a kiss on my neck. “A night I didn’t want to end, by the way,” he said in a husky voice.
I wriggled free and turned around with a chuckle. “Point taken. But I’m not going to work in your car.”
“All right, I’ll have Stan, my driver, bring someone around with a second car for you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Who pays for the cars that drive you around?”
He thought for a minute. “All right, I see where you’re going with this.”
I nodded. “Exactly. I’m getting a cab,” I said, and this time, I let him button up the rest of my shirt, which ended with another firm, deep, heart-melting kiss.
Half an hour later, I turned up at Luxe Hotels, where I found an early trickle of employees waiting for the café to open.
“Sorry I’m late,” I called out to Carolyn, who was waiting patiently for a customer to decide between a half-caff café au lait or a decaf one.
“Ava,” Carolyn called warmly as she waved me over from the café counter. “Could you get the coffee carafes out to the tables?” she asked, pointing to the long tables by the wall, covered with white linen.
“I’m on it,” I called, glad for the chance to lose myself in my work.
The morning went by pretty quickly, and I looked forward to my lunch at two in the afternoon, during the lull at work. Carolyn finished a phone call with her brother, and after she hung up, she unloaded her concerns to me about her brother’s latest failed job interview.
“Will’s in Florida,” Carolyn informed me.
“And he’s not been able to take care of himself lately, if those increasing wrist sprains and that second fall in his bathroom are anything to go by.
” She sighed and put her phone back in her pocket.
“It makes me think I ought to go there and take care of him for a few months. You know, until his health gets back on track. But I can’t imagine leaving this place. ”
“I can’t picture this café without you,” I said, wiping down the counters one last time before I took my lunch break. “You’re the only one who could convince the coffee supplier to give us that Ecuador roast that half this building seems to love.”
“Right. Robert at the Bean Hill always needs some special handling.” Carolyn smiled a bit sadly. “But Will is family, and I know him and his capabilities better than any odd nurse who might come in to take care of him.”
I washed my hands and dried them. How will The Java Hobby run without Carolyn?
I got a text on my phone, and I checked it surreptitiously.
It was from Rishi.
Rishi: I’m here and waiting.
Ava: Be there in five.
I grinned as I waved to Carolyn and walked out of the building.
I looked in both directions before I crossed the street at the traffic light, walking the short distance to a French bistro at the corner of the street.
Rishi and I had been texting often since the night of the party, but this was the first time we’d be meeting again. Our lunch began with inappropriate references to that night.
“You were the talk of the party, Ava,” he said as we stood in line. “Everyone wanted to know who the woman next to Desmond was.”
“Hush,” I said, feeling my neck go warm as I took a quick look around.
We weren’t in Luxe Hotels’ offices, but it still felt weird, discussing any of this in a public place. Rishi’s long brown eyelashes fluttered, and his lips showed no signs of slowing down.
“I told them you were a distant but inbred cousin of a very violent royal family from a miniscule European nation. That shut them up.”
Even I had to laugh at that. “I have to give it to you—you have the most creative ideas I’ve ever heard of.”
“Well, that’s a pity because I’m an actor, not a screenwriter. Now, let’s look at the menu before the handsome cashier gets impatient with us.”
He thrust a menu at me, and I ran my eyes over the list. I shook my head when I got to the second item on the menu.
“I’m so not ordering snails,” I muttered just as Rishi exclaimed, “Escargot all the way!”
We met each other’s gaze over the menu and laughed.
“We really ought to hang out more often.” He grinned as we reached the head of the line.
He turned and gave a bright smile to the cashier, who looked back at us with a slowly widening smile. Rishi puffed his chest out just a little bit more.
“I’ll get the salmon risotto,” I said, getting my wallet out. “And escargot for him,” I said as I paid for the two of us.
I never usually ate out at places like this, but I was desperate to meet Rishi and talk, and this was a compromise.
As I looked around the place, I was reminded that it had been a while since I had eaten out at a dine-in restaurant.
Once a week, I had a takeout meal in the comfort of my home, and the rest of the time, when I hadn’t been working at Mom’s restaurant, I cooked. It was much cheaper.
Rishi bent his head and said in a low voice from the corner of his mouth, “I spy two chairs that are empty by the window. Quick, grab them while I charmingly but politely oblige this cashier, who is most definitely going to ask me for a selfie.”
I found the seats. Rishi was partly right about having to take a picture for the cashier. Rishi just wasn’t in it.
