Chapter 6 #2
“I’m sorry. But hey, it’s all part of being a star.” Her comically breathless voice pulled a laugh out of me even when I was determined to be annoyed.
“All she wanted to talk about was working with you-know-who.” I was afraid to say his name. What if I summoned him somehow? Like a demon or something.
She knew all about him thanks to our many conversations, which was why she surprised me by countering, “Come on. Don’t tell me it’s not at least a little bit fun working with somebody like him.”
“There are millions of hot men in the world, Hadley,” I muttered, shaking my head as I pulled out ingredients for ladyfingers. Maybe I’d add cocoa powder to them, eliminate the amaretto factor…
“Sure, but are they all rich? Famous? Right in front of you all the time?” When I only groaned, she kept going.
“All I can do is imagine you two in close quarters, sweating it out. There’s a million customers waiting for their food, and you have to work together to keep them all happy.
Then all of a sudden, your eyes meet as your hands brush, and you realize what a great team you make. ”
That sounded nice. I sort of hated how nice it sounded. “If only it were that easy,” I murmured, distracted by the mental image of Sebastian staring into my eyes, realizing what a good team we made. He was gorgeous—stormy gray eyes and a jawline I both wanted and wanted to punch. I was only human.
“So that’s what you want to happen?” Hadley teased.
Whoa. Time to tune back into the conversation. “No, but it would be nice if there weren’t so much antagonism between us all the time,” I admitted while separating eggs, adding the whites to a mixing bowl. I could use the yolks in the filling…
“Ooh, tension,” she whispered, giggling.
“Not the kind you’re thinking about,” I insisted.
“Oh, come on.” She groaned like I had truly broken her heart. “Don’t destroy my fantasies here. You mean to tell me it’s not like that at all?”
Everything I wanted to unload on that interviewer came rushing to the surface.
I could only hold back for so long, and my friendship with Hadley was my safe place—the only safe place left in my life.
“He’s ignorant. He’s arrogant. And he is so ridiculously afraid of change, making it impossible for me to function.
I can’t do anything new, I swear. Everything has to stay exactly the same. Anybody could do this job.”
One silent beat after another passed before she deadpanned, “Explain to me what the problem is because I’m not getting it.”
“I’m starting to think you’re deliberately not getting it.”
“I’m not interested in him that way,” I insisted, raising my voice over her soft disagreement and the whirring of the mixer as I beat the egg whites.
“I was really, really hoping this position would lead to bigger things. How can it possibly lead to bigger things if all he wants me to do is recreate the same tired recipes week in and week out? They’re not even recipes I developed, for God’s sake,” I added with a bitter laugh, turning toward the prep table to measure flour.
“And when I try to make a small change, he acts like I squatted on the prep table and pissed all over everything.” I slapped a hand against the prep table for emphasis, sending bits of flour flying.
It wouldn’t be the first time I’d made a mess out of myself.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t joke like that,” she admitted, sounding regretful now that I had unloaded on her. “What can we do about this?” One thing I loved about her was the way she could turn things around.
“We can’t do anything. Only I can, and I don’t know what.” With a sigh, I added, “You know I love you for saying it that way. “
“Hey. There’s never been anything we haven’t been able to do together once we combine our ridiculous intelligence and creativity.” She had never lacked confidence.
“I wish I had been half as intelligent as you back when you were telling me to kick Brandon to the curb.” No amount of gently folding flour into the egg whites could calm the bitterness that always rose to the surface when his stupid face came to mind—that little-boy smile, the innocence he so easily faked.
“Yeah, you really don’t know how challenging it was not to smack you upside the head sometimes.” She paused, then added, “I saw him yesterday. He asked me about you.”
“He didn’t have the balls,” I growled.
“You’re surprised at his ballsiness after all this?” she asked while I muttered ten different kinds of ugliness under my breath. “He knew I would tell you, which is why he did it. And here I am, playing into his hand.”
There was one question that rang out in the forefront of my mind right away. “How did he look?”
Her low, wicked laughter answered the question before she said a word. “Like hell.”
“You’re just saying that.” Of course, I had to add, “Tell me more.”
She giggled before it burst out of her. “Oh my God, I’ve been dying to tell you.
Were you the only person in that relationship who knew how to use an iron?
Because his clothes were all wrinkled, he needs a haircut, and I’m pretty sure he misplaced his razor because he was rocking at least four days of stubble. ”
“You’re not just playing it up to make me feel better?” I asked while carefully filling a piping bag.
“Obviously, if I were playing it up to make you feel better, I would’ve told you his dick fell off.”
My laughter filled the room. “How would you know unless you saw for yourself?”
“Ew. I’m not trying to see that.”
Laughing felt good. It loosened the tightness in my chest. “What I wouldn’t give to go to brunch and sit with you and a bottomless mimosa,” I said with a sigh.
“Well, why can’t we?”
Piping onto parchment paper, I snorted. “There’s those pesky thousands of miles between us.”
“So? I’ll come to you.” I snorted again, and she replied, “I’m serious. I’ve got tons of miles saved up and tons of vacation time too. I’ll come out to see you… make sure you’re taking care of yourself.”
I didn’t get the chance to reply when a sharp question rang out, making me jump. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
The ladyfinger I was piping turned into a zigzag while my head snapped up to find Sebastian standing with his arms folded, staring daggers at me. The athletic clothes he wore told me he was in the middle of a workout when something brought him here.
“I get a text telling me somebody disarmed the alarm on the one day a week we’re closed, and I find you fucking around in the kitchen,” he growled. Shit. I hadn’t thought about that.
“Oh my God,” Hadley whispered in my ear. “Is that him? He sounds hot.”
Not what I needed to hear. “Gotta go,” I murmured, ending the call before she could beg me to kiss him.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, staring at the parchment where, until he’d come in, I’d been piping perfect ladyfingers.
“Building a space shuttle. Isn’t it obvious?” Blowing a strand of hair out of my eyes, I said, “Working on an idea.”
“You and your ideas are going to give me a fucking heart attack.” He threw his hands into the air. “I’m on my way to meet with my trainer, and the next thing I know, I’m pulling a U-turn to haul ass over here.”
“Sorry about that.” I couldn’t say I was sorry to see him, even if that wasn’t my goal and showing up here. I had never seen him looking this casual. The sight of his thick calves and defined forearms revealed by his shorts and T-shirt did strange, unexpected things to my insides.
It was a good thing he decided to be a prick since it reminded me who I was dealing with. “This kitchen isn’t your testing ground, and I’m not wasting money on ingredients for you to fuck around with.”
“No, you would rather spend money on ingredients baked into desserts fewer and fewer people order all the time,” I fired back before I could help it.
Well, it had to come out eventually.
“I’m sorry to put it that way,” I babbled while he sputtered, fighting to find something to say. “But you might as well hear it now before you open the new location. You need to change things up a little. You’re already losing money when it comes to that part of the menu.”
“Anything else you would like to tell me about how to run my business?” With his hands on his hips, he looked me up and down, his steely eyes narrowed. “You seem to be such an expert.”
We had a problem much bigger than the warmth growing low in my belly. When he moved just right, his broad chest was more clearly revealed beneath his cotton shirt, and it kept drawing my attention. That was an issue, for sure.
The real problem was knowing he would never pay attention to anything I had to say now, in this mood.
I could defend myself, I could present numbers, and he wouldn’t give a damn.
That was why I blurted out the last thing I had intended to share.
“I don’t believe in waste. Wasting food is something I make sure never to do if I can help it.
I spent too long never knowing where the next meal would come from to take anything for granted now. ”
It wasn’t what I intended to do, but it was the perfect thing to say. I watched while much of his anger drained away.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he eventually grunted.
“It’s not something I talk about.” I stared down at the row of ladyfingers.
They were losing volume, thanks to the fact that I still stood here without putting them in the oven.
“With that in mind, I’m going to bake these because I’ve already prepared them.
Just… trust me for once. I haven’t steered you wrong yet. ”
He didn’t say anything at first, settling for a jerk of his chin. I transferred the parchment to a baking sheet, then slid it carefully into the preheated oven and set the timer. Why did it always have to feel like I was at war with this man?
“I wasn’t raised with money, you know.” His sudden admission startled me, though I did my best not to show it as I turned back toward him.
He was leaning against the prep table now, arms folded, ankles crossed.
“Nonna… she grew up very poor. To tell you the truth, my favorite dishes of hers are the ones she pulled together in the early days of her marriage before my grandfather’s restaurant took off. ”
“I didn’t realize your grandfather had a restaurant.”
“Yeah, and it killed him by the time he turned forty-five.” There was a bitter twist to his mouth. “There’s a reason I decided to step down as head chef. The job killed him before his time, and I didn’t want the same to happen to me.”
He looked at the floor, blowing out a breath through pursed lips.
“When I told my family I wanted to open a restaurant and carry on his legacy, you don’t know the sort of pushback I got.
I thought they’d be happy. Instead, I was reminded twenty different times in twenty different ways how the restaurant business had killed my grandfather.
How it left Mom and her brother without a father, how it meant Nonna having to work night and day to make ends meet.
There’s a reason I have them over for dinner so frequently,” he added with a glance my way.
“So they can check up on me, make sure I’m not working myself to death.
It’s not much of a sacrifice, especially considering all the support they’ve given me. ”
Now I understood maybe much more than he intended to reveal. There I was, giving him shit for never wanting to deviate from his menu. What could it have done to him, hearing all the terrible stuff about how his grandfather died young? The tried-and-true meant safety.
But there was nothing safe about this business.
He had to know that.
Clearing his throat, he straightened up, looking around. “So long as you promise not to wreck the place, go ahead. Maybe give me a heads-up next time before you walk in here on a day we’re closed.”
“Only if you promise not to give me shit for it.”
He rolled his eyes but paired it with a grin. “Can you take a victory for once without asking for better terms?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried,” I retorted.
“Oh? Did you ask for different terms when you won your big competition?”
This again. “Enough with the fucking competition!” I must have lost my mind for a moment because the next thing I knew, I was taking a small handful of flour off the prep table and flinging it at him. “I swear to God, you mention it again, I’ll lock you in the walk-in!”
Flour spattered his black shorts and bare calves. “What the fuck?” he asked, but there was laughter in his voice. “What, are you so short that was the best you could do?”
So that was how he wanted to play. “Fine.” This time, I very deliberately flung another handful in his face. “How’s that?”
“An excuse to do this.” It was his turn, and he made me pay, flinging a fistful of it on me from above. I shook my head, causing a cloud of dust to form around me.
“It’s an improvement,” he decided. I could imagine him teasing his sister this way, and a flash of longing swept through me. If he could always be this nice, we’d get along much better. We might become more of a partnership than adversaries.
All at once, the situation shifted. It was the change in his gaze, the light in his eyes and how it darkened, and how serious he suddenly looked and moved in all at once, his hands outstretched like he was about to touch me.
My heart leaped, and my body went hot from head to toe because, yes, I wanted that.
I didn’t know how much I wanted it until this very moment, with desire swelling in my core and making it seem like a great idea to get carried away.
To forget being smart in favor of seeing what kind of kisser he was.
The moment passed, and I remembered my career, dreams, and bruised heart. That was why I scurried backward and hit the table. When he touched me, it was to keep me from falling, his steadying hands on my waist. Even that was almost too much, sending heat racing through me again. He was so close.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, pivoting away from him to avoid us making a mistake.
My heart sank, yes, especially when he released me, and the current flowing from his body into mine was cut off.
It was enough of a struggle to keep from letting myself think of him this way without his touch making the job ten times harder.
He cleared his throat, “Right.” He let go, stepped back, and turned away like the whole thing never happened. “I, uh… I’m leaving. Don’t forget to set the alarm when you go.”
“Mm-hmm.” I didn’t trust myself to speak without tripping over my tongue.
What the hell was that?
And why the hell did I want it so badly?