Chapter 2
She chooses the vegetarian bibimbap, supernova spicy style, at a Korean restaurant off Ninth Avenue, not far from the office.
“Bibimbap,” she says, like she’s weighing the word. “It’s challenging to pronounce and usually comes out like ‘bippity-bop,’ something a fairy godmother from a Disney movie says. But in fact, bibimbap tastes nothing like a Disney movie.”
“Or like a fairy godmother,” I add, stretching my neck to the side to work out the kinks in it from today’s job. Eight hours on my feet, screwing, pounding and drilling. Nothing like a hard day’s work, but man, I could go for a massage.
She shoots me a look. “And you know how a fairy godmother tastes?”
I realize how my comment came out, but I go with it. “Like all your dreams come true.”
“You’re telling me you’ve dated fairy godmothers?”
“Maybe I have.”
“I’ve dated genies, then,” she says, playing at one-upmanship as our waitress arrives. Natalie tells her what she wants, and I order the beef bibimbap for myself, so spicy it singes your hair off, then add in an appetizer and some beers.
We’re here because Natalie loves spicy food.
The hotter the better. In fact, she’s challenged me to a few food dares over the last six months.
Fortunately, I was born with fireproof taste buds and a competitive will of iron, so I usually beat her, but I’ve got to hand it to the woman.
She can down a habanero pepper like no one I’ve ever seen.
Not gonna lie. It was a massive turn-on watching her eat a couple of those bad boys on a burger one night a few weeks ago when we got some grub after work. There’s just something about a woman who can handle her spice.
That is, it would have been a turn-on if I’d been thinking of her that way. And I hadn’t, so I wasn’t turned on.
Case closed.
A minute later, the waitress returns with two beers, and I raise a glass to toast Natalie. “To six months of your magic. You’re better than a fairy godmother.”
“To six months of solid employment, at last,” she jokes.
Natalie was bouncing around at various odd jobs before I hired her.
She’d needed work, and she was blunt about it.
At my friend Spencer’s wedding last fall to Natalie’s sister Charlotte, I’d mentioned some of the issues my firm was facing—the main issue being my complete disorganization—and she’d devised a plan for how to improve operations and put my firm in a position to expand and win even bigger jobs.
She’d presented it to me over a game of pool at the wedding hotel.
Her proposal had been airtight and exactly what I soon realized I needed.
I’d hired her two weeks later.
Now, after half a year together, I can’t imagine WH Carpentry & Construction without her running the business side of things. Her savvy frees me up to focus on what I’m good at—building, making, working.
She nudges my arm with her elbow. “Remember the day I started? And you went to an appointment that was actually on your schedule from a year before?”
I groan. “Don’t remind me.”
She shakes her head in amusement. “But I saved you! I called you literally as you arrived at the client’s apartment building, about to go in and give an estimate on a kitchen you’d already redone.”
I nod as the memory flashes before me. “Yup. Good with tools, bad with appointments.”
“And now you’re good with both,” she says, her lips curved up in that winning smile of hers. I look away briefly. I can’t stare at her smile. It would probably hypnotize me. Make me do its bidding.
“And business couldn’t be better,” I say. “We should be able to expand now, the way we first talked about. Hire more regular employees, so we’re not just relying on day laborers for each job.”
“Exactly. With the new work we have lined up for the summer, we can bring some full-timers on, cover their health benefits, and all that good stuff.” She rattles off some of the projects she’d booked—a number of high-end kitchen remodels.
Since it’s Manhattan, those gigs can net us six figures or more.
“By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask. How did you ever get to be so organized? Do you have file folders in your head? Admit it. It’s like the Container Store up there,” I say, tapping her noggin.
She pretends to pant, her tongue lolling out of her mouth like a dog in summer. “Don’t get me excited. The Container Store is my favorite place in the universe, and I’m convinced I could happily live there.”
“So that’s the answer?” I ask as the waitress arrives with a fire chicken appetizer that’s practically curling from the smoke. This one is going to be stomach scalding. Excellent. “Your affection for the store is how you became so organized?”
Natalie squares her shoulders. “Have I mentioned my clothes are hung by color in the closet? That all my books are arranged alphabetically, and that I never once missed a day of school in my life?”
“And your panties are probably arranged by—” I slam the brakes on the subject of her lingerie. Shit. Where is the fucking filter in my brain? I swear Floyd tampered with my head today. Maybe his hinges were faulty.
“By color,” she answers with a chirpy little sound, like she knows I went there. She knows I slid into a zone where I shouldn’t go.
But yet, here I am, asking more, “And the most popular shade is?”
An eyebrow rises, and the corner of her lips quirks up. And now I have one very ready-for-business appendage.
“White,” she says, and the situation south of the border intensifies.
I grab a fork and dive into the fire chicken. Maybe that’ll be the cure for wood. “And now I know where all your business skills come from. Underwear drawer organization.”
“Pink’s a popular one, too.”
And we’re talking steel right now.
“Pink. White. As long as they’re color-coded, that’s what matters.” She gestures to the chicken. “Time to blow our brains out.”
We one-up each other in eating a chicken dish that tastes like a lit match going down your throat, then douse the flames with beer, and move on to the main course.
At the end of the meal, my phone buzzes twice.
Natalie points in the general direction of my pocket. “Work text,” she says quickly, reminding me she set my phone to a double buzz when messages to the work number route to my personal phone.
As Natalie busies herself checking her own phone, I grab mine and open a message from Lila Mayweather.
I’ve got the go-ahead! Can’t wait to discuss the new project with you. Would love to start soonest! When you come by tomorrow, can you bring along Natalie?
I smile. It kind of makes me proud that my clients love her so much.
I’m about to show her the text, but she’s still busy on her phone, tapping away.
I can’t help but wonder who she’s texting.
I’m tempted to peek, but I restrain myself.
When she stops and puts her phone away, though, I catch a flash of one word—torture.
Interesting. But I’m not keen to play Sherlock tonight, so instead I show her Lila’s text. “You’re wanted, it seems.”
She beams. “I wonder what it could be. Do you have any idea?”
I shake my head. “No clue. But we’ll find out tomorrow. Think we can fit this in?”
“The next job doesn’t start for a while. Let’s get the details, but I think we can do it.”
“Pretty sure you deserve a raise,” I say.
She beams. “I’m really glad I’ve been able to help you, Wyatt.”
“Me, too,” I say, because even though she’s a stone-cold fox, even though she’s gorgeous in more ways than I can count, and even though if she weren’t my assistant, I’d be a persistent motherfucker to get her to go home with me, she’s also fucking amazing at what she does.
She sets down her napkin, looks at her watch, and shoots me a sad smile. “I should go. I have a class tonight. Only time I could get at the dojo this week.”
“Totally understand,” I say, and when she takes off, I half wonder if she’s really going to class, or if some guy was texting her when she was checking out her phone.
Maybe hanging out with me was torture? Nah.
I’m a barrel of monkeys. Besides, I remind myself, it’s not my place to know about her life beyond work.
That’s exactly why I don’t think of her when I head to my apartment later. Or when I take a shower. Or when I crash into bed, and thumb through an article of interesting facts about animals, including that dolphins never enter deep sleep. Their brains are too active.
That’s one of the nice things about being me. I can turn off my brain.
The situation with Natalie is simple. I keep my hands to myself.
And I swear it’s not made more complicated the next morning when Lila presents us with her plan.