But it didn’t seem to dampen his mood.
“Happens all the time,” he said, walking back after taking a picture of the cashier and the bartender high-fiving each other. “Usually, they mistake me for Kal Penn, and sometimes, I have pretended to be him just to have someone take a picture of me.”
He shrugged while I must have looked shocked. “I’m vain and not embarrassed about it,” he said with a flippant wave of his hand.
“It’s been two weeks, but I still can’t believe we were at a party that Desmond was at.
His looks beat everyone else’s by a mile,” Rishi said once we sat down on the chairs by the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked out at the small garden that bordered the bistro.
He turned his attention to me. “So, give me all the deets. Are you and Desmond lovers? Ex-lovers? Future lovers?” Rishi asked.
“What’s with all those intense looks the two of you shared?
And how is his date from that party dealing with being replaced? ”
“Desmond is helping me press charges against a man called Kyle Whitby, who embezzled from my mom’s restaurant. And for the record, that woman wasn’t Desmond’s date at the party,” I insisted.
Rishi rolled his eyes. “Please, that woman has a thing for him, but poor her because you’re the star of the show. That seething look Desmond gave me when he thought I was your date? You can’t fool me.”
“Well,” I admitted, “full disclosure”—I snuck a look over my shoulder—“things have been getting intense with Des. Promise me that you’ll not make a big deal out of this.” I lowered my voice. “But we hung out last night.”
His eyes widened, and his jaw almost hit the floor. He quickly shut it and then tried once, then twice, unsuccessfully, to speak. Finally, he gave himself a shake and held his hand up for a high five, looking positively delighted for me.
“It’s nothing serious,” I warned him as I high-fived him and leaned back in my chair.
“You hooked up, Ava!” he spluttered, reading my expression.
I bit my lower lip and nodded, hoping that a giggle wouldn’t escape my lips now. Talking about this in person seemed to make Desmond and me more real.
He looked around the café for a minute, eyes shining with excitement.
“That’s the best thing I could’ve hoped for you.
Besides, I know Desmond! Not the way you know him, obviously, but I know of people who know him.
He’s the billionaire venture capitalist and the most eligible bachelor in town!
Rumors say he even owns a private island off the Bahamas that he holidays at with his uber-wealthy friends.
If I wasn’t friends with you already, I’d be jealous. ”
Rishi’s enthusiastic talk was having just the opposite effect on me. I hadn’t known all these details about Desmond. I didn’t want to think about them. It made the idea of going out with Des impossibly nerve-racking.
Over the phone, I’d recently confided in Gabi and the others about Desmond and me getting together. They had been over the moon. Super excited in a way that made me wish I hadn’t gotten their hopes up for nothing.
“I think you need to take a breath,” I said more to myself than Rishi just as our food arrived. “Desmond and I are just … not thinking too far ahead at the moment. Besides,” I said, grabbing Rishi’s arm while he drooled over his plate of snails, and I lowered my voice, “he’s my boss.”
“Boss or not,” he said, digging in, “with my observant actor eyes, I could see the way your body tensed up for him at the party, Ava. Even back then, you were hot for him!”
It took three tries to get a fork of risotto into my mouth for some reason.
He crossed his arms and leaned against the back of his chair, chewing slowly.
“Ahhh …” Rishi let that sigh trail for a little too long.
“I’m just imagining myself being invited to your pre-wedding festivities.
Perhaps a tiny little engagement party off the Amalfi Coast, where I can rub shoulders with some snooty men and have hilarious stories to tell my grandchildren about. ”
I finally got the hang of picking up the risotto and forking it into my mouth and ate a few bites forcefully. I took a large sip of my drink. “It’s just a temporary thing,” I warned him.
Women who were as rudderless as I was did not do pre-wedding festivities. Heck, we were lucky if we had a wedding that wasn’t in Vegas.
He gave me a look of disbelief. “Why you would want anything with Desmond McKinley to be temporary is beyond me, Ava,” he said.
I sighed. “Over the years, I’ve lost a lot of important people and relationships, including my mother. So, I decided a while ago that serious relationships weren’t for me. I’m investing all my energy into getting my restaurant back because the restaurant can’t leave me.”
“Very often, my dear, I find that the plans I have for myself and the plans that life has for me are far different from one another.”
I groaned as Rishi polished off his last bite.
He smiled broadly. “I was really lucky the day you saved me, huh? By the way, the escargot was lovely. Kind of reminded me of clams.